Attic mounting
 

Hello,

I'm switching to OTA in our new house. Sick of paying $100 a month for the few channels I use.

So I have a 4 bay bow-tie (HDB4X) that I got for the house we used to be in. I was shadowed by hills so I only had to deal with signals coming from one side. Now that I'm in the open I may need to switch to a omni like the RCA ANT751. I plan to attic mount

Could I get the best advice about my situation to maximize my available channels. Report is below.

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d243a44a87816e

The RCA 751 is not omnidirectional.

I'm not in the industry, but a few general points -

- Attic mounting is frequently problematic, because of the shielding from the roof and house, and interference from rf sources in the house. At the very least it reduces your antenna's sensitivity a lot, so go big if you want to try it. For UHF-only, that's something like the Antennas Direct DB8e (4' x 4'), high VHF the Antennacraft Y10713 (10' long), and for low VHF HD1850 (15' long). Not a recommendation - just examples. Lots of discussion of this in older posts.

- which channels do you want to receive? You have possible sources in VHF low, VHF high, and UHF. The more bandwidth the antenna covers, the less sensitive it will be for a given size, all other effects being equal.

- your plot will change with the antenna height. 10' is unrealistically low.

- you have an antenna now - try it out in the attic and see what you get. Should be informative - just run a long cable to your TV and see what you get.

hth!

The ANT751 might work in the attic. Aim it NNW. You might find that it works better on the roof. Consider a preamp such as the TVPRAMP-1R.

I was debating a pre amp. I think I'm going to stick the bow - tie one I have up there and see what happens and then try something else later if needed. I guess if needed I could stick it on one of the old J poles from the old satellite dishes.