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I want to put a TV tuner in my Dell laptop's Mini PCIe slot and connect the internal antenna to it. Looking at Ebay, all I'm finding is Avermedia stuff. But looking on LinuxTVWiki, the Mini PCIe models are not supported well or at all.
What TV tuner specifically should I be looking for? I don't care what brand. I live in the mid United States with all digital signals. And I use Debian stable if that affects my choices for easy setup.
What is "the internal antenna"? Depending on where you live, you may get little to nothing without a competent outdoor antenna. New antenna models can work much better than some popular older ones, in part because of sophisticated built-in electronics, but also because they are made for the narrower ATSC band since the last repack, designed for only low VHF plus UHF only up to channel RF "36" (605MHz).
What is "the internal antenna"? Depending on where you live, you may get little to nothing without a competent outdoor antenna. New antenna models can work much better than some popular older ones, in part because of sophisticated built-in electronics, but also because they are made for the narrower ATSC band since the last repack, designed for only low VHF plus UHF only up to channel RF "36" (605MHz).
Picking up stations won't be an issue where I live. I assume the built-in antennas leading to the mini PCIe WWAN slot will pick up what I need. That Ebay link is for a desktop, not a laptop.
Picking up stations won't be an issue where I live. I assume the built-in antennas leading to the mini PCIe WWAN slot will pick up what I need.
On what basis do you make that assumption? I wouldn't expect that to be the case even where you can see the transmit towers from your location. Were built in laptop antennas workable, I would expect built in TV tuners to be a common laptop option.
When I was younger I got obsessed with building TV antennas after the digital switchover messed up my ability to pickup distant stations. This was before my family got proper internet so it was all trial and error, my dads RF books, and lots old AV equipment and speaker wire. So I have at least a decent intuition of what should work as an antenna. And I'm pretty sure a laptops built in WWAN antenna should pickup closer stations.
Most of my life, distant stations has been my main problem. I bought a 12' dish in 1986 to work around it. I'd like to know if and when you get a laptop WWAN antenna to work, and from what distance.
https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.p...WinTV-HVR-1500
I had one of these years ago. It worked well until it didn't. I think it oveheated itself to death after about two years of reliable service.
How old is your dell? You need one with the old wide slot for this to work. I think most people have moved on to usb, but I just gave up on using my laptop for this. Streaming seems to make more sense on a laptop these days. I still have 1 tv card left in one desktop.
https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.p...WinTV-HVR-1500
I had one of these years ago. It worked well until it didn't. I think it oveheated itself to death after about two years of reliable service.
How old is your dell? You need one with the old wide slot for this to work. I think most people have moved on to usb, but I just gave up on using my laptop for this. Streaming seems to make more sense on a laptop these days. I still have 1 tv card left in one desktop.
Unfortunately my laptop (D620) only has a PCMCIA slot. But since I already have an external USB ATI TV tuner, I might as well just use that even if I could use your HVR-1500. The reason I want an internal TV tuner is because it's so nerdy and awesome to open up live broadcast TV with nothing connected to the laptop and to carry it around like that.
I assume the built-in antennas leading to the mini PCIe WWAN slot will pick up what I need.
Most modern WWAN antennas are patch type which have different characteristics then a regular antenna. It depends on the particular antenna in your laptop as well as the available station frequencies in your area. One WWAN frequency band is like 600-960 MHz which corresponds to TV channels 38-51 I believe. The second determining factor is distance from the transmitting tower. There are several websites that can show frequency, distance and bearing from your location and their perceived signal strength based on an external antenna. It will be interesting to see how many available stations you can actually pick up. I have played with one of those ClearTV mini antennas which are listed as 25 miles but depends on location and of course buildings and everything else between you and the TV tower. I would be interested to see your results if you can get it working...
Most modern WWAN antennas are patch type which have different characteristics then a regular antenna. It depends on the particular antenna in your laptop as well as the available station frequencies in your area. One WWAN frequency band is like 600-960 MHz which corresponds to TV channels 38-51 I believe. The second determining factor is distance from the transmitting tower. There are several websites that can show frequency, distance and bearing from your location and their perceived signal strength based on an external antenna. It will be interesting to see how many available stations you can actually pick up. I have played with one of those ClearTV mini antennas which are listed as 25 miles but depends on location and of course buildings and everything else between you and the TV tower. I would be interested to see your results if you can get it working...
If for whatever reason the stock WWAN antenna is a problem, there's nothing stopping me from getting the right cable, soldering a tuned length wire to the end, and routing it through the laptop, replacing the WWAN antenna. What would be even better is modding on a telescopic.
I'd like to know if and when you get a laptop WWAN antenna to work, and from what distance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by michaelk
It will be interesting to see how many available stations you can actually pick up.
...
I would be interested to see your results if you can get it working...
Well, here it is! I ended up creating my own antenna because the connectors were different. Here are the stations wscan finds.
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