Hobbyists Create GPLed DIY Super TV Antenna

Freshly Exhumed writes "Retired and hobbyist antenna engineers working together in the Digital Home forums have taken an obscure 1950s UHF TV antenna called the Hoverman [PDF] and subjected the design to modern software-based computer modeling in hopes of optimizing its middling performance. The result: the new Gray-Hoverman antenna is more powerful than similar commercially manufactured consumer antennas in every category, sometimes by whopping amounts. Best thing yet: they've released the design, diagrams, and schematics under the GPLv3 so that we can roll our own! Quoth one of the testers, a former U.S. Government antenna engineer: 'Boy, this antenna is hot... This antenna is a vast, and I mean REALLY VAST improvement over anything I have used.' The home thread of the Gray-Hoverman development gives the background of their great work."

Re:How is this different than what hams have done?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a specific variation of the Hoverman antenna. The first original achievement is the specific design, which would be enough justification for an article on its own. I'm not an expert on the history of antenna design so I can't vouch for that.

The second and more important achievement is that the designers tried to verify the design of this antenna analytically using relatively new methods. The computational power needed to do this didn't emerge until after this kind of small antenna was no longer in vogue. As you probably know, about half of what hams say about antennas and interference is "black magic." The kind of hands-on techie who turns into a ham tends to be more like MacGuyver and less like Bertrand Russell.

Why would the existence of antenna design as a discipline imply that no new designs are possible?

For non DIYers

[fm6]

The server is Slashdotted, so I can't find out what legal protection this new antenna has. I hope it has some protection against cheap knockoffs. Most people aren't going to want to build this themselves, and will want to buy a factory-made version.

The Hoverman-Gray is described as "GPLed". If that's the only legal protection it has, then I predict a lot of cheap knockoffs that don't work very well. Some trademark protection (with free licenses for anybody who agrees to follow the spec) would be nice.

Re:on that topic...

[Hatta]

The only good broadcast TV is on PBS anyway, don't worry about it.

Re:on that topic...

[croddy]

Now, watch what you say. Our 60 Hz CRTs may be annoying, but your 50 Hz CRTs are downright unwatchable.

Re:The article

[dfn_deux]

What this is article is clearly missing is construction directions and a BoM to make replication of their design possible without a background in the field of antenna design/construction. While I'm sure that their design works well for them. I don't see it being very useful to the average garage tinkerer to have this GPL'd without any sort of assembly/construction guidance. For something as fiddly as an antenna things like materials, construction techniques, connector positioning and design can make something which should work great end up not living up to it's potential.

Re:Antennas rule

[zippthorne]

What's amusing, (and not in a funny-haha sense, but more in a funny-smell sense), is all the new antennas out there advertising that they're somehow "digital" antennas as if the mode affects antenna performance. I suppose they *could* be optimized for the smaller bandwidth somehow, but that's not how they're being advertised. It's not as if your 17 element beam on the roof is going to suddenly start working worse than an indoor loop-antenna.

Re:The article

[Bobartig]

Yep. I was going to build to TONIGHT. I have to the tools, and I'm good with DIY projects and tinkering, but I don't know much about antennas. I don't know what metal to use for this, or how this connects to a piece of coax to plug into a tuner. It looks extremely simple, but some critical pieces are missing.

Re:on that topic...

[tonyquan]

wrong, NTSC is going away in the United States. It is being replaced by ATSC, the new digital standard.. NTSC is inherently an analog standard, there is no such thing as "digital NTSC" for broadcast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atsc [wikipedia.org]

"ATSC Standards document a digital television format which will replace (in the United States) the analog NTSC television system by February 17, 2009."

Re:on that topic...

[Chris Pimlott]

Why not just download whatever you want to watch? Granted, I watch little television (usually just "Human Giant", "Lost" and "Prison Break"), but I can generally get a torrent for them from Mininova or The Pirate Bay. Maybe we should rejoice that with the Internet people are no longer slaves to the idiot box, and while we all want some mindless entertainment TV isn't worth going through too much effort for.

Why not just download whatever you want to watch?

Well, one reason might be that it is technically illegal...

Re:For non DIYers

[fm6]

Read the post you're replying to, dude. I did notice that it was GPLed.

GPL protects the plans. It doesn't stop me from selling old coathangers and calling them "Gray-Hoverman antennas." For that, you need trademark protection.

Re:Antennas rule

[Detritus]

The bandwidth isn't any smaller, it's still 6 MHz. What has changed is the improved resistance to interference. That allows more stations to fit in the same band, with less spectrum wasted on protecting stations from interference.

Re:For non DIYers

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It seems like Creative Commons non-commercial license should have been used if protecting their design was their intent.

As they aren't trying to sell the antenna, its plans or the knowledge, I don't know if trademarks would do any good. Even if trademarks are enforced, does it really matter? People see "TV antenna" on the box and that's all they need to know. Heck, I didn't know there were proper names for specific antenna shapes until I got interested in playing with WiFi antennas. The general public is quite likely much farther down the scale. The TV antenna boxes I've seen don't generally use the proper names of the antenna type.

Re:on that topic...

[witherstaff]

Having been in the ISP field I have seen too many DMCA notices to not say - watch out for torrents. You can still get served simply because your IP is of the torrents in use.

With that said, I'd suggest a good usenet service - avoid giganews - and a usenet tracker like newzbin.com. You can even SSL usenet nowadays. Safer, easier, and pretty darn easy. Of course, this is /., so you should already know about the wonders of usenet...

Re:Next up: The open source buggy whip!

[evilviper]

Maybe you've noticed that over the air TV broadcasts are essentially coming to an end in a few years?

Actually, I've noticed exactly the opposite.

* Many more homes will be able to receive an OTA signal, that previously could not.
* Digital broadcasts will offer perfect reception, eliminating much of the need for cable/sat.
* OTA HDTV will offer the highest quality picture anyone can get.
* OTA ATSC offers the potential for more TV channels than an expensive subscription service (50*6 = 300), in addition to other informational services.
* Rising prices and horrendous support will push people away from cable/satellite.
* Proprietary STBs and feet-dragging on CableCard will push even more people away from cable/sat.
* DVR technology will eliminate the need for syndication, and there the business model for 90% of cable/satellite networks will fail.
* The quality of original programming on cable/satellite networks has dropped SEVERELY, anyhow.
* Pop-up ads on cable/sat networks (largely not found on broadcast) will push even more people away.