Looking for some advice.
 

Greetings,
I am hoping someone can give me some advice or guidance on my current situation. As with everyone else on here, I have cut the cable on my cable. I currently live in a 2 story condo surrounded by tall pine trees in N.C. Not having researched or educated myself on antennas, my initial purchase was a MOHU Leaf 50. I initially plugged into our main TV downstairs and was only able to pull in 4 channels. I took it upstairs to my daughters TV and was able to pull in 12 or so and some were choppy.
After returning the Leaf, I did a bit more research and decided that I wanted purchase either the MOHU 60 or the DB4e. I intend to use the cable box and the coax that is already in place which leads me to my following questions.
1. What sort of splitter should I purchase? 1 line will run directly to the TV downstairs which is roughly 20 ft away from the splitter and the other will go upstairs and serve 2 TV’s on the same line. The first TV is roughly 25 ft from the splitter and the second is 45ft from the splitter.
2. The line running from the antenna to the splitter will be roughly 15-20 ft as I intend to place it outside on my back balcony.
3. Will I need an amp for this setup?

Thank you in advance for any feedback you can provide.






http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d243e65e9d26f2

Any suggestions or recommendations?

for people to give you an accurate choice on your antenna we need the tv fool report.

however if most of your stations are within 20 miles and you live in an area with line of sight meaning no mountains then you can get them all with the mohu.

As you noticed you need to be higher off the ground for better reception but this also depends on the type antenna and the type signal you are receiving .. for some antennas height does not matter much .. for db4 or a yaggi type (the kind with all the poles) they like height and also you need to keep the antenna away from RF disturbances like Electric motors, compressors in refrigerators Air conditioners and your computer.

if you have a lot of stations in your area ... search av163 antenna

you can use a distribution amplifier instead of a splitter it will reduce your losses but get one with a gain knob or setting you can adjust so you are not overpowering your system... on the other hand if you are like me you need every last drop of signal you can get so crank it up.

I would use a single TV and a new factory made cable to test your antenna. Connect directly from the antenna to the TV. Too many unknowns in using old, existing, weathered cabling. And cable components like splitters and boxes are not compatible with over-the-air TV signals. Once you find what the situation is, you can add amplification as needed.

I own an Antennas Direct DB8e and am very happy with it. The DB4e is basically 1/2 of the DB8e. I know nothing about the Mohu products, but I'm put off by the Mohu site and the marketing oriented descriptions of their antennae. I would prefer to see real technical specs, like they have on the Antennas Direct site.

Here are the tech specs for the DB4e - http://www.antennasdirect.com/cmss_f...s/DB4E-TDS.pdf - if similar info is available for the Mohu products, I don't see it on their site.

Personally if I had $150 to spend, I would go directly to the DB8e. I could point the panels in different directions and see how many stations I could pick up by pointing the panels at the local cities (Lexington, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Fayetteville - all have groups of stations on your plot). Your report is not very favorable, and I'd go for the most sensitive antenna I could find.

If you want to get WTVD from Durham, you'll likely need a dedicated VHF-high antenna, or a multi-band antenna, pointing at Durham. The DB4e and DB8e are only UHF, channels 14-51.

Looking at your plot, there is only a moderate amount of signal to be had at that height. If you go higher, it might get better. But surrounded by trees could be a real problem for reception, and you may never get good reception for more than a few stations unless you get above the tree tops.