South of Montreal (Saint-Hubert)

[nocable]

Father-in-law is happy with the new antenna at his cabin. So we're going to see what we can get at the house.

Found an RCA-751 on Kijiji for $10. Read on here they're good for pulling in local signals.

Also bought a Digiwave ANT-7287. 8 bay, multidirectional. Wondering what I can do with these to get the best results.

[GroundUrMast]

The signals shown on this TV Fool report are strong... the gain of an 8-bay panel antenna is not needed & it would be a UHF only antenna. On the other hand, the ANT-751 is a very good fit with this TVFR. I would point it at about 140° (compass) and expect to see most if not all the local CA signals as well as many US signals.

[nocable]

Originally Posted by GroundUrMast

The signals shown on this TV Fool report are strong... the gain of an 8-bay panel antenna is not needed & it would be a UHF only antenna. On the other hand, the ANT-751 is a very good fit with this TVFR. I would point it at about 140° (compass) and expect to see most if not all the local CA signals as well as many US signals.

OK I'll put the RCA antenna at 140 and report back.

But I'd really like to use the digiwave to see if I can't pick up some additional UHF stations. Can I put the RCA and the digiwave both on the same chimney? I don't have an official "mast" for the digiwave antenna. I plan on using a 6'x1.25" metal pole fastened to the chimney.

The digiwave antenna I bought has two separate panels that can be aimed in different directions. Each panel has its own coaxial cable and there's a small signal joiner to join the two cables. I was thinking I could aim the two panels in separate directions and instead of joining the signal at the antenna bring down two separate coaxial feeds into a simple switch. Then adjust each side separately. Would this work?

[GroundUrMast]

The Digiwave should outperform the UHF capability of the ANT-751. Given your willingness to use a switch, yes, multiple antennas may well offer access to some of the weak signals that a single fixed aim antenna would miss.

The only possible 'down-side' I can think of is that some TVs lack the ability to 'Add-Scan'... if that's true in you case, you may find yourself needing to do a full rescan to take full advantage of an antenna when you switch to it. Our primary TV does have the ability to scan to learn new channels without forgetting existing channels... one of the bedroom TVs is not so well designed and will forget past scans each time it's told to scan for new channels.

The ANT-751 and the Digiwave should be 'OK' mounted on a 6' pole/mast. You want no less than 3' separation... more is better.

[nocable]

Originally Posted by GroundUrMast

The ANT-751 and the Digiwave should be 'OK' mounted on a 6' pole/mast. You want no less than 3' separation... more is better.

Putting both antennas on my chimney might be a problem then. I will need a longer pole and I'm worried about the sheer stress this would put on the brick. I started another thread on how I can set a mast on a concrete footing.

I did try mounting the RCA ANT-751 on the front of the shed. There's a decent LOS at 140" but it's only about 12' high and there are houses to the left and right. All I got were a few local channels. (No pre-amp, RG6 coaxial, iView tuner)

2.1, 6.1, 12.1, 15.1, 15.2, 17.1 (CIVM-HD), 35.1.


Funny enough, when I had my homemade bow-tie antenna mounted in the same place (front of the shed), I was able to pick up NBC, CBS and PBS.

I did try scanning the channels manually. The iView shows the signal strength with colored dots. I listed them below. But it would not allow me to save or select any of the channels that had a signal to see if there was a picture.

Anyway next step is to figure out how to install an antenna mast so I can put up the digiwave and get the RCA a little higher.


7, 3 dots
8, 4 dots
9, 3 dots
10, 17 dots
11, 3 dots
12, 16 dots
13, 1 dot
14, 4 dots
15, 13 dots
16, 2 dots
18, 2 dots
19, 21 dots
21, 20 dots
22, 8 dots
26, 14-15 dots
27, 0-1 dot
29, 1 dot
32, 2 dots
34, 3 dots
35, 9 dots
46, 1 dot
56, 6 dots