Greetings TmanXX,
Envious TVfool plot. Many have wished such easy reception chances.
This said, working Sacramento and Chico look like your main markets you can catch. San Francisco is likely out of reach.
Sacramento is a cool place for over the air broadcasts due to the geography. It's amazing you can be 120 miles from Sacramento up the I-5 Corridor and still have line of sight back to Sacto transmitters from the northern California foothills.
Anyhow, I digress.
If I were putting a system on, I'd use a two antenna system that would operate independently. The reasoning here is for Sacramento, you don't need much. An Antennacraft HBU11k will do everything and then some orientated to magnetic heading 190.
Now, Chico has opportunities for reception. However, Northern California has a lot of signals this is where adjacents and co-channels can become issues. Try listening to a weak radio station, Alice 97.3 from the Bay Area for example. Go 3 blocks and you may hear three different signals swapping over each other on the same frequency.
Chico's CBS, FOX and PBS are doable according to this map. Even the ABC might be fun to stick a Antennacraft Y10713 beam up to see if you can make 150 miles work. However, Chico's ABC, FOX and PBS report co-channel interference. Translation - there may be signal to receive from Chico, but there is signal from elsewhere that'll prevent you from decoding the Chico signal. Notably, KGO from the bay area is on Channel 7 as is Reno's NBC affiliate. Neither would likely decode for you, but could provide enough signal to keep KRCR from decoding *if* reception was possible.
The short story is with all this co-channel interference going on you may see most of Chico or you may only see CBS. You just have to stick something appropriate in the air to try.
As the antenna for Sac signals, the aforementioned HBU11 pointed at magnetic 190 is an excellent antenna for your signal situation.
Now, the Chico dedicated antenna system. Remember, this is a wildcard. Your expectations must be "let's see what I get." If you build a dedicated antenna system for Chico and expect reliable reception of all signals from up north, you'll likely be irritated and feel you wasted money. With all the co-channels mentioned above, we just can't predict what all those clashing signals will cause.
If I built this separate antenna system to *try* for the majority of Chico signals I would install a Antennas Direct DB8e for UHF orientated to magnetic heading 333. I would add the Antennacraft Y10713 for an attempt at KRCR ABC. Orientate the Y10713 to magnetic heading 318.
So, this is (3) antennas. Mount on your roof with DB8e on top of your 10' pole with both panels facing the same heading. 4' below on mast mount Y10713. Purchase Antennas Direct EU385CF antenna combiner. This combines two antennas into one coax. DB8e coax to UHF input, Y10713 coax to VHF into single lead down into home.
On a separate location on your roof, Mount HBU11k on J-Pole and orientate to magnetic heading 190. Run coax into home.
Both coaxes come inside and feed into an A/B switch. This allows you to toggle between signals and antenna systems. Run antenna feed to TV or distribution amplifier to other TVs.
It's complicated and it's much work, however to have a shot at those red signals from Chico, this is pretty much what I see it needing for you to have a chance.
Then again, you could go easy and just buy the HBU11k and mount it be plenty happy with Sac signals.
It's all how much effort you want to put into it and if you'd be irritated after installing the Chico system that you only added one or two channels.
It's up to you how "big" you want to go.
Cheers.
PS. None here advocate attic installations. They are prone to multipath and signal problems. Yes, you could likely install in the attic for Sac signals and have a moderate chance of success. Chico will not be received under any circumstance by an attic system. Your best solution is to always mount on the roof with no obstacles or foliage in your immediate pathway.
Last edited by StephanieS; 7-Aug-2014 at 11:06 AM.
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