THE LAST DAY (THISTV)

[ftageekyyc]

Check your TV Fool report very carefully, and post it then ask lots of questions in the various OTA forums - here, the TV Fool Forum, avsforum, and digitalhome.ca.

If your TV Fool report says you should be able to get the channel(s) you want at 25 to 30 feet above ground, that's only a 20 foot telescoping mast with a tripod on the roof. Only climbing is the ladder to get you onto the roof. When you start talking 40 plus feet, tower is the way to go. Sometimes you can find them as free take it away...

I've got a real fringe location where I get some stuff that other folks say I shouldn't be able to get. Going through the tower exercise right now...

 

[FaT Air]

I might as well go big

I have one of these in storage (there's no VHF-LO anymore around here) http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.as...tenna-(CM3020)&c=TV Antennas&sku=020572030205 [Don't know what it would cost to ship -UPS goes by package size, not weight, on large packages]
Shouldn't need guy wires if:
?Tower hinge base, should allow a couple of people to 'walk it up' from Horizontal to vertical.
Lay it down during hurricanes. Maybe a block and tackle arrangement to the roof eve? Electric winch?

 

[Dee_Ann]

Gaaaaaaahhh!!!!! I need to renew my membership! I have to muddle through this until after the 20th !!

I have one of these in storage (there's no VHF-LO anymore around here) http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.as...tenna-(CM3020)&c=TV Antennas&sku=020572030205 [Don't know what it would cost to ship -UPS goes by package size, not weight, on large packages]

I think that's the one I was looking at last year. It looks to be pretty similar to the one my dad has. Looking at their page it says free ground shipping but I would bet it would be like $20 or so to ship, it's almost 6 foot long taken apart, according to the page there.

Shouldn't need guy wires if:
?Tower hinge base, should allow a couple of people to 'walk it up' from Horizontal to vertical.
Lay it down during hurricanes. Maybe a block and tackle arrangement to the roof eve? Electric winch?

That's pretty neat! Being able to hinge it would be really helpful..

I would assume I would have to put a deep cement pillar in the ground for it to bolt to.
I should be able to hire someone to do that.

I was looking on ebay and it seems you can get a complete tower kit for like $630 for 40 foot, a 30' tower is about $100 less.... Shipping though, would be a killer!
Maybe I can find a used one on craigslist cheaper. Doubtful but maybe..

I suppose the first step is to move up to a big antenna and see what that gets me then go from there. If I have to go with a tower I would have to save up for months..

 

[Tron]

Dee, if you put up a tower, you might as well install two highly directional fringe antennas. Aim one at Houston and one at Lake Charles and see what you can get.

By the way, I was in your area last weekend on a day trip to Houston.

 

[Mr Tony]

I think that's the one I was looking at last year. It looks to be pretty similar to the one my dad has. Looking at their page it says free ground shipping but I would bet it would be like $20 or so to ship, it's almost 6 foot long taken apart, according to the page there.

if it says free shipping then its free. I've ordered antennas from them that were 7 feet long broken apart with no issues (no shipping)

I suppose the first step is to move up to a big antenna and see what that gets me then go from there.

wise move

 

[Dee_Ann]

Dee, if you put up a tower, you might as well install two highly directional fringe antennas. Aim one at Houston and one at Lake Charles and see what you can get.

By the way, I was in your area last weekend on a day trip to Houston.

Well that's a thought.. But I have a rotor on there now, it's pretty much a one for one clone of the G-box.

I can use either remote on the other, at least for basics.

I suppose I could put a second antenna up and leave it aimed at Houston, most of the towers in Houston are in the same general area of Southwest Houston except a few ethnic and religious stations that are scattered elsewhere that I have no interest in. They are all clustered so close together that I can point at one and get them all.

As it is now, if the weather conditions are right, I can get quite a few Houston channels but they drop out a lot. Probably going to a honkin huge antenna would help, sure wouldn't hurt. A tower would definitely help.

I've finally got all the tools on my Mac now to locate towers and draw lines from them to my antenna to help me aim it. I need to get out there are re-aim it though, last month I had Goober the Handyman remodel the outside of my house and he took the antenna down. When he put it back up he didn't put it back like I had it so it's off now by about 20 degrees and it makes aiming it a treasure hunt.
I've just been too lazy to go out and fix it in the heat... :itshot:

But I wonder if I could put two antennas up, leave one permanently aimed at Houston and the other on the rotor AND combine the signals into the single wire.
As it is now, I have a UHF and a VHF antenna combiner http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.as...hf-band-separator/combiner-for-antenna-(uvsj)
but I wonder if it's possible to combine two antennas where one would be a UHF/VHF/FM and the other would be a simple UHF only. I'm thinking, probably not..

What I really, really wish for would be that my various tuners could actually send a disque signal to the rotor and have it automatically aim the antenna according to the channel I select, just like the G-box to move to different satellites or my HH motor does for ku... The antenna rotor is in my junk room (formerly my crafts room) where I spend most of my time anyway but unless I'm in that room, I can't turn the antenna. Like if I'm in my bedroom and I want to watch Houston OTA I'll have to get up (grumble grumble), go to the other room, turn stuff on and fiddle with the remote for the antenna rotor then go crawl back under the covers and HOPE it works. Then if I want to go local again I have to get up AGAIN (grumble grumble) and play the game all over again. Being able to operate the antenna rotor from another room would be really nice. Oh well, I should be sleeping anyway.. But then again, the 3am to sunrise time frame is when my favorite shows come on thisTV. I'm really going to miss them from FTA. With my little MicroHD I can watch ANYTHING I want from bed and if there's nothing on I can push a button on the TV remote and goto to hdmi-1 and watch Dish Network, where there is never anything on any of the 250 channels at 4am.. I've got tons of channels but they rarely have anything on when I'm awake.

I love getting stuff on FTA because with a 10' C-band, it always, always comes in great. And when local stations re-broadcast stuff, they trash the picture with very low bit-rates, huge, ugly water marks (KPLC is really bad) and the inject awful local commercials of loud mouth, 4th rate ambulance chasing lawyers screaming at you. If I could get KPRC, that would be better than KPLC, their watermark isn't as intrusive and the PQ is better.

Getting a bigger antenna needs to be my next move I suppose.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Quick dumb question..

This is the rotor I have. http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.as...n-rotr100-one-cable-antenna-rotator-(rotr100)


Do I align it to true north or magnetic north? I always get extremely confused as to what that's all about and the manual I have for it doesn't specify which one to use..

From what I understand, magnetic north is constantly moving and the core underground moves. I can imagine it's important for airplanes but would that apply here?
If I take a little compass outside it will point to magnetic north, are they expecting people to use a hand held compass to align these things or do you google for true north?
The two are quite a bit apart from one another and I can see it would make for problems aiming the antenna.. I just can't figure out which one you go by when aiming antennas and satellite dishes.
When aiming dishes I've just become accustomed to knowing the general area to aim at then use a meter to get me the rest of the way there.
I looked to see if they sell a meter for TV antennas and they do but they are several hundred dollars.. That won't fit in my budget and it isn't that important.
As it is now I just use the pot luck method of aiming the TV antenna, the rotor is a life saver but I would like to get it more accurately aimed.

Thanks!

 

[rv1pop]

All signals are aimed reference true (real) north or south. Magnetic is just for compasses. My GPS is true north, but can conert to magnetic north -- but not on my property. True GPS north works great.

 

[primestar31]

Aim it at a station that you know what it's coordinates are from Tvfool until you get the best signal. Now, sync the box at the setting for whatever that heading is. IF the magnetic headings can't be re-synced to match the correct ones (I've never seen one of these types of antenna rotors before, so I don't know), then you'll need to get up on the antenna pole and physically rotate the rotor to match what the setting should be per Tvfool.

 

[Dee_Ann]

All signals are aimed reference true (real) north or south. Magnetic is just for compasses. My GPS is true north, but can conert to magnetic north -- but not on my property. True GPS north works great.

Excellent! Thank you! This makes life much, much easier now..

 

[Mr Tony]

But I wonder if I could put two antennas up, leave one permanently aimed at Houston and the other on the rotor AND combine the signals into the single wire.
As it is now, I have a UHF and a VHF antenna combiner http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp...antenna-(uvsj)
but I wonder if it's possible to combine two antennas where one would be a UHF/VHF/FM and the other would be a simple UHF only. I'm thinking, probably not..

yes and no

Reason I say that is when I had my setup at the house I had a VHF/UHF antenna aimed NE at Minneapolis which is 29 miles away. I had a VHF only antenna aimed at Mankato which is 72 miles away SW. Minneapolis has 2 VHF stations (Fox 9 and NBC 11) so when I combined the 2 antennas I got VHF 12 (Mankato) real good (normal) and 9 & 11 were at lower signal but still watchable even though it was on the backside of the antenna. Only issue was if there was storms near the area it went kaput.
In your market you have one VHF station (12) and Houston has 3 (PBS 8, CBS 11 and ABC 13....there is a Daystar affiliate but I'm sure you will find another way to watch Daystar)

Honestly if all you really want to do is add ThisTV to your existing setup here is what me personally would do.
Get a VHF Hi antenna like I showed in the pics above (of my setup) and pick up KPLC. VHF is easier to get at further distances than UHF is and KPLC is in the same directional vicinity as the local 12. (64 degrees for KPLC 7 and 18 degrees for 12)

 

[Mr Tony]

What I really, really wish for would be that my various tuners could actually send a disque signal to the rotor and have it automatically aim the antenna according to the channel I select, just like the G-box to move to different satellites or my HH motor does for ku...

nothing to automatically move but they make programmable ones that you can set up so if you want to aim at say channel 14 you hit "14" on the remote and the rotor moves

 

[SatelliteAV]

What I really, really wish for would be that my various tuners could actually send a disque signal to the rotor and have it automatically aim the antenna according to the channel I select, just like the G-box to move to different satellites or my HH motor does for ku...

I actually have a sample ATSC STB/DVR that uses DiSEqC 1.2 to control a 360 degree rotor that we developed during the path leading up to the DTV transition 5 years ago. Once it was determined that there was zero money to be made on providing DTV convertor STBs... with advanced features (thank you US GOV coupons) the project was abandoned. Worked great, but the market for STB rotor control never materialized and rotor control protocol was not implemented in ATSC TV sets.

 

[Larry1]

One of the comments for that rotar mentions significant signal loss by using the one wire method. Also I did not see any mention of if it would work with a pre-amp, as the pre-amp needs to use the coax for power also. You might need a separate run of coax for the rotar.
Also, if you are going to install a new antenna, check your pre-amp to see if it is a quality low noise unit. just as the pre-amp made a difference over no pre-amp, a quality low noise unit can make a difference over a noisy unit.

 

[pwrsurge]

Looks like it will go encrypt full time come November 1st according to the "open" forum.

c/p:
As Part of MGM's agreement with Tribune Broadcasting, This TV will be encrypting and moving to Galaxy 14 - 13 C. There will be dual feeds on SES 1 and Galaxy 14 for the month of October and then the SES 1 feed will drop on Nov. 1st

I guess some people over in that forum will like this as it will be one more encrypted channel for them to keep track of...
Seriously, their encrypted fight feeds and encrypted race feeds threads are almost at 100 posts and over 7200 views EACH!

 

[Dee_Ann]

I actually have a sample ATSC STB/DVR that uses DiSEqC 1.2 to control a 360 degree rotor that we developed during the path leading up to the DTV transition 5 years ago. Once it was determined that there was zero money to be made on providing DTV convertor STBs... with advanced features (thank you US GOV coupons) the project was abandoned. Worked great, but the market for STB rotor control never materialized and rotor control protocol was not implemented in ATSC TV sets.

OH MAN!! I can't believe no one would want that! I sure would!

Darn !!!


?Oh well... Sigh... :/

 

[Dee_Ann]

One of the comments for that rotar mentions significant signal loss by using the one wire method. Also I did not see any mention of if it would work with a pre-amp, as the pre-amp needs to use the coax for power also. You might need a separate run of coax for the rotar.
Also, if you are going to install a new antenna, check your pre-amp to see if it is a quality low noise unit. just as the pre-amp made a difference over no pre-amp, a quality low noise unit can make a difference over a noisy unit.

I ran two wires to the rotor. One wire carries power and control signals to the motor only. The antenna and pre-amp are on a totally separate wire and do not pass through the motor control circuit..
I use all RG-6Q, real high end stuff, premium grade and expensive. I also have a proper crimper and learned how to use it. I make my own wires..

As for the pre-amp, this is the one I have, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ONMCH0/

 

[Tron]

Making your own cables not only saves money, but also gives you control of the quality and length of your cable runs. I make my own ethernet cables, although those require a lot of patience.

 

[AntAltMike]

If I had to get channel 6 without spending much money, I'd probably try an FM dipole and a simple balun. I just searched eBay for the lowest price, Buy-it-Now FM dipole and found this for $3.89:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AXIS-700-50...302?pt=US_Antennas_Dishes&hash=item5af2fbb31e

and this matching balun for $2.70

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AXIS-RSE-E1...282?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item589ab12772

A decade ago, I bought a case of 1,000 ChannelMaster baluns on eBay for 99 cents from an estate liquidator who made that his opening price but did a poor enough job of describing them that no one looking for a balun ever would have found it. I only found it by accident, when I looked for, "Other items by this seller" after purchasing something unrelated from him.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Making your own cables not only saves money, but also gives you control of the quality and length of your cable runs. I make my own ethernet cables, although those require a lot of patience.

I tried making a few of those. I now buy them pre-made. But I diligently shop for the best quality. I found that things go so much better for me if I measure the length I THINK I need then add 20 foot to that.
Then I purchase US made CAT6 cables. http://www.broadbandutopia.com/caandcaco.html

They are much sturdier than any cables I ever saw before. I honestly can not tell if they are any faster but they seem sooooo much better made than the old ones.


As for the wire I use to make satellite cables and camera cables (I have security cameras, we have a bit of a crime problem here), I buy this stuff, http://www.home-technology-store.com/structured-wiring/SCP-HCN-1.aspx

I had to replace the wires from my house out to my dishes a year or so back and I used this. I ran two of them with the ethernet wires intact so they could be used to control the motors in C-band dishes.
I ran four other wires that I stripped the ethernet from so I would have the very best quality satellite wires. I also used this to connect my TV antenna with. And for my security cameras it carries video and the ethernet carries power to the cameras and control signals for one camera that I can aim, zoom, etc. It's the best thing since sliced bread! I can use this wire for pretty much anything I want. But the one thing I don't use it for is ethernet. I just buy cat6 wires instead.

I've had so much trouble with fonky old wires and connectors that I got mad and just decided that I would use the very best I could find and save myself the frustration. I bought all the tools to put on the connectors and learned how to do that (thank you youtube).. I buy high quality connectors in bulk. It costs a lot more this way but once it's done, it's trouble free.

?