This is a success report on installation of my antenna. I had no previous experience installing a TV antenna; this is the first time. I just wanted to cut the cable and get away from the unscrupulous practices of Comcast ...not knowing what to expect.
Results far exceeded my expectations. I'm using an inexpensive antenna - roof mounted (HD7000R). I ended up using a pre-amp though I could have gotten away without it for many of the stations I'm getting. Here's my original tvfool.com forum post:
http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=12838
...and my signal analysis is here:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...cc493a6f7f4e7d
After eliminating all the stations I didn't want
I'm still getting a total of 24 stations with perfect reception. All together I'm receiving 66 stations but after elminating all the Infomercial stations, the Church stations, the foreigh language stations (except for a couple of the Spanish ones), and the poor reception stations, I'm down to 24 stations with perfect High Definition Reception ...including the major networks, PBS, and several other very good stations.
I live in Redwood City, CA (about 200yards NE of the intersection of Alameda de las Pulgas and Jefferson). I'm receiving most stations from Sutro Tower (about 23miles away) and a few from Sonoma Mountain which is 63 miles away!
And
YES the channels I'm getting now are
better than the ones Comcast was charging me $600 per year for. That's $50 x 12 ...a very easy arithmetic calculation which few people outside of Comcast's marketing department seem willing to make. My wife likes the channels too.
The Coax cable from my antenna to the TV is a total of about 90' long and goes through a few connectors. At first I had a problem with my longest Coax cable section (70') ...it turned out to be a problem with the coax connector. The central conductor, instead of protruding at least 1/8" past the end of the connector was actually too short. It was about 3/16" back from the end of the connector. This meant that there was no conduction at this connector. The solution was to cut the cable and install a new conductor.
In my frantic attempts to debug this problem, I ordered a pre-amp but later decided to keep it when I realized that it gave me perfect reception on some of the channels that would have been borderline without it.
Thanks for the help !
-Patrick