Improve Antenna TV Reception and Detect Interference using the RTL-SDR USB as a Spectrum Analyzer
Improve digital over-the-air TV reception and detect interference, including from 5G & 4G LTE cell towers and FM radio stations with the $30 RTL-SDR USB, a $7 adapter, and free open-source software! In this video I show how to measure the signal difference between antennas, the beneficial/detrimental effects of adjusting an antenna, and potential interference sources.
As featured on RTL-SDR BLOG!: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/troubleshooti...
TV CHANNEL NUMBERING IN THE UNITED STATES
Lo-VHF Television band (channels 2 - 6)*: 54 - 88 MHz
Hi-VHF Television band (channels 7 - 13)*: 174 - 216 MHz
UHF Television band (channels 14 - 36)*: 470 - 608 MHz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Ame...
*With digital television, the channel number a station appears on your TV set as does not necessarily match the radiofrequency (RF) channel number it is actually on. Many TV stations now use "virtual channel numbering" and transmit on a different RF channel than what they appear as. Use https://www.rabbitears.info/ to identify the actual RF channel number of a station.
VIDEO CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction, Hardware, and Physical Connections
1:43 RTL-SDR USB Driver Download & Installation
4:32 Spektrum (Wideband Spectrum Analyzer Software) Download
5:30 Spektrum Basic Usage
8:14 Compare Two Antenna Setups or Adjust Antennas with Spektrum
11:15 Closer Look at Hi-VHF TV Band, Adjusting Gain, Intermodulation Distortion
16:00 Scanning for FM & 5G/LTE Interference
18:33 Demonstration of FM Filter
19:33 Other Sources of Interference (LED light bulbs, microwave ovens, wireless microphones)
20:51 Outro
HARDWARE
RTL-SDR (GLOBAL): https://www.rtl-sdr.com/buy-rtl-sdr-d...
RTL-SDR DONGLE ONLY (AMAZON U.S.): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0129EBDS2/
RTL-SDR DONGLE W/ DIPOLE KIT (AMAZON U.S.): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011HVUEME/
SMA TO F-TYPE COAX ADAPTERS (AMAZON U.S.): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D28P28J/
INITIAL SETUP SOFTWARE LINKS
RTL-SDR QUICK START GUIDE: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-quick...
MICROSOFT .NET 5.0: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download...
AIRSPY SDR PACKAGE: https://airspy.com/download/
SPEKTRUM LINKS
SPEKTRUM GITHUB PAGE: https://github.com/SV8ARJ/spektrum
DIRECT DROPBOX DOWNLOADS: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c7vjbvm0mh...
DOUBLE A GOOGLE DRIVE DOWNLOAD MIRROR: https://drive.google.com/drive/folder...
ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS
Optimize antenna reception
Improve antenna TV reception
Improve indoor TV antenna reception
Improve antenna signal strength
Improve TV antenna reception
Improve TV antenna signal quality
Improve TV antenna reception indoors
Improve TV antenna signal strength
Improve digital antenna reception
Improve OTA antenna reception
Improve digital TV reception
Improve digital TV antenna reception
Improve digital TV signal
TV spectrum analyzer
FM spectrum analysis
FM spectrum analyzer
FM modulation spectrum analyzer
RTL SDR
RTL SDR spectrum analyzer
SDR spectrum analyzer
ClearStream 4V TV antenna
Vivatar QubWorks Indoor/Outdoor TV antenna
AA Labs
AALabs
Double A Labs
DoubleALabs
Double A Laboratories
DoubleALaboratories
Adam A Comedy and Tech
Adam A Comedy & Tech
AdamAComedy
Special thanks to GitHub users SV1SGK and SV8ARJ for developing Spektrum!
Video produced by Double A Labs. This video was NOT SPONSORED by the manufacturer of the RTL-SDR USB stick, but I do recommend it! https://www.rtl-sdr.com/