Ranch TV

[Ranch TV]

We live in southern Maine close to the NH border. We have ten television sets in our home. The feed originally came from Comcast into a mechanical room and then onto a distribution system and distributed through out the house to the various televisions.

We got fed-up with Comcast’s fees and pulled the plug. The next day we went out and bought an inexpensive “Leaf” antenna and mounted it with push pins to the exterior wall about 6’ off the ground and hooked up to where we had un-plugged Comcast. We were quite surprised that we could receive nine channels.

As an experiment I slid three 10’ pieces of 4” PVC drainage pipe together and mounted the “Leaf” antenna to the top of the pipe and tipped the assembly vertical. The antenna came with a small amplifier and I hooked it up with an extension cord and tie-wrapped it to the pipe. Covered it all up with a plastic bag. We received 19 channels (some would come and go when the wind swayed the pipe).





I experimented turning the pipe slightly and found that a small rotation would get me the channels from the Portland Maine area and turning it in the other direction would bring in the stations from Boston and Manchester, NH areas. I could not find a happy medium where I could receive both areas well.

I salvaged a quite rugged 30’ long tapered steel parking lot light pole from a job that I worked on and I am now in the process of attaching an additional 20’ of 2” steel pipe to the top. The steel antenna mast will be mounted to a concrete pier that extends 3’ above grade. The top of my finished antenna mast will be 53’ above grade.

The tower will be located about 300’ from the house. I have a 1” PVC conduit that will run underground from the mechanical space in the house where Comcast used to terminate to the base of the antenna pole where there is a small junction box that is accessible near the base of the antenna.

With ten televisions an antenna rotor is out of the question.

Here is where we need some help.

What antenna would you recommend?

I have read up a bit on a Gray-Hoverman Colinear antenna and think that I have the skill to build one; would that be a good option assuming that I can correctly construct one?

Is there a way to hook up two antennas with one pointed towards the Maine stations and the other pointed towards Boston/Manchester?

What cable should I run between the house and the tower?

There is space in the junction box at the base of the tower for an amplifier; would this be something that I should consider doing?

Would like to receive the major stations from three metropolitan areas; Boston, MA, Manchester, NH and Portland ME. Some of those include the following:

• PBS
o WENH – New Hampshire
o WMEA - Maine
o WGBH - Boston
• ABC
o WMTW – Maine
o WMUR – New Hampshire
o WCVB – Boston
• NBC
o WCSH - Maine
o WHDH – Boston
• CBS
o WGME – Maine
o WBZ – Boston
• ION
o WPXG – New Hampshire
o WPBX – Boston
• Fox
o WFXT – Boston
• Independent
o WMFP – Boston
o WSBK – Boston
o WBIN – New Hampshire
o WYCN – New Hampshire
• CW
o WLVI - Boston
o WPXT – Maine


My location information is at:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...46ae9562eb1d67

and

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...46aef98ff2dc46

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[GroundUrMast]

The Gray-Hoverman can offer the performance needed... (there's a lot of caveats implied in the "...") The work done by the author of this page is quite impressive, http://clients.teksavvy.com/~nickm/gh_n_u_more_V.html

One fixed aim antenna can't provide a reliable solution that fulfills your 'want list'.

When looking at a 300' run, RG-11 comes to mind right away. You'll still need to carefully engineer the correct combination of preamplifier, (possibly) a line amplifier and a distribution amplifier.

Is there a way to hook up two antennas with one pointed towards the Maine stations and the other pointed towards Boston/Manchester?

Sure... But it can be expensive if you are going to try to reliably combine signals from the same bands (UHF in particular). Are you willing to consider building your own private cable TV head-end?

You could try passive filters from tinlee.com. Or, shift the incoming signal from an antenna to a channel that would be unique on your distribution system. Products such as the Holland HPH-860AD come to mind. You would need one for each real RF channel you wanted to insert onto your private system. With a price tag above $900 ea. this would be out of reach for most consumers.

If you are willing to compromise a little, there are other options...
http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=820
http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=2882


If I was in a situation similar to this, I'd start with two independently distributed antenna systems, both with an Antennas Direct DB8e + Antennacraft Y10713 + RCA TVPRAMP1R. I use HTPC technology and traditional TV sets, so the HomeWorx HW-150PVR (add a USB connected hard-drive and you have a PVR/DVR in addition to a the HD tuner) looks attractive as an axillary HD capable tuner for terminating a second antenna feed in a traditional TV set. (I might also consider using a CM-3410 at the antenna, particularly in the case of the H-VHF antenna with a fairly strong incoming real CH-11. That would require an enclosure to protect the 3410 from the weather.)

Please make and post 2 Tvfool reports at 25 feet and 40 feet at the location of the building where the 10 Tv's are at.

[Ranch TV]

GroundUrMast –

Thanks for responding to my questions. I am a general contractor and I understand wood, concrete and steel very good but your response lost me a bit.

I’ll hold on the Gray-Hoverman idea for now and the custom head end would be a last resort.

The suggestion to use RG11 is a good one and that should save about 4.5dB over the 300’ run to the house.

The Comcast feed came into our house via underground conduit from the street and entered into a small mechanical space at the very end of the home. From there I ran RG6 to a somewhat central distribution area in the basement (I actually ran a spare RG6 too). I ran RG6 to each TV throughout the house back to the distribution area. There I have a pair of Suttle SAM RFBA 38 that amplify and split the signal to the different TV’s. This worked OK with the Comcast signal. My intent was to have the new antenna feed connect to the existing RG6 where the Comcast feed was.

See if I correctly understood your suggestion of what you would do with regard to the antenna…

Mount a pair of DB8e’s, pair of Y10713’s on the antenna mast with one of each pointed towards the Boston/Manchester area and the other pair aimed towards Portland, Maine. At the antennas combine the respective antenna outputs into a pair of RCA TVPRAMP1R’s. From there use two RG11 cables to go down the mast and underground into the house. I have space in the bottom of the mast to house an amplifier there if the CM-3410 was needed.

Here is where I loose understanding. Once I have the twin RG11’s inside the house how do I distribute to the individual TV’s? I don’t understand how HTPC technology would apply to this scenario.

Teleview –

I would be glad to make and post reports for a location adjacent to the house but mounting the antenna there is not an option. Let me know if you had other thoughts and I'll run the new reports and post same.

[GroundUrMast]

Unless you have the interest in HTPC technology, there's not much point in discussing it. Thanks for staying with me on that 'trip though the weeds'. So we've settled on a dual antenna system... For the moment at least.

Yes, your summary of the dual antenna system sounds like you've got the idea. One set of DB8e + Y10713 + preamp aimed at one market, and another antenna array aimed at the other major market is the basic plan.

To use the system without adding the expense and complexity of cable TV head-end hardware, you need to cable a second feed to each TV that will have access to both markets. At each of of the TV's with a dual feed, you need an A/B switch or a second tuner connected to an AUX input or HDMI port.

Trying to mix the output of two UHF antennas or two VHF antennas aimed in different directions generally provides less reliable reception because the two will tend to 'fight' each other. It may be a poor analogy, but imagine two steering wheels, each operated independently, each connected to only one front wheel... Even if the drivers had the same idea of which direction to steer, they would rarely be in exact sync with each other. Tire life and fuel economy would suffer greatly. At a minimum, tuned filters would be needed to make each antenna the favored antenna for only the signals they would be aimed at. When there are lots of signals, you would need lots of filters. Filters are more expensive when they need to have low loss at the desired frequencies and then quickly transition to high loss at nearby frequencies.

[Ranch TV]

GroundUrMast -

It isn't that I don't have interest in HTPC technology I just don't understand how it works. Could you give me a primer?

[GroundUrMast]

Thanks for asking,

Quite simply, the difference between a TV and a PC has become less and less in recent years. A PC can be connected to a modern TV just as easily as a 'computer monitor'. The audio outputs from a PC can also be connected to an audio amplifier. HDMI is perhaps the easiest connection type to use, though older interface standards can be used if each device supports the desired standard.

In practice, a tuner device can be installed in a PC or the tuner can be connected to the PC via Ethernet.

Windows, MAC, Linux and other operating systems can be used to run several 'Media Center' applications that provide access to TV tuner, Blue-Ray, DVD, CD, local and web based video and audio, etc.

The HTPC can act as a recording device that can then serve the content to other PC's via Ethernet.

In my implementation, I've used the technology for two primary purposes. 1 - terminate a second, third or even fifth antenna so that I can view signals from various directions without using a rotator or expensive filter network or still more expensive active devices to combine the antennas. 2 - Record OTA TV to the hard drive of my PC for later viewing.

My tuners are made by SiliconDust and cost about $80 each. They connect to an antenna via a standard F-type coax fitting and on the other side, to my wired & wireless Ethernet LAN via a common 8 conductor (4-pair) CAT-5e patch cable. Any PC on my LAN can send commands to the tuners, and can receive data (the video, audio and on screen guide information) from the tuners. A wired Ethernet connection is more reliable than wireless when transferring video at up to 18 Mb/s per active channel.

One PC is connected to the TV in the living room. It's a direct connection using HDMI, so both video and audio are connected via the same cable. The TV screen is the 'monitor and speakers' for the PC. The TV antenna input is connected to the primary UHF + VHF antenna combination, which lets users who have no desire to use a PC access all but a few available channels. Switch the TV to HDMI input and you can use the PC to watch any internet content, any file on the LAN or local drive in the PC. This PC uses Linux, specifically Mythbuntu OS/Media Center.

Our Windows-7 PC and older XP box also can connect to the tuners and view live or recorded TV. I use my old XP box as a personal video recorder more often than any other machine.

Given the large number of TVs in your home, it may not be practical to dedicate a PC to each or some views would be resistant to learning/using the PC solution. So, would it satisfy the viewers in the home if some TVs had access to one market and other TVs had access to the other market? That would simplify the cabling needed for distributing multiple antenna feeds. Then, select TVs could have either a PC connected ans/or a second external tuner... in either case, allowing the TV access to both markets.

If you don't have CAT-5 or better data cabling installed, MoCA adapters provide an alternative. They convert wired Ethernet to RF that can be run over coax, giving you a means of getting an Ethernet connection to a TV location.

http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=13034
http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=13659

[Ranch TV]

GroundUrMast

Is there a possibility of either of the following options?

Option 1 - Could a PC be installed in a central location and then distribute signal to all TV’s via MoCA adapters? Is the PC able to send out all receivable channels at once?

Option 2 – Could multiple Notch Filters be used to block out the competing signals on each array? The antennas pointing towards Boston/Manchester have filters that block out the signals from Portland and vice-versa for the antennas pointed towards Portland?

[GroundUrMast]

Re. Option 1 - In the days of analog TV broadcasting, inexpensive modulators were common. You could take video and audio from any source and transmit it on an RF carrier into your cable system. Virtually every VCR had a modulator built in. So far, no consumer grade digital (ATSC/8VSB) modulators have come to market (Please, anyone, prove me wrong!). If an inexpensive ATSC modulator were available, you could re-broadcast the received data on your private cable system on channels that don't conflict with each other.

Generally, you need a PC at the TV to process the data from a tuner (internal or external to the PC, not the tuner in the TV) or file server. An increasing number of TVs have an Ethernet interface and browser software for web surfing, social media and perhaps streaming services such as Youtube, NetFlix, Hulu, etc. But I have yet to see any provide the software needed to directly display raw OTA data (formatted as an MPEG-2 stream, which is what comes out of the SiliconDust HDHR tuner or copy of same on disk) unless it arrives at the TV in the traditional OTA RF signal, through the TV's tuner.

The SiliconDust HDHR-Tech model (about $300 US / each) can stream to an unlimited number of destinations by using IP Multicast. Each recipient would still require a PC or equivalent hardware interface between the Internet/LAN Ethernet and HDMI port of the TV. You would need one HDHR-Tech for every two channels (the basic HDHR models have two independent tuners).



Re. Option 2 - The short answer is yes. tinlee.com is one of the few remaining vendors that cater to this sort of OTA television reception need at a price point somewhere between consumer and commercial/industrial. You may want to contact them to get an idea of what their approach to your 'want list' would look like.

[Ranch TV]

GroundUrMast

How did you learn all this stuff? Glad you did!

Would I need one Digital Modulator for the entire system or one for every channel that I want to receive or one for every TV?

Is this the type of unit you were thinking about?

http://www.techtoolsupply.com/Produc...FUyd4AodzlwAiw

or

http://www.rackmount-devices.com/mai...?page=014-6273

[rabbit73]

Originally Posted by Ranch TV

GroundUrMast

Is there a possibility of either of the following options?

Option 2 – Could multiple Notch Filters be used to block out the competing signals on each array? The antennas pointing towards Boston/Manchester have filters that block out the signals from Portland and vice-versa for the antennas pointed towards Portland?

More likely it would mostly be a bandpass filter for each desired channel. They would all be combined so that you would only need one coax to each tv without needing an A/B switch. This is the headend (MATV, CATV, or cable) concept that GroundUrMast mentioned.

http://www.tinlee.com/HeadendDiagram.php
http://www.tinlee.com/HeadendDiagramOnly.php

One of the problems with the A/B method is that each tv has to be able to add a channel after scan, otherwise you would have to rescan after changing to the other antenna. The two tuner method that GroundUrMast mentioned avoids that.

[GroundUrMast]

Originally Posted by Ranch TV

GroundUrMast

How did you learn all this stuff? Glad you did!

Would I need one Digital Modulator for the entire system or one for every channel that I want to receive or one for every TV?

Is this the type of unit you were thinking about?

http://www.techtoolsupply.com/Produc...FUyd4AodzlwAiw

or

http://www.rackmount-devices.com/mai...?page=014-6273

I'm just a retired phone guy... a bit more than a third of my career was spent serving TV and radio broadcasters, delivering broadcast quality private line services. Our crew also maintained several company base stations, including paging, pre-cell-phone mobile phone systems and internal company two-way radios. The last dozen or so years were spent installing and configuring routers and switches for Internet and private customer networks.

The links you've posted are the commercial equivalent of the SiliconDust tuner I mentioned. They are in essence TV tuners that output data or standard definition analog signal for re-modulation by a similar module. These are examples of what a cable company might use. You would need one demodulator for each channel + a modulator. You also need the mounting rack and power supply along with a multi-input combiner that would accept the signal from each modulator.

Here is an example of a cable system modulator unit, it does not use ATSC/8VSB format, but the QAM digital format common to cable TV networks. http://www.techtoolsupply.com/Produc...roductCode=PQM

This equipment requires some commercial grade test equipment to be able to accurately set signal levels. If not adjusted to within a few dB of the ideal level, there will be interference between channels. A system supporting a dozen channels could quickly cost $20,000 by the time you've purchased some used test gear and the various components.

[Ranch TV]

GroundUrMast and rabbit73 -

Thank you both for your suggestions.

GroundUrMast - I hope that you survived the severe weather that the west coats has been experiencing lately. It is in the mid 60's here today and quite sunny - go figure.

I took a bit of time and put some more thought into building my system. Rabbit73's suggestion to contact the folks at Tin Lee seems to be the best route for my application.

I am hoping that I can impose on you two and ask if you would take a look at a draft of what I am thinking on sending to the folks at Tin Lee. Your thoughts and comments sought and welcomed.

The bulk of the information is in letter format that can be found at
https://copy.com/sl61wjQ7Ff76

A sketch of my proposed system is at
https://copy.com/eJwXsncbuuNk

And a sketch of my amateur distribution system is at https://copy.com/oPhorAf8qZHh

I have added the security system cameras into the mix. The gizmo that may be the most difficult is the piece of equipment that will take the 8 video feeds and convert them to RF and shoot them all down one RG6 to a combiner.

I look forward to our next communication.