Thread: OTA HD Antenna

not sure if this is the spot to post this or not....

i have been asked to install an OTA HD antenna for a friend which i have no experience with whatsoever, mounting the actual antenna is no problem but after that my questions are....

where do i need to aim this thing?

how do i know when its aimed correctly?

does it need to be pointed south?

how does the coax attach to the tv? just straight into the "cable in" F-connector on the TV?

im located about 30 mins north of toronto in ontario, how many stations should he expect? and what antenna is best for this location?

thanks

Start at antennaweb.org

You'll have to see if you'll need a rotor, what size and type antenna, etc.

Mikey I moved this to the OTA section

Just to let ya know (a technicality) there is no such thing as a "HD antenna"...any antenna can get the HD/digital broadcasts.

where do i need to aim this thing?

it depends on what ya wanna pick up. Best thing to do is go to tvfool and put in your info (yes you can put in Canadian info) and it will show what you should expect to get and where to aim the antenna

TV Fool

how do i know when its aimed correctly?

you'll get a picture (I know..smarty pants answer.....you'll need to scan in the channels though)

does it need to be pointed south?

If you're north of Toronto I would assume so but tvfool will give you the info. Towers may be in a different spot then Toronto. Here in Minneapolis the towers are NE of Mpls

how does the coax attach to the tv? just straight into the "cable in" F-connector on the TV

yes. Now you will need to scan for channels (think blind scan on a FTA receiver). If the TV isnt digital you would need a converter box to get the channels
If he has a digital TV in the menus it lets you scan for channels. I would scan for both analog and digital as there may be analog channels out there still.

Most converter boxes and TV's have a signal meter so once the stations are logged in you can always fine tune it. I use a converter box to fine tune my antenna

Mikey here is an example of a tvfool report. I used Markham

TV Fool

in this case you would aim the antenna a little more SW then S

When you look at the channel numbers the 1st number is what channel they are actually broadcasting on. The number in ( ) is what it "maps" to...the number you would be use to
So as example CBC 5 is actually on 20 but it "maps" back to 5

As for antenna other than TVO everything else in TO is on UHF so a UHF antenna would be fine. But I would get a combo unit (VHF/UHF)..nothing too elaborate. If they want to try Buffalo locals then you would need a larger antenna and possibly a rotor as they are SE of Markham (again it depends on where exactly you are located)