We moved into our house recently and the attached picture shows what my antenna situation looks like. I have always gotten cable TV in our previous homes and I am new to antennas. All of our stations are ~30-35 miles away and our signal is ok right now on most stations.

I have one coax cable (~50 ft) running from antennas to main tv in living room (with a 24 dB, two outlet amplifier in line right before the TV). However, I would like to get an outlet into three additional rooms right now. We are planning to build an addition soon and I would possibly need two more outlets there, as well. I would like to include this in the plans to make it easy to connect when the rooms are built.

I need help in designing the system - materials needed, what to do w/ the amplifier, do I need separate cables running to each room, etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

For OTA antenna you just need an RG6 coax from the antenna to each room. I would run the 1-RG6 to the attic or other accessible space and use a splitter to run to all rooms. With the towers 20 to 30 miles away you don't need an amplifier, a good antenna should do.

I need help in designing the system - materials needed, what to do w/ the amplifier, do I need separate cables running to each room, etc.
First step it to plug your address into tvfool.com. That will show estimated signal strength and direction. Post the results in the thread. Also want to plug address into fmfool.com (same site) to see if you have nearby FM transmitters that may overload TV.

First choice is to decide which stations are important to your family. 30 miles is not all that far but a lot depends on terrain. A 6-way splitter will reduce signal levels a lot. May get away with a passive splitter without an amp. If not can use a mast mounted preamp and passive splitter or get an amplified splitter.

If stations are in different direction need to decide if you want to go with a rotators, give up some stations, or use multiple antennas. In our case VHF and UHF stations are in different direction so we use separate VHF and UHF antennas.

/tom

As silly as it sounds, i just made the coathanger from youtube (the improved one actually)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8jsDxNgHn4

And stuck it in my attic, i'm 28 miles from the telefarm here in minnesota so it did quite well at bringing in the stations. I added a nice channel master preamp to it and tried some experiments, i put a reflector on the back of it and aimed it at duluth, which yielded some promsing results.

My attic is about 20ft off the ground so it's high enough to pick off whatever is floating out there. Give it a shot, total cost for me was $2.... i needed pipe. :) I used some leftover romex i had from some electrical runs i did, works perfectly.

..and an amplifier directly "in front" of the TV/converter is a waste...of pretty much everything. Eliminate it from that spot and place it immediately prior to your splitter where it might do some good.

TV Fool Results... attached


FM Fool results... attached

Why do I have three antennas (see attachment from original post)? Do they do different things?

I'll make some educated guesses based on your TV Fool results and looking at a Google map of Mineral, VA.

All three antennas look to be low gain short distance VHF-only. I'd guess the top one is for VHF-low (ch 2-6) and the middle one VHF-high (ch 7-13) and are aimed around 140 degrees toward Richmond, which should have given you all the major networks from analog VHF stations pre-transition . The bottom one then is probably another VHF-low aimed around 288 degrees toward Charlottsville/Waynesboro, for some supplemental stations.

I could have this backward, but it may not matter because most of your post-transition stations (except notably WWBT on RF channel 12) in both those directions are on UHF channels, so these older antennas may not work very well. In addition the bottom one is in tough shape; it's missing half of the reflector (rear end) and has a bent director (front end). I can't see if there are three separate downleads or if all three are combined into a single downlead, but combining 3 same-band antennas is difficult at best.

You may be able to install a modest single UHF antenna and a single hi-VHF antenna on that mast, both aimed at Richmond, and combine them into a single downlead and just take what you get from the other direction(s) by sidelobe response. Or if you really need the stations in the west direction too, a rotator may be in order.

Fellow AVSers in your area may be a better resource as there are local considerations like terrain that might determine which specific antenna(s) work best at your site. Try asking in the Richmond thread ( http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=435750 ) or the Charlottsville-Harrisonburg thread ( http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=386678 )

Good luck!

Mike

Welcome to the forum. I live on Afton Mountain and I get Richmond and Charlottesville stations with a UHF only - channel master 4228 antenna. (with the exception of WVPT)

I did some (unexpected) renovations after moving to my house and installed a 4 way splitter in an accessible area. I only have 1 TV, but placed outlets in 3 other rooms while I had the walls open.

Both the Richmond and Charlottesville threads are very active and are a great resource for OTA viewers.

Depending upon how many outlets you want you may want to look into a distribution amp.
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_6593414/Channel-Master-3414.html?search=channel+master+amplifier&ssi=0
http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=CM3418&d=Channel-Master-CM-3418-Distribution-Amplifier-(CM3418)&sku=020572034180&mc=03

Why do I have three antennas (see attachment from original post)? Do they do different things?

The middle antenna looks like it is in good shape (no broken elements), and this one looks like the UHF antenna in the group. You may be able to use just this antenna.

Find a central point where you can install individual runs to each location and you have access to the cable from the antenna. Install RG-6 Quad to each of the viewing locations. While you're at it, might as well run a couple of CAT6 cables to each location also.

For greater flexibility for future upgrades/changes, use ¾" blue flex conduit (from each location) to an area that will be accessible (ie. attic, basement, drop ceiling, etc.).

There are many products available for pre-wire installations.

I recently bought a newer house built in 2004. The builder put two RG6 quad shielded cables and a cat5 cable for ethernet into most rooms. I recommend this. I use the two RG6Q cables for satellite and OTA and the cat5 for internet connection to any devices.

Rick R

I used to live in Stanardsville (north of Charlottesville), and had a CM4228 in the attic. It worked well. Mineral is close enough to both Richmond and Charlottesville so that you should have lots of options.

The dual RG6 runs to each room are nice - that takes care of OTA and satellite if you get it. Just remember to label and map so that once the walls are closed up and time has passed, you will remember what goes where!