Cordless Magic™ - 2024 Edition RV Antenna - 450 Mile Range anybody tried it?

[Mark_K5LXP]

I've got a buddy that has a photo album with polaroid pictures (that should date it right there) of his TV set. The low VHF channels experience sporadic E propagation, and with a beam antenna he could pick up stations hundreds of miles away when conditions were right. In order to confirm reception he'd take a picture of some identifying image like a local commercial, newscaster or ideally, the station call letters. Hams communicate via sporadic E fairly readily on the 6 meter band which is right where analog TV channel 2 was. I guess technically with the advent of DTV there'd be no reason why you couldn't pick that up so if one has time on their hands, hook up an outside antenna, tune to channels 2 through 6 and ... wait. One advantage analog TV had was the picture was AM and you could still see weak signals through the "snow". Guessing with DTV it would take a bit stronger signal before you'd get a "lock" but with my experience working 6 meters, sometimes far away signals can be very strong and I'm sure it'd work sometimes.

TV and FM DX - Wikipedia

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

 

[Larry N.]

You describe it well, Mark.

But note that our ATV (Amateur TV) guru here (actually in Boulder) has done extensive testing and finds that, at least with the European standard for Digital TV (DTV) that the signal strength for a great picture on DVB-T (what hams are using for HDTV) is considerably less than the analog NTSC signals, though you're right that an analog one with heavy snow still is weaker than what DVB-T will do. DVB-T is used, rather than ATSC because one, it's more robust with interference, multipath, etc, and two because it is MUCH less expensive to get transmission/reception gear than ATSC would be, perhaps $1,000 for transmitter on 13 CM band, slightly less for 70 cm.

For analog FM TV even 600 mW FPV Drone transmitters can often be used on 5 cm. My 5 GHz (5 cm band) xmitter and rcvr combined were $30, as a package, though the dish antenna needed was around $100. But that's yet another kettle of fish.

 

[mikeylikesit]

When I Googled Cordless Magic the ad that came up claimed a 900 mile range. In any event, it's impossible Internet hype. Maybe it can receive a signal from 450 to 900 miles away through empty space, but any antenna on earth is limited by the range of the transmitting tower. Usually 40-50 miles at best if there's nothing in between you and there regardless of the receiving antenna.

Walmart.com has an identical looking antenna for $30 but it only claims a 150 mile range.

Zimtown 150Miles Outdoor TV Antenna

yes, I don't expect to get anything near the "claimed" range...our camping these days is usually at a major speedway (all of them are in big cities) or at the beach.

 

[mikeylikesit]

Interesting discussion! not at all what I expected, but interesting nonetheless.

I'm not expecting a replacement for satellite TV...and certainly do not think I'll get stations 450 miles away, but I won't need to. We are done with the boondocking out in the middle of nowhere. (I kind of miss it, though!)

Thanks for all the replies, I'll certainly get back to this and post my results.

 

[LMHS]

I'm sure the antenna is picking up STATIONS up to 450 miles away. Because the signal that the antenna is picking up is going thru repeaters/translators. The little cheapie "25 mile" digital antenna that I had bought from Family Dollar would pick up the stations in Albuquerque. ABQ was 75 miles away. The cheapie antenna was picking up the local repeaters.

I ended up giving the antenna to a friend when his RV antenna died. We rarely watched local channels. PBS' Masterpiece and Mystery! were the only things we watched OTA. And I can watch those shows on BritBox and/or Acorn (I need to get Acorn) as those are both available online with my cheapie unlimited data hotspot. I prefer few to no commercials. I have discovered that running a cheapie unlimited data hotspot with Amazon Prime channels and Netflix are pretty much all the "TV" we need. We rent new movies from Redbox. We buy older movies from thrift stores, Big Lots, Redbox (for about what the local Goodwill sells movies for) and we sift thru the $5 bin at Walmart at times. $5 is the max I will pay for a movie.