[dmfdmf]

Originally Posted by Damon459

I do understand you situation but in my case I have already put the good outdoor Balun's.

Right, but if you've got any kind of Yagi with a horizontal boom it has the same problem, the wire leads are too short to drop the balun out of the way so it interferes with reception.

Must of my signals are actually on the VHF band except NBC, ABC, and FOX. ABC/FOX are on the same station IE substation for FOX, they only come in during the summer months with the Antenna in just the spot. That will change the the station owners get permission to add a repeater tower. My other UHF station actually comes in using my high band VHF antenna.

Yes, you have a difficult case. In these situations I like to say "every dB counts" because with such low margins and poor signals you never know if you are an iota of dB from a decent pic to an unwatchable one.

The RCA antenna is a good antenna just not the best in my area with 2 edge signals in a very deep valley.

Agreed. I wasn't recommending the RCA751 for you, just the twin-lead extension trick that probably applies to any horizontal boom antenna and might wring out a few more dB in "extreme" cases like yours.

All I'm trying to figure out at this point is whether I should go for a $45.00 120" boom antenna or the cheaper 60" boom antenna. They are basically the same but one has higher gain to do the larger size, however they both have similar gain on channel 11.

I have not analyzed your case closely enough, nor do I have the experience to help with your antenna selection.

I will keep in mind the idea of longer amounts of twin lead though for the Balun's since I have two of them in my 3 antenna system. My question is though is did you twist the twin lead at all? I have heard you need at least one twist per foot of twin lead, some even say 2 twists per foot for better shielding.

I didn't really need to twist it as the extension was only 24" long to the j-pole and from there its coax. I'd be afraid of putting torque on the spade connectors where the balun attaches to the antenna if I twisted it. I am aware of the 1T/ft rule of thumb for twin lead but I thought that applied to long runs along the roof or down a 30ft mast. The twist keeps it from picking up stray RF signals. I don't recommend twin-lead running down the mast. Its hard to work with because you need the twists plus it can't be too close to metal so you need standoffs, etc. People switched to coax because its so much easier to work with. I think the gain in performance that I saw, which was rather dramatic for a system that was already working well, was probably due to soldered connectors (rather than crimped) and getting the balun away from the active elements of the antenna. If you go this route I'd be curious if it helps.

I'd also be curious if the method can be used on the one of those flat, vertical UHF antennas and if it would make any difference. I think the RF principle are the same -- get the wire away from the antenna, 90deg being the most direct method. But now your twin-lead drop line has to run along the front of the antenna at least 4-5" away from the mast, so you'd need to secure it with some kind of plastic standoffs and you'd need to twist it if its longer than a couple of feet. Once it clears the lower elements of the antenna, you could terminate into a balun and then run coax the rest of the way. This is a real world test I'd love to see.