Saturday, October 17, 2009

Antique Farm Equipment

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Today I visited NC State Fair 2009. There was one hall loaded with antique farm equipment. The old farm equipment is a joy to watch. This is the beginning of life long journey to farm using the older equipment. My goal is the understand the purpose of each human or animal powered equipment and build few of them as no one builds these equipments any more.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

HDTV Antenna - Day 1


HDTV Antenna
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal
It has been months since we have digital only television at home. We have been using the old black rabbit ear antenna since then. We were constantly adjusting the rabbit ear antenna to get reception. Today I finally decided to build my own HDTV antenna.

This antenna uses GH10- rev 2, Hoverman design from
http://www.jedsoft.org/fun/antennas/dtv/gh.html

The antenna is not complete yet as I ran out of time today. I tested only the main element by hanging it from the PVC frame. I cut some reflector parts. I will install them in next few weeks.

I'm using 3/4" thick PVC pipes for frame and 1/4" Outer Diameter soft copper pipe for the metal element of the antenna.

Even without the reflector, we are getting a much better reception of all local channels. Hopefully with reflector elements we will get few more channels. I will write more about the size, cost of the parts and the building process.