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Old 25-Oct-2010, 9:48 PM   #2
GroundUrMast
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Greater Seattle Area
Posts: 4,773
It's not uncommon for the cable company to disconnect the drop at the pole. Even if you were to find unencrypted channels on the cable, I doubt they would be in HD. Also, more and more cable companies are encrypting all of their channels for various reasons that benefit their interests.

Much of the OTA programing is in HD, so I choose to go to some effort and one time expense to make use of it.

I seriously doubt an omni antenna will reliably receive any but the top three stations listed in your report.

You may want to re-run your report using the highest practical height above ground that you could mount an antenna. I used the ZIP for your general area and found that the available RX power at 20' AGL was about 4 dB higher, which is significant.

Some folks are more inclined to recommend rotors than I am. I find a rotor to be a little bit inconvenient. In your case I would offer two options.

1.) No rotor. A High-Band VHF like a YA 1713 http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp...u=615798304867 aimed at 311° true (to rx the PBS affiliate on CH 8)
A Large, high gain UHF like a HD9032 http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp...0Antennas&sku=
or 91XG http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp...u=853748001910 aimed between 249° and 211°

This option may not provide the CBS feed and has little chance of getting CW.

2.) The same antenna combination as above but with a rotor. This would give you a good chance at the CW and much better chance at CBS.

With either option I would use a mast mount pre-amp like a CM7777 http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp...ku=02057207774 to combine the VHF and UHF antennas.
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If the well is dry and you don't see rain on the horizon, you'll need to dig the hole deeper. (If the antenna can't get the job done, an amp won't fix it.)

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Last edited by GroundUrMast; 25-Oct-2010 at 10:05 PM. Reason: typo
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