HELP! Need Fox Station

[skysurfer]

Tell your wife to get off the couch and start dancing! That'll be "So you think you can dance!"

(insert annoying Mary Murphy laugh here).

 

[zamar23]

Read this thread about Gray-Hoverman OTA Antenna - claimed to be the best OTA ever. Also look through OTA Antenna FAQ there.

 

[bubba108]

Tell your wife to get off the couch and start dancing! That'll be "So you think you can dance!"

(insert annoying Mary Murphy laugh here).

Wednesday is the worse, it's on for two hours. :rant:

I hear Mary Murphy is getting her own show, 'So You Think You Can Annoy'.

 

[bubba108]

Read this thread about Gray-Hoverman OTA Antenna - claimed to be the best OTA ever. Also look through OTA Antenna FAQ there.

I think I've tracked the problem down to the box. The one I have is rated worse box ever. Going to upgrade to a DTVPal+.
That link has some interesting designs, I might try some of them out.
Here is a real cheap one. How to build a HDTV Antenna....CHEAP!

 

[Larobpra]

I built one of those. I used an old window screen for the reflector. It works great!

 

[avg1joe]

I built that and the hoverman. They are very comparable. Go with the hoverman. Its open source so you have permission to build your own. The other is a shameless rip off of a patented antenna. Speaking of shameless ripoffs of patented antennas, find a picture of the square shooter with its cover off and copy that. It performs about as well as the others but is about 9 inches square. Put it outside. Add a pre-amp and you are good to go. I use a $10 ebay pre-amp.

 

[mclapp]

The Gray-Hoverman antenna is also a variation of a commercial antenna that was sold by Radio Shack and Antennacraft (G1443 & G1483) since the 70's.

It does work great for UHF and is pretty easy to build.
.

 

[chapelrun]

Channel Master Amp better in my opinion

I have tried both the WineGard and the Channel Master Amp's and Pre-Amp's.

In my mind the Channel Master 7777 is the best Amp's and Pre-Amp on the market for the money. If you only need to boost UHF then the Channel Master 7775 would be the best choice. Of course better Amp's and Pre-Amp are available from Blonder Tongue but they are very expensive. The important thing for digital TV is the noise figure - - - if you boost the line signal and induce a lot of noise on the line at the same time you really have not helped your signal.

What is your zipcode?

 

[bubba108]

Zip=45715

Problem solved! Thanks to Iceberg and the Conical Scalar Ring, I'm now watching a perfect FOX on Galaxy 16 C-Band. Ms. Bubba is dancing on the ceiling now! Guess she will come back down when the Wine Coolers wear off.
When I first tried the Conical Scalar Ring, I tuned in a strong station on G-16. I had assumed that all the others would come in. Well the networks didn't show up. Iceberg said to try moving the LNB closer to the dish. I did that and tried the Conical Scalar Ring in different positions on the LNB feeder tube. Also adjusted the skew and moved the dish around a tad. BAM, the networks are coming in at 75 strength and 55-60 quality on my Traxis 3500. The strong LeSea station that I had first tuned in is now at 35 quality and real bad tiling. To me it doesn't make sense as both transponders are on the same satellite. The dish I'm using for C-Band isn't even a 4 footer, it is 42" by 38".
But would still like to get a local channel for news and weather.

 

[Larry1]

If your Archer pre-amp is an older one, it might just not be good enough for your location. I previously had an older Archer pre-amp, and could only receive the digital stations very sporatically. Replaced it with a CM7775 and got good, but not 100% reliable reception. My next project is to change my homemade 8-bay antenna with a XG91, add another section to my TV tower, upgrade my coax to RG-11 and replace my distribution amplifier with a lower noise one.

 

[mclapp]

Zip=45715

Problem solved! Thanks to Iceberg and the Conical Scalar Ring, I'm now watching a perfect FOX on Galaxy 16 C-Band. Ms. Bubba is dancing on the ceiling now! Guess she will come back down when the Wine Coolers wear off.
When I first tried the Conical Scalar Ring, I tuned in a strong station on G-16. I had assumed that all the others would come in. Well the networks didn't show up. Iceberg said to try moving the LNB closer to the dish. I did that and tried the Conical Scalar Ring in different positions on the LNB feeder tube. Also adjusted the skew and moved the dish around a tad. BAM, the networks are coming in at 75 strength and 55-60 quality on my Traxis 3500. The strong LeSea station that I had first tuned in is now at 35 quality and real bad tiling. To me it doesn't make sense as both transponders are on the same satellite. The dish I'm using for C-Band isn't even a 4 footer, it is 42" by 38".
But would still like to get a local channel for news and weather.

Super, I have a conical scalar on my 1.8 meter prodelin offset dish and it also works great. I experimented with building a multiple cone shaped scalar out of thin aluminum and it worked well but the conical scalar works better overall. I see the same thing on my dish where I sometimes have to tweek it one way or the other to get decent quality on different transponders of the same satellite. No doubt on a smaller dish the gain is less but I think the big trick with the smaller dishes is as much to do with cutting out the adjacent satellite interference as anything.

As far as OTA you live in a hilly area your best bet is to get a quality preamp, buy or build a high gain antenna and take aim at the tower that's got the least obstructions. I see you have a VHF-hi station on ch7 WTRF, VHF-hi travels through the hills better than UHF that may be the way to go depending on your exact location.