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Old 24-Jul-2010, 2:43 AM   #1
rrob311
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Join Date: Jul 2010
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Looking for a great antenna for my valley location

I bought a cheap ebay antenna a couple years ago which got me the red and yellow channels on the tvfool chart but pbs didnt come in solid. very hard to maintain. This is my current antenna: http://cgi.ebay.com/DIGITAL-VHF-UHF-...item439ee9f01b

I broke the antenna and fried the amp. If I can get more channels from the tvfool chart ( preferably the boston ones 52 miles away and over the hill I will buy the best antenna available. otherwise I will stick with the ebay specials. I have no experience with this and dont understand the db gain numbers and what they mean. I live next to the river and my antenna is on my chimney one story up with a 10 foot radio shack pole. would it be safe to add another 10 foot pole? this is the link to my chart:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...9fbe59f011d102
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Old 26-Jul-2010, 5:33 PM   #2
mtownsend
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Quote:
I bought a cheap ebay antenna a couple years ago which got me the red and yellow channels on the tvfool chart but pbs didnt come in solid.
The reason that PBS (WENH, channel 11) did not come in reliably was because the antenna you were using had minimal support for VHF frequencies (channels 2-13).

Were you able to pick up WUNI (ch 27.1, RF 29) with your old antenna?

With a very good antenna, amp, and rotator setup, you can usually expect to pick up channels with a Noise Margin down to about -5 to -10 dB, but it looks like WUNI and WUTF are Hispanic channels, and I don't know if you care to receive them or not. If you do not need those channels, then the weakest non-Hispanic channel on your list is WPXG (ION, ch 21.1, RF 33) with a Noise Margin of 10.4 dB, which can be picked up with a lesser antenna.

If the first four stations on your list are good enough for you, then I'd recommend something like a Winegard HD7696P antenna and a Channel Master 9521A antenna rotator. If you want to split this signal to multiple rooms or if you think the cable run from the antenna to your TV is going to be very long (more than 60 feet), then you can add a pre-amp (Winegard AP-8700 or Antennacraft 10G202) to overcome the splitter/cable losses.

If you also want to get channels down to about WUTF, then you'll need a larger antenna like the Winegard HD7698P, a Channel Master 9521A antenna rotator, and a pre-amp. In this case, the pre-amp is not optional because you will need it to preserve as much signal integrity as possible coming out of your antenna.



Just FYI, your old antenna appears to be "cheap" with exaggerated marketing claims (125 miles is pretty far-fetched). Similar antennas have been known to have poor construction (rotator motors that die after 1 year) and inferior design (poor antenna sensitivity and mediocre amp specs). The price may be attractive, but the quality is really lacking.

If you buy anything that includes an amp, be sure to look for the Noise Figure spec on the amp. A "good" amp should have a Noise Figure that is 3.0 dB or less. Some "cheap" amps won't publish their Noise Figure spec, and that's usually a sign that it's performance is not very good.

The antenna gain (that is, the raw intrinsic gain of the antenna, not counting any amps) and pre-amp Noise Figure are usually the two most important factors that determine how well your system can pick up the weaker stations. You want to have the antenna gain as high as possible and the amp Noise Figure to be as low as possible.
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Old 26-Jul-2010, 9:21 PM   #3
rrob311
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I got every channel in the list from WUNI up to green. I couldnt get any others. So you don't think there is any easy way to get wzmy? I have no problem spending a few hundred dollars for a decent setup. Do you think raising the new antenna I buy about 10 feet will do anything? I don't really want to buy a whole new setup if I won't be able to get any more stations. I can't comprehend the spanish channels. I mainly want the boston news and sport stations.
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Old 26-Jul-2010, 10:03 PM   #4
mtownsend
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It will be very difficult to get WZMY due to the large mountain in the way:



If you want to see if changing antenna height helps at all, try experimenting with the Interactive Maps tool (starts here). Once the map display is up, you can try changing the antenna height to see how much it changes the signal strength for each station.

Depending on how severe the terrain blockage is, you might not get a usable NM value until the antenna height is set absurdly high. Keep in mind that you can probably get marginal reception with NM numbers around -10 dB. You might get reliable reception at -5 dB or higher. You might find that it's cost-prohibitive or may require tall structure permits to get high enough for WZMY.

If you decide to give up on WZMY, then you can probably go with a simpler setup geared toward just the top four stations in your list.
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