OTA antenna info

[powersmo]

Hi everyone. I am looking to cut the cable company out of my monthly bill cycle and have been looking at OTA antennas. I work with a guy that installed 2 Lava 2605 antennas in his daughters house and said that they are working very well picking up tv channels even though she lives out in the boonies. Has anyone else got personal experiences with these or some thing that is similar? According to tv fool and antenna web, my house is about 50 to 60 miles from the towers for the big 4 for my area.

 

[Charmonium]

The problem with highly directional antennas is that they've highly directional. So if the transmission towers for the channels you care about aren't more or less in line with the direction you're pointing the antennas in, you're going to have to start using a motor to rotate the antenna every time you want to watch a different channel.

On the plus side though, you can pickup even relatively weak signals.

Do you have any idea how far away the transmitters are? If it's over 50 miles, you're probably going to need at least a semi-directional antenna. That should cover a wide enough swath that you won't have to use the rotor. But that assumes that you're not living someplace between television markets.

For example, if you live in central NJ, you would have most stations broadcasting from NYC and north Jersey and the rest broadcasting from Philly. Since both are major markets, I don't think there's anything you would get from Philly that wasn't also in NY but you get the idea about being caught in the middle.

I would go with a semi-directional antenna plus a good signal amp. A good amp can turn a fairly crappy raw signal coming from the antenna into a nice clean, strong signal. Of course if you're getting mostly noise from the antenna, no amount of amplification is going to help.

 

[powersmo]

Charmonium, thanks for the input. Looking at antennaweb.org, we are about 60 miles from the towers located in Nashville Tn at an azimuth of about 124 degrees. I had figured I would need a amp in line with the antenna and the tv to boost the signal. Of course, I was also going to try first to tie in the antenna with the cable box and amp that is installed by the local cable company and see if I can receive the signal well enough to distribute it to the 2 tv's we have in the house currently.

 

[Charmonium]

I'm not nearly an expert on this sort of stuff, but iirc, inline amps are used mainly to compensate for long cable runs. When I did this for a friend several years ago, we only had a run of about 10-15ft so I used a signal amp at the end of the cable. I'm not sure but I don't think the inline amps tend to give you as much gain as the terminal (???) amps.

You might be able to use whatever amp you got from the cable company but I would check the frequency range to make sure it's compatible with an HDTV signal. I think most of the broadcasts are in the UHF range.

Finally, if you have a digital tv, you shouldn't need a converter box for tuning. But if your tv is analog, you'll also need a converter box and you'll have to change channels from the that rather than the tv.

I wish I could be of more help. I'm sure that there are a lot of people here who know a lot more about this. Hopefully some of them will chime in soon.

 

[smitbret]

I'm not nearly an expert on this sort of stuff, but iirc, inline amps are used mainly to compensate for long cable runs. When I did this for a friend several years ago, we only had a run of about 10-15ft so I used a signal amp at the end of the cable. I'm not sure but I don't think the inline amps tend to give you as much gain as the terminal (???) amps.

You might be able to use whatever amp you got from the cable company but I would check the frequency range to make sure it's compatible with an HDTV signal. I think most of the broadcasts are in the UHF range.

Finally, if you have a digital tv, you shouldn't need a converter box for tuning. But if your tv is analog, you'll also need a converter box and you'll have to change channels from the that rather than the tv.

I wish I could be of more help. I'm sure that there are a lot of people here who know a lot more about this. Hopefully some of them will chime in soon.

That's correct. In-line amps are used for longer cable runs. Trying to use them to compensate for bad reception is pointless since you are just amplifying noise.

OP would probably be better off with a larger antenna that isn't quite as directional unless the transmitters are within a few degrees of each other. When it comes to antennae, size matters a lot.

With that in mind, I have a couple of transmitters that are 45 miles away with a clear LOS and I pick them up with this:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/RCA-Suburban-Mini-Yagi-Digital-Outdoor-Antenna-with-Mast/10828410

It isn't huge or expensive and it has the best general performance for its size that I have seen.

 

[boomhower]

I have one of these and love it. I have it mounted on my roof and get great reception from 60 miles away.

 

[Charmonium]

I have a couple of transmitters that are 45 miles away with a clear LOS

Yeah, that's an important point. If you have any obstructions, like mountains for example, that not only makes the signal harder to pick up, but in some cases you can reflections of the signal that will interfere with main signal.

I used to love this one FM station in my area but I couldn't receive the station at all from home. So I put up a large, very directional, FM antenna. Unfortunate, there was geography and tall steel frame buildings between me and the transmitter. So even with the antenna, I had to point the antenna to w/in about a half of a degree to avoid the interference and get the best signal. Also the precise direction would drift during the course of the day so I often had to re-aim it.

 

[smitbret]

I have one of these and love it. I have it mounted on my roof and get great reception from 60 miles away.

That's kind of the direction I was leaning if the towers were in one spot.

 

[Charmonium]

Do you have any idea how directional that antenna is. It looks like it would only be semi-directional but I couldn't find anything online, probably because I don't know the correct terminology.

It seems like the signal gets amplified by reflecting off of the wire mesh. If so, shouldn't it work if it's just pointed in the right general direction?

 

[mvbighead]

That's correct. In-line amps are used for longer cable runs. Trying to use them to compensate for bad reception is pointless since you are just amplifying noise.

OP would probably be better off with a larger antenna that isn't quite as directional unless the transmitters are within a few degrees of each other. When it comes to antennae, size matters a lot.

With that in mind, I have a couple of transmitters that are 45 miles away with a clear LOS and I pick them up with this:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/RCA-Suburban-Mini-Yagi-Digital-Outdoor-Antenna-with-Mast/10828410

It isn't huge or expensive and it has the best general performance for its size that I have seen.

I have this one as well as a DB4 similar to this:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Eagle-Asp...fault&beacon_version=1.0.1&findingMethod=p13n

I've tried a number of combinations, and am finding that I need something that is somewhat directional, but not completely. At the moment I am running both of those antennas on the same line going into the house using a y-splitter. Technically that splitter is supposed to split one signal to two devices that receive the signal, but I am using that splitter to send two signals down one line that is then split across my house. I've used it in this fashion for several weeks and never have an issue.

That being said, I would much prefer an antenna that could capture a range of 30-40 degrees with good consistency. As it is, I have one antenna pointing one way, and the other roughly 20-30 degrees to the right of that. I now can pick up all of the standard local channels with no signal issues, though I am missing a couple of PBS stations I was kicking when I had added in some internal Mohu antennas.

I am really trying to go unamplified and for my current setup have absolutely no problems. 99% of what I watch is going to a HDHomeRun device and then sent across my wireless network to openelec front ends.

 

[Oyeve]

Living in NYC I found an old pair of rabbit eat antennae from a TV I bought in 1982. I connected it to my HDTV and pulled in about 100 local HD channels. Man, it did look good! I attribute to living within miles of all the major stations but the point I am making is to not overthink it or overspend. I have friends who have spent hundreds on fancy antennas and it looks about the same as my 30+ year old 2 buck job rabbit ears.

 

[herm0016]

http://dennysantennaservice.com/ez_hd_tv_Antenna.html

I have one of these guys. It works well and is made in USA.

the lava one scores lowest of the ones tested here: http://dennysantennaservice.com/best-tv-antenna.html

 

[NutBucket]

If that is spec'd to 50 miles it would probably be wise to get one with more gain given the OP states he is at least 50 miles from the transmitters.

 

[mvbighead]

Living in NYC I found an old pair of rabbit eat antennae from a TV I bought in 1982. I connected it to my HDTV and pulled in about 100 local HD channels. Man, it did look good! I attribute to living within miles of all the major stations but the point I am making is to not overthink it or overspend. I have friends who have spent hundreds on fancy antennas and it looks about the same as my 30+ year old 2 buck job rabbit ears.

It all depends on location. If you live within a 5-10 miles of sources, I am sure a multitude of antennas would perform perfectly.

I live roughly 20-30 miles from various antennas, and some receive marginal signal while others receive full signal even from that distance.

It all depends. As you're in NYC, I suspect there are antennas fairly close to where you are, and that you are possibly higher up, which tends to yield better reception as well.

 

[paperwastage]

use something like http://antennaweb.org to figure out where the antennas are relative to your location

then figure out if you need UHF/VHF, direction vs omni directional (if signals are coming from multiple idrections