Central NJ antenna help

[dflint]

I have an OTA antenna on the roof now, but have noticed a lot of channels have been dropping out lately. It's a yagi style UHF VHF wingard (I believe) antenna.

I think I want something multidirectional so I can get signals for several sources, I was thinking about getting a Winegard MS-2002 Metrostar Outdoor Amplified HDTV Antenna. Anyone have any experience with these?

Thanks!

Here's the link to my geography:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3da362292e99ef49

[Tower Guy]

I have an OTA antenna on the roof now, but have noticed a lot of channels have been dropping out lately. It's a yagi style UHF VHF wingard (I believe) antenna.

I think I want something multidirectional so I can get signals for several sources, I was thinking about getting a Winegard MS-2002 Metrostar Outdoor Amplified HDTV Antenna. Anyone have any experience with these?

Thanks!

Here's the link to my geography:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3da362292e99ef49

You're barking up the wrong tree.

A multi-directional antenna is more likely to have dropouts than an directional antenna.

Fix the yagi, and then get a rotor or a second antenna for the stations from other directions.

[John Candle]

Your location has hills , valleys , trees. An Omni directional does not reject mlltipath , as a matter of fact a Omni antenna receives multipath from All directions. Multipath is reflected Tv signals , this not what you are looking for. Your location calls for a Directional Antenna that REJECTS MULTIPATH. The All Band VHF/UHF antenna for your location is the Winegard HD7082P , and a antenna rotor. Or you can go with 2 antenna solution , 2 HD7082P's one pointed at channel 38 and one channel 43. And a radio shack remote control A/B coax switch at each tv location. Mount the antennas on 2 separate mounts , at least 6 feet apart. . Yes you can try the omni antenna and then return it if it does not work. Please note that a omni antenna is close but not totaly omni. The omni antenna may need to be turned to find a position that receives the best.

[dflint]

my location had trees (don't most?) but not too many hills or valleys. there is a tall house across the street. seems like I used to get better signals, and channels have been dropping out more lately.

thanks for the advise on the directional. I do have a rotor (but I think I broke it, crossed wires) which was a pain to use for the rest of the family and kept getting out of alignment. I also have another UHF yagi which I haven't figured out how to tie them together without crossing signals or buying a bunch of expensive band pass filters.

I may try a cheap multi antenna and return it if it doesn't work. I'm trying to simplify ease of use. I'll post on how it goes. thanks.

[mtownsend]

The NYC stations are closer and stronger than the Philadelphia stations. If you can live with just the NYC stations, then you can do without the antenna rotator.

If you want both NYC and Philly stations (and perhaps a few other stations in other directions), then an antenna rotator is needed. An omni antenna won't work for the Philly stations because they are too weak (antenna directionality and antenna gain go hand-in-hand; omni antennas have pretty low intrinsic gain and cannot pick up weaker stations).



On the subject of combining antennas. If you have separate UHF and VHF antennas, the proper way to combine them is to use a diplexer like the Pico Macom UVSJ. These are inexpensive frequency selective combiners/splitters that will make sure that the UHF and VHF signals from each antenna do not interfere with each other.