Antenna questions
 

Hi,

We are in the process of getting rid of our satellite antenna, and going to digital tv. After doing some research, I came away more confused than before. Like most of the others, I was recommended a amplified antenna (from antenna web.org). I just checked tvfool.com and got a bunch more listings, but no recommendation. Could someone please help me figure out which antenna I should get?

Thanks!

Link to tvfool report:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...c572ae22a310e4

Hello and welcome!

It looks like you're in between Milwaukee and Green Bay market. You have more channels available from Milwaukee, so I suggest that you just concentrate on getting those stations.

It is recommended that you go with at least an attic antenna. Rooftop would be even better (maybe mounted on a chimney or using an eave mount).

The best antenna for the job is something like the Winegard HD7695P (on the roof). It is good at handling channels 7 through 69 (no support for channels 2-6), which is all you need for your situation.

If you prefer an in-attic installation, you will lose a bit of signal, and you probably want to go up one size in antenna to an HD7696P to make up for the difference.

Pointing the antenna at a compass heading of 196 degrees will give you optimum coverage for all the Milwaukee stations.



If you plan on splitting the signal to multiple TVs or have very long cable runs to deal with (over 50 feet), then you might want to consider adding a pre-amp. Chances are that you won't need one since your signal strengths are pretty good, but just keep it in mind in case you notice any degradation in signal integrity.

Thanks for the reply.:D

You are indeed, correct. I am between Green Bay and Milwaukee. However, I also live less than 1/2 mile from Lake Michigan. Should I be concerned about signal bounce? Is it possible to install/use an antenna rotor to capture more stations? Or, a multi-directional antenna to do the same?

Thanks again for your help!

Trying to get both metros at the same time can get tricky. Trying to connect two antennas pointed in different directions will actually decrease the performance of each. Antenna gain is tightly related to how directional it is. When two antennas are connected together, the directionality goes down and thus the gain goes down. Or similarly, an "omni" antenna's gain is never very high because it lack directionality.

Your signals are not too weak, so it may be possible to make it work with two directional antennas, but the effective signal margin on all channels will go down. For the weaker stations (in the red), this might mean more pixellation or channel dropouts.

If you use a rotator, you'll get cleaner signals from whichever direction you point the antenna, however, you can only get one transmitter cluster at a time. An A-B switch would accomplish the same thing.



You don't need to worry about signal bounce from the lake. Anything that bounces off the lake will go off into space and will not be redirected at you.

Thanx again for your reply.:D