Introduction
Several years ago I purchased a compact television antenna to use on my apartment balcony to cut down on cable costs. My balcony has line of site view of the CN Tower which hosts many television and broadcasting transmitters (Ref.1). So far I have tested pretty well every antenna I have with the versatile NanoVNA, so I thought it appropriate to test the television antenna as well (Ref.2/8)!
Test Procedure
| VHF Channels | Frequency Range MHz |
| 1 – 6 | 50 – 88 |
| 7 – 13 | 180 – 216 |
| UHF Channels | Frequency Range |
| 14 – 18 | 476 – 500 |
| 19 – 34 | 506 – 596 |
| 35 – 51 | 602 – 698 |
| 52 – 69 | 704 – 806 |
| 70 – 83 | 812 – 890 |
Figure 1 is a list of television channel frequencies in the VHF/UHF bands. For NanoVNA sweeping purposes, we can sweep the VHF band and UHF bands separately: 40 – 220MHz (VHF) & 450 – 900MHz (UHF). The antenna has a female cable coax connector and I only have a female/sma adapter, so I connected the NanoVNA to the end of the coaxial cable that goes into the television.
Test Results
Figure 2 shows the SWR over the VHF band which is fairly flat > 100MHz. Note that it is possible that the signal return could also be received in band signals. Figure 3 shows the UHF band and Figure 4 shows both VHF & UHF.
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References
#1. – “Balcony ATSC HD Television Antenna”
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/balcony-atsc-hd-television/
#2. – “HF Tx Line Testing with NanoVNA”
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/hf-tx-line-testing-with-nanovna/
#3. – “L Band Dish Antenna Testing with NanoVNA”
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/l-band-dish-antenna-testing-with-nanovna/
#4. – “Inmarsast Patch Antenna Testing with NanoVNA”
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/inmarsat-patch-antenna-testing-with-nanovna/
#5. – “Radio Astronomy LNA/BPF Testing with NanoVNA”,
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/radio-astronomy-lna-bpf-testing-with-nanovna/
#6. – “HF Loop Antenna Testing with NanoVNA”
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/hf-loop-antenna-testing-with-nanovna/
#7. – “VHF Marine Antenna Testing with NanoVNA”,
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/vhf-marine-antenna-testing-with-nanovna/
#8. – “HF Antenna Testing with NanoVNA”
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/hf-antenna-testing-with-nanovna/
