I was heistant to buy the ANT751 since I am 30 miles from my towers and every single channel I can receive (except for one) is 2Edge: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d243a1803bb42a

But I took a chance and mounted an ANT751 in my attic @ about 22 feet. The only stations that give me any kind of grief at all are RCH2 (60%) and RCH6 (86%). Technically, I should really struggle with both of these since they are lo-VHF but that little antenna has done me right! :)

All other channels (all UHF) come in at 95% - 100%.

John

Which begs the obvious suggestion to try it above the roof. Between attenuation and multipath inside the attic, and being so close to reliable even though it's not made for such long wavelengths, outdoors just might nail it down.

I'd try a CS 600 antenna for 2 and 6. Add it to your ANT 751 using a HLSJ or UVSJ. The HLSJ would add only the two and six signals. The UVSJ would use the VHF section of the CS 600 for channels 7-13 instead of the ANT 751.

Update:

Turns out I had to sacrifice WFTY, GetTV, in order to pull in WTNH
and WZME. Again, WTNH is VHF, so it's nice to get an old CT mainstay.
Still have artifacts on MeTV but I'll have to live with that for now. Went
on the roof AGAIN yesterday to fix but I screwed up my Hartford reception,
as WFSB now suffers occasional artifacts that didn't happen before.

Once I stopped pointing the second array less south I killed GetTV and Escape.
The GOOD thing is those stupid shopping channels are gone.

Kinda wondering if pointing the arrays higher than the horizon line will improve
reception? See, there's that annoying hill to the west ...

Thanks again!

It's amazing what a couple of degrees can do,strange things occur with the antennas one night bout a month ago, I was tinkering around in the attic still trying to pull in channel 3 wfsb, during the rescan I managed to grab 55 channels and I ended up getting channel 2 cbs out of NYC which is 83 miles away as oppose to WFSB which is only 36 miles away. I had spanish channels, asian channels, gov /edu channels, multiple, pbs, this and get tvs,stations. I have no idea how I was able to grab all those, it was around 7 at night, leaves still on the trees only 25 feet up or so inside the attic.

I had to kinda postpone my project a bit and wait til the spring to mount the antenna, couple of things came up. So for now I have it just up in the attic and still have cable.

You using a preamp, if so what model? I had a titan 2 high gain from amazon and did not notice any difference in the signal meter when it was attached and when it wasnt attached, so I sent it back.

I think this may have been atmospheric / tropo last night due to the wind storm (assuming you had the same?). I live in north-central Vermont and was able to almost get a lock on a couple of Montreal stations (75 miles away) with a cheezy indoor Zenith ZHDTV1 UHF antenna last evening around 7-8pm. I'd be curious to know if you're still able to pick up those NYC stations today, and if so, which ones - I'd like to see the TVFool report to compare to my future reality for when I move further north this weekend :)

KBEX: An RCA TVPRAMP1R preamp. I followed Stephanie's post to the letter.

Where are you? I think Canadianeh has a point, an odd situation similar to the days
when Connecticut AM stations could pick up Ohio or further west during storms.

Now, we've had this setup for three months and it's been pretty good. I like to let
things sit and see how they work before tinkering. Now I'm considering an amp to
improve signal pull as some of our stations are still weak: WZME has been tried in
different positions and as the pros here have argued, TV signals like to move around
a bit. So some nights are good and some nights not so much. Last night, Svengoolie
came in at 30% strength and less. Again, our problem is that we're in a fringe
location situation exacerbated by being between two ridges with lots of trees. WFSB
and two others come in at 80 - 85%, so I need to tweak the signals of the weaker
stations without overpowering the stronger.

What to do? Thanks!

Consider that an increase in signal strength does not automatically translate into an increase in signal quality. Most TV tuners that provide a 'signal strength' indicator are actually reporting some expression of the digital error rate which can be made worse if distortion and noise from an amplifier is added.

Amplifiers depend on a relatively clean signal from the antenna... The amplifiers job is to 'push' a stronger copy of that signal through the losses in cable and splitters down stream. Amplifiers can not/do not 'pull' signal from the antenna or air.

G: Thanks, makes good sense. Any ideas?

My standard fall back position is that reliable reception starts with the antenna, it location and aim.

The active electronic parts of a good quality tuner should generate relatively little noise... Which means that a consumer grade preamplifier is not likely to improve the overall noise margin of the complete system if 50' or less cable is used to connect the antenna to one TV. So, the following test is useful when trying to decide if an amplifier can improve reception at the TV or not. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=13646

But, if the antenna, test coax and tuner can not produce reliable reception during the test just mentioned, one needs to be open to the possibility that the antenna may not have the needed gain or directivity, and/or, the location or aim needs to be changed. It's also possible that some source of interference is present... In some cases filters such as FM traps or equivalent devices tuned to other frequency ranges may help... But if the interference is from another station operating on the same frequency, no filter will help because it would also block the desired station's signal.

Once you have proven that you have a reliable signal at the antenna terminals it's time to turn your attention toward getting that signal to the TVs... That task may or may not require the aid of amplification.

G: Thanks for that. Methinks that while good TV reception is a sub-noble pursuit,
I treasure my neck more. I'll put up with the scratches and dings for awhile before
I attempt to replace it. It's great just to have "60 Minutes" and "Frontline" again!