OTA Antenna Troubleshoot

[hooks61]

I have had a small UHF antenna (

) for several weeks and get about half of the local channels. The others that I don't get show a signal strength ranging from 0 to 15 or 20.
Yesterday I hooked up a Winegard Chromstar (

) that is approximately 20 years old and has never been used. With this antenna I got 0 signal strength for all stations.
Is the age and design of the antenna not compatable with the hi def signals of today?

 

[al]

Your Winegard antenna appears in the picture to be missing part of the UHF elements, or is VHF only.

 

[Lorenzo]

This looks alot like a Winegard CS 7082. It's UHF and VHF and I can't see any missing elements but on the bottom side there should be a blue clear plastic box that has a circuit board inside. There's a couple of common misinstalation problems associated with the circuit board. Make sure at the top of the circuit board that the little pinchers are making contact with the roughly 18 gauge solid phasing wires that hook directly to the antenna elements. Also check the impedance switch which is little metals strips that can be arranged two different ways for either 75 ohm coax downlead or 300 ohm twinlead. If I remember right they came from the factory in the 300 ohm position. Winegard made a series of preamps that took the place of the circuit board for weak signal usuage.

 

[dodge]

Winegard antenna

That antenna does support uhf.
The questions to ask are
What direction was the antenna pointing?
How High was the antenna?
What type of Coax are you feeding the antenna?
Any Preamps?

 

[hooks61]

1) The antenna was pointing in the same direction as the small UHF that I have (per antennaweb.org).
2) The antenna was 3' higher than the UHF that I have (which is 1' above my 1 story roofline).
3) No preamps
4) The coax set up was done by Directv. The antenna coax ties into the Sat coax just out of the dish using what looks like a splitter (I know it's not a splitter but I forgot the name). In the house the coax is again split - one to the sat in and one to the antenna in on the receiver.

Lorenzo - You may have figured it out. There was originally 300 ohm ribbon leads on the antenna which I removed and added the coax. However, I didn't make any changes to the metal strips. I'll see if I can switch them and give it another try.
Thanks

 

[Rick0725]

Most likely your problem is the diplexer. Diplexers usually do not work as advertsed.

Running a separate coax for the over signal will correct the problem. Also make sure the board in the antenna is properly setup and seated.

Rick

 

[hooks61]

So the diplexer could be the issue? The installer said there would be no signal loss or other problems!
I switched the antenna connections as Lorenzo suggested. I'm sure this was one of the problems. As soon as I hooked the antenna up the PBS station that I've been trying to get jumped up to 85 percent signal strength and held it for a good ten minutes until I came down from the roof. However, as soon as I sat down and started checking other frequencies I lost signal strength to PBS again. Now for the last 45 minutes I could get no more than 40 percent for a second or two. Most of the time I am at 0 to 3 percent.
How could it change so often and with such strength difference?
I thought I had the fix but still looking.