Use Your Home Wiring as a TV or Radio Antenna
Despite the advance of modern digital broadcasting, there are certain instances where it could be beneficial to understand how to use your home wiring as a TV or radio antenna. For example, if you would like to receive local broadcast stations in your garage, basement, or other location without cable connectivity, utilizing your home's wiring in conjunction with a rabbit ears antenna may provide useful results. In addition, this method requires absolutely no direct connection to your home's electrical wiring, significantly reducing or even eliminating risk of electrical shock during installation or use.
Steps
- Choose a location for your rabbit ears antenna that is directly above an electrical outlet in your home.
- Going in a straight line above the electrical outlet, drill two small holes in the ceiling directly above the outlet. The holes should be drilled approximately {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} from the wall on which the outlet is located, and should be approximately {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} apart.
- Use a stud finder to locate the stud nearest to the electrical outlet. If possible, drill the ceiling holes at equal distances from the stud.
- Mount the rabbit ears antenna on the wall above the electrical outlet.
- The rabbit ears antenna should be mounted at a height that will allow the fully extended rabbit ears to protrude several inches into the two holes which were drilled into the ceiling. Mount the antenna into the wall using a large screw, drilling directly into the stud above the electrical outlet.
- Extend the rabbit ears into the two holes in the ceiling.
- Make sure that the extended rabbit ears are sticking through the holes at least {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}, preferably even further. This will allow the rabbit ear antennas to receive the bounced signals from your home's electrical wiring.
- Turn on your antennae and TV or radio and experiment with different rabbit ear positions to optimize the signal performance.
- Try various positions of the rabbit ears to find a position which provides clear broadcasting. You may want to try protruding only one rabbit ear through the ceiling holes. You may also try retracting one or both of the rabbit ears back towards the antenna.
- The goal of trying various positions is to determine the location of the rabbit ears which will best connect to the bounced signals from your home's wiring. This may require a substantial amount of experimentation, depending on the electrical strength of the outlet you are utilizing.
Video
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Tips
- If you live in a large apartment complex or multi-level building, you may be able to utilize the electrical wiring of the cable connections to increase the effectiveness of an antenna. Simply connect the antenna via a standard coaxial cable to the cable outlet on the wall. This will essentially utilize the building's cable system as a large over-the-air antenna.
- While some methods of tapping in to your home's wiring to boost your TV or radio antenna require complicated and dangerous procedures of connecting to live wires, using a simple rabbit ears antenna strategically installed near your home's wiring can provide similar and far safer results.
