My antenna has a buddy now :)

[Mr Tony]

Well decided today (since it was very nice out) to put my "main" antenna on the roof with the "distant" one. The main antenna has been on the deck for years now. The distant one is to get a VHF Hi station 72 miles away

I had them stacked when I first put up the "distant" antenna but with one facing SW and the other facing NE I seemed to get more glitches (dropouts) on the distant antenna. So figured put each one on their own mast. They're about 7 feet or so apart. With the bolts rusted on the tripod of the main antenna I used a hacksaw and cut the mast down a little bit. Otherwise it would have been 12 feet above the roof line (didnt need it that high and wanted to protect my OTARD rights)

Ran cable down the roof but its away from the existing wire until I get to the edge of the roof. I didnt know if that made a difference than having them together down the roof?

Hooked it all up and got very good results. Most of the major stations I gained a point or 2 on the converter box (the TV shows 100% on both the deck and the roof). The 2 low powered religious stations really jumped. One went fro 83 to 100 and the other from 55-56 to 83 on the TV. Gained another religious station but very hard to get. I guess they are running at low low power (their old tower collapsed) and they are HIGHLY directional.

The big "gain" was Ion. Its the oddball location (tvfool says 350 degress...the rest are 46 degrees) so it only came in at night...barely.
Now it shows as 85 on the TV

pics and tvfool report. The ones crossed out are either not digital or are off the air right now. KEYC12 is the "distant" antenna one

 

[mike123abc]

Well it will not be lonely any more!

They can share a mast but they have to be a distance apart (I cannot remember any more something like more than a wavelength).

 

[Mr Tony]

mike I asked that a year ago when I put up the "distant" antenna (the one on the right) but I had some issues
http://www.satelliteguys.us/digital-over-air-ota/213011-minimum-spacing-antennas-mast.html

 

[Peter Parker]

I will say one thing---that is the best thread title I have seen in a very long time.

 

[sergei]

From the pictures it looks like you have a VHF/UHF antenna and a cut channel Yagis antenna, maybe with preamp, so how are you coupling the two antennas together? Also since your using the RG cable the roof not going to have any affect.

 

[sergei]

mike I asked that a year ago when I put up the "distant" antenna (the one on the right) but I had some issues
http://www.satelliteguys.us/digital-over-air-ota/213011-minimum-spacing-antennas-mast.html

Stacking is only good for antennas normally of the same type and the distance is 1/2 wave total or 1/4 wave of each side of the center feed point.for a vertical array.

 

[Mr Tony]

From the pictures it looks like you have a VHF/UHF antenna and a cut channel Yagis antenna,

its a HBU33 I got from Rat Shack (the VHF/UHF)...the other is a Winegard YA-1713 and that is for a "distant" VHF station (KEYC12)

maybe with preamp,

no preamp. Tried one and it didnt do much good. The signal is stable I'd say 98% of the time...once in a while you'll see a artifact glitch show up but its minor.

so how are you coupling the two antennas together?

Right now the VHF12 antenna goes straight into the back of the Directv AM21. Since they carry almost all my Minneapolis locals in HD I have those 2 (KEYC CBS & DT2 Fox) as backup. The 2 antennas are not connected together in any way..

But what I'm going to do is this
The "main" antenna right now comes inside to a 4 way splitter
outputs are to basement (converter box), computer room (HDTV), and living room (HDTV).
I'm going to run a 4th line up and combine the VHF12 antenna and the "main" with a pico-macom combiner to the back of the AM21. We have 2 stations on VHF Hi (9 & 11) but right now they show as 90+ on the converter box off the VHF12 antenna (even facing 180 degrees the wrong way). The rest are UHF.

I dont want to combine the 2 antennas as the VHF12 antenna the signal drops if I split it in anyway.

 

[sergei]

You might give this some thought for configuring your system. Add a Channel Master Join-Tenna model 0582 coupler( channel 12) between the two antennas this model couples a pre cut channel yagi antenna to an all channel antenna (UHF/VHF) and then take the output into a distribution amplifier and that output into a splitter so you can feed other boxes. To me this should take care of any signal lose that you had before, at least that’s my thoughts on it.
To get a better signal on 12 then stacking would be the best option because from what I’ve found your antenna has a range of around 50 miles.


YA-1713 - Stacked Vertically
Date Modified: 2009-04-21

Question:
I am trying to stack vertically two YA-1713 antennas for VHF Channel 9. I have them 61 inches apart. The coax feed from each is 5 feet long to a Winegard CC-7870 combiner. The bottom antenna is 10 ft above a metal roof. (Not an issue for you) Do I have them at the right distance apart? I am not seeing much improvement over a single YA-1713.

Tech Tip:
The vertical spacing for your antennas should be at 42” which is 2/3 of a wavelength for channel 9. A full wave length would be 61’’ but we stack at 2/3 wave length to obtain 3dB gain. It is also possible that the bottom antenna may be seeing a reflection off of the metal roof. Try raising the stack 3-4 feet higher.

 

[Mr Tony]

I'll keep that in mind but right now its fine. The only thing I wanted 12 & 12-2 for was in the AM21 to record a couple shows (they have a couple locally produced shows) and as a backup when the Minneapolis CBS or Fox does the goofy weather stuff. With the Minneapolis DMA being huge (runs from Iowa almost to the Canadian border) if a county 200 miles north of us has a weather thing, the local CBS (WCCO) shows it (they have 2 satellite stations up in northern MN). So I can flip to 12 and watch it with no weather alerts.

I tried a pre-amp originally and while it helped the signal during the day at night it was too powerful and made it worse. Right now on the AM21 meter it shows 82-85 during the day and at night its at 96-100 with no amp. The "main" antenna works fine split 4 ways and no amp (although I did lose that low low low power religious station)

I have a Eagle Aspen 25db distribution amp here that I might test out