Thread: Any chance an antenna will work in North. NJ?

Originally Posted by Splicer

You do not need to have a street level view to be able to tell if you will be able to receive reception of OTA television stations.

Based solely on your location provided in your information, I personally would not invest any money attempting to get unreliable signals that are iffy at best in your location. Best to stick with cable/satellite in your situation.

I would have to disagree about the above statement to give up. At the raising costs of subscription service I think it's worth taking the chance.
As an antenna installer I have had many cases where sites like fool or tennaweb said the customer would not pick up many channels. Most of the time this is not the case. In these cases I will set up a temp. antenna on tripod and coax drop to the tuner. This gives you a general idea what to expect. If you get good performance close to the ground >>It's gonna be better up on the house. If there are problems they can be adressed before actual install starts. That way customer knows what to expect before actual work starts. I have had a couple customers that went with a sub after finding out they couldn't get certain channels dependably. But most times if aimed properly customers can get all the major networks,PBS,WB etc.. no matter what these sites say. I also think you are on the right track. DB8 with a preamp get it's done in most of these "grey" areas.
This is just my opinion based on my experiences and I understand that results vary by location.
Have you hooked up any kind of antenna to see what you get?

Actually Wallfish - the signal depends on how the signal refracts over the horizon to your location. I had a customer ask me about reception for a area of the country up around Wisconsin where the transmitters were somewhere near the lake at a elevation of about 1100 feet above sea level and the customer lived at 1800 feet above sea level and the actual signal was not refracting very well - the higher up you go.

Reception is not just hooking up a antenna and pointing it in the right direction. It sometimes involves walking the antenna to find the spot where the signal refracts and comes in best. The difference between no reception and good reception might be as little as 6 feet.

That is what gets many people in trouble when doing a home install. They know which end of the house they want the antenna, or they want to mount it to a existing chimney with no consideration to reception. Then when it does not work, they want advice as to which amplifier will resolve their issues. The answer to that one is always the same. A amplifier cannot produce a signal which is not there. All it can do is amplify a signal to compensate for long runs of wire - loss.

There are places in this world such as Philadelphia and New York City where the transmitters are high up and the receive antenna is low to the ground and the signals pass over the people closest to the transmitter and the signal goes where they did not intend it to go when they try to add more power. At the same time, you can get 20 miles away from the transmitter and the terrain changes, since the earth is not flat. When a homeowner buys a house with no consideration to reception, until after he finds out that the house is located down in a valley, behind a wall or mountain, which does not allow the signal to go where they live and then they have no reception and they wonder why.

Many stations that stayed in the VHF with hopes that their signal would still travel into those places, found out that it would not and petitioned the FCC to allow them to move up into the UHF. Only the UHF in some of those markets are already full. Then you are forced to buy someone else's license and move your signal to their frequency and move their signal to your old frequency.

More JB Antennaman gibberish.

All it can do is amplify a signal to compensate for long runs of wire - loss.

No, that is not "All it can do". You continue with your gibberish of

the UHF in some of those markets are already full

UHF is not "full" in any one area. There are some channels that can't be used due to other stations using that frequency, but guess what...there are other frequencies that can be used.

you can get 20 miles away from the transmitter and the terrain changes, since the earth is not flat.

This statement however is just pure genius. I mean, nobody would have ever guessed that the terrain changes 20 miles from any one location. Pure genius. You really need to and read and learn before you spout nonsense like this in the future.