C2V not quite enough

[gawellman]

Signal analysis here.

The stations I care about are the ones at 93 and 97 degrees azimuth.

With a C2V attached to the side of my home (facing the towers; up near the eaves), I'm getting excellent signal (90+ percent signal strength/quality on HDHomerun tuners) on 5, 11, 29, 38 (virt 38), and 49.

22 and 27 (both are to my local ABC affiliate) are weak, with 65% strength and 50% quality. Actual picture flips in and out intermittently.

I'm planning to replace the C2V with a DB4e to improve the UHF situation. Looking for help on a VHF antenna to add to the mix. Wall-mountability is key, preferably everything on a 40" J-mount.

Alternatively, wondering whether I could add (hack in) the "ClearStream™ 2 VHF Reflector Assembly" to the DB4e somehow (not a standard practice, I know). Or maybe some sort of DIY dipole?

Help! Thanks.

[GroundUrMast]

I own a DB4e and am throughly impressed and satisfied with it's UHF capability. BUT... Antenna location is often the most important single factor. The right antenna, mounted in a location with poor signal conditions is going to fail to perform well. Have you tried alternate locations? No point spending more money until you have exhausted the possibility that there is a good location for the C2-V

As long as you are getting reliable reception with the VHF dipole of the C2-V ('reflector' per the AD marketing dept. ), I would suggest you stick with it. As long as you can work out a reliable mounting method for the dipole, it can be combined with any UHF antenna by simply using the UHF/VHF combiner.

The HDHR "Signal Quality" measurement is by far the most important parameter to optimize. "Signal Strength" is irrelevant if the signal is of poor quality.

[tomfoolery]

From the pictures in the instructions for the C2V kit, it looks easy enough to canabalize your existing antenna for its dipole, balun, and combiner, but that would ruin a perfectly good and respected antenna.

If you're going to buy the DB4e anyway, I'd try it alone and see what it does with VHF. I ordered a DB4e for my attic, ran the cable (75 ft or more of RG6), and since the cable was there, I dangled a dipole set to the lowest VHF channel I have here, and bam! 100% on both channels. UHF channels also come in in the 90+% range, with the one distant channel at 75% with occasional dropouts. I switched to a tiny UHF single bowtie (no reflector) I have laying around, and now I have 100% on all the local channels, including VHF, and 90% on the distant channel I'm trying to get.

Point is, if the signal is strong enough, the 'wrong' antenna can still work, presumably by brute force. At least in my experience.

The DB4e suposedly has some VHF gain, though low-VHF is probably out of reach, but you may get acceptable signals with it alone. If not, maybe you could put both on the same mast, and disconnect the UHF portion from the combiner and put the new DB4e into it instead. Worth experimenting a bit, I would think.

Makes me wish I had experimented more before ordering the DB4e, but now that the house is wired and the antenna is on the way, I'll install it and go for even more distant channels, and see what I can get. If I have to, I'll combine the indoor dipole with it for the two local VHF stations, but somehow I rather doubt that will be necessary.

[gawellman]

I wound up purchasing a DB4e and a C2 VHF reflector kit. With the dipole/balun/combiner repurposed and installed on the DB4e, I now have a "DB4e-V" that's working well. I'm pulling channels 5, 11, 27, and 38 (major networks) along with a host of others. Thanks for the help!

[ADTech]

Yep, that's a common enough "upgrade" that I did up a tech tip sheet last year that covers this one. It's never made it to the website, but it gets emailed out all the time.

FWIW, we should have a "universal" version of the VHF dipole kit that will clip onto the reflector screen of our loop and bowtie antennas out sometime Q1 next year. It will make this a very simple upgrade for short to medium high-VHF needs.

[tomfoolery]

Originally Posted by ADTech

FWIW, we should have a "universal" version of the VHF dipole kit that will clip onto the reflector screen of our loop and bowtie antennas out sometime Q1 next year. It will make this a very simple upgrade for short to medium high-VHF needs.

I'd be interested in such a kit. Over time, I've found that ABC (real 13) is weak or dirty enough that even though it shows 92% or so most of the time, I'm getting dropouts for no apparent reason using only the DB4e. The other VHF station is fine at 100%.

I could add my loose rabbit ear dipole, but by the time I buy and ship a combiner (or pay $14 including NYS tax at Radio Shack), I'm more than halfway to the price of a kit, and my dipole isn't outdoor capable anyway, and would just be hanging from the twin lead or stabbed into a rafter.