Foliage

[mikelessard]

I am 32 miles NE of the Atlanta towers as the crow flies and LOS for most stations. I have a Denny's HD Stacker with a Kitztech KT-500-COAX amp. I have 100' of clear in front of the antenna before it hits the woods. My issue is in the summer when the leaves are wet or the wind blows I get dropouts on some of the UHF channels. The performance of the Stacker is pretty awesome on VHF-hi, but very average on UHF. I was thinking about separating off the UHF antenna and and going with a either a AD 91XG style or a DB8 with a combiner. Which UHF style would do the best job to alleviate this issue?

[ADTech]

Your symptom is pretty normal and is generally expected. Changing the antenna to a different type won't be expected to fix it.

Prior discussions:

http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=15230
http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=15257
http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=16110
http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=8377

[rickbb]

Yep, a different antenna in the same location will yield the same results.

You have 2 options, cut the trees, or move the antenna out of their blockage path.

Higher, left, right or rarely lower, you may find a "sweet spot" that cuts down on the multipath effect enough to make those channels watchable. Sometimes even tilting the antenna up a few degrees can help. But all this involves lots and lots of trial and error.

And then many times it makes no difference at all if that wall of woods is wide and tall.

[mikelessard]

Thanks for the replies! Moving it or cutting trees is not an option. I had read somewhere the the DB8 (bowtie bay) style antennas negated that effect somewhat. I wanted to confirm that before I spent the money.