OTA noob-best rooftop antenna?

[Z06_Pilot]

hi folks,

been reading this forum with great interest. I am ordering Dish and will have dual 722 DVR's, and want to take advantage of the on-board OTA tuners they have.

I have always gotten my local HD stations via cable, so I have never had any experience with antennas for rooftop reception-don't even have one on my house right now.

my zip is 43204. from my roof, I have good line of site toward the east where the local broadcast stations are, about 6-8 miles from my house.

Is there a "best of breed" antenna to use for HD OTA, or does it depend on my environmental/geographical factors?

thanks very much for any comments

Jeff

 

[CowboyDren]

The great news is that almost all of your stations are UHF, so there's no need for a big fishbone antenna. My biggest fear for you is that you're in the same situation I am; lots of spread between the towers as you look across the horizon. Your CW is pretty much Due South, your PBS is pretty much North-East, and the rest are spread easterly.

If you're not concerned about the CW, you'll get excellent reception with any 2-bay or 4-bay bowtie antenna, like a Channel Master 4220 or 4221. You'd actually do well with a 2-bay because the beam width is wider, and since you're only 20 miles away (most channels more like 5), you don't need that much gain.

Winegard and Antennas Direct also make excellent UHF-only antennas. The ClearStream series by Antennas Direct/Terrestrial Digital are more compact and modern looking, and have a 50-100% price premium over similar-gain bowties.

Personally, I use a 2-bay DTV2B-UHF by Eagle Aspen...I know, I know, Chinese crap clone, but it cost me $15 and I put it on an unused satellite dish mounting pole.

 

[Tower Guy]

Is there a "best of breed" antenna to use for HD OTA, or does it depend on my environmental/geographical factors?

Jeff

It also depends on the channels in your city and aiming directions to the transmitters.

You have one VHF channel 13, the others are UHF. I'd go with a bow tie array such as the Channel Master 4220. For VHF the Y5-7-13. Add them with a UVSJ.

For CW and PBS you'd need a third/forth antenna. It may not be worth the trouble.

 

[CowboyDren]

There is a Channel 13, but he's only 4-6 miles from it. My 2-bay worked fine on channel 9 until they shut off the analog feed, at 7 miles away. YMMV, but I wouldn't spend a ton of money on a combo antenna if a UHF happens to work acceptably.

PBS at 36° and Fox at 120° is scary, but doable. My PBS is over 100° from my NBC, and the DTV2B picks them both up with signal strengths in the high 90s, aimed 35° off of NBC and 65° off of the PBS station. Again, YMMV, but you just have to try it to find out.

 

[Houston]

Maybe you could do well with an powered Omni like the...
AntennaCraft HDMS9100

 

[CowboyDren]

I put one of those up on a hill. A pair of 2-bay bowties, properly joined, would have drastically outperformed it for half the cost.

It would probably work, as long as you don't use the included amplifier.

 

[Z06_Pilot]

thanks for the info. guys.

I went to tvfool.com....very cool site! the towers for all my locals are actually less than 3.3 miles away, due East.

I thought, what the heck. I went down to radio shack and picked up their 360 degree UHF antenna. placed it in my attic on the east side of the house, ran 50' of RG6 down to my TV antenna connection.

WOW, my local HD channels look stellar. I have always been impressed with my local stations on my cable system, but the OTA beats it for sure.

the rudimentary signal strength meter on my TV is measuring about 90% signal strength from the 5 broadcast networks.

Don't think I'm going to need a rooftop mount after all?

 

[CowboyDren]

Sounds like you're golden. Pin that sucker down and leave it alone.

 

[JB Antennaman]

Bay antenna's works best in a rural area.

They are very susceptible to multipath issues in a urban environment.

In a urban environment, a Yagi Uda works best.

Might I suggest that you purchase a Winegard 7694P antenna and some good RG 6 coax wire.

WGCT is the only station that would give you fits and I don't even see a network affiliation so it really doesn't matter.

 

[JB Antennaman]

The problem with a Omnidirectional antenna is that it is also very susceptible to multipath. Sometimes - too much signal, coming from different directions at the same time - stepping all over each other is just as bad as a weak signal or no signal at all.

You have signals coming from the North east to the South and everywhere in between.

There ought to be a lot of gettable signals with the right antenna.

Sorry for the multiple posts, but I needed to burn up 3 posts before I could post a URL.

TV Fool