1/24/07

The Televes DAT-75

The DAT-75 has become very popular because of how grossly the maker has exaggerated its gain. It is imported from Europe, where UHF channels go up to 79. Nobody else makes these triple-decker Yagis. The three Yagis have overlapping apertures over the high channels. The only place where they are more effective than one Yagi is in the channel 38-55 range where the Yagis are just starting to work but don’t yet overlap. If you want to make a designer statement, the bright orange plastic pieces will get noticed. (A black version is also available.)

The driven element is connected to a small metal box, which contains an efficient 4-to-1 balun. The DAT-75 was found to be exceptionally well matched across the UHF TV band.

The DAT-75 is very rugged, more typical of a CATV antenna than a consumer grade antenna. Likewise its price is typical of a CATV antenna. The U.S. supplier is http://antennavoodoo.com .

High gain antennas like this one are big, hard to aim, and hard to keep up in bad weather. The author does not normally recommend this antenna inside 25 miles. But there are two exceptions to this:

1. A very high gain antenna might be necessary behind a hill or in a valley.
2. When an obstruction is causing multi-path, a very directional antenna such as this one can reject signal from the wrong directions.

This page is part of “An HDTV Primer”, which starts at www.hdtvprimer.com