Reception in Iowa
 

Hello,

I am looking into dropping cable in favor of OTA. I am tired of cables poor reception and high prices (I can probably get more channels with OTA and not pay the monthly fee).

My house currently has a Roof Mounted antenna that looks a lot like either the RCA one from WalMart or an Anntenacraft ccs1243. The mast is probably 15 feet tall with rotator (although I have no controller for the rotator and it is no longer hooked up) and due to a recent ice storm have lost two of the longest elements on it.

I am going to just give it a try with a borrowed converter box (when my wife first bought this house three years ago she didnt pay for cable and used the antenna which did work surprisingly well). If I am not getting the results I want I was looking at replacing the antenna (since I don't know anything about the existing one) and possibly getting a new rotator if needed. I was looking at the Antennacraft ccs1843 or the HD1800 but really wasn't sure what the best antenna to buy is. Both Antennacraft and Winegard are made in my home town so I would like to support them. I also wasnt sure about preamps. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my location:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...c72319d21caa52

Thank you in advance. There seems to be lots of good info here.

Hello and welcome!

It looks like you have some nice strong signals coming from Des Moines, and another set of weaker signals coming from Cedar Rapids.

If you only care about the Des Moines channels, you can use any of the smaller combo antennas like the Winegard HD7080P or the Antennacraft HD850, and leave the antenna pointed at around compass heading 307 degrees.

If you want to get both Des Moines and Cedar Rapids channels, you will need to get a larger antenna, a rotator, and probably a pre-amp. By getting both markets, you might find some different local programming, and also a lot of duplicate programming. You'll need to decide whether or not the added cost/complexity of this more elaborate antenna setup is justified for the amount of additional programming you might get.

Thanks for the reply. I am really only interested in the Des Moines channels, they have everything I am looking for. I guess I didn't realize that I could get by with a smaller antenna. I will give mine current one a shot to see how well it works and then look at replacing it.

Any advice on digital converter boxes? I really wanted one that had a dolby digital output since a lot is broadcast in 5.1 but doesn't look like that is going to happen. Was leaning towards the dtv pal from dish network or one from winegard.

There are a lot of cheap converter boxes that were targeting the $40 converter box coupon program. In order to be eligible for that coupon program, the converter box was only allowed to output standard definition output.

Higher end boxes that could output HDMI, component video, 5.1 audio, and other HD output were excluded from that program.

Millions of people took advantage of their $40 coupons, so there are a lot more coupon-eligible (non HD) converter boxes in circulation than their high end counterparts, but the HD boxes do exist if you look for them.

The DTVPal does have an optical out for Dolby Digital audio output. I'm not sure about the box from Winegard.