|
Thank you everyone for the guidance and information!
Here's where I'm at. I have decided on the Winegard 7698P. I looked carefully at Teleview's suggestion on the 7084P, and I believe he suggested that one because channels 2, 3, 5, and 6 are receivable. However, I don't care about those stations. I do, on the other hand, care about KCBS, which is at real channel 43 and which has a NM of -1db, so that one will be tricky. I felt the 7698P antenna was the better choice for getting me that channel because it gets a little more gain in that range. Am I missing anything?
I'm also inclined to get the Winegard 8700 preamp. GroundUrMast recommended The HDP-269; that seems to have less amplification, which concerns me given that we have a fairly large house and will be running at least 3 TVs potentially. Again, if I'm missing something, I'm open to being corrected!
Finally, I'm figuring out how to hook all this up, and I still have a couple questions:
1) We get Santa Ana winds. This is a biiiig antenna, and it will be mounted at the peak of my roof on a tripod. I'll be using the Ronard 911 tripod that was recommended and a 5' Winegard TB-0005 mast. Do I need guys to hold this in place, or is the tripod enough given that I'm only using a 5' mast?
2) Grounding. I have read some of GroundUrMast's excellent posts in other threads on grounding, but I still have a couple of questions. Here's the basic layout of my home:
* I have a ranch style home, and it is fairly long. The antenna will be located approximately in the center.
* My primary TV and HTPC is also located fairly close to the center of the home.
* My service panel and service panel grounding rod is at the far end of my home. Probably 30-40feet away (plus the 10' drop from the roof to the grounding rod).
As I understand it, I have three options:
a) Connect both the mast ground and the coax ground to the service panel grounding rod. The downside of this option is that, as I understand it, the coax cable itself needs to get pretty close (10' or so) to the grounding rod before I can connect the grounding block and run the coax ground. If so, then the coax cable will have to run 30-40 feet from the antenna toward the service panel, then another 30-40 feet back to the center of the house, and then another 20-25 feet through the walls, etc. to get to the TV. That's an awfully long cable run.
b) Install another grounding rod near the center of the house, so the mast ground and coax ground can be installed close to the antenna. The downside of this option is that, as I understand it, I will need to run 6AWG copper to connect this auxiliary grounding rod to the grounding rod at the service panel. That's a very long stretch of thick copper!
c) I REALLY REALLY hope there is a third option, which is that at the center of the house, I have a hosebib that sticks out of the exterior wall of my home and is presumably grounded to my home's plumbing system. My DirecTV installer used this as a ground when they installed DirecTV years ago. Can I simply connect my mast ground and coax ground to this, the same way the DirecTV guy did? Or, failing that, can I install a new ground rod at the center of the house (where the hosebib is), install the mast and coax grounds to that, and then connect the new ground rod to the hosebib instead of running 6AWG copper all the way to the service panel grounding rod?
3) Does the Ronard 911 come with tar pads or whatever is necessary to seal the penetration and avoid roof leaks, or do I have to buy that separately?
Thanks!
|