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Old 9-Jan-2016, 1:58 PM   #19
rabbit73
Retired A/V Tech
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: S.E. VA
Posts: 2,747
Quote:
I purchased a Stella Labs 30-2476.
Ah, yes; that's their new one with more gain than the 2475. It's Stellar, not Stella.
Quote:
Has anyone tried this approach?
Many people have tried it; sometimes it works, sometimes not. The most recent examples are with the 8-bay antennas with two 4-bays that can be aimed in different directions like the AD DB8e. The marketing departments try to convince you that it will work in all cases; the reality is that it doesn't. It seems to work best when the two panels are at right angles (90 degrees).

Most of the time the combining is done right after the antennas. Your plan is to combine much later which will introduce more phase errors because of the multiple connections before combining.

When you have two identical antennas aimed in the same direction, the signals coming out of the antenna terminals for all channels are in phase. When you connect them to a combiner with equal lengths of coax, they remain in phase for combining, giving you 2.5 dB gain (3 dB - 0.5 dB combiner loss).

When you have two identical antennas aimed in different directions, the signals from the same channel coming out of the antennas are not necessarily in phase or of equal strength, so making the coax lines the same length is no guarantee that the combining will work.

It IS possible to adjust the length of one of the feedlines so that the signals will arrive at the combiner in phase, but that will only be good for that channel because the other channels are on different frequencies and require different lengths. To say it another way, you could end up "chasing your own tail" trying to get them all in phase.

You just have to try it to see if it works; if it doesn't work, you will lose some channels.

You didn't answer my question about which 7777 you have, old with two antenna inputs, or new with only one.
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Last edited by rabbit73; 9-Jan-2016 at 3:22 PM.
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