Newbie - Seeking Advice on Aerials
 

Hello everyone,

For many years I was able to look out the window above the TV and see most of the transmitters for the New Orleans area. In the old days it wasn't unheard of to pick up a color picture off the antenna screws on the back of the old Sylvania Superset. Needless to say, I never seriously studied up on outdoor antennas.

Now I've bought a house about 50 miles away, and would like some practical advice on how much antenna I really need to pick up New Orleans stations. We watch mostly WGNO and WDSU subchannels (Antenna and MeTV) and children's programming on WPXL and WYES.

WYES is on VHF channel 11, the rest are on UHF. I would also like to get the Biloxi stations, they are about 70 degrees while New Orleans is about 204 degrees. I'm okay with installing a rotor if that's the best way to go.

I plan on mounting an aerial to the gable of my roof, about 25 feet above ground level. Here is the link to my signal analysis:

TV Fool Signal Analysis

As I said, I could use some guidance on what antenna/s would suit me best. Thanks.

Standard disclaimer - the TVFR is just a simulation, and does not capture local features that can affect your reception, like buildings and trees. That said, you should be able to get stations with single digit noise margin, as long as you have an unobstructed view to the horizon in the direction of the transmitter.

Any stations off of 70-ish and 203-ish are pretty much in the hobbyist realm, where you'll need to focus dedicated antenna(s) directly at them to pick up much. And reception from these stations would likely be intermittent, if at all.

The odd man out is WYES, as you pointed out. Combining a VHF-high antenna like the Antennacraft Y5713 with a UHF antenna like the Antennas Direct DB8e is straightforward - use a passive UVSJ (ca $5 from Solid Signal) or an amplifier with UHF and VHF inputs like the RCA TVPRAMP1R ... but most of your stations have plenty of signal ... so unless you want to try for stations from WBXN down, you should be able to use a passive combiner.

The DB8e is special, in that you can point the panels at different directions and it will combine those signals without destructive interference. In your case, one panel pointed at compass 61 and the other at 204 should pick up all the channels from WHNO up, and maybe WBXN too. WYES is out-of-band for the DB8e.

Thanks for the advice. When I get it all set up in a few weeks I'll let you know how it works out.