Need help reaching stations over 140 degree spread
 

We just got rid of satellite and our now trying to decide what antenna(s) to get for our situation. We live approximately 20 miles from broadcasts from Tri-Cities, WA (approximately 20-25 degrees). We are picking up 4 or 5 now with a cheap indoor antenna. We would also like to get Portland stations that are being broadcast 45 miles south of us (179 degrees). Do we need two antennas? If so, what is the least expensive way to do this? What antennas do you recommend? Or should we get a rotator? Was looking at the Windgate GS-2200, but I'm not sure it would be strong enough, eventhough it says it is bidirectional. Any help would be great! Here are my signal analysis results http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...a3620bc37cd506 .

Thanks!

Cindy.

Tv Reception
 

Is this a , house , apt. , condo , town home , mobile home , motor home , etc. . How many tv's will be connected?

Sorry about that. It's a ranch style home and we want to hook up two, maybe three tvs. Thanks!

I think you would do well with a Winegard HD7695P and a rotator.

Any time you try to connect two antennas together, you reduce their effective gain, so it's not so good at picking up the stations further away.

If you go with a single antenna on a rotator, you will probably also have access to channels from other directions, like KFFX to the east.

If you want to pull in stations even further down into the "red" zone on your list, you can probably do so by going with a larger version of the antenna (like the HD7698P) and adding a mast-mounted pre-amp like the Winegard AP-8700.

Thanks!
 

Thanks for the reply. Is there anything else I should know? Cables? Anything I need to hook up multiple tvs? Thanks!

Cindy.

If you have long cable runs or want to split the signal to multiple TVs, then you can add a mast-mounted pre-amp to overcome the signal loss that would otherwise occur. Once you have a pre-amp in the system (installed close to the antenna), any losses that occur after the amp (i.e., cables and splitters) become insignificant and can usually be ignored.

When you choose a pre-amp, you want to make sure you get one with a low Noise Figure spec. This number represents how much noise the amp itself adds to the system (since electronics are never 100% efficient, there is always some amount of noise that gets introduced in the process of boosting the signal). Lower Noise Figures are better. Anything with a Noise Figure of 3.0 dB or less is considered pretty good. Some examples of "good" pre-amps include the Winegard AP-8700, Channel Master 7777, and the Antennacraft 10G202.

For the cabling throughout your house, I recommend using RG6.

For splitting the signal, you can use any standard TV splitter.

If you use a splitter and end up with some extra unused ports, then I also recommend capping off those open ports with a 75-ohm terminator (like the one shown below). Any ports that are left completely open can cause some of the signal to reflect back into the cables, becoming an new source of interference on your signals. If you terminate all the loose ends / unused ports, then this won't happen.