antenna recommendation?

[fenix-silver]

Hi, I'm taking the plunge with cord cutting and looking for an antenna to pick up the major networks. TV Fool Report

I only care about getting virtual channels 8, 15, 21, 27, 33, and 43. Just to get an idea, I built a 4 bay coat hanger antenna and temporarily put it outside where an old digital satellite dish was mounted to see what I could pull in. I was able to get 8, 15, 21, and 33 clearly, but no 27 or 43. I fiddled with the antenna some, but nothing was coming in on those 2 channels. The antenna was mounted about 12 feet high and it was connected using the existing coax for the old dish. The coax went straight to the TV, but it was a fairly long run with 2 coax joiners involved.

Thanks for the help!

[elmo]

Welcome! So the DIY antenna can be fun, but if your reception situation is less than ideal, it may not work as well as you might hope. The design of the bowtie makes it optimal for UHF, but not for VHF. Ch 27 is Real 10, which is VHF. That could be the issue or at least it's a factor in your reception.

What direction are you pointing your antenna? Looks like you have towers west and south of you. You may find a sweet spot somewhere in the SW direction.

What's your tree/building/etc situation when looking west to south? Anything that's in the way will degrade signal.

I think you could use something like the ANT-751 or HD7000R. Both will tune VHF/UHF. Being smaller helps when tuning to multiple locations like yours.

Forgot to add, make sure the sat coax is free of any sat equipment; excess switches, splitters, diplexers, complexers and flux capacitors. ;-) You want the shortest run you can manage from the antenna to TV with the least amount of splits possible. Distance, splits, etc all degrade signal strength. Sat stuff will just give you and your antenna a head ache.

[fenix-silver]

Thanks for the reply!

So far I've played with aiming the antenna south and southwest and in between. I'll have to try aiming it more directly west to see what happens. Due south is pretty open but southwest and west are a row of pretty high pine trees. I'll have to walk around on my roof with the antenna to see if I get better reception anywhere else. I did have a straight run of coax without anything else attached, but it was pretty long due to how the house is wired for the existing cable, so I'll try to clean that up.

[fenix-silver]

Also, you mentioned the HD7000R, but it appears that this model has been discontinued by Winegard and is not available too many places. Any other recommendations other than the ANT-751 (which I'm not opposed to, just looking for options)?

[No static at all]

The best bang for the buck solution for your situation is the HBU-22. Most of your desired stations are in the same general direction. Fox 43 from York is going to be a challenge to get reliably without a rotor or 2nd antenna.

You will have to try compromising the aim between Harrisburg & York to get in all the stations you are looking for. It may or not work, but won't know till you try.

ION is strong enough that it will likely be OK no matter which direction the antenna is aimed.

[fenix-silver]

So I played around some more w/ my homemade antenna to see what I could pull in and I was able to get ABC 27. So now it looks like my issue is just Fox 43. I guess I'll have to invest in one of the antennas recommended here and hope that works for 43. Thanks for all of the help so far!