Re JBX21WB
I ordered it by e-mail from the UK. I sent my credit card info to Blake by fax. The price, incl air freight, was about $140.00. It arrived in a few days after ordering. I did not have to pay any customs duty when it arrived.
The antenna is UHF only, and the specs. show a beamwidth of only 9 to 11 degrees, the narrowest I have seen specified outside of very expensive antennas. The gain is about 14 db ref to a dipole.
There are eight digital stations in LA. They are all on Mt. Wilson within about 2 miles of each other.
The towers are all about 30 miles away fro me, the bearings range from about 65deg to 66.5deg:
31: KTLA @ 66.0deg
36: KNBC @ 66.2deg
42: KWHY @ 66.0deg
43: KCAL @ 65.9deg
53: KABC @ 65.9deg
59: KCET @ 66.5deg
60: KCBS @ 65.1deg
65: KTTV @ 66.3deg
66: KCOP @ 65.7deg
There are also a few San diegoo stations:
19: KSWB @ 132 miles
23: XETV (FOX) @ 138 miles in Tijuana
25: ABC @ 112 miles
40: NBC @ 132 miles
55: CBS @ 112 miles
My location is topographically challenging. My antenna is on a rotor about 20 feet above the roof. It is not tilted.
I am using a Channel master preamp with a noise figure of 2.2db, and a gain of 23db. The look angle to Mt. Wilson is less than 2 degrees.
Unfortunately, there is a ridge about 500 yards from my house and the look angle to the top of the ridge is a liitle less than four degrees. (I got this from a software package I bought called "Terrain Navigator" which gives you the terrain profile along any bearing you care to choose).
Performance:
Analog UHF channels have multiple ghosts all across the screen, but the picture is watchable.
Ch31: I pick this up about 10% of the time
Ch36: I pick this up about 20% of the time
Ch42: I pick this up about 90% of the time
Ch43: I only saw this, briefly, on one occasion over the last year
Ch53: I pick tjhis up 100% of the time, but have occasional dropouts
Ch59: I pick this up 100% of the time, typically one or two glitches lasting a second oer two, every hour.
Ch60: I have never been able to pick this up
Ch65: I pick this up 100% of the time, no drop outs.
Ch66: I pick this up 100% of the time, no drop outs.
The antenna bearing has to be within about 3 to 5 degrees to get the above results. Outside this range I get no picture at all.
As for San Diego, I can sometimes pick up Ch 23 even with the antenna pointed at Mt. Wilson, which is a bearing discrepancy of 80 degrees!
On the few occasions that I rotate the antenna towards S. Diego, I pick up 19, 23, and 25 about 50% of the time, and 55 occasionally. I have never seen 40.
As Glenn mentioned, I am using a TU-DST50. I also use a DTC100. There is not a significant difference in performance.
When Glenn visits, I'll check out the 6000OTA performance and compare it with my tuners.
One of these days I am going to tilt the antenna a few degrees to see if that helps.
Have fun!
