[CochiseGuy]

I have a nice large Winegard UHF antenna that worked very well for getting most of Tucson AZ stations** 55 miles away (according to TV fool). I have the antenna mounted on a pole alongside my house, reaching about 6" above the single story roof peak. But when the digital transition finally came & went, the ABC affiliate went back to their channel 9 VHF broadcast. I bought one of those rotating UHF/VHF antennas off eBay that claim reception up to 125 miles away. It works OK, the UHF channels came in as clear as before and channel 9 ABC comes in pretty well, although it is my weakest channel - I'm told it broadcasts at only 10.3kw. On clear days it comes in well, but with any rain or heavy cloud cover it can be spotty or not come in at all.


Well, the CBS affiliate has added a sub station with Me TV, which has some really great reruns of some of my favorite old TV shows - Beverly Hillbillies, I love Lucy, Hogan's Heroes, etc. It's UHF, assigned to channel 13.2, and I barely receive it - a lot of ghosting, etc. In the local info & reception forum here I'm told it broadcasts only at 108kw, while the primary network affiliates broadcast at 400-700kw.


So, I am thinking of mounting the Winegard back on the pole and use both antennae, the eBay one primarily for the lonely VHF ABC affiliate and and the Winegard to get better UHF reception and hopefully improve UHF reception for Me TV. I think the model # is 9095, it has an 95" boom and I couple it with a Channel Master 7777 pre-amp. It does have a coax input for VHF but the eBay ant. has it's own pre-amp and I get nothing with it off, so I was thinking it would be best to keep both on their own pre-amps and combine the signal inside the house. In looking at the sticky threads and I see there are such things as signal combiners, but they look pretty much the same as radio shack splitters to me - just use the 2 imput coax connectors and the 3 output connectors to my TVs. Am I missing something here? Or, is their a better solution, such as getting a new VHF/UHF antenna. I realize now it was a mistake getting that $30 eBay antenna, but got caught off guard with the ABC affiliate going back to VHF channel 9, and it's my most watched channel.

Thanks in advance.


** "Most Tucson TV stations: Most, including 4 networks, PBS & indies have their towers on Mt. Bigelow, around 10,000' elevation, which is high enough to clear a few 6-7000' mountain ranges in between and reach me at 4200'. A few independent stations including the WB have their towers in the western foothills at 3-3500', which aren't high enough to reach me.

 

[ADTech]

Combining a VHF antenna to a UHF antenna is pretty standard fare. Just use a device called the UVSJ to combine the two antennas.


Cochise Co is pretty large. We can get a much better handle on your reception if you include a TVFool plot.


KOLD transmits on UHF 32 at wimpy 108 kW ERP using a directional antenna. It's simply going to be tough to get that one.

 

[CochiseGuy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by ADTech /forum/post/20866902


Combining a VHF antenna to a UHF antenna is pretty standard fare. Just use a device called the UVSJ to combine the two antennas.


Cochise Co is pretty large. We can get a much better handle on your reception if you include a TVFool plot.


KOLD transmits on UHF 32 at wimpy 108 kW ERP using a directional antenna. It's simply going to be tough to get that one.

Yep, Cochise is pretty big. I'm just off hiway 191, between Cochise & Sunsites/Pearce:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...9e74270cc10e76


Channels 4.1 (NBC), 6.1 (PBS) 11.1 (Fox), 13.1 (CBS) & 18.1 (My N TV) have all come in very well with either antenna. 9.1 (ABC) came in very well when it was UHF, and now comes in adequately most of the time on VHF 9, but any rain/clouds make it spotty. KOLD 13.2 MeTV, apparently UHF 32, does come in now on the crappy eBay antenna, just weak with some ghosting. I was thinking that with a decent antenna like my old Winegard should get a better lock on it.


Also, I'm going to try shifting the antenna a bit to the NW. It looks like TVFool finally updated their database for my address. For some reason all GPS & online mapping services always had my address 3-5 miles north of where it actually was. The US Census guy that was here last year said he was going to get that corrected as he had trouble finding my house as well. The old TV Fool setting gave a compass heading of 273 for the towers on Mt. Bigelow, now they say it's actually 288, and that's enough to let me point the antenna north of the highest peak in a range of hills 12-15 miles away instead of just south of it like I have it now.

 

[Calaveras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CochiseGuy It works OK, the UHF channels came in as clear as before and channel 9 ABC comes in pretty well, although it is my weakest channel - I'm told it broadcasts at only 103kw.

I looked up Tucson in the FCC database and KGUN on channel 9 is the only VHF station listed. It runs only 10.3 KW and using your beam heading it has only 2.8 KW in your direction. No wonder it's the weakest.


If that's the only VHF station you need to receive maybe you should consider a channel 9 yagi with a separate preamp.


Chuck

 

[jtbell]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Calaveras /forum/post/20872637


channel 9 yagi with a separate preamp

My Winegard YA-1713 (channel 7-13 Yagi) does a pretty good job with channels 8 and 10 at NM 15.4 and 13.8 dB respectively, both with a 2-edge path according to TV Fool. KGUN looks like it has a very similar signal at the OP's location.


These two are about 67 miles away, with ERP in the ballpark of 50 kW. I also use a pre-amp (Channel Master 7777). Both come in reliably, with only occasional dropouts except during thunderstorms and unusual tropospheric conditions.

 

[CochiseGuy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Calaveras /forum/post/20872637


I looked up Tucson in the FCC database and KGUN on channel 9 is the only VHF station listed. It runs only 10.3 KW and using your beam heading it has only 2.8 KW in your direction. No wonder it's the weakest.


If that's the only VHF station you need to receive maybe you should consider a channel 9 yagi with a separate preamp.


Chuck

Yep, KGUN9 is the only VHF station I need or want to receive, but it's the Tucson ABC affiliate so it's one of the channels I tend to watch the most so it's an import one. It bummed me out when they were the only Tucson station to go back to VHF with the digital transition, but they've been called KGUN9 forever so I guess they thought continuing to broadcast on channel 9 was important to them.


Your suggestion of an upper band VHF yagi does make the most sense, and the Winegard YA-1713 jtbell suggested looks like it would be a good choice and reasonably priced. One last question: I'll be using my Channel Master 7777 pre-amp and on the part that mounts on the antenna pole it has one coax input marked "VHF Separate Input" and another for "UHF or Combined Input", so would I really need a separate pre-amp for the VHF yagi, or id the CM 7777 adquate for both the VHF yagi and separate UHF Yagi?

 

[ProjectSHO89]



Quote:
so would I really need a separate pre-amp for the VHF yagi, or id the CM 7777 adquate for both the VHF yagi and separate UHF Yagi?

All you have to do is open the case and set the selector switch to "Separate".

 

[CochiseGuy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by ProjectSHO89 /forum/post/20878219


All you have to do is open the case and set the selector switch to "Separate".

Got it, many thanks, already opened the case and made the change.. The instructions are long since gone but now I do remember looking at that when I got it, but back then all digital channels were UHF so I left it to factory settings for combined.