Antenna suggestions

[SoTired]

Hello,

I am interested in a rooftop antenna. I have a ranch home in North Tustin, California. Here is my TVFool report at 20 feet: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...46ae1c9ef9891a

My home is currently wired for DirecTV. We are preparing to cut the cord (but keep the RG6!).

I would like to install it myself. I have a chimney for a fireplace that we never use, and I think the chimney would be the simplest install point. I am interested in feedback on that though (please keep in mind that we NEVER use the fireplace).

I have three TVs in the house. I could tolerate having the OTA go only to my main TV, however, and limit the other TVs to whatever content we can get streaming over the web.

I realize there are stations to the NW and to the SE (in San Diego). I would prefer not to have two antennas, as I understand I would have to send them to two inputs on my TV. I could make do that way if I had to, but for a variety of reasons, switching between inputs would be a hassle.

I would appreciate any recommendations you can offer on antennas, mounting options and equipment, and anything else you might suggest.

[SoTired]

A little more info. Here is a picture from my rooftop. The LA stations are in the direction of the group of palm trees that is at the right 1/3 of the photo.

[GroundUrMast]

I would focus on the LA signals. San Diego reception may be possible but would be more of a DX enthusiast project.

Given the terrain north and west of your location, you'll want to consider using a high performance antenna or combination of antennas.

A Winegard HD7698P paired with an HDP-269 preamp is an obvious choice.

An Antennas Direct 91XG, Antennacraft Y10713 and 10G221 are not overkill either.

Any reasonable effort to mount high and clear of obstructions is warranted.

[Stereocraig]

Mounting to the chimney, will subject the antenna and it's connections to heat/ cool cycles, moisture and/ or creosote, birds perching on the elements and stress on the mortar joints.

[SoTired]

Originally Posted by Stereocraig

Mounting to the chimney, will subject the antenna and it's connections to heat/ cool cycles, moisture and/ or creosote, birds perching on the elements and stress on the mortar joints.

Thanks, guys!

On the chimney issue, given that we do not ever use the fireplace, how will it subject the antenna to heat/cool cycles, moisture, and creosote? I'm not quite following.

As for birds perching, will they not perch on the antenna unless it is mounted to a chimney? Sorry if these are stupid questions, but this is all new to me.

I understand the stress on the mortar joints, but the others were a bit confusing.

[Stereocraig]

My statement was a generic response, that applies to most situations.
Birds are more likely to perch, if there's heat.
Falling bricks is the most serious of the problems and trumps all others.

The best solution, is to not do any of these things and you won't need to worry.

The chimney is a Ok place to install a antenna , here are some chimney antenna mounts.
Measure the chimney and install a , ronard(2212) , ronard(2218) , ronard(2224).
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Looks like the land rises higher past the palm trees.

Recommend install a antenna above Peak Of Roof to get a little more antenna height.

Here is a above the roof antenna mount.

http://www.ronard.com/909911.html.
Use the ronard. ronard(911). 5 foot antenna mount.

Buy the ronard antenna mounts at solidsignal by typing , ronard(x) , in the solidsignal search box or buy from ronard.

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Here are some places to buy antennas and etc. .

http://www.solidsignal.com.

http://www.amazon.com.

http://www.winegarddirect.com.

http://www.ronard.com.

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The Digital Broadcast Tv stations/channels are Weak Signal Strength at your location.

Recommend install a Big All Channel Antenna.

Install a Winegard HD7084P All Channel Antenna aimed at about 321 degree magnetic compass direction.

Here is how to aim antennas , http://www.kyes.com/antenna/pointing/pointing.html.

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Install a Winegard AP8700 preamp.

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For 1 Tv connected use no splitter.

For 2 Tv's connected use a , HFS-2D , 2 way splitter.

For 3 Tv's connected use a , HFS-3D , 3 way splitter.

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Some Digital Tv's will Automatic channel scan for cable tv channels.

DO NOT channel scan for cable tv channels.

Go into the Tv Setup Menu and select 'Air Channels' or 'Antenna Channels.

Scan for channels.

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Some satellite systems will accept and distribute Broadcast Tv stations/channels via the satellite system hardware passive and active componets.

And some satellite systems Will Not.
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To avoid situations/problems with connecting the antenna system up.

I recommend discontinue satellite service.

And Disconnect and Remove remove All passive and active satellite system componets such as and not limited to , multi-plexers , multi-switches , splitter , combiners , amplifiers , power injectors , powers supplies , and etc. .

-->YES the satellite system coaxes and other coaxes that are in/on the house can be used for the Broadcast Tv antenna system.

[SoTired]

Thank you everyone for the guidance and information!

Here's where I'm at. I have decided on the Winegard 7698P. I looked carefully at Teleview's suggestion on the 7084P, and I believe he suggested that one because channels 2, 3, 5, and 6 are receivable. However, I don't care about those stations. I do, on the other hand, care about KCBS, which is at real channel 43 and which has a NM of -1db, so that one will be tricky. I felt the 7698P antenna was the better choice for getting me that channel because it gets a little more gain in that range. Am I missing anything?

I'm also inclined to get the Winegard 8700 preamp. GroundUrMast recommended The HDP-269; that seems to have less amplification, which concerns me given that we have a fairly large house and will be running at least 3 TVs potentially. Again, if I'm missing something, I'm open to being corrected!

Finally, I'm figuring out how to hook all this up, and I still have a couple questions:

1) We get Santa Ana winds. This is a biiiig antenna, and it will be mounted at the peak of my roof on a tripod. I'll be using the Ronard 911 tripod that was recommended and a 5' Winegard TB-0005 mast. Do I need guys to hold this in place, or is the tripod enough given that I'm only using a 5' mast?

2) Grounding. I have read some of GroundUrMast's excellent posts in other threads on grounding, but I still have a couple of questions. Here's the basic layout of my home:
* I have a ranch style home, and it is fairly long. The antenna will be located approximately in the center.
* My primary TV and HTPC is also located fairly close to the center of the home.
* My service panel and service panel grounding rod is at the far end of my home. Probably 30-40feet away (plus the 10' drop from the roof to the grounding rod).

As I understand it, I have three options:

a) Connect both the mast ground and the coax ground to the service panel grounding rod. The downside of this option is that, as I understand it, the coax cable itself needs to get pretty close (10' or so) to the grounding rod before I can connect the grounding block and run the coax ground. If so, then the coax cable will have to run 30-40 feet from the antenna toward the service panel, then another 30-40 feet back to the center of the house, and then another 20-25 feet through the walls, etc. to get to the TV. That's an awfully long cable run.

b) Install another grounding rod near the center of the house, so the mast ground and coax ground can be installed close to the antenna. The downside of this option is that, as I understand it, I will need to run 6AWG copper to connect this auxiliary grounding rod to the grounding rod at the service panel. That's a very long stretch of thick copper!

c) I REALLY REALLY hope there is a third option, which is that at the center of the house, I have a hosebib that sticks out of the exterior wall of my home and is presumably grounded to my home's plumbing system. My DirecTV installer used this as a ground when they installed DirecTV years ago. Can I simply connect my mast ground and coax ground to this, the same way the DirecTV guy did? Or, failing that, can I install a new ground rod at the center of the house (where the hosebib is), install the mast and coax grounds to that, and then connect the new ground rod to the hosebib instead of running 6AWG copper all the way to the service panel grounding rod?

3) Does the Ronard 911 come with tar pads or whatever is necessary to seal the penetration and avoid roof leaks, or do I have to buy that separately?

Thanks!

[GroundUrMast]

Re. amplifiers, I tend to favor those that are capable of handling strong signals without overloading. The 8700 is better than some amplifiers in this regard but the HDP-269 is significantly better. If you have strong signals from police, fire, or commercial services, the high input capability may be needed even though your TV Fool report does not show many strong TV signals. To calculate how much gain you need, add up the total length of coax from the antenna to the one TV served by the longest run of coax. Budget 6 dB / 100' of RG-6 and then add the splitter loss (4 dB for a 2-way, 8 dB for a 4-way or 12 dB for an 8-way). In other words, 14 dB of amplification is all you need to drive a 100' run of coax with a 4-way splitter in line. In addition to the amplifier gain, don't forget the gain of the antenna... this makes the 12 dB gain of the HDP-269 sufficient for more applications than may be apparent at first glance.

Re. Grounding, I'm reluctant to suggest or endorse the option you've listed as 'c)'. If you where to take a 'hit', I don't think it's best to route the fault current through your home's plumbing on it's way to the ground provided by your electrical service ground rod and connection to the neutral conductor of the electrical service grid. I would much rather invite / encourage that current to remain outside the building. Options 'a)' & 'b)' may have a one time cost, but they are reasonable efforts that minimize the chance that fault current would enter the home. It sound like option 'b)' is the best in your situation.

[SoTired]

Thank you! One more question on grounding:

Everything I am reading says that the mast ground must be connected to a ground rod, but the coax ground can be connected to a water pipe as long as the pipe enters the ground within 5' of the connection. If I understand this right, this would allow me to send the mast ground along the roof to the end of the house where the service panel grounding rod is (which would be simple enough, even though it is a bit far), but ground the coax at the center of the house on the plumbing pipe so I don't have a 100' long coax run to the service panel and back. Is there a problem with this approach?

[SoTired]

OK, one more crazy idea on grounding -- tell me if I am off base here.

Let's say I put in a grounding rod at the center of the house, and I run the coax ground and the mast ground to that rod. (Which was option b.) Except, instead of running 6AWG wire to the service panel grounding rod in order to bond them, can I just run 6AWG wire to the plumbing pipe, which I know runs under the house and is connected to the service panel grounding rod anyway? In other words, is there some advantage to running a separate 6AWG wire to bond the two grounding rods, or is it sufficient that both rods are bonded by virtue of being attached to the plumbing?

The reason I'm focused on this is that it will be a pain in the neck to run 6AWG from a grounding rod at the middle of the house all the way to the service panel grounding rod. I'm not concerned about the expense; rather, there isn't any convenient way to get it there. The entire area is a bricked patio, so I couldn't bury the 6AWG. I also can't run it above ground because there are doors, etc, and we can't just have the wire dangling in front of the doors. I do suppose it would be possible to run the 6AWG back up to the roof, then across the roof to the other end of the house, then down to the service panel ground; would that work?

[GroundUrMast]

OK... I now understand the trouble with getting a #6 bonding conductor around the house. That makes your option 'b)' impractical.

I'm still not a fan of using plumbing as a bonding conductor between two ground rods. In the very unlikely event of a lighting strike, I don't want to have encouraged you to route the fault current through your home.

That leaves me with one option I can endorse, run the mast ground to the existing electrical service ground rod... keeping the ground conductor outside the building. Mount a coax grounding block close to the existing electrical service ground, outside. Run the antenna down-lead on the outside of the building, to the coax grounding block, after which the coax can enter the building. This approach avoids the error of building a path for fault current into or through the building.

Another reason I'm so reluctant about using the plumbing is, I have no idea if it's got plastic now or will have in the future due to remodel or repair.

If needed, preamp gain can overcome the additional loss in the added length of coax.

[SoTired]

Thanks! I understand that's the conservative approach. As it happens, it's probably also the easiest approach to wire up. As long as the signal gets through, though, it's all good.

If the signal doesn't hold up, I suppose I can throw an amplifier into the system as well as the preamp.

[SoTired]

I have ordered everything and will try to hook it all up this weekend. However, I don't think I ever figured out whether the Ronard 911 has the tar pads that go beneath the feet, or whether I need to order those separately. Does anyone know? I shot an e-mail to solidsignal, but didn't get an answer.

http://www.ronard.com

[SoTired]

Install got delayed until this coming weekend, as I am still awaiting delivery of the tripod and mast. I already have the Winegard 7698P and the 8700 preamp. In the meanwhile, I have a new wrinkle to run by you.

It turns out that my previous measurements were way off. The distance from my antenna position to my service panel is 96 feet. Which means:

a) I will now have a really long ground going from the mast to the grounding rod -- nearly 100 feet. Is that a problem?

b) My coax run is now going to be about 90 feet until the grounding block, and then another 90 feet or so back to the TV. So that's a 180' coax run between the antenna and the TV. Keep in mind that my TV fool report shows pretty weak signals to begin with. I do have the Winegard 8700 preamp; is that going to be sufficient to get me an acceptable signal? Or do I need to re-think my layout? In the photos, my service panel is on the side of the house as the offending Palm trees and the broadcast towers I plan to locate the antenna as close to the opposite end of the house as possible so as to give some additional separation from the trees, but would I be better off moving the antenna closer to the service panel so that we can shorten the coax?

c) If I keep the long coax run, then should I add a distribution amplifier to the system given that I'm going to be sending the signal to three TVs?

[GroundUrMast]

The mast to ground rod length is not a problem. But avoid sharp bends.

the AP8700 is spec'd at 19 dB gain (UHF). 200' of RG-6 will have about 12 dB loss (max). You have some gain left to drive a splitter and some more coax. Try this with no distribution amp... If needed, it's easy to insert it into the system just before the splitter. If you prove the need, the CM-3410 would be my recommendation.

[SoTired]

Thanks! I'll give it a shot and report back.

[SoTired]

I'm reporting back on my progress.

I have installed the antenna -- it was a bigger project than I expected. Assembly was not that difficult, but I have a very steep roof at the peak, so standing up there while we worked was unpleasant and made it take much longer than it should have.

Initially, I brought a small TV outside to measure. We got ABC and CBS strong, and NBC and FOX were sketchy. We got a couple independent stations as well. No CW, unfortunately.

Last weekend, we ran the wiring through the attic and connected the antenna to the main TV in our living room. Initially, we had slightly better luck getting consistent signals from San Diego, so we turned the antenna that way. That was consistent with what one of our neighbors had said (reception was better from San Diego). CBS and ABC were still good, but FOX and NBC were intermittent and pixelated to the point of being unwatchable.

Today we turned the antenna back to LA. Right now, we're getting pretty good reception overall. Here are the SNR readings in Windows Media Center through our Hauppauge 2250:

Channel Network SNR
43 (2.1) KCBS 20.5
36 (4.1) KNBC 17
7 (7.1) KABC 19.5
8 (8) KFMB 21
9 (9.1) KCAL 22
10 (10.1) KGTV 19
11 (11.1) KTTV 18
38 (30.1) KPXN 22

In addition to these, we also get a few Spanish stations and a shopping network. A few curious observations:

1) Even with the antenna turned toward LA, we still get the San Diego CBS and ABC stations just as strong as the LA CBS and ABC stations. Ironically, the signal strength on these San Diego stations is just as strong as it was when the antenna was turned toward SD.

2) We can't get CW to save our life. Not even a little bit. The TVFool report suggests that the signal should be much stronger on CW than many other stations that are much farther down the list, but we don't even get a hint of it. Which is too bad, because we like that channel.

3) We have had occasional pixilation watching Sunday Night Football on NBC tonight, but it's rare and tolerable. Much better than when we were trying to pick up NBC in San Diego.

4) We haven't watched the other channels enough to say how often they will cut out. Also, today is a perfectly clear day (although we get a lot of those in Orange County). We'll keep watching.

So far, we've been doing all of this with a single TV and no splitter. Next weekend I may install the splitter and run cable to the other rooms. I'll report back as we get additional info

I do have one question: The Windows Media Center signal strength indicator shows six out of six bars for all of the above channels, even though we occasionally get pixilation on NBC. Does the fact that we're getting 6/6 bars mean that I should be able to insert a 4-way splitter without an additional amplifier (I already have a preamplifier in the path)?

[GroundUrMast]

Given the terrain between you and the LA transmitters and the distance to San Diego, it sound like you're off to a good start. My next step re. CW reception would be experimentation with antenna height and location.

I would try adding a passive 4-way splitter. If you see an observable reduction in reliable reception, then add a CM-3410 between the antenna and splitter.