Thread: DishHD and OTA setup help needed

I am also an OTA newb and I need a little help with my setup.

I live in an area where cable is not offered (it's actually about 400 yards down the road but they will not extend it) and Dish will not let me get local channels because the so called "local" stations think they will lose add revenue if they let me. I have lived without local channels for 4 years now because of this and I’m tired of it. So if I want local channels I have to get them OTA.

I live about 20 miles from most of the towers and cannot get any reception with a store bought indoor antenna. I considered buying a big OTA Antenna a couple years ago but the cost of the Antenna and mast and extra cable was going to cost me $200+. So to try and reduce the cost I made a DIY HD antenna that looks basically like 1/2 of a DB8 (4 bowties with cooling racks as reflectors and 2X4 for the spine). It's currently sitting on the floor behind the TV in my great room and when I perform a scan I can see 13 HD OTA channels. Only about 4 are watchable no signal drop (70+ signal strength) at any one time depending on where I face the antenna.

I have 2 Dish receivers that are used to connect 4 rooms; 1 VIP622 and 1 322G. Each is configured to run 2 rooms. I would like to get OTA in all 4 rooms using the existing Dish coax runs but I have read that diplexing HD with OTA doesn't work too well. If I have to run new cable for OTA I will, but if I don't have to I'd rather not. I think I will have to run a signal switch to at least the 2 rooms that don't have a physical receiver to switch between OTA and SAT.

Here are the specifics:

Zip
31808

Dish Network Hardware
Receivers: VIP622, 322G
Dish: Dish 1000.x (I'm not sure what the x is) mounted on 6 foot pole/mast in ground in back yard.

TV’s
All TV’s have built-in tuners.

House
Siding: Brick
Roof: 3 tab shingle, sloped on all sides.
1 Chimney: left side of house, vinyl siding

Current Dish Setup (Cable locations, connections, etc.)
Dish: 3LNB dish mounted on 6 foot pole/mast in ground in back yard toward the right side.
Cabling: 2 cables run from dish in back yard to 2 diplexers on right side of house about 40ft away. The diplexers split the 2 cables from the dish in to the 4 cables that go to each room.

I have a privacy fence around my back yard and I was thinking about installing a mast on one of the posts but now I think the chimney may be the best place for it. The only problem is the chimney is on the opposite side of the house from where the cable runs are. My house is approximately 60' long.

A relative gave me one of those rotators you can hook up that lets you rotate your antenna from inside your house. I’m not sure if I need it but I do have it.

Here are my questions:
1. Am I wasting my time with a DIY antenna?
2. Where is the best palce to mount my Antenna, whether it be store bought or DIY?
3. Can DishHD be diplexed with OTA (use the same cables)
4. If I can get OTA across the Dish cables what hardware will I need (diplexer, preamp, multiswitch, etc.)?
5. If I need to run new cables for OTA what hardware will I need (diplexer, preamp, multiswitch, etc.)?
6. A Dish installer stated that best OTA reception could be had by pointing an Antenna at an Interstate HWY that is about 4 miles away instead of toward the station towers. He claimed OTA signals bounce off the interstate and I could get better reception. It sounded bogus to me at the time but I figured I would ask the people who knew.
Any input/advice would be greatly appreciated.

1. No, but for $36 you can get a factory-built one that'll work better. Antennacraft U4000. Are you currently getting WTVM (ABC)? It's the only reason to get an antenna with VHF.

2. Outside, on the side of your house facing the transmit towers, usually as high as you can get. Looks like Columbus is at about 145-degrees from your house. A roof-edge or gable or chimney mount would do in your situation nicely.

3. Theoretically, yes, but some people have trouble with it.

4. One diplexer per "terminal;" one for each LNB output at the dish, one near each receiver. Should be 4 diplexers for you, and a fist full of terminated 3' RG6 cables. At "only" 20 miles, you shouldn't need a preamp, and with only two receivers (3 sat tuners?) no multiswitch.

5. Same answer, except no diplexers, and a lot more RG6 cable. Buying an RG6 stripper and compression fitting tool at Lowe's is highly recommended.

6. Possible, but not likely. This is where the exact science of radio turns into a black art, and it's all trial-and-error once the wiring is in place.

You have one major problem. From the equipment you have listed only the 622 Tuner 1 has an OTA tuner. The 322 does not have an OTA tuner and seeing you are using SD feeds from Tuner 2 on the 622 and the 322 is SD only you other 3 TVs probably don't have OTA DIGITAL tuners built in. If you don't have ATSC DIGITAL tuners in the TV diplexing isn't going to do anything.

He said "All TVs have built-in tuners," so I'd guess that he still needs four diplexers.

I made a 3D rendering of what the back side of your 622 should look like; you already have the red and purple cable, so you need to buy everything that's blue, green, or yellow. Wiring the 322 and diplexing the antenna into the LNB feeds is trivial.

HOWTO: Diplexers and Backfeeding in 3D

I just read about the chimney question...if you have 60' between the chimney and the dish, then a good preamp from Channel Master or Winegard may be necessary. It may be easier for you to forgo the diplexing altogether and just run new wires.

Are you in a valley or on a hill?
If you can do the outdoor antenna that will be the better solution.

The indoor antenna that you tried was it a powered one, I live about 20 miles from my towers (as the crow flies) and have no major obstructions inbetween me and the towers, I use an indoor antenna with an amp Silver sensor and Motorola signal booster and I receive all of the stations OTA.

A TVFool report of your EXACT location would be helpful, zipcode info is generally useless due to high variability within the zip code.

Go to
www.TVFoolcom

and select the "START MAPS" area in the right column. Fill in your EXACT home address and click "map this". In the upper right area of the map click on satellite. Find your house on the aerial photo and move the place marker to the location of the antenna on your house (you can't get much more precise than that). I can even see my antenna in the aerial photo.

Here you can play with various antenna heights and get a computer modeled estimate of what you reception MIGHT be. You can also use the maps view to move the antnena around and see how that changes signal strength.

You can post the results here.

Thanks for the responses.

WTVM comes in strong on my DIY antenna just sitting on the floor behind my TV so I think I'm good there.

Based on the analysis at TVFool.com, I think my minimum height would need to be around 15'. I was going to post the results but I need at least 3 posts before it will let me.

I'm going to try to mount my DIY antenna on the side of the house where the cable runs go into the house. If I mount a 4'-5' J mount near the top of the outside wall along with the height of the antenna itself, I should be close to 15'. I will just need to find somewhere to ground it. This will also eliminate the extra 60' feet of cable I would need if I mounted it on my chimney. Maybe that will eliminate the need for a preamp.

While on the subjects of preamps, how does a preamp get power from it's power supply? Does it run thru the coax cable?

I think all I need now is the J mount and the 4 diplexers and 3' RG6 cables Cowboy mentioned. Any ideas on the best place to order these from?

It will probably be this weekend before I can install it. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

Thanks for your help!

Originally Posted by CowboyDren

He said "All TVs have built-in tuners," so I'd guess that he still needs four diplexers.

All TVs had NTSC tuners built in and the SD output of the DISH receivers used the NTSC tuners. He hasn't confirmed or posted that his TV sets have ATSC TUNERS. Most people used older TVs without the ATSC TUNERS connected to DISH SD receivers.