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Originally Posted by fishguy
It is a large roof antenna with 6-8 foot horizontal length. The elements have a series of long lengths on the main piece and two sets that angle slightly upward and downward on what I will call the tail end. For this type of antenna, I have never been sure what end to point toward the transmitters for digital reception.
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The long elements should be at the "back" of the antenna and the short elements should be at the "front" (pointing toward the transmitters). The angled pieces above and below the boom form a "V" shape. The open mouth of the "V" should be pointed toward the transmitters.
Those elements in the "V" are signal reflectors. If you imagine the signals coming toward you over the horizon, the open end of the "V" helps the antenna "catch" more of the signal.
A 6-8 foot boom length is what I would consider to be a "medium" size antenna and should be good enough for your situation (assuming nothing is broken). Let's think about how we might diagnose why it's not working reliably...
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I think I have the RG6 cable.
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Good. RG6 is usually about 1/4 inch in diameter. You might also be able to find the cable type printed on the outer jacket of the coax.
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I am splitting the signal to three tv's.
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Splitting the signal will cause signal levels to drop a little. If this is the case, it may be worth considering a slightly larger antenna or adding a pre-amp near the antenna.
On a good day, are you getting all of the top six stations of your tvfool report?
It almost sounds like your current setup is near the borderline of working. On some days, there might be enough signal fluctuation (e.g., from stormy weather, trees, seasonal changes, atmospheric effects, and other natural variations) to cause you to lose channels that are too close to the edge. If that is the case, a larger antenna and/or pre-amp can help.
As an experiment, can you try connecting the antenna directly to just one TV (take the splitter out of the path completely) and see if the channels become any more stable?
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I am confident that the antenna is not moving, it just looses the signal strength on these channels to the NE 50-65 miles out.
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If you have the correct end of the antenna pointed at a compass heading of about 63 degrees, there should be no reason to move it.
You might be experiencing the rise and fall of the signal strength that happens naturally in the real-world. Effects such as "tropospheric enhancement" (due to changes in temperature and humidity in the air) can cause radio waves to "bend" over the horizon better during certain times of the day. In many places, on an average day, TV signals can travel further during the evening/early morning hours than they can during the middle of the day. This might be on top of other effects that are influencing your signals (e.g., leaves being off the trees, snow/rain on the ground, etc.).
Again, if you had a bigger antenna and/or a pre-amp, you would have a larger signal strength "buffer" that would allow you to enjoy uninterrupted TV reception in spite of the natural signal fluctuations. Your signal margin might be too low right now, and that would explain why you actually see the channel drop-outs from time-to-time.
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One thing I forgot to mention was I have a large wind tower field between me and the transmitter towers. Before digital conversion (analog), I heard people were having reception issues closer to the field. Would these electricity generating towers create the inconsistancy in the digital signal as well? I never had signal problems with the analog broadcasts. The tower field lays 15 miles NE of my location.
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The generators in the wind power field do create electrical noise, but at 15 miles distance, it should not be enough to impact your TV reception. I wouldn't worry about it.
Please do try the test of directly feeding just one TV. If things do get noticeably more stable, then I'd say your problem is simply that you're too close to the edge of working.
The 3-way or 4-way splitter is probably dropping your signal levels by about 8 dB. Feeding just one TV means the signal will be that much stronger, and another 8 dB of margin is significant. 8-10 dB of extra margin is usually enough to mask 99% of the signal fluctuations that might occur.