Antop 400-BV Antenna

Great thing about it is that it doesn’t look like an antenna.

Do you need those VHF rods? Sometimes VHF rods lessen a UHF signal.

I’ve never heard of that. I only really attached them in the hope of getting a couple high V stations out of Canada. However since they’re at over 40 miles and in the opposite direction the antenna is facing, no joy there.
Easy enough to test. Get some readings, scamper up the ladder and onto the roof, take them off, come down and recheck the UHF stations.

This has been discussed and verified at another forum. I built a Gray-Hoverman antenna and noticed the middle UHF frequencies were lessened by VHF rods on the GH. Other people decided to live with this UHF attenuation because they needed VHF. If you don’t use them just take them off - the Antop will look nicer without those “wings.”

We have rain and some lightning in the area at the moment. Maybe I’ll get a chance to test this tomorrow. Hardest part will be getting the ladder back down from the rafters in my shop :smiley:

Just a thought - you can leave them up there since your SNR readings are great anyway. Don’t you just hate suggestions that come after you’ve done everything and completed the job? Shame on me for even mentioning that. No Antop Badge for me today…:robot:

Hahahah… yeah. Actually… I have to get the ladder out to clean gutters. This rain showed me they need cleaning. They overflowed instead of going down the downspouts… so if I get the ladder out anyways… :roll_eyes:

If it was me, every time I’d see them VHF rods, I’d think, look better without them. My wife would say, “You’re just itching to get up there - just leave things alone - it works.”

I just won’t tell mine. So… shhhhhhh

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Thanks for the information. After several emails back and forth they offered me the same deal. I ordered mine yesterday from Antop and ordered a 20’ and 55’ RG6 quad shielded cables and a new grounding block from Amazon. I will be replacing a 25 to 30 year old yagi antenna.
:tv:

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You might want to just leave the VHF rods in place. This way you won’t have to think about covering the side inputs where the rods screw in.

Yeah, I was up there today and went… hmmmm… I think a rubber cane tip would fit… then… little voice said, just leave it alone.
:grins:

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Has the repack been done in your area? Leaving the VHF rods makes provision for any station moving to VHF.

They’ll all stay UHF as far as I can see. I’m ok with leaving them on there. They’re kinda interesting

Have any of your neighbors asked what that white box up there is?

Yes, actually. It kinda surprised me that people actually look up Hahahah.
And all of them are surprised to find out it’s a tv antenna.

Here’s one for the books.

I am watching channel 54.1 in Knoxville TN and am seeing quite a bit of artifacts, but the signal strength shows 81 out of 100, and I see no artifacts on any of the 5 sub channels.

It surprises me the primary channel would show artifacts, unless the TV station is having poor reception from the Networks.

Maybe a reason to check subchannels when you see interference on the primary channel before condemning the antenna or receiver.

Strength is only part of the equation. SNR also comes into play. You can have a strong signal but if it has a lot of noise, or multipathing from reflections or whatever, you’ll still get some pixelization.

I just checked now and the 54.1 channel is clear with no artifacts. I still suspect the TV station was receiving a weak network feed (satellite maybe?) and rebroadcasting it with the distortions, since all five subchannels on the same carrier wave were clean.

If I had not bothered to check the subchannels when I first noticed the distortions I might have suspected a problem with the carrier wave itself, such as multipath distortion. The clean signals on the subchannels seemed to rule out that possibility.

This might have been a rare localized event that might never be seen again by others, so I only post it for reference.

I just installed this antenna on my house. Initially received 29 channels inside (as compared to 7 from my mohu leaf previously). Installed antenna on outside of my house, 43 channels. Very happy with this antenna…

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@Zman_Tablo - congrats on installing a great antenna. You will find it works great an even in bad weather.

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