jpesick,
Howdy, I live up by tri lakes and I installed my HDTV two years ago and that was when Fort Wayne wasn't even close to upgrading to HDTV. I upgraded because South Bend was broadcasting in HDTV. At that time all of them were on ther air.
I spent many hours trying to get an antenna to get a good and stable signal. If I remember right, I'm 60 miles from South Bend and 30 miles to Fort Wayne, so I figured I shouldn't need too much to upgrade when Fort Wayne went online. Boy was I wrong, but later on that.
I used antennaweb.org and that was a good start, but they suggested at the first to use a directional antenna, the one that looks like a spear. I tried that but the signal bounced around too much and I would get pixalation too much. I baught Wal-Mart pre-amp and this helped but not enough. Still had signals down in the 50's. Some days it would shot up to the mid 80's so I figured it was the antenna. I swapped out the directional with a singal bowtie and this really helped, but still the signal was in the 60's.
I finally broke down and bought a channel master double bow tie(it looks like two flat bowtie antenna's side by side) and poof, signals from 85-90 consistant. No pixalization with the Wal-Mart pre amp. Now I was waiting on Fort Wayn to Come on board.
The first was WFWA (go PBS, I knew they would come through). The problem was I only had one antenna and no rotor. I wasn't going to miss the HD from South Bend because once you see HDTV, you never will watch analog again. I really didn't want to get a rotor becase I can only get two markets. So I bought another double bowtie and figured since I was twice as close to FortWayne then I wouldn't have any problem getting a signal. Boy was I wrong, I tried the same setup for South Bend and the signals was down in the 60's. I purchased a channle master pre-amp and hooked it up and now the signals are in the mid 80's (accept of course for WFFT and they are in the 20's. They are a dumb mule, some one needs to wop them upside the head with a two-by-four to get there attention). No problem about FOX, I get the South Bend signal at 82, so why would I even watch WFFT. There signal was terrible even when I lived in Fort Wayne.
So therefor my set up is:
Two channel master double bow ties($50), one pointed to South Bend, one pointed to Fort Wayne. Two pre-amps ($50) for each antenna. Two sets of RG6 coax feeding my TV that has two antenna inputs.
Please note that you cannot take both signals and combine them, it won't work. If you must use one set, then use a rotor. I like the conveniance of pressing antenna select button on the remote.
I get: 12, 15, 21, 33, 39, 16, 22, 28, 34, 46, 57 all in HD with out any problem.
I learned a long time ago, never do things the cheap way, cause you will pay for it in the long run.
diehard_1955
