Can I use 2 antennas?

[elocs]

My SS picks up all of my locals except my NBC station which is 58 miles to my NE while the others stations are to the SW and NW, 6 and 17 miles respectively. I was given to understand that using 1 antenna I would need a rotor and I do not want to use one for just a single station. Would it be possible to use this join-tenna that I have read about or would I need a switcher?

I would install a second antenna myself rather than deal with the guy that Voom/Installs would have sent me last fall to upgrade my antenna because he spent most of the time on the phone trying to talk me into switching to Dish. I reported this to Voom, but have never heard back from them, so I would assume they would send this guy from 50 miles away in spite of the fact that I live in a city of 50,000. If I can get the NBC station I can cut loose my basic cable for this one channel.

 

[mike123abc]

It is possible. It is very easy if the channel is in a different band from the other channels (like it is VHF-Hi and the rest are VHF-lo or UHF). There are splitters and joiners that you can use to split the signal up insert your new band and join them back together.

If the channel is on the same band you can run into problems. You will need to experiment. You can try to just use a splitter to join together the two antennas and see what your results are. It could cause all sorts of problems like ghosting, static, etc or it could just work in your case. Be sure you join them together before using any amplifier. I once did it where I had two single channel traps (or you can use a join-tenna if you can find one, they are getting hard to find). I trapped out the channel from the main antenna and then joined with the other antenna (with bands filtered out so that they did not interfere with the main antenna).

The only problem is that the single channel filters and single channel pass through parts are fairly expensive. With antennas pointed in opposite directions and joined together tend to cancel eachother out.

 

[elocs]

The NBC station is channel 39 and so is very close to my CBS channel which is 41 and that is where I am afraid the problem may be. I am in sort of a semi NBC hd no-man's land, 60 miles from 2 cities.
My NBC on cable is sd now and would be easy to get because one of these stations has a uhf tower only 6 miles from me, but I was hoping to get NBC in hd.
I may be better off using 2 antennas and using a switch instead of trying to join them. It might be much simpler.

 

[piperut]

With analog signals you could not use two antennas.
Digital signals it is... well maybe yes and maybe no.

I am having trouble getting the local Fox channel. (It is on UHF 28.) I attepted adding an indoor antenna and tunning it in. This sort of worked by using a combiner that Radio Shack sells. It was the combiner that says set 1 and set 2, not the one that says UHF and VHF. However some of the other channels had problems when I did this.

If you are combining a UHF and a VHF antenna you are fine. It is the when you attempt to combine two UHF antennas you run into problems.

If you have a station in a different direction the best thing is an antenna rotator.

roland

 

[dougmcbride]

An AB switch would work just fine, and saves the complexity that arises when trying to combine.

Doug

 

[elocs]

An AB switch would work just fine, and saves the complexity that arises when trying to combine.

Doug

I am thinking that is exactly right. I do not want to deal with a rotor for just one station and then have to turn it for the others. Keeping it simple sounds like the best way to go.

 

[mike123abc]

You can also do what the cable companies do, but it costs some big $$... Get single channel cut antennas. You could then point an antenna in each direction for each station.

 

[piperut]

The A/B switch might solve my problem also. I am having trouble getting the local Fox channel. Somedays it comes in fine, and other days it is not there. I have tried adjusting the antenna, different antennas... nothing seems to work.

The signal is just weak. I can only get the Fox station on the Voom receiver and not on ASTC tuner on the TV, or on the Computer. All the other local channels are tuned in fine on the tv and the computer. I may have to try an A/b switch and an indoor antenna for the Fox channel.

roland

 

[bryansr]

Get the HIGHEST Quialty A/B switch you can find. You will suffer SOME loss from the A/B swith anyway, but not much. The CHEAP Ones don't last very long.
BryanSR