We live in southern Maine close to the NH border. We have ten television sets in our home. The feed originally came from Comcast into a mechanical room and then onto a distribution system and distributed through out the house to the various televisions.
We got fed-up with Comcast’s fees and pulled the plug. The next day we went out and bought an inexpensive “Leaf” antenna and mounted it with push pins to the exterior wall about 6’ off the ground and hooked up to where we had un-plugged Comcast. We were quite surprised that we could receive nine channels.
As an experiment I slid three 10’ pieces of 4” PVC drainage pipe together and mounted the “Leaf” antenna to the top of the pipe and tipped the assembly vertical. The antenna came with a small amplifier and I hooked it up with an extension cord and tie-wrapped it to the pipe. Covered it all up with a plastic bag. We received 19 channels (some would come and go when the wind swayed the pipe).
I experimented turning the pipe slightly and found that a small rotation would get me the channels from the Portland Maine area and turning it in the other direction would bring in the stations from Boston and Manchester, NH areas. I could not find a happy medium where I could receive both areas well.
I salvaged a quite rugged 30’ long tapered steel parking lot light pole from a job that I worked on and I am now in the process of attaching an additional 20’ of 2” steel pipe to the top. The steel antenna mast will be mounted to a concrete pier that extends 3’ above grade. The top of my finished antenna mast will be 53’ above grade.
The tower will be located about 300’ from the house. I have a 1” PVC conduit that will run underground from the mechanical space in the house where Comcast used to terminate to the base of the antenna pole where there is a small junction box that is accessible near the base of the antenna.
With ten televisions an antenna rotor is out of the question.
Here is where we need some help.
What antenna would you recommend?
I have read up a bit on a Gray-Hoverman Colinear antenna and think that I have the skill to build one; would that be a good option assuming that I can correctly construct one?
Is there a way to hook up two antennas with one pointed towards the Maine stations and the other pointed towards Boston/Manchester?
What cable should I run between the house and the tower?
There is space in the junction box at the base of the tower for an amplifier; would this be something that I should consider doing?
Would like to receive the major stations from three metropolitan areas; Boston, MA, Manchester, NH and Portland ME. Some of those include the following:
• PBS
o WENH – New Hampshire
o WMEA - Maine
o WGBH - Boston
• ABC
o WMTW – Maine
o WMUR – New Hampshire
o WCVB – Boston
• NBC
o WCSH - Maine
o WHDH – Boston
• CBS
o WGME – Maine
o WBZ – Boston
• ION
o WPXG – New Hampshire
o WPBX – Boston
• Fox
o WFXT – Boston
• Independent
o WMFP – Boston
o WSBK – Boston
o WBIN – New Hampshire
o WYCN – New Hampshire
• CW
o WLVI - Boston
o WPXT – Maine
My location information is at:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...46ae9562eb1d67
and
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...46aef98ff2dc46
Thanks for any help you can offer.