I have found this journey into OTA to be fun and enlightening. However, I am having reception problems with a few stations (most importantly WALA). During the day they are weak; during the night unwatchable. I believe the problem is elevation. I rechecked my antenna. It is level front to back and side to side. I checked alignment with a magnetic compass and it is pointed to 99 deg. (my iphone 4's compass app. was within 1 deg
). According to Google terrain maps the hill behind my house is about 10 ft. higher than ground level at my house and not 5 ft. The neighbor's yard behind me also slopes uphill from there. Hopefully the following pics will help.
In the radaredit pic you can see the trajectory of the broadcast towers from Mobile/ Pensacola. They go right through the trees, fence and shed. However the south side of my home looks like the best place for the antenna because any further north makes the trajectory of the towers go through the trees more (which are larger than when that satellite photo was taken) until you get to the extremes of my yard which would add cable length and complicate grounding. (Sorry for the poor quality. I took a pic of my computer screen because I could not figure out how to save it from Google).
In the picture006edit pic you can see the antenna install and where I would like to put the roof mount tripod. You may or may not be able to make out the cable and ground wires due to the size limitations of this site.
In the picture007edit pic you can see the RCA ANT751 mounted to the old Directv mount. Hopefully I did OK.
In the picture008edit pic you can see the large hill behind my house and where the antenna is pointed.
In the picture009edit pic you can see the front of my house and the desired roof mount tripod location. These are the only 2 gables on my home and I don't want an antenna there.
In the picture011edit pic you can see the rear of my house and that the antenna is at my eye level when standing just in front of the shed. You can also see the desired roof mount tripod location.
The reason I am thinking of going roof mount is:
1. My current set up is not working.
2. From what I understand any telescoping or regular mast must be guyed 10 ft. above the last bracket and my eave would only get that bracket about 9 ft. off of the ground. I do not wish to do guy wires.
My thought is to do a tripod roof mount (3 ft. from Denny's antenna sales on-line?) with a 10 ft. mast and my RCA ANT 751.
Questions:
1. Any problems with this or better ideas to get signal?
2. The RCA splitter I mentioned earlier (no model #); is this OK or can you recommend one to replace it to be safe?
3. How do I run the cable and ground wire? After being secured to the mast do they just lay on the shingles until they get to the eave and from there through a stand off? Should they be kept together or separated?
4. What kind of acrylic sealant and/ or silicon grease should be applied to terminals and connections; and how should it be applied?
5. On the Denny's antenna sales site there is a comment stating that the 3 ft. tripod is the most common, but it also states that it will not line up with the roof trusses. Any explanations or experience with this mount? Should I get the 5 ft. model?
I have read the mentioned primers on antenna install and grounding and found no answers to these.
Thank you all in advance.