Which Antenna???

[thowell]

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3dda326b38cf6c52

here are the result from the TVfool. Now I know nothing about this. What I do know is that I am tired of paying $90 a month for basic cable. So please help me understand what antenna we should purchase. we do live pretty far out in the country so I don't expect miracles. Thank you for any advice.

[John Candle]

How many Tv's to connect ?

[Tower Guy]

So please help me understand what antenna we should purchase.

Option 1 Gainesville only: HD7696P with AP8700 preamp aim it at 145°

Option 2 Tallahassee plus Waycross PBS: 4221 or similar 4 bay UHF aimed at 300° with Y10-7-13 aimed at 16° combined with an AP 2870 preamp.

Option 3 Add a rotator to option 1, yet multiple sets must watch TV from the same city and some TVs do poorly with rotators.

Option 4 Both 1 and 2 with A/B switches at each TV set.

[John Candle]

2 antenna solution. All channel antenna Winegard HD7084P and AP8700 preamp will receive all the channels including (PBS) University Tv channel 5 at about 150 magnetic compass. . All channel antenna HD7084P and AP8700 pointed at 318 magnetic compass will receive 6 , 40 , 27 , 50 , 46. . A remote control A/B switch at each tv. Radio Shack has remote control A/B switch.

[John Candle]

Read this , the main point is , Real channels , one needs to know the real channels for the the correct antenna. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=695 . Buy antennas ect. http://www.solidsignal.com , http://www.amazon.com , http://www.starkelectronic.com , http://www.3starinc.com

[John Candle]

The >>Start MAPS<< part of tvfool shows , The odd one out in this situation is WOGX FOX 31 to the south east , it is to far away to receive. So we look around for another FOX and WTLH FOX 50 to the north west , has a good signal.

[Tower Guy]

All channel antenna Winegard HD7084P and AP8700 preamp will receive all the channels including University Tv channel 5 at about 150 magnetic compass.

My experience with low band reception is that TVfool NM numbers must be reduced by at least 10 db to compensate for noise. In my opinion, the HD7084P is a very nice antenna, but there's little need to spend that much money for one channel with unknown programming.

[John Candle]

The programing is known by looking it up. WRUF / WUFT channel 5 , http://www.wuft.tv/ .And the price is about the same for HD7084P and HD7696P. Tv antennas last 5 to 10 years so we are talking 3 to 5 cents per day here.

[John Candle]

How many Tv's will be connected ? To get you started and evaluate the channels to the south east and the north west you could install one HD7084P and AP8700 and a Channelmaster CM9521A rotor.

[John Candle]

And the bone that Tower Guy threw out there , " some tv's do poorly with rotators" , IF True - ask him to explain it in a way that is not throwing out another bone.

[Dave Loudin]

It has to do with channel memory. Some receivers do not allow for proper manual addition, plus a rescan for direction 2 wipes out what was stored from the scan for direction 1.

[Tower Guy]

The programing is known by looking it up. WRUF / WUFT channel 5. And the price is about the same for HD7084P and HD7696P.

According to the web site that you provided WUFT and WRUF have the same programming. Pick up PBS using WUFT on channel 36. No channel 5 reception necessary.

When you add the shipping from Solid Signal the HD 7084P cost $15 more than the HD 7696P.

[Tower Guy]

And the bone that Tower Guy threw out there , " some tv's do poorly with rotators" , IF True - ask him to explain it in a way that is not throwing out another bone.

I am not a fan of rotators for many reasons.

They're useful for only one TV set.
Make the use of a DVR or VCR harder than necessary.
It takes too long to change channels.

When you scan a TV set it usually won't find weaker channels unless the antenna is aimed properly. If you are fast with turning the rotator while the TV set scans you might get everything the first time. If not, some TV sets allow you to add channels one at a time, others force you to rescan. Some TVs delete channels during a rescan that they don't find on the rescan, and some keep all the channels.

[John Candle]

An excellent explanation.