Inexpensive "walking the roof" setup?

good luck.


start with placement along the roof line with the antenna on a tripod. drag and stop every 5-10 ft. make sure the antenna is always faced in the same direction. look at pictures/signal. step away from the antenna since touch and close proximity of your body will affect signal. once you find the best spot along the roof try experimenting with height. go for the best compromise.


your idea of farthest away from the trees is a good start.


did you ever try weighing a dog on a bathroom scale. this exercise is worse.


if the cm 4228 is a lost cause try something different...91xg.


sounds like you will need a rotor unfortunately.

Rick! Dude.... you're EVERYWHERE! hehehhe...

I've done that "weight the dog using a bathroom scale" thing. Was easy when she was a pup. Now she's older (and so am I) and it ain't easy any more.


This is sounding like a project. I don't have a tripod and I don't have enough cable. The 4228 is not a lost cause by any means. I will manually swing it around towards Toronto tonight and I'll be watching the Sabres vs Senators game in HD on 20.1 (CBLT CBC ....maps to 5.1) If I want to get just the Buffalo locals, then it's actually doing pretty well right where it is. But no matter which way I point it is a compromise and at least ONE station is marginal. Also, the proximity of the trees really shows up when it's breezy. I'm hoping if I get farther away from them it will have less of an affect. So it's *good* now.... but a minor improvement would make it *really* good.


The whole "walking the roof" thing is because I don't think it would be wise to just start indiscriminately MOVING the antenna without having some basis or reason for doing so. I mean, if I get an indication that moving it 25 feet farther away from teh trees will have a positive affect on the signal fluctuation I get when it's breezy... that's worth moving it right there. As long as I don't LOSE anything. Or if that spot farther away has a good effect on the breezy trees syndrome AND it happens to be a better signal area...then I would defiitely move it.


I'm just not ready to dump a bunch of money into this yet. At least not until I get it working reliably enough that I can get the wife interested in choosing OTA HD over the satellite equivalent local.

I just went through the exercise again. this time adding ch 56 with a jointenna pointing toward the trees.


the station was 8 miles away 5000kw. you would figure cake...no problem.


started with a double bowtie, then a rs u75r, and stuck the cm4228 up there for the heck of it. had the signal fluctuations.


when I turned the hd8200p and 91 xg around the signal was tamed. so I settled with a 43xg.


since the signal can fluctuate as much as 10 db or more...the most directional, best front to back, high gain sucker tames the situation helps.


the rotor helps ...the "honey how does it look" routine gets old after awile for you and the wife.