Television Station Antenna
A television antenna's work begins with the television station. A television station composes a sbe broadcast. The audio and visual electronic signals are put through a transmitter that encodes the information to be sent through the station's antenna. For live shows like newscasts, the camera and sound equipment that records the show are directly hooked into the transmitter.
The television station's antenna is usually a fairly large or on a high location because it needs to broadcast the station's signal over the air waves that other radio signals travel on. A traditional station's antenna will send signals over either Very High Frequency (VHF), which has a long wavelength; or Ultra High Frequency (UHF), which has a shorter wavelength but more powerful signal.
Television Receiver Antenna
The television receiver antenna's job is to find a specific station's broadcast signal and bring it into the television for viewing. Television antennas operate much like radio antennas. The television is tuned to a specific channel, which indicates the specific frequency of the television signal it wants the antenna to find. Antennas must then find that station. This may require moving the television antenna into a certain direction to better locate a signal broadcasting from that general area.
Once the television antenna finds the station, it sends the signal into the television's receiving component. The television will translate the audio signal for broadcast through the speakers, and then translate the video signal into pixels for viewing.
Digital Broadcast
For digital broadcasting, the antenna system works a little differently. A digital television station broadcast requires much less frequency space than traditional analog broadcasting. The audio and video quality can be almost three times that of an analog broadcast. Stations can send multiple channels of digital broadcast through their antennas. Some antennas broadcast to other receiving antennas that repeat the signal for even greater distance. The signals do not lose quality over distance, so long as there are no weather or aircraft interferences.
Digital Reception
Televisions that are equipped to receive digital broadcasts do not necessarily need antennas like the traditional "rabbit ears." They either use built-in converters or an external digital converter add-on. High Definition televisions (HDTV) may require HDTV boxes to properly convert the signals.
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