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

I live in Andover, NJ and I looked up TVFool and found that most of the channels fall in the grey zone. Should I give up on finding an antenna or does anyone think there's hope?



PS - I was looking into the DB8 with a pre-amp.

Doug

welcome

I moved your thread to the over the air section (you had posted in the free to air which is a different area)

Hopefully one of our OTA gurus can help out

Thanks,

This is what I got for andover nj 10048

DTV Antenna
Type Call Sign Channel Network City, State Live
Date Compass
Heading Miles
From RF
Channel
* yellow
uhf WNBC-DT 4.1 NBC NEW YORK, NY 338° 0.1 28
* yellow
vhf WPIX-DT 11.1 CW NEW YORK, NY 335° 0.1 11
* yellow
uhf WCBS-DT 2.1 CBS NEW YORK, NY 335° 0.1 33
* yellow
vhf WABC-DT 7.1 ABC NEW YORK, NY 236° 0.1 7
* green
vhf WNET-DT 13.1 PBS NEWARK, NJ 41° 2.9 13
* green
vhf WNJB-DT 8.1 PBS NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ 36° 3.4 8
* red
uhf WFME-DT 66.1 REL WEST MILFORD, NJ 306° 13.8 29
red
uhf WPXO-LP 34 ION EAST ORANGE, NJ 310° 13.8 34
* red
uhf WNJU-DT 47.1 TEL LINDEN, NJ 41° 2.9 36
* red
uhf WFUT-DT 68.1 TFA NEWARK, NJ 41° 2.9 30
* red
uhf WWOR-DT 9.1 MNT SECAUCUS, NJ 41° 2.9 38
* red
uhf WXTV-DT 41.1 UNI PATERSON, NJ 41° 2.9 40
* red
uhf WPXN-DT 31.1 ION NEW YORK, NY 41° 2.9 31
* red
uhf WNYW-DT 5.1 FOX NEW YORK, NY 41° 2.9 44
* blue
uhf WNYE-DT 25.1 IND NEW YORK, NY 143° 2.4 24
* blue
uhf WNJN-DT 51.1 PBS MONTCLAIR, NJ 330° 14.5 51
* blue
uhf WMBC-DT 63.1 IND NEWTON, NJ 330° 14.5 18
* violet
vhf WNYZ-LD 33.1 REL DARIEN, CT 68° 4.3 6
* violet
uhf WSAH-DT 43.1 SAH BRIDGEPORT, CT 41° 2.9 42
Note:
Looks like a large directional antenna such as a winegard HD8200U with rotor and Ap 8275 preamp should do the trick on a tripod on your roof!!!
The other thing to do is to check with any neighbors or look around the neighboorhood to see who has an antenna and what they have for an antenna.

How to explain this without stepping on anyone's toe's.

A street level address is necessary to look at your TV fool report. Even with a TV fool radar plot, there is no real way to look at your situation without the address due to the fact that simple little things like a group of trees or a building 3 or more stories high in your first or second fresnel zone could be enough to block your signals.

If you care for my opinion, you may personal message me with your address and I will take a look at your situation. Anything beyond that - would be nothing more then a guess.

I do not like colors to describe stations, I like physical locations and distances and being able to look at what is between the two.

The Winegard 8200U is a excellent antenna - which I do own one and use one every day, along with a Channel Master CM 7777 pre amp for my day to day television viewing. But I will add that unless you have a real channel 2 - 6 VHF, the 8200U is over kill and the 7698P Winegard antenna works just as well.
The only difference in my opinion is the length of a couple of the elements for the VHF side of the antenna.

Real channel 2 or 4 is not UHF - which leads me to suspect that your lowest VHF channel is probably channel 8.

I have a hard time keeping the antenna on the roof, with it weighing 18 lbs, and unless you have a robust rotor or a thrust bearing or guy wires, a cheap rotor will probably fall apart in a year or two.

For best reception of UHF - a rotor is probably necessary.

If you could post your TVFool report it would help us because the glacial hills and valleys in your area are so variable, one side has signal the other is without.

Are you shooting for NYC channels or local to the area channels (Allentown, etc)?

You have maybe 3 moderate strength channels and the rest are pretty weak again dependent mostly on which side of the valley you are on.

The 7698 is probably your best bet.

I just wrote a report for his situation and for the most part it is hopeless.

Because he lives down in a valley where the signals don't shine, the chances of getting most anything more then one PBS and the Independent channel and One ABC is about all that is in his report.

To improve his situation in the suburbs of Andover Nj., he would have to move up the road, maybe a mile to a point above Old Creamery Road where there is a tall hill that would allow him good reception to about 16 stations. Even at that, the New York stations that are gettable are mostly in the range of channel 4 - 13 which would require him to use a Winegard 8200U antenna and not the 7698P due to the fact that the 7698P is designed to receive down to about channel 6-8 and not down to about channel 4.

I have a 8200U antenna and I know what it is capable of doing and all I can say is that the 7698P weighs about the same amount, just that the elements for the VHF must be longer or spaced differently.

Maybe if he lived closer to the lake or the pond he would have some reflection off the water which would improve his reception in the summertime.

It would be nice of the location data could be shared so more than one opinion might be brought to bear.

He sent the address in PM and I deleted it before I thought about saving it.

He lives between a lake and a pond, directly below Old Creamery Road.

Just for the sake of trying, I came up with a close address 45 Lenape road



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