[bobsgarage]

Originally Posted by rabbit73

What you need to do is ask the owners of the antennas and Kenosha antenna installers what works best for them.

I favor the two-coax system with an A/B switch IF the TV tuners can add a channel after scan. If the tuners can NOT add a channel after scan, then it would be necessary to rescan every time you changed antennas. To avoid that hassle, use two tuners at each TV; the TV tuner and a separate tuner connected to the aux input of the TV.

Rabbit, as always thank you ( and the others) for contributing here.

The reason I made a separate thread is for reference for the others who may be in my general area. Those that live in Northeastern Illinois and Southeastern Wisconsin. We have such a of choices between the two cities.

Plus, we've got a lot of crossover fans for the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers. Back in the antenna only days, it wasn't uncommon for people to have Sports parties based on their reception. To me, those were exciting times for the antenna world. I always wanted one of those CA8100s, to me, that was the ultimate statement. . A completely impractical antenna by today's standards.

After cable TV came, people treated thier antennas as a secondary and most let them rot to death on their rooftops. . You can see who's using them and who's not by looking at the aim. But I digress. I'm a little nostalgic.

Anyhow back in those days, a lot of people had these bi- directional antennas that we're supposed to receive from both angles. I think I had one on my roof but it was destroyed by wind damage Etc.

So, you prefer the two antenna solution which are you are aware that's what I have now.

I'm not really opposed to buying the extra Hardware, and running extra cables Etc but, as you know I wanted to do it all through one input just two make it easier.

As you know, I have two rooftop masts. My idea was to have one mast for play and the other long-range messing around. I wouldn't say I've gotten the DX bug, but I had a lot of fun with it when the Rotator was working. I was picking up VHF from the other side of Lake Michigan. Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids well over a hundred miles away.

But I thought I might convert another mast into a general use. Seeking that one cable, ONE input solution.

I haven't done this yet so wait a while before you call me crazy. I thought about putting up a C4MAX or CM4228HD (or two) taking the reflector off and using that as the single input for Chicago and Milwaukee.

That in itself is not such a wild idea, easily obtainable with little to no hassle because that antenna Mast is easy to get to. It's also on a different part of the roof. And as luck would have it the ash tree that would be blocking the southern signal got the dreaded emerald ash borer right after I did my second array. It took it a couple years to die but we finally cut it down last year so now there is a more clear path to the southern sky. I won't be replanting a tree there either.

Anyhow, since that would be my test mast, I could add antennas as I want to. This would be my stable platform for experimentation.

At any rate, my ultimate idea would be to stack 4228s or MAXs. I would play around with reflectors. What I'd like to do is just mess with it throughout the summer and report back here with my findings.

I've come up with a couple ideas on tests.

#1 measure what I have now. The HBD91x and the 30 - 2476. Chicago capture the results. I have that cool Spectrum analyzer that I can use on my home PC.

#2 install an 8 bay antenna and do the same test.

#3 remove the reflector, rerun the tests and rotate the antenna towards Chicago and Milwaukee and see if the test results change. I would think by your patterns the results should be similarly the same.

#4 now here's the part I don't know if I would do yet. Add a second antenna of the exact same kind. Combine the two. And repeat the tests I just described with and without reflectors.

I could test them combined, separated, with reflectors aimed the same direction, with reflectors aimed opposite and with reflectors removed and still opposed. In other words even though the reflectors are removed, still aim one North and One South. Just a fun idea in my head.

These are just experiments. And then once they're all done. Lock the final configuration down and use it for the rest of my life.

It would be fun for me. But others would say why?

We've all done some crazy stuff have't we?