Hello experts,
It has been a long time since I've tried to use the ol' rabbit ears, but I recently moved to an older home in Delray Beach, FL, (which is approximately 25 miles south of West Palm Beach and 45 miles north of Miami) and have decided to give cord-cutting a shot since Comcast wants me to shell out $$$ for all-new cabling before they'll let me have a box. The home was upgraded with a corrugated metal roof, which is great for hurricane protection, but terrible for indoor antenna reception. Thus begin my problems...
First, here's my map:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...d243a818aae652
and a similar thing from antennapoint, which really highlights the density of the two distributions:
http://antennapoint.com/antennas/sho...&commit=Search
I started out by testing an old (circa-2006) Radio Shack amplified indoor UHF/VHF antenna placed near the top of our peaked roof, about 12' above the ground. I borrowed this from my office in Fort Lauderdale, where we do a good deal of testing digital reception, so I know the antenna is in good working order. I was able to tune the FOX affiliate, both ION channels, WHDT, and a few others (my TV "found" 12 channels, but only 9 showed up in the list). I was not able to resolve any of the VHF signals at all, despite some serious acrobatics holding the antenna. At the suggestion of a friend, I next tried an amplified Mohu 50. This improved things a bit -- my TV now found 24 channels, and 16 showed up in the list. If I held really steady at one particularly awkward angle I could tune one VHF channel (the NBC affiliate), but in that contortion I didn't get any of the other stations -- I don't care what Mohu says, their antenna is definitely *not* omnidirectional, it's extremely picky about placement, at least in my house.
So, the Mohu went back and I am now looking at rooftop options. My problem is that being between two metro areas, there are two potential sources for me to focus on. All I really want are the four major stations (ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX), plus PBS. Based on the map, it initially seemed like my best bet was to get a directional antenna and point toward the northerly stations in West Palm Beach:
NBC @ 312 deg, 12.3 miles away
FOX @ 304 deg, 13.2 miles away
PBS @ 304 deg, 13.2 miles away
CBS @ 313 deg, 12.1 miles away
The trouble is that there are two ABC options, neither of which are great:
ABC (WPBF) @ 336 deg, 49.6 miles away
ABC (WPLG) @ 195 deg, 35.8 miles away
So it seems like I have a couple of potential options with regard to roof-mounted antennas:
- Get an amplified omnidirectional antenna like the Mohu MH-110585 Sky 60, LAVA OmniPro HD-8008 or Winegard MS-2002, and hope that it's good enough to grab one of those far-away ABC signals,
- Get a long-range unidirectional antenna like the RCA ANT751, Lava HD-2605 Ultra, Antennas Direct C2-V-CJM ClearStream 2-V or Channel Master CM-4228HD and point it somewhere between 304 and 336 degrees (probably aiming more toward the 336 since the signal comes from further away) and hope that I get can pull ABC while still getting the other stations, or
- Get two unidirectional antennas, point one between 304 and 313 degrees, and another at 195 degrees, and then set up some kind of bandpass filter or something so I can combine the two into one signal to go into my one TV tuner
- Ignore all of the closer, West Palm-based stations and just point a single long-range directional antenna toward the bulk of the Miami stations, between 191 and 196 degrees (all between 35-40 miles away)
One thing I really DO NOT want to do is rely on a motorized antenna. We are quite close to the water, and outside electrics don't hold up long in the salt air, no matter how rugged they claim to be. Plus, the thought of having to explain yet another remote to my wife and kids is... undesirable.
So my to the RF experts out there are:
1) Which of the options above (if any) are most likely to work? What would you recommend?
2) Do multidirectional antennas actually work?
3) Based on my map, there's no need for an antenna that gets the VHF low band, right? The lowest channel that I might possibly be interested in tuning is listed as 7
Thanks so much!