Tv q's
 

I think I am in the right place if not can someone tell me where to post thanks.
I am somewhat new to this antenna thing. So one of my first questions is how much NM is going to be lost with building penetration, cable loss, splitters, tuner sensitivity. Are there any other things that could reduce the NM? If so what are they and how much would they reduce the NM? Also can someone explain in more detail the difference between amped, pre amped and non amp? here is my signal result. http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d243a0c1735074
At this point I only have a amazon fire and wd media player for tv.
Because I am renting I am not able to put a antenna on the roof so I am only considering indoor models. the general direction that all my signals are coming from is east. there are another set of condos 20ft from mine, and all of the condos are two story that sits over the garage(including mine). so if I would get better reception putting the antenna in the second floor window(than the first floor) and running it down to the first floor I am more than willing to do that(because the wiring is already there). I do not care about spanish channels, government channels. I do care about the following 19 myn, 34 cw, 32 fox, 7 abc, 35 cbs, 43 ion, 9 nbc. Thanks in advance

You can build multiple cheap or no cost fractal antennas and gang or stack them to get all directions; I built 2 of these one with stripped RG6 soldered , one with coat hangers all screwed together both worked the same. 1 should be enough to get the channels you listed for multiple tv sets. Here is a youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDBaOiYu6CZ and the attached is the template works as good if not better than any store bought antenna; just put it in any east or north-east facing position on the second floor in window preferably; but any placement should get you 35 miles away. Easily you should get all the channels you want from your map plot
As for pre-amp/amped gain in my personal opinion for indoor antennas is a marketing ploy just like HDTV all antennas will pick up HDTV; thou if buying amped antenna will help with weak channels and you want high gain DBi low noise NF.
the amazon fire and wd media player for tv? Do they have ATSC and 8VSB modulation in them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8VSB

So for the antenna is the template you provided going to be better than just straight v's coming off the two by four? Also do you think a reflector screen is going to help me any as seen in some YouTube videos?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jh3M931WUU

The Amazon fire and we media player do not have Atsc or 8vsb. They just let me stream shows from the web.

I like the size of the fractal and had no problems pulling in vhf and uhf with it without adding a VHF antenna. Thou there are only 1-vhf, 3-hi-vhf, 15-uhf in a 45 mile radius and that was pointing in the middle of 2 towers over a large body of water in a dead zone.

Why do you think you are able to get those vhf channels with out a vhf antenna? And do you think I might be able to get more channels if the antenna had more "fractals"?(if that is even a word. lol)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GctH...GGmQjg&index=2

I think this cause I built one and got VHF channels, I built a 4 element and an 8 element(stars) and both picked up the same channels the 8 elements helped with the vhf little bit, but I had the VHF with the 4 just not as strong. have you tried it yet?

I am in the process of building the one in the YouTube video. And depending what that one gets, I might build the other one to compare.

I was looking yesterday and was thinking of building the stealth hawk it an large antenna, best used outdoors but from what I read its one of the best to use for bi-directional reception. https://imageshack.us/user/jmsdigital

I'm not one to discourage you from building your own antenna... That said,

I've seen simple indoor antennas such as the RCA ANT-111 offered at the big box home center for about $10. You can easily spend much more than that building your own antenna if you don't have materials laying around.

I'd suggest you try a basic store bought antenna and if needed, a factory built cable to allow you to locate the antenna near a window or any other location that proves to have reliable reception.

To address some of your original questions:

Building penetration loss can vary from single digit to more than 30 dB. The effect on NM is more complex than simple attenuation... Building materials can cause reflections and there are almost always sources of RF interference in a home. These along with the simple reduction in signal level can produce NM reductions that are still greater.

Amplifiers are useful for overcoming loss in cable and splitters, and in some cases, overcoming a poor noise figure in the tuner. Amplifiers do not 'pull' signal from the air, antenna or coax. Amplifiers can only 'push' a copy of what they are fed. So if an amplifier is fed a poor quality signal, it will 'push' a larger version of the low quality signal down the line, just like a water pump will push dirty water if it's supplied that. Amplifiers can be overloaded... If that happens, the output signal will be less usable, perhaps unusable. In your case, the signals shown on your TV Fool report are fairly strong... enough to recommend against using any sort of amplifier (for fear of overloading problems).

The ideal location for an amplifier is at the antenna, before the loss caused by cables and splitters. Preamplifiers are almost always built as two separate units, an outdoor amplifier that can be located at the antenna (in the weather) and a power supply unit that can be located indoors, near an outlet. The power is coupled into the coax run between the indoor and outdoor units.

When signal levels at the antenna are relatively high and there is a long run of cable to the splitter, a distribution amplifier may be appropriate. Most DA's are intended for indoor mounting. Good quality DA's generally can tolerate strong signal levels at their input, but like any amplifier, can be overloaded if the levels are too high.

Antennas with built-in amplification vary in quality... I avoid them. I would rather start with a good antenna that can produce high quality signals at it's terminals ('high quality' is not the same as 'high strength'), then depending on the need, add the appropriate accessories to deliver that hard won signal to the tuner(s).

so I finally got a chance to put in the homemade antenna, and I am more than shocked at the reception I am getting on most of the channels. I thank you all for your help, and have one last question. So I know that if I use an amplifier with the one antenna I have now I will most likely lose some of the closer stations. I am wondering what would happen if I had two antennas one with a amplifier and one with out, would I still lose the closer stations? Would it fix the skipping that is on one or two channels? The two antennas would be hooked up to the same tv through the cable. thanks again

Adding two antennas on a single downlead may work, or it may not. Whatever you have on the two antennas, you will have the sum of that on the single lead. If one antenna is noisy or has bad multipath on one channel but the other antenna receives that station clearly, you will have the combination on the single downlead, not the better of the two. If the two signals are out of phase, they will interfere. If they are in-phase, they will add. Any noise or interference on either antenna will always be present. Unless you build an antenna that is specifically designed as an array, the results will be unpredictable.

This does not hold for combining UHF and VHF, because they are on widely separated frequencies and do not add. The tuner will filter out the frequency that it is receiving, and discard the rest.

What you can do reliably is to put each antenna on a separate lead, and switch between them. A/B switches are available, or you can use a tuner for each lead and switch between those. You can get really fancy with many antennas, tuners, a HTPC that can time shift your programs and record from multiple tuners at once, and so forth.

Not necessarily, but keep in mind that the primary function of a preamp is to overcome transmission lines losses.

See if you can add channels manually. Many televisions can do this, even when it is not documented in the manual. Pick a receivable station that is not on your channel list, point your antenna at it and enter the real channel number on your remote. You may have to add a hyphen or period to tell the television that you are trying to tune a digital channel. Don't be surprised if you see nothing initially, since most modern televisions don't show a picture unless a usable signal is present.