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Last reply · posted in Over the Air Television By RabbitEars.Info
Help,

I live in Omaha and find that the tower locations are a nightmare for an OTA antenna. Some stations are located in one direction and several others are over 100 degrees off. Another important one to me (PBS) is 180 degrees from the majors.

Someone has suggested that I mount an Antennas Direct DB-8 but separate half of the array and aim them in the two major directions. Does this sound like a smart move?

BTW, my main TV is in the basement fully shielded from all towers, so indoor is definately not an option. :rolleyes:

Anyway, any and all help will be greatly appreciated. The attachment is the particulars from TVFool.
11 Replies · 5956 views
F
Help,

I live in Omaha and find that the tower locations are a nightmare for an OTA antenna. Some stations are located in one direction and several others are over 100 degrees off. Another important one to me (PBS) is 180 degrees from the majors.

Someone has suggested that I mount an Antennas Direct DB-8 but separate half of the array and aim them in the two major directions. Does this sound like a smart move?

BTW, my main TV is in the basement fully shielded from all towers, so indoor is definately not an option. :rolleyes:

Anyway, any and all help will be greatly appreciated. The attachment is the particulars from TVFool.


KUON is located at 243 degrees from your location and is VHF channel 12. The other PBS station is KYNE (UHF) and is in the same general location (87 degrees) as all your major networks except FOX.

A good antenna for all of the channels EXCEPT FOX could be the Channel Master 4221. It should have enough beamwidth and gain to do the job.

Channel Master 4221

Remember to use an amplifier to overcome the loss in the coax (RG-6 minimum). Because you are close to the transmitters I would consider using a Winegard HDP269 because of it's acceptance of high signal input without overloading.

Your only answer to receiving FOX would be adding a second antenna and an additional DVR. This would give you all the majors and allow recording.

There is an outside chance that the 4221 could be aimed in between all the channels.

The only other possible option is a Winegard MS2000.

Winegard MS 2000 TV Antenna


You must get as much height for your antenna as possible!
A
Sorry to be bumping this, but I've spent the last year wasting my time listening to my wife screaming at me to quit stalling and get this fixed. She's sick and tired of lost signals.

So, has anything changed?

Any recommendations for good installers? BTW, I'll be looking for someone willing to run a line through my outside wall into a lower level sat box.
Voyager6
Sorry to be bumping this, but I've spent the last year wasting my time listening to my wife screaming at me to quit stalling and get this fixed. She's sick and tired of lost signals.

So, has anything changed?

Any recommendations for good installers? BTW, I'll be looking for someone willing to run a line through my outside wall into a lower level sat box.
It would help if you could tell us what you have tried. There were several solutions listed above. Did you try any of them? Did anything change in your area after the 6/12 switchover?
A
I'm using an indoor terk directional on the main level, which needs to be pointed for each of the local channels. My wife thinks that she's too good to actually have to remember where to point it :mad:, but we also lose signal anytime the wind blows.

On the upper level I have a simple rabbit ear that generally works fine.

The lower level is where we have the big TV and do most of our watching. I built a version of the DB-4 that works better than the directional terk or the rabbit ear. But, it still has too many drop outs. Moving it around sometimes helps, but the fact that it is below grade for all the pointing spells trouble. For some reason, there is no rhyme or reason as to the pointing. It's never the same twice.:rolleyes:

I have two antenna masts. One that is located where the DirecTV dish is. It currently has a Winegard Sensar on it that is totally worthless.

I also have an old DISH on a mast that's near the highest point if the house. Its a 40' run from there to the DirecTV array, but it's probably the best place for an antenna.

With the Omaha signals coming from so many directions, I'm kind of hoping that in the last year someone has developed a truly multi-directional antenna that can pull signals.
TRG
TRG
You should be able to cover this with two antennas.

AntennaCraft HBU22 Pointed between 238 deg. (PBS) and 189 deg. (Fox/CW), or about 210 degrees.

And

Antennacraft U-4000 Pointed between 70 deg. (NBC, ABC, CBS) and 93 deg. (PBS), or about 81 degrees.

And a Combiner

You could potentially wind up with three PBS channels and all the networks with this configuration. Good luck and let us know how it works out for you.
Scott Greczkowski
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne


Get it?


An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
68658 Replies · 2680198 views
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dishstaller
I Wanna Talk About Me - Toby Keith
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Bobby
98.6 - Keith
harshness
I'm Easy - Keith Carridine
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gms49ers
It's Easy - Boston
RaiderPower
Take It Easy On Me - Little River Band
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R
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
Lately my eight year old Dell laptop has been shutting off even when I have a full battery. I have had to keep it plugged up all the time to keep this from happening. Any idea what is causing this? I replaced the battery about three years ago.
2 Replies · 44 views
arlo
A recalibration might be needed. Even if it shows full, the individual cells may have become unbalaced. And the BMS chip in the battery reports false information to the pc.
Try this. Start it up in the bios/uefi and leave it there until the battery dies and it shuts off.
It might just keep running longer than in Windows. Or run for a short while and shut off.
If it's the first case. Probably just needs a balancing. If the latter, the pack might just be dead.
Not throwing stones but perhaps just a cheaply constructed battery with substandard cells. Could be.

Patience. Keep restarting it in bios/uefi until it won't fire up anymore.
Then plug the charger in and let it complete a full charge. And see what happens. If it's better.
Do the same thing one more time. Run it until it dies dead-dead. Then just let it charge, pc shut off.
When charged, it might be better. It might not be.

There are bench jigs that read the actual BMS and override it to let a tech manually monitor and charge the separate packs. They can also reset any "time bombs" in it that cause an otherwise good pack to show bad.
Maybe Santa will be good to me some year.

You might just need a new battery. Maybe the PC power management chip is going. A Dell common thing.
Leaving a laptop plugged in with a full battery is known to reduce the life. Asus for one recommends that you don't leave the charger plugged in all of the time even when shut down. And setting Windows to charge the battery to 85% instead of 100% increases life.
That's all I got.
dishstaller
That's all I got.
That was quite enough....I definitely learned something from your post. Thanks
TRG
TRG
Pub Member / Supporter
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
5 Replies · 283 views
b4pjoe
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
If you can't get into the router to reserve an IP address just don't use DHCP on the device that needs connected and assign it to a specific IP address in the network settings.
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HipKat
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
They are not. Your best bet is to set up a third-party router, attached to the Starlink for your server, that you can get into, like a Linksys, etc
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Foxbat
…it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
The Starlink V5 Install Kit I just got comes with the Mini Router. It is pretty limited in what it can do. For example, it can provide only one IP subnet at a time, no Guest Network, but it does support the pass-thru to a third-party Router. You can also split the Wi-Fi into separate 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz SSIDs to help some IoT devices that don't support 5 GHz bands to work.

The larger Starlink Router that still comes with the V4 Kit does support a Guest Network with separate IPv4 Subnet, but it's $120 from Starlink. And it still won't do DHCP Reservations.
harshness
If you can restrict the DHCP address space to assign addresses to one end of the subnet (i.e. x.x.x.50+), you can manually assign the IP address on pretty much any operating system. This is a default behavior on several popular routers. As the Router Mini only supports 235 devices, I expect that's already done.

Another option is to use a router that supports PoE to power the antenna. This article discusses that option (under PoE Power heading):

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Foxbat
Now that I've had the v5 kit with the Mini Router, it's not as bad as I first thought. Yes, no DHCP reservations, but you can set up multiple SSIDs that have separate IPv4 subnets, and like the big brother, you can select from 192.168.x.0/24 or 10.x.0.0/16 (where "x" is 1-4).

You can also split a subnet and have different SSIDs for the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz channels to handle some IoT devices. I haven't discovered what subnet the 2nd NIC on the router assigns, I'm guessing it's the first subnet.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
2 Replies · 50 views
dishstaller
Sorry for posting the wrong link. Just corrected it.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

2 Replies · 54 views
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Jimbo
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

They will have to look at the switching sections to determine WHY 2 trains were on the same track ... at the same time.
dishstaller
Thought this article might be of interest to some of you who might travel via train.