Upgraded! New Hoverman Antenna

Posted under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts, Quitting Cable

The old “coat hanger Hoverman” served us well this past winter and early spring, but it just couldn’t cut through the leaves on our lush Illinois oak trees this summer.  Some of our TV stations were getting jittery with bad tiling, and they finally became unwatchable.  Upon further inspection of the antenna, I noticed that the heavy-gauge wire had also become ‘kinda’ loose at their junctions, and that probably contributed to the poor reception.  It was time for an upgrade!

I revisited the sites that got me started on this Hoverman journey and found Bill Casano’s plans for his Hoverman.  I found them very easy to follow, and used them in conjunction with the exact technical specs with exact measurements found here.  Note that Bill’s design uses a single reflecting plane made of wire screen, and the official design uses an array of tuned reflecting poles.  I opted for simplicity and went with the single screen.

Bill Casano’s PVC schematic laid out the measurements so that the centers of the T-connectors lined up nicely with the 254mm distancing.  VERY handy. I used some 1/2” PVC that I had in the shed, though Bill’s design calls for 3/4” pipe.

I didn’t document my build process, but it was pretty straight-forward.  I took a trip to Lowes and approx 3 hours to put together, and another hour or so to remove the old coat hanger version, install the new one, and fiddle with positioning. (Note: Lowes did NOT have #8 copper wire, but Home Depot had it for sale by the foot for $0.48/ft)

The new antenna is MUCH more directional, and a few degrees of rotation makes a big difference.  Luckily, all of our local stations’ transmitters are grouped together to the south of town.  You can use the AntennaWeb.com website to find your local TV stations’ transmitters, and even see a map of your house with lines pointing to the transmitters.  Very neato website. (I have some tips on using the website here.)

Even with the increased gain, I had to move the antenna to the back of the garage because the house was blocking the signal.  The house did not pose as much of an obstruction with the small antenna, but I’ll live with that trade-off!

The new antenna is also much more ‘respectable-looking’ than the piece-of-wood-with-coat-hangers that was on the roof for the last 6 months.  Since it is quite a bit larger, it is more visible to the neighbors.  That’s OK; it’s a fine looking piece of equipment.

Construction Note 1:  I further modified the design by insulating the #8 copper wire from the mounting screws with rubber tape, and then coating the connections with liquid tape to fix their positions and reduce the chance of corrosion.  My thinking: reduce impedance mismatches at the mounting points.  The copper wire only needs to make contact with the 300-75 Ohm transformer; the wire does not need to make contact with the screws.

Good luck with your journey to cable-free TV!  Let me know how you’re doing in the comments.