Thread: FM over HD Antenna and indoor vs outdoor

Originally Posted by jlabsher

Looks like I'm out of luck unless I want to spend a lot of money or Dish gets its act together and adds PBS HD to its lineup.

You could try this low cost
Radio Shack antenna

for getting HD PBS from Salisbury. If it doesn't work, you can easily return it.

City-to-city, Salisbury is around 80 miles from Lexington Park, at about 230°. Why would you spend time trying to grab that, versus the PBS in Baltimore, which is less than 50 miles away at 350°? There's another PBS that's less than 60 at 325° (DC)...actually, most of the stations in DC are less than 50 miles away, and most are UHF, to boot. The only station that's not UHF is ABC. This only reinforces the 4-bay + Preamp option I offered before. If you're handy, you could cobble that together for under $200 and have it functioning in a long afternoon.

Out of curiosity, what local channels does Comcast or Verizon offer on your cozy little peninsula? With the Dish Welcome Pack + Locals, you could get good TV service from either market via satellite, and PBS in HD from the OTA tuner section on any VIP series receiver...for about $35 per month. Certainly, that's half the cost of Comcast digital cable, and still a bit less than FiOS.

Salibury's PBS`is closer (46 vs 57 miles) & much stronger (LOS vs 2 edge) to the OP's location than the Annapolis PBS affiliate. The DC & Baltimore stations are also much weaker than Salisbury.

I'm almost totally unfamiliar with the terrain out there (I spent a couple of weeks in Shady Side back in '95), so I'm just a guy looking at maps on the internet. I will say, though, that a 4-bay bowtie has a higher, more even gain curve than that flying wedge does, but you can't just source one locally for $35.

Originally Posted by CowboyDren

That's waaaay too much work. A UHF-only antenna will outperform that monster FM-VHF-UHF combo at an eighth the size and a quarter the cost (
Antennacraft U4000

). You wouldn't have the VHF source for WJLA ABC7 (Baltimore) or WBAL NBC11 (DC), but you may get lucky and have SD versions of those channels on a UHF sub-channel.

T.

WJLA is in DC and WBAL is in Baltimore. Neither has an SD version in the UHF band.

Sorry. Once again, trying to put three screens' worth of data into one sentence.

CowboyDren,

HA !, I agree with you (almost) completely !

I was expecting to go into the smaller Antenna setups, when the OP bauked at the one mentioned first. Also was expecting him to modify his criteria, omitting the need for a couple stations, and the addition of the separate FMSS.

That (almost) being where I'd suggest going with (as you) with the UVSJ to combine, but, using a...

Winegard CA-8800

to separate them inside.

Other than that, the original proposal would have gotten him ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in sight !

Have a good Day !
S.W.

Originally Posted by Houston

Other than that, the original proposal would have gotten him ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in sight !


S.W.

You mean all 4 stations?

easy solution
winegard HD8200u will get fm, all tv and a rotor on a 5' ttripod on the roof and pair it with a winegard ap8275 preamp will get you everything, one antenna less complicated all services, just make sure to set the fm trap out on the preamp!!!