First TV Super Antenna (Gray Hoverman) in Indonesia!

Yes, you are not mistaken in reading above title  :)

I only dare writing this title after try to search 3 times, and found NO POST about making Gray Hoverman Super Antenna from Indonesia! Just there is one blog from Malaysia :)

Here is the snapshot:

What is so special about this antenna? why shall they put a nick name as Super Antenna? it is because this antenna has a very wide band (simply talking: you can pick FM Radio, VHF and UHF using only one antenna!). Then the gain out-competes all of other commercial (& expensive, around US$ 30) high quality antenna in US! For the theory, design and research result, follow this link: http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/. you can build and sell as many as you can since it is licensed under GPLv3 (General Public License)

Design schematic from above site:

important advice from 300ohms (expert user nickname from above web forum):

• reflector to active elements distance 100 mm. do not be farther.
• cut reflector slit around 1 inches (separating gap between left and right reflector) - will result in additional free 0.5 dB gain
• increase distance between active elements to be minimum 89mm to obtain free gain of 0.75dB
• transmission cable 50 feet maximum, because there will be loss around 1dB/50ft

While for my experiment:

• using indoor built-in antenna: captured only 3-4 UHF channels + 0 FM radio.
• AFTER using outdoor Gray Hoverman Antenna without reflector, 6 meters height: captured 1 VHF + 13 UHF channels + 11 FM radios! This includes TV5 (VHF), Mediacorps #, Mediacorps U, Channel News Asia from Singapore and TV3, TV9 from Malaysia. Plus TransTV, NET, MNC, MetroTV, Indosiar... etc from Indonesia! Awesome! The FM radios mostly captured Singapore and Malaysian stations, since Batam stations is not so many.
• update after adding mesh reflector (chicken mesh): received 18 total Channels! Wow!! Additional TV7 (malaysia), Mediacorp asantham (Singapore), etc. but the Singapore VHF TV5 lost its' signal. I am not sure why. It looks like the reflector reduce gain in VHF channels. Sad :( because I like watching english news from TV5.

Here are the photos of my DIY Super Antenna (using cheap PVC tube, joints, and galvanised steel 2.5mm wire):

Here is the build cost: 

• 2.5mm Diameter galvanised steel wire around IDR 6,000 (my case is free). 
• PVC tube: 2 meters x IDR 8,000
• PVC joints: 4 pcs x IDR 3,000
• 15 meters Antenna cable (75 Ohm): IDR 22,000 (cheap cable made in china)
• Black high quality Cable Ties (UV resistant): IDR 11,500
• Super glue (alteco/loctite), plastic hot-melt glue: around IDR 10,000 (mine is actually used/free)
• used Compact Disc, Plastic cap, electric tube (all are for mounting): free
• Total cost:  IDR 39,500 excludes the 15m cable. 

note: based on my research from internet, best and cheapest antenna material is:

1. silver (ups, sorry this is not cheap!)
2. copper
3. aluminum
4. galvanised steel

However all metal above (except silver) will become rusty/corroded which deteriorate the conductivity. Hence you must provide "protective coating". In my antenna, I used my stock of aerosol clear coating (bahasa: philox clear). It's free for me :)

Stands on 6 meters galvanised steel tube:

 

Comparing with my neighbour, 14 TV channels reception are just awesome! Plus I do not need VHF and FM antenna :) 
It became 21 channels after adding reflector, wow...:

Mechanical Traffic Light

This interesting project dated back to around 2002, when I was in my Technology High School of Development, Yogyakarta. Thanks to Pak Edy Rahardjo, who press us the students to be creative. He was very best & inspiring in this way :)

The Mechanical Traffic Light works by contacting "blue pyramidal contact" (or any contact shape will actually work) to each selector switch wheel. Each wheel represent number of road in the junction. It is only 3 roads in above draft. Each contact colour in the wheel represent the lamp to be switched ON. The portion of the switch can be simply calculated as:
Green+Yellow = (360 degree)/n     ;where n is number of roads in the junction
Red = 360 degree - (Green+Yellow).

Rotation per draft above is CW. You can see the "red" light will glow sequentially.
Interesting logic, isn't it?  :D

Ikhtisar

this web page is dedicated to record all of my interesting projects... in case I will need in future :)