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Old 22-Oct-2014, 12:24 AM   #2
timgr
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Medford MA USA
Posts: 371
This article may be of interest to you - http://www.kyes.com/antenna/stackluge.html

Looking ath the NM (noise margin) column in your report, channel 17 is at -13.9 dB and 24 is at -10.2. Translating from dB into percentages, that's 20% and 31% of the signal needed to resolve those channels under ideal conditions. Let's say you stacked two Antennas Direct 91XG antennas https://www.antennasdirect.com/store...V-Antenna.html ... these would have a 3 dB gain (ideally) from stacking and roughly 16 dB at 533 MHz (WSMT) and 15 dB at 481 Mhz (WSYR). So even with this formidable stacked array, you are still in the 2-3 dB NM neighborhood (25% to 70% more signal than minimum), under ideal conditions.

What's the gain of your Winegard antenna? A quick view of the Winegard site shows nothing ... I would guess between 6 and 10 dB. If we knew the Winegard antenna gain, you might guess at what noise margin will work in that location. If we guess 6 dB, then you are receiving WWTI at -0.2 NM plus 6 dB is 5.8 dB signal. 6 dB is 200% of what you minimally need, compared to maybe 2-3 dB from the stacked array. Hypothetically.

What direction are you pointing the antenna? It has a front and a back, and most sensitive pointing directly at the station you want.

No personal experience with this, but you might have a chance of getting those stations if you used the vertically stacked array or if you went higher with a high-gain antenna.

Regarding amplification, the amplifier actually degrades the signal from the antenna. It contributes its own noise to the signal. However, amplifiers can be useful when the cable losses between the antenna and the receiver degrade the signal more than the cost of putting the amplifier in the circuit. If you have a short cable run, the amplifier is doing very little for you.

JMO - I'm not an antenna engineer, or part of the industry, though I am an engineer. Forget the attic installation - you are dreaming. These only work for strong local stations, and they are always operating at a substantial handicap to a clear air installation. Plus you are thinking of combining dissimilar antennas widely separated? It will be worse, maybe a lot worse.

Last edited by timgr; 22-Oct-2014 at 11:48 AM.
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