Help in selecting Antenna
 

New to selection guidelines and this site.

Have Ranch, with 20' Fireplace Chimney, facing south, unobstructed. (north of Detroit, MI about 20 Miles)

Considering the Wineguard HD7696P, DB2 or DB4, but do not have enough experience to make accurate choice.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Analysis Tool http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...1da952cc24d250

Hello and welcome!

The HD7696P is your better bet because you have one local VHF station (WJBK, ch 7). The DB2 and DB4 are good UHF antennas, but they do not work well for VHF.

If you want to get the more distant VHF stations like WTOL and WTVG, you will probably need to go with the bigger version of the antenna (HD7697P or HD7698P) and have it mounted on your roof. Your local stations are too strong for any amps to handle, so you will need to rely on the gain in the antenna itself to get you the signal you need from the more distant stations.

If the distant stations don't matter to you, then the smaller antenna sizes will do.

WFUM is located in a different direction than most of the other transmitters. If your antenna is pointed at the main cluster of transmitters to the south-west, WFUM might be too far off-axis to be picked up well (the antenna beam widths are between 30 and 60 degrees depending on gain, higher gain = tighter beam width). You might get lucky with it sneaking into the "side" of the antenna, but then again, it might not. If you really want to ensure solid reception on that channel, you will probably need an antenna rotator.

VHF vs UHF Antenna
 

Thanks for your help. I am attempting to resurect an existing antenna, and add UHF antenna. Reason; understand majority of DTV and HDTV channels are UHF.

Your tvfool report tells you exactly which VHF and UHF stations are in your area. If you take a look at the rectangular graph at the bottom of your report, it shows how all the channels are occupied. The horizontal axis is the channel number (2-69) and the vertical axis is the relative signal strength.

Your report is showing no channels in the low-VHF band, a couple of channels (WJBK and CBET) in high-VHF, and the rest in UHF. In order to get WJBK and CBET, you'll need to make sure your antenna setup includes high VHF capabilities (either using a combo antenna or combining separate VHF/UHF antennas).

The HD769xP family of antennas is designed for channels 7-69, which covers all the channels in your area. That is why they top the list of recommended antennas for your situation.

New vs old antenna attic vs outside
 

Analysis Tool: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...1da952cc24d250

Would I receive more channels by installing this older antenna outside, and or would a new antenna bring in more channels to make it worth the cost?

I have older antenna found in attic: used 300 - 75 ohm balen's to UHF/VHF combiner, to RG6 to set. Now receiving 8 channels, 4 of which in HD. The older antenna is typical christmas tree design (no name), with longer rods on one end, narrowing to flat type atenne on opposite end. second antenna has two circular rods, one smaller, and long single rod, with rods that flatten at the ends.

Help to decide to use old or buy new antenna
 

Would I receive significantly more channels by installing this older antenna outside, and or would a new antenna bring in more channels to make it worth the cost?

I have older antenna found in attic: used 300 - 75 ohm balen's to UHF/VHF combiner, to RG6 to set. Now receiving 8 channels, 4 of which in HD. The older antenna is typical christmas tree design (no name), with longer rods on one end, narrowing to flat type atenne on opposite end. Second antenna has two circular rods, one smaller, and long single rod, with rods that flatten at the ends. This antenna is mounted in Attic, which I could move outside, and gain approx. 10' in elevation.

Looking at my analysis tool, I beleive I should reasonably be able to receive approx. close to # 25-30 channels, excluding all other complications(interference, tight connections, etc.)

Analysis Tool: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...1da952cc24d250

What you need is an antenna capable of receiving both VHF (2-13) and UHF (14-69) channels since you have some of each. If your older antenna is in good shape and designed for both frequency bands, then it should work fine. The laws of physics haven't changed, and TV signals are still being broadcast on the same frequencies as before, so any antenna that worked well before should still work well today (assuming it's not broken or missing any elements).

Moving antenna up (attic or rooftop) usually helps make things better. In most cases, the higher up you go, the less stuff the signals need to pass through (e.g., walls, bushes, trees, cars, neighbors' houses, etc.). By the time you get the antenna up on the roof, the signal is usually clear of most obstructions, and you have the best chance of getting a clean signal into your receiver.

In other words, the higher up you go, the better chance you have at picking up some of the weaker stations.



I'm not quite sure exactly what it is that you have, but is sounds like you're talking about a UHF/VHF combo antenna (christmas tree design) plus a small VHF-only yagi (set of rods). And it also sounds like they are being combined through a 2-way splitter/combiner. Do you have any pictures?

If the "christmas tree" antenna is truly a combo antenna (handles both UHF and VHF), then you probably don't actually need the other antenna. The long elements at the "back" of the antenna should do a good job of picking up VHF channels, and the shorter elements at the "front" of the antenna should be good for picking up UHF stations. There should be a small flattened loop roughly in the middle of the antenna that is connected to the balun.

If the combo antenna has more long elements than the number of rods in your second antenna, then I suspect that the combo antenna would actually perform better at VHF than the other antenna. You may actually be better off just using the combo antenna and disconnecting the other antenna from the setup (no splitter either).



You have several strong local channels coming from Detroit (most of the channels in the "green zone" on your tvfool list).

With a good antenna, you should be able to get channels further down the list in the "yellow zone" (attic antenna) or "red zone" (rooftop antenna). However, please realize that most of these other stations are analog Canadian broadcasts. The US shut down all of its major analog broadcasts on June 12, 2009. The Canadians are not scheduled for their complete transition to digital broadcasts until August 31, 2011. With analog broadcasts, you will only get standard definition pictures, and you won't have any extra sub-channel options (i.e., x.1, x.2, x.3, etc.).

Furthermore, many of these weaker stations are coming from different directions. This means that you'll need to point your antenna in different directions to get some of them. If you are interested in getting most of these weaker stations, you'll need to install an antenna rotator so that you can re-aim the antenna to get the stations you want.

If this sounds like something you'd like to do, then let us know and we can offer some suggestions.