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Old 18-Jan-2012, 12:04 PM   #1
Badfish740
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Stack vs. Long Boom in fringe area with obstructions?

I am in Northwest NJ and would like to be able to receive both NYC and Philadelphia TV. Here is my TV Fool report:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...67d9bf91f35bdc

As you can see, NYC TV is a longshot. This is partially due to distance and partially due to a small ridge 3 miles to our east, directly in the path of the NYC transmissions. We are in a small valley at 400' elevation and the top of the ridge is 800' elevation. Tough as it might be to get good reception, as a die hard Giants fan I would be remiss if I didn't at least try The Philadelphia channels should be easier because the terrain to the south is flat and low, but we're still 48+ miles from the towers. I guess I would classify us as "fringe" in terms of Philly TV but "deep fringe" in terms of NYC due to the obstructions. Because of this I have been looking at large long boom antennas like the Winegard HD8200U. I have no problem putting a 14' long antenna on my roof (I am going to mount a 10' mast on top of my 22' chimney for a total height of 32'), but my wife might Basically I'm wondering if a shorter (70" or so) stacked antenna would do what I need just as well as a long boom while looking less obtrusive. If not, long boom it is-just wondering. I plan to add a mast mounted pre-amp, rotator (to be able to aim at both sets of towers), and possibly a distribution amp if needed for the furthest of the three TVs supplied by the antenna. Any recommendations?
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Old 18-Jan-2012, 4:48 PM   #2
GroundUrMast
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Lacking local knowledge of the NYC market, I presume WNYW-Fox is the primary focus at the moment. If I've got that right, then;

I'd expect you to need every bit of gain you can find... the Antennas Direct 91XG, Winegard HD9032 & HD9095 fit that description. The excellent VHF performance of the HD8200 is noted, but you get three to four dB less UHF gain compared to the three UHF antennas listed.

On paper, there's enough signal in the air to have reasonable hope for success. You'll need to be ready to experiment with mounting height and location. In deep fringe applications, moving a few inches can be quite significant.

The Antennas Direct CPA-18 and CPA-19 have lower noise-figure specifications than their brand name competitors. The Kitztech line of amplifiers are even better. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=905

It's possible too, that you could find yourself considering a dual or quad stack of these large antennas. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=1024
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Last edited by GroundUrMast; 18-Jan-2012 at 6:09 PM. Reason: HD8200 UHF performance & Correct call sign error
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Old 18-Jan-2012, 5:37 PM   #3
Badfish740
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GroundUrMast View Post
Lacking local knowledge of the NYC market, I presume WNYC-Fox is the primary focus at the moment. If I've got that right, then
I think you mean WNYW-5 (In the New York market it's channel 5 on cable and satellite), buried way down in the grey area. Other NYC priority channels would be WNBC-4 (slightly higher on the list than WNYW), WCBS-2 (higher still), and finally WABC-7 which seems to be the most receivable of all. This is convenient since its the local news we watch already. If I can pull that in without a problem consistently that will be half the battle. The Philadelphia channels seem like they'll come in with no problem. There is of course a Philadelphia Fox affiliate (WXTF-29) so I could try to tune into that on Sundays as well if the Giants are playing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GroundUrMast View Post
I'd expect you to need every bit of gain you can find... the Antennas Direct 91XG, Winegard HD9032 & HD9095 fit that description. The excellent VHF performance of the HD8200 is noted, but you get three to four dB less UHF gain compared to the three UHF antennas listed.
Ok, bear with me as I'm new at this. So the HD8200U will do fine with the VHF stations but not so great with the UHF stations. UHF is of course important to me since both Fox affiliates are UHF. The price is right on all three as are the dimensions. The only issue I see now is the fact that I would still need a VHF antenna capable of both High and Low VHF in order to pick up the other "low hanging fruit" (WABC-7 NY and WPVI-6 PHL)-what do you recommend for that?

Quote:
Originally Posted by GroundUrMast View Post
The Antennas Direct CPA-18 and CPA-19 have lower noise-figure specifications than their brand name competitors. The Kitztech line of amplifiers are even better. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=905
Thanks for the info-I will check those out.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GroundUrMast View Post
It's possible too, that you could find yourself considering a dual or quad stack of these large antennas. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=1024
So you're saying that to get optimal reception I might need to stack two UHF antennas to increase their gain AND stack two VHF antennas as well? That will be a interesting one to try to sell to the wife Here's a crazy idea-what if I stacked two HD8200Us?
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Old 18-Jan-2012, 6:57 PM   #4
GroundUrMast
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1) Thanks for catching the typo. I've edited the earlier post to indicate WNYW. So your list of NYC priority stations by call sign and real channel number are:
WNYW - 44
WNBC - 28
WCBS - 33
WABC-7
and from Philadelphia, WXTF - 42. I presume anything else is desirable, just not at the top of the list.

2) The HD8200 is going to do well with real UHF channels listed on your report down to the bottom of the section with red background. As the NM values turn negative, it becomes more likely that you'll have trouble with reliable reception. As I look at WNYW with a predicted NM of -10.6 I add the gain of the HD8200, about 12 dB, I get a net NM of +1 to +2 dB that can be delivered to the preamp. The noise figure of the preamp is about 2 dB, which subtracts from the net NM. So you'd be left with a net NM at the preamp output of 0 plus or minus a dB or two. If your net NM at the preamp output was 10 dB or higher, you'd hope to have fairly reliable reception, a NM of 0 dB is the lowest theoretical value that an excellent tuner will lock on... but there is no provision for noise, interference or fading. The larger UHF only antennas give you a little margin but it's not going to be 10 or more dB as I would like to aim for.

Even though there is more noise to contend with in the low VHF band, the HD8200 should see WPVI. I don't expect you to see WPXO or WKOB though.

3) Avoid cheap noisy amplifiers, you don't have any noise margin to waste.

4) Presuming you use 1/4 wave length transmission line sections to do the combining and matching, stacking/ganging for gain will make a broadband antenna into a somewhat tuned, narrow band antenna.

stacking/ganging to null adjacent and co-channel interference is easier to do without as much narrowing of the useful bandwidth of the antenna if you use a reversed hybrid splitter. The loss of the splitter will leave you with slightly less net gain than one lone antenna.

Bottom line, stacking/ganging an all channel antenna would be a waste of a whole lot of bandwidth in the majority of cases.
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Old 19-Jan-2012, 7:21 PM   #5
Badfish740
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Originally Posted by GroundUrMast View Post
Bottom line, stacking/ganging an all channel antenna would be a waste of a whole lot of bandwidth in the majority of cases.
Thanks very much for the info-with regard to your last point, I got the following suggestion from someone and I was curious to hear what you and others think of it:

Construct a single mast with the following antennas(starting from the bottom):

VHF Low - Antennacraft Y5-2-6 - Fixed below the rotor aimed at WPVI

VHF High - Winegard YA-171 - On rotor

UHF - Two Antennas Direct 91XGs - On rotor

The VHF stations are all in the green or red range and should be easily pulled in by this setup. Still, I need all the gain I can get in order to try to reliably bring in WNYW and other NY stations. Will combining the 91XGs get me there? Should they be stacked or mounted side by side? I've seen both configurations but don't know the pros and cons of each. Finally, how much spacing will the VHF Low, VHF High, and UHF antennas need and what would I be looking at for total mast height assuming that the lowest antenna (the Antennacraft Y5-2-6) is mounted 30' AGL?
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