Moved, new set-up
 

Hey everyone,

We recently moved to a new house, and I'm looking into re-installing my OTA set-up.

In the old house, I had an RCA directional antenna in the attic with an amp, and the house was sitting in the middle of a straight line of two different transmitters, it was great.

I moved with all my stuff, but now our current house is no longer sitting right in the middle, as can be seen in the report here:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...90382358b72ae8

The two options I'm looking at right now is to get a motor or a new omnidirectional antenna. Or a guess maybe a second directional antenna (though I'm not sure what would be needed for two feeds like that)? I'm thinking any of these options will cost me about the same, whether it's an extra antenna, a new antenna or a motor.

What do you all think? Suggestions?

Thanks!

Hello, Kendricks

Thank you for the signal report. In the Vanier section, the two directions aren't 180 degrees apart, but you have several alternatives. You could use a directional antenna just for Camp Fortune at 295 degrees, or try to receive Camp Fortune and Herbert Corners at 165 degrees.

I'm not impressed with omnidirectional antennas; they receive poorly in all directions.

The signal loss in an attic is difficult to predict, so you will need to make some tests. If you use a rotator, you will need to wait for the antenna to swing around to the other direction and you will need to rescan if your TV can't add a channel after scan. If you have more than one TV, who decides which way the antenna is aimed?

Two antennas aimed in different directions can be combined with a splitter in reverse, but it usually doesn't work too well; you just have to try it. When the same signals from each antenna reach the combining point, they will interfere with each other if they are not in phase (arrive at the same instant). If you don't have all the channels combined that you had when the antennas were separate, that method of combining doesn't work for you.

If you just have one TV, you can have two antennas and an A/B switch to select which antenna to use, but you might need to rescan. An alternative would be to have the main antenna connected to the antenna input of the TV, and have the second antenna connected to a separate tuner (converter box) with its output connected to the aux input of the TV, which is my favorite choice if combining doesn't work.

One possible solution would be to use a bi-directional antenna to receive both directions. You could use an Antennas Direct C2V with its reflector removed or an Antennas Direct C2MAX which comes without a reflector. Both antennas have a VHF-High dipole for CJOH on real channel 13.
https://www.antennasdirect.com/store...-Complete.html

https://www.antennasdirect.com/store...V-Antenna.html