Antenna Advice for Central PA
 

Hello.
Looking for advice, recommendations, etc. for an antenna at the following location:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d243ddc0cb88aa

Ideally I'll take down the dish the previous owner left and mount an antenna in its place.

I'm brand new to this so grateful for any and all help.

Thanks in advance.

What stations/channels do you want? You are in the middle of the transmitters for your market area, so knowing what stations you want will help people recommend what you need.
If you want ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS this is easy.
If you want Fox, CW, and/or the independent (MeTV + religious programing) WGCB, in addition to the above, this is not so easy.


Where is the mount for your satellite dish on your house? The satellite dish would have needed a clear view of the southern sky. Your area needs to aim for channels to the North West, the south, and the east.

Your TV fool plot does not show what height it was generated at. Could you post a plot at the height of your current satellite mount, 25’, (guess how high this would be) 12’ above the peak of your roof, and 40’?

Thank you for reply. Here's the additional info. requested:

Stations -- need to get the big broadcast stations: ABC, NBC (either one), CBS, PBS, Fox. CW would be nice, but not critical. Others I don't care about.

Dish mount - as you suggest, it is mounted on the south end of my house on the west corner, with a clear view of the sky.

TV Fool plots you suggested:

1. Current satellite mount (roughly 20 feet)
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d243e3a30bdd32

2. 12 feet above peak (roughly 57 feet)
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d2438e18144930

3. 40 feet above ground
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d2430a4f08b928

One last point - sky around our house is pretty much unobstructed (no trees, etc), but there are some big hills in most directions maybe a two miles away.

Thanks again. I'm grateful for your advice.

If I lived where you live, I would put a 5’ tripod on the roof, with a 10’ length of chain-link-fence top rail cut so the total height above the roof was 12’. I would get a HBU11 and aim it at 313 degrees true. If I needed to feed multiple TV’s, I would use a distribution amp. From the 57’ TV fool plot I do not think a preamp is called for.

The 57’ plot has very good conditions for everything but WLYH CW, RF23. With conditions like that a small antenna will get CBS, PBS, ABC, NCB (RF 49) easily from the front. Fox is a strong signal so a small antenna should pull it in from the back. (A larger antenna would have a better front to back ratio, so it would get less signal from the back.)

I am not sure if that would work at 20’. At 20’ WHTM is a 1 edge path. The area around you has nasty multi path problems. With a strong main signal from a LOS path multi path is less of a problem. At 57’ I would expect less multi path problems than at 20’.