Help with OTA questions

[jaebihn]

This is my first stab at OTA and I have a few questions. Here is my TVFool report based on where I live.
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...c84fdd0423ac49

Background: We live in a 5 year old all brick home with asphalt shingles. The antenna will be placed on the 3rd floor attic. Roof mounting is not an option as the wife won't allow it. She doesn't watch TV so she won't care if this works or not. I want to send my antenna signal to 2 TVs on the first floor. The first TV is a Sony 1080P TV with an ATSC tuner and the second is a projector without a tuner. I plan on using an ATSC to USB tuner which is connected to an old laptop (serves as HTPC) to my receiver.

I will be using a Clearstream 2V which I got from Amazon (link to antenna below). Now the question I had is, what direction should I angle my antenna? If I assumed the antenna can pick up signals in a 30 deg beam should I angle it to 315 magnetic (305 True)? Or is it a horrible assumption to have 30 degree cone of reception? The next question I have is, if I can't get both the signals coming from 300 and 330 can I get a second UHF/VHF antenna and aim one at 300 and the other at 330 or will they interfere too much? I am assuming that they would.

My next question has to do with how to wire the TVs. All communication wires (coaxial, cat5e and phone) terminate in one location. All of the coaxial cables are connected via an 8-way splitter that worked flawlessly when we had Verizon Fios TV. If I connect my antenna can I still leave the other 8 connections (6 of which I won't use right now) or should I disconnect the other 6 and only leave 2 connections or should I just use a 2 way splitter? The last question I had was should I use an amp based on my location and the antenna? I've read online that you can lose 15 dB or so of signal so I was looking at this amp from Amazon: Winegard ANWI8700. It has a gain of 17dB VHF and 19 dB on UHF. I don't want to over saturate my signal or even damage the tuners. I read once that an amp can damage equipment if you're not careful.

My main goal is to get ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and PBS. Anything else is a bonus. Again thanks for taking time out of your day to answer some questions I had. I'm new at this but I'm a quick learner.

Link to antenna:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i00

[elmo]

Installation in an attic - well, you've read all the warnings on that - so best thing is just to try it out. No one can really give a good estimate of reception where it's not externally mounted. You're not too far out and have good LOS to a pile of stations, so that's in your favor. Start out at 315 and tweak it from there. Rescan for OTA channels on your TV and check out the signal strength of each w/your TV's diagnostic screen.

As for joining antennas with a reversed splitter, yeah, not a good idea. But now, you mention an HTPC. With that setup, say you have a dual tuner dual input HD Homerun, you can hook each antenna to it and let your HTPC manage the collection of channels from both. That's what I do.

As for the 8-way splitter, each connection should be terminated at least. Even better is to just split to the # of TV's you need to feed, so a good 2 way would be best. That way, you have less signal loss to deal with.

As for an amp, IMO, don't bother yet. Try what you get w/o it and then add if needed. You can check your signal levels with your TV's diagnostic screen to see what's coming in weak. Typically you'd like to see 70% or better.

Make sure the coax you're using is idle, as you can use it if it stills provides you internet.

Here is easier then HDHomeRun.

http://www.epvision.com.

http://www.channelmasterstore.com.

[GroundUrMast]

Originally Posted by teleview

Here is easier then HDHomeRun.

http://www.epvision.com.

http://www.channelmasterstore.com.

For someone with limited PC interest or experience, you're probably right.

For someone with an existing PC and/or the interest, the HDHR is far more flexible and has an excellent reputation in the HTPC community.