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HD Radio from Mars

post #1 of 21
6/26/07 at 4:15am
Thread Starter 
Last year a storm took down my roof antenna and rotor. They served me well for 20 years, and the previous owners of the house before me. My HD radio reception reports for the past seven months have been based on an indoor antenna (Magnum Dynalab SR100 "Silver Ribbon"). No more! Tomorrow (Wed June 27) I'll have a brand new Antennacraft antenna, Channel Master rotor, and Winegard preamp to bring in analog and digital radio and tv. I'm already getting HD radio from up to 100 miles away (WMIT Black Mountain NC)...and reliably from 80 miles away (various, Charlotte NC). Look for future reception reports of HD from Mars.
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post #2 of 21
6/26/07 at 6:13am
What model antenna did you get and why do you need a preamp if you did so well with the sr100? I removed my preamp since it did not help.
Richard
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post #3 of 21
6/26/07 at 6:18am
Do you have dedicated Antennacraft FM antenna, or are you just hooking the TV antenna up to your radio?
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post #4 of 21
6/26/07 at 7:09am
Thread Starter 
I'm getting a combo FM/TV antenna. I'll be using a winegard preamp BECAUSE I'm planning on hooking up to multiple devices...HDTV, DVD, and Media Center computer in living room, and TV, plus HD Radio in my bedroom. If I were hooking to just one device, I'd probably leave off the preamp (it's costing me an additional 90 bucks!)
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post #5 of 21
6/26/07 at 7:26am
Even if you had just one device hooked up to the antenna, it would be a good idea to have a pre-amp to overcome cable and splice loss, as well as the noise floor in a device (mostly UHF tuners in analog TVs).
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post #6 of 21
6/26/07 at 7:33am
Thread Starter 
I agree Matt. Especially with a quality preamp, as opposed to the noisy ones built into cheap "active" antennas. My Terk active antenna actually picked up more HD stations with the power supply detached! Internal noise swamped all HD reception with it turned on, regardless of the gain setting.
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post #7 of 21
6/26/07 at 8:34am
Yea... I'm talking about quality pre-amps like Winegard, Channel Master, etc... they have noise figures of 3db or less. Radio Shack's are 6db or more.

There's a little company over in England that makes pre-amps with .2db noise figures (their quite spendy, though)

What model of antenna are you getting put up?

Also... what did you guys have before?
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post #8 of 21
6/26/07 at 10:27am
Thread Starter 
Before we had the large multi-element antenna that came with the house. The guy who's installing it says it's "an 84 element Antennacraft...the best they make". I'll let you know the model number when I actually see the darn thing.
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post #9 of 21
6/26/07 at 12:02pm
Mike, I checked and you have the best vhf, uhf, fm antenna made by antennacraft and it's model hd1850. It has a 180'' boom and 84 elements. It works up to 100 miles on channels 2-13 and 60+ miles on channels 14-69. With the Weingard preamp you'll get channels you didn't know existed.
Richard
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post #10 of 21
6/26/07 at 3:32pm
Yep.... seconding that notion, especally if you didn't have a pre-amp on the previous one. I know this is totally obvious, but uh... make sure he switches out the FM trap.

I took a look at the spec sheet for it, and the VHF section looks like it'll knock your socks off, but the UHF section looks like it was more of an afterthought (generic design, only 10db gain.) [Well... at least in comparison to a CM 4228, Antennas Direct 91XG or an old CM 4250 or 4251 dish]

Could you get us your TVFool.com listing?
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post #11 of 21
6/27/07 at 4:14am
Thread Starter 
Ok, I checked out TVFool.com, and have no idea what you meay by my "listing", if that was directed to me. To quote Ricky Ricardo, "you've got some 'splainin' to do!"
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post #12 of 21
6/27/07 at 7:15am
Ok, Lucy... you go to TVFool.com, click "start here," type in your address and the height of your antenna, hit enter, select "View results for: all channels" then click on the chart (image). This is a link to download "Radar-All.png" save that, then attach it in a post.

[I've attached mine as an example]
LL
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post #13 of 21
6/28/07 at 6:06am
Thread Starter 
My reception is NEARLY "from Mars". I did a bottom to top scan of the fm dial this morning with my antenna pointed west, and got SOMETHING on nearly every channel. I even get 88.7, WNCW in Spindale NC...about 80 miles away, and with first adjacents on 88.5 AND 88.9. Remarkable. I'm getting TONS of HD from Asheville, Black Mountain, Spartanburg, Greenville, Charlotte, Spindale, Greensboro, etc. I wish my radio had more presets!
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post #14 of 21
6/28/07 at 7:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mattdp View Post

Ok, Lucy... you go to TVFool.com, click "start here," type in your address and the height of your antenna, hit enter, select "View results for: all channels" then click on the chart (image). This is a link to download "Radar-All.png" save that, then attach it in a post.

[I've attached mine as an example]

Unless I missed something, TVFool.com is for TV only and not FM.
Richard
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post #15 of 21
6/28/07 at 7:59am
Yea, I wanted to see what Mike's TV reception was like compared to the TV Fool listing.

The guy who started TV Fool is an active member of the AVS Forum and has a feedback thread for the site. Mabe we could convince him to start FMFool.com )
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post #16 of 21
6/28/07 at 8:07am
Thread Starter 
Well I went to TV Fool, but I have no idea how to save what I found as a file. It displays the stations I should get, but I see no "save" option.

Anyhow, I get most of what it says I should, and some it doesn't. My HDTV is coming on Saturday (a week early, YEAH!), so I'll let you know about digital reception on it.

On HD Radio, I'm just blown away by what I can get.
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post #17 of 21
6/28/07 at 8:11am
Just click on the chart. It'll bring up a download dialog.
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post #18 of 21
6/28/07 at 12:31pm
Thread Starter 
Here's my chart from tvfool.com
LL
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post #19 of 21
6/29/07 at 7:07am
Thread Starter 
Well I CAN get WNCW (88.7 about 100 miles away) most of the time in HD, even with a first adjacent on either side (and the one on 88.5 being much closer and stronger), I take back the "rock-solid" comment. It drops back to analog every few minutes. This is a case where a "force-analog" button would be great...as the analog reception is clean.
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post #20 of 21
6/29/07 at 7:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Walker View Post

Well I CAN get WNCW (88.7 about 100 miles away) most of the time in HD, even with a first adjacent on either side (and the one on 88.5 being much closer and stronger), I take back the "rock-solid" comment. It drops back to analog every few minutes. This is a case where a "force-analog" button would be great...as the analog reception is clean.

We are calling that "Force Analog" Analog mode now. . . Force Analog sounded too. . . . Something.
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post #21 of 21
6/29/07 at 8:00am
Thread Starter 
"sounded too....." FORCEFUL, maybe?
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