Second question, can an antenna be too strong?
No, an unpowered antenna is a passive device, it can not pick up too much signal by its self.
Second question, can an antenna be too strong?
Was it this one? Terk - Indoor Amplified HDTV Antenna - HDTVAAlright, I have some news for you guys. I was perusing at Best Buy today and ran into the well known Terk HDTVa indoor antenna. It was 73.99 which is obscene of course, but I got curious. I took it to the customer service desk and asked what the return policy was... of course it was 30 days just like everything else. So I told the girl, I'm going home to try this out and if it doesn't pick up any signal I'm bringing it to get my money back. Basically, I'm just "renting" it for a month while I acquire my other antenna to put outside of the house.
I plugged it in and was blown away on what all it picked up. It picked up every channel I wanted plus all of the Shreveport channels.
Here are the channels and their respective signal strengths (I pointed the antenna towards Shreveport for those channels and towards the west for my one VHF channel):
3.1, KTBS, ~70
6.1, KTAL, ~90, pretty solid
7.1, KLTV, ~ mid 70s
12.1, KSLA, ~74
18.1, KYTX, ~74
33.1, KMSS, ~70-74
51.1, KFXK, 100
56.1, KETK, 100
This bodes very well for when I get my antenna up outside. I am very excited by the way!Now I just need to buy an outdoor antenna!
... shouldn't an outdoor antenna get better signal. Especially if I put it up on 10 to 15 feet of mast?
That's the way to go. Refer to my earlier post: Try the antenna first, and then add a pre-amp later if needed. If you buy the HD-7084, my hunch is that you'll be fine with just the antenna. It's made lots of people happy all by itself.Also, if I bought a small amplifier for the outdoor antenna, that would probably help. I will just try the antenna first, but an amplifier may help it lock down a higher signal.
Can you attach the boom of the antenna to the rotator, or does there need to be a mast attached to the rotator...
Sorry. I didn't respond prior to this because I had a hard time trying to picture exactly what you want to do here. Dodge suggested a good, secure, cost-effective mounting method back at Post #28. I'd say he knows a bit more about that end of it than I do, so take a second look at his post.I plan on burying an 8 foot mast 2 feet into the ground. Attaching 4 foot mast to it with 2 wall clamps for support attached to a 2x10 nailed between rafters. On top of that I will put the rotator with either the boom of the antenna attached to that, or another 4 foot mast attached.