The Official AVS Antenna and Related Hardware Topic! - Page 413

ugh... so this distribution amp was not worth it at all... yea. $45 bucks shot
It got slightly better when I pulled the attenuator out. But still missising channels and get break up. Cabling is neater and not falling apart

I'm having much better luck with the CM3414 distribution amp that I recently purchased to replace my Trunkline 20-TDA25 distribution amp. It has also allowed me to eliminate a splitter and an inter-connect cable.

I need the eight outputs. I cobbled my 2 4-way splitters back together on a wood block. Hopefully more sturdy now. All my channels are back

Channel Master has an eight port DA. It's the 3018 (or sometimes known as the CM3018).

Now known as the CM3418.

http://www.channelmaster.com/product...ID=75&catID=40

Yeah, that's the model I was trying....

FM is roughly 88-108 MHz, whereas Ch7 starts at 174 MHz...not even close....
But any chunk of metal is going to pickup "something"....go ahead and try it...
Do you really "need" a rotatable FM antenna???? If not, mount it lower on the mast....

You might also have success with one of the better Indoor (or Outdoor) DIY antennas:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...php?p=17814917

Adding a Distribution Amp to a Preamp'd setup is tricky....
You probably need to insert a Variable RF Attenuator PRIOR
to the Distro Amp and then tweak for best performance.

You are trying to find the point at which you have the widest
SFDR (Spurious Free Dynamic Range):
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6163454

Yesterday, I installed my new YA1713 below my HD9095P. Works very well for LA stations:

Now have NBC-4 4.1,2,4; KABC 7.1,2,3; KCAL 9.1; KTTV 11.1; KCOP 13.1. Had KCBS 2.1 and KTLA 5 before, of course.

I am in West San Marcos at 615 feet ASL.

The HD9095P had a connection for a VHF antenna built into the feed box. Made it very easy to use the existing feedline and preamp AP8275.

You will note I modified the mounting so the reflector end would not hang over the edge of the roof. We have lots of birds that like high places

My mistake. I was actually trying to refer to the 3418.

In my situation, I have about 80 to 100' of coax, two ground blocks, and the PI between the pre-amp and the 3414.

I have a similar situation to above where I am trying to get VHF 8 and VHF 12 from about 58 miles. Most of the time I get at least 90% signal on my meter but frequent dropouts. It is the Wineguard VHF 7-13 antenna with Wineguard AP8700 preamp. Currently it is mounted on a 5 foot pole on top of an old dish mount with the garage roof behind it. I am thinking about moving it and hopefully get a better quality signal.

First, I am thinking about mounting it under my CM4228, but will I be too close to either the CM antenna or the roof? My other option is to move it up to the peak of the roof on a tripod. You can see the garage roof sligtly lower where I am thinking of mounting the tripod, but I'd rather not if I can get away with putting it under the CM. Pics are attached.

Thanks!
Scott

I would certainly give it a try. I do not think the VHF antenna would be affected and doubt if the UHF antenna would be affected. (I am assuming the roof structure is wooden.)

Just picked up a AC 1843 antenna. The thing is a lot bigger than I thought. Is it possible to spray paint everything to make it less of an eye sore or will this effect function? I used to have direcTV and did spray paint the dish with no problems.

I need some help choosing an antenna. I would like to receive ABC which I haven't received OTA for 4 years. I currently use two CM4221's, one pointed between 123* and 155* magnetic to receive CBS, FOX and NBC. The other is pointed at 334* to receive KICU, although KICU shows up as an analog channel.
I saw a Winegard HD7697P on sale and was wondering if this would be sufficient for my needs. I do not want to use a rotor, is this antenna able to receive a signal from the back to eliminate the first 4221?

I don't use a rotor. I have two antennas running into a combiner and get all but one station from everything available in Dayton and Cincinnati. I am smack in the middle of the two markets. A DB8 pointing south, a DB4 pointing north.

I do not think you will get a useable signal off the back of the 7697. You will see the front-back rating is pretty high.

If you can, I would add a VHF antenna to what you have to get ABC.

The one I installed was about $50 from Solid Signal.

Keeper, Lafayette, Electronics has a channel 11 antenna that is 10 element cut for ch 11. I think the cost is around 36.00. Here are the specs on it. They only have 1 left and maybe about 3 left for channel 10.

10y11s

http://www.wade-antenna.com/Wade/cutchannel.pdf

An expensive uhf antenna called Fracarro 6HD. This thing needs to flat perform for that price.

http://www.skyvision.com/store/mi1500209.html

Your ABC is KGO on channel 7 with a noise margin of -10.8 db. Theoretically, to receive it you would need an antenna with 14 db gain and a preamp with a noise figure of 3 db. 14 db gain would take a stack of 4 VHF high band off-the-shelf antennas.

But, don't go out and build such an antenna without very careful design. Your NBC is on channel 8 and 67.8 db stronger. You could reduce that to about 30 db using high F/B ratio antennas and stagger stacking. If you also did a critical horizontal space of 80" and aimed the antennas to minimize the interference you'd have a 50/50 chance of success when the weather conditions are favorable.

I'd get a used Dish network receiver and subscribe to All American Direct. You'd get KGO for a monthly fee of $3.99 per month.

https://www.mydistantnetworks.com/faq.php

The Winegard 1713 has a 9.1 dBd (dipole reference) rating or 11.3 dbi (isotropic) for Channel 7 and a F-B rating of 10.5 db. The chances of reception should be good with a low noise preamp for the coax run even if there is a strong signal 10 MHz away off the back. If it is a problem, a High Q trap could be introduced. Do you agree?

Thanks for the feedback, I'll have to do a little more research on the subject. Tom

A high Q trap won't help. You'd need a channel 7 bandpass filter or a channel 8 elimination filter.

The old high Q traps worked OK for analog because a majority of the power was centered around the visual carrier. A DTV signal is a full 5.5 mhz wide. A high Q trap doesn't remove enough of the DTV signal.

The next problem is the loss of the filter adds to the noise figure. To get back to 3 db of system noise figure, you'd have to use a GASFET preamp with a noise figure of about 1 db.

A single YA1713 doesn't have enough gain. The antenna gain minus the noise figure of the preamp added to the NM must add to a number higher than zero.

Spray away....except where there are electrical connections.
Some spray paint may be better for aluminum than others????

A second YA1713 perfectly matched to the first would only add 3db of signal at the expense of increased sharpness of orientation. In my experience, it is difficult to get the 3 db.

The roof shouldn't affect it, unless you have foil-backed radiant barrier roof decking (visible from the attic, on the underside of the roof decking).

I have spray painted several OTA antennas, with no measurable affect on signal strength or reception.

I note on the TVfool data, you have a height agl of 20 feet. Why don't you try 40 feet to see what effect that might have on the ABC strength.

A friend is going to try a 12 footer and extended more than my 91xgs. He is going to stack two of these horizontal and try them out. Two 6 ft boom sections. The boom is joined in the middle. The antenna has 32 directors and the boom is built on square 3/4 by 3/4 aluminum.

http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/Superxg.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/Superxg3.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/Superxg5.jpg

Untill the weather gets warmer, i am trying extensions on mine and then will try a 4 stack when the weather warms up.

http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/91stackextend.jpg

http://webpages.charter.net/rscarbro/91stackextend1.jpg

Hey guys,

I'm in the greater Seattle area, about 20 miles northeast of Seattle proper. I'm trying, and only somewhat succeeding, to get a PBS digital station (KBTC-DT) from Tacoma, which is south of Seattle. They show some programming the Seattle PBS station doesn't. Comcast only carries one of their four channels, and in SD only.

Here's the specific tvfool report for the terrain between me and its transmitter:

http://www.tvfool.com/modeling/?id=b...f&t=ALLTV&n=18

In short, I'm 37 miles and two edges northeast of the 45kW transmitter. Luckily, I'm not hugely below the edges, but it's still not line-of-sight. What you can't easily see there is that I'm on a slope that faces southeast, so at least trees aren't a problem.

Here's the rest of the report, if it's useful:

http://www.tvfool.com/modeling/?id=b32b9936644f4f

Right now, I've got what I think is probably a pretty mediocre 8' directional antenna I got from Radio Shack back in the 90's. I think it's a U-100, but I don't remember. It's fine for Seattle stuff, but this is trickier, with two edges between me and KBTC's transmitter. With the tuner in my S3 TiVo, which seems to be decent, I can get 50-60% at best, but when atmospheric conditions suck (remember, this is Seattle), I can't do better than 30% or so, which isn't enough for a digital lock.

Thus, after doing some research, I have a Winegard HD8200P on its way this week and will be installing it this coming weekend. From what I've read, it should have significantly higher gain in the neighborhood of the channel I'm after, without being overly directional and dropping out the other stations I receive. Given the context, I know I can't expect perfect and consistent reception on the iffy channel, but I'm pretty sure this hardware will improve matters.

So, after all of that, here's the actual question: What sort of amp would get me the best results, given the specific antenna I'm installing, and the fact that I'm mostly trying to get (real) channel 27? The other channels are either present on cable, or ridiculously easy to receive.

The only amp I have on hand is a Channel Plus DA-520A amp that does +20dB (non-adjustable) on 54-1000MHz. I don't know if that's a decent amp, and I don't know if it's at all appropriate for the job. If it is, then great, but if not, I'm quite open to getting something more appropriate.

I should also mention that it'd be nice to get an amp with multiple outputs, since I'm going to be sending the signal to at least two more locations in the house after I do the antenna upgrade. I gather a distribution amp is (often?) better than a single-out amp followed by a splitter.

Anyway, I like to think I'm not an idiot, but OTA is an area I've never done much research on, so I could really use some advice. Even advice not directly responding to my question is quite welcome. Even if it's to tell me I've made all of the wrong assumptions. I do that sometimes. Sigh.

Thanks...