help me dump cable NW of Chicago
 

Hi -
We live 60 miles NW of Chicago. Would like to get Milwaukee channels too if possible. Antenna would be roughly 20 ft off the ground, would like to feed 4 tv's but would settle for 2. Toward Milwaukee is relatively clear but toward Chicago we have a fair amount of trees. Here's our info:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...da326be889e3be

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

Something like a Winegard 7084HD coupled with a pre amp like the Winegard 8275 would probably allow you to get every channel on that list down to WIFR TV 41. You will need a rotor unless you want to install two separate fixed antennas pointed towards Chicago and Milwaukee.

My suggestion would be the HD7698P with an AP8700 preamp.

That would also work provided that he is not interested in the VHF Low stations that show up on his report.

Tv Antennas and Reception
 

A rotor , one antenna and one Tv works well , the person that has the remote controls what to watch. Having one antenna and a rotor connected to more then one Tv is a source of conflict of what Tv stations to point the antenna at. The best way to do it is have two antennas , one antenna points at Chicago and the other antenna points at Milwaukee. From each antenna a coax cable goes to a location where 2 four way splitters are at , it is best to locate the 4 way splitters at a place where there is power for the preamps and it is easyer to run the coax in pairs from each splitter to the Tv locations. At each Tv location is a Remote control A/B switch so the Tv watchers can switch antennas with out moving from the chair. . Or you can put up one antenna point it at Chicago or Miwaukee and be happy with that.

WOCK-CD on channel 4 with a NM of 7.1 is unlikely to be received. TVfool does not add low band noise to the calculation, resulting in optimistic low band reception expectations.

Tower Guy. I have not had any experience receiving VHF Low Digital signals. In other words , what you are saying is the noise floor on channels 2 to 6 is different than on channels 7 to 13? And that you need a higher NM on these lower band channels when compared to VHF Hi in order to receive them? Is that correct?

I am getting a pretty solid picture on a Channel 7 here with a NM of about plus 3.5. I only get dropouts when it gets really windy or some kind of weird atmospheric conditions crops up and then I lose it for a few minutes.

Yes, in practice the noise floor on VHF-low is higher than for VHF-high.

Yes, the FCC added 4 db of noise for low band when they calculated the DTV table of assignments.

The actual amount of noise varies considerably. In a commercial environment channel 2 can have 29 db added noise. Also, according to the data in the MSTV DTV report, channel 6 has 6 db less noise than channel 2 in all environments.

http://www.mstv.org/docs/techinfo.pdf

Thank you so much for your advice. Would anyone have a recommendation for a rotator that would work well with the HD7698 and an AP 8700 pre amp?


Thanks again!

Tv Antennas and Reception
 

Here are 2 Tv antenna rotors. http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=460 , http://www.channelmasterstore.com/An...ators_s/33.htm