OTA options in apt building

[silvanthalas]

After several years of Dish and several more of DirecTV, I'm finally considering cutting the cable and going OTA for locals. The main problem: I'm in the 2nd floor of an apartment building, facing north, and where I'm located in Denver means all of the stations are practically due west of me.

I've already got a lined dropped from the roof of our building to my apartment, so I guess I could just throw an outdoor antenna up there. But I'd prefer to consider indoor options in the hope of finding some kind of antenna that might be able to get the major locals.

Ideal plan: antenna -> USB tuner -> media PC. A coworker has a really old AVerMedia USB device that worked great at our office 6 miles southeast of where I live, but we have a west-facing window there. Testing it at home? I can barely pick anything up, but I figured the included antenna would be a challenge. Hence, checking out antenna options regardless of what I might decide on for a USB tuner.

Advice from the experts, please.

Edit: I should add, in originally hooking up Dish, I've already got one of those 1' long flat coax cables to get through a window. I guess that would leave me more options in putting something right on my balcony, since that gives me some west-facing area to work with.

 

[Dan in VA]

Can you post a tvfool report? Tvfool.com

 

[silvanthalas]

Sure. I had checked out AntennaWeb.org a little bit earlier, but hadn't stumbled across this one yet.

 

[boba]

Do you have/need permission to mount a TV antenna on the roof?

 

[jayn_j]

Roof is best if you can swing it.

However, my experience with living in Fort Collins for 30 years is that the stations are all up on Lookout Mountain or nearby Mt Morrison. Those stations are all on the far west side of Denver and beam east. They are also high up on mountains, so local terrain is not an issue.

I can't speak for your particular apartment situation, but I would certainly try a GOOD indoor antenna, like a TERK. I was able to get acceptable signals from Lookout Mountain at my location at the Windsor exit of I-25, which is nearly 60 miles away. You should have a good shot at <15 miles.

 

[Dan in VA]

Build a stealth hawk for less than $5 and give that a try first.

 

[kittyhas1000legs]

If you're not concerned about channels 5/7/9, you could grab a UHF-only antenna.

 

[jayn_j]

7 and 9 are major networks in Denver.

 

[silvanthalas]

I could probably mount an antenna, seeing as I've already got both Dish and DirecTV dishes up there. But if I have to go outdoors I'd prefer to try on my balcony first. While they'd rather dishes be on the roof rather than our balconies, a small antenna might be able to hide fairly easily; I've got a weird black-painted metal thing going on for the balcony railing. That, and I'd like to be able to remove 5 stories of coax.

And yeah, the big four of ABC (7), CBS (4), NBC (9), and Fox (31) are all on Lookout Mountain to the west.

Edit: It's right about now that I want to slap a few SCOTUS justices for the Aereo decision, along with the FCC for allowing cable companies to encrypt locals.

 

[Mr Tony]

7 and 9 are major networks in Denver.

7 does have a translator on 17

 

[edisonprime]

I'm lucky. My apartment manager was so nice he let me hire some professionals to hook up a pretty large outdoor Winegard antenna on the roof of the building. I'm sure that that doesn't happen much in apartment buildings.

 

[bigjohnok]

google otard and do some research
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/installing-consumer-owned-antennas-and-satellite-dishes

inform your land lord/apartment manger of this and if they dont want to work with you file a complaint with the fcc.

 

[jayn_j]

google otard and do some research
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/installing-consumer-owned-antennas-and-satellite-dishes

inform your land lord/apartment manger of this and if they dont want to work with you file a complaint with the fcc.

Actually Big John, you need to read up a bit more on OTARD. People in apartments and condos only have limited rights. They can place antennas and dishes in areas they exclusively control, such as balconies and patios. They cannot alter the building by attaching things and certainly cannot use common spaces, such as the roof without permission.

There are a number of other exclusions as well, for historic preservation, safety, etc. One needs to understand the law before blindly quoting it.

 

[bigjohnok]

I understand the law fine i am a tech for dish. If he has a balcony or a window there are non pentrating mounts that can be used espeically for ota antennas. I deal with landlords and apartment managers on a daily basis that has no idea otard even existed.

 

[Dan in VA]

But did you read the previous posts to understand the situation?

 

[jayn_j]

I understand the law fine i am a tech for dish. If he has a balcony or a window there are non pentrating mounts that can be used espeically for ota antennas. I deal with landlords and apartment managers on a daily basis that has no idea otard even existed.

Yeah, I mentioned the balcony. The window is less clear cut. There have been rulings that an antenna hanging out the side of a building is not within 'exclusive use area' and thus is not protected by OTARD. I recall cases where the apartment renter placed a dish on the rail of his apartment balcony. The court ruled against him because the dish extended past the edge of the balcony and thus outside his exclusive use area. I would assume the same would hold true for a long yagi sticking out from the balcony.

If you look through this forum, you will see a number of posts where we have looked at various aspects of the law in the past. A lot is addressed in the sticky post at the top. I agree that many owners are unaware of OTARD, and that you can often get approvals simply because you are more aware of the law than they are. However, there are many borderline cases where you could lose. As I said earlier, historical protected areas, provisions that the dish/antenna be disguised or painted, reasonable restrictions on location unless an alternative is unfeasable. For example, you could require that dishes be placed in back yards unless you could prove you couldn't get a signal anywhere in said back yard.

In the particular case, the apartment manager has made specific concessions to OTARD in that he will allow antennas and dishes on the building roof and feedlines down the side of the building. Thus the owner is probably in the clear on adding a restriction on having antennas sticking out from the side.

 

[FaT Air]

Take a peek at this thread: http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/ricmond-va-new-to-ota.339086/

 

[bpalone]

I will add to FaT Air's comments about the Stealth Hawk. I just built one out of Number 2 solid copper wire, that is 6" x 8" x 15" and was really surprised by how well it worked. I even did a little mobile testing and on top of a hill, I was able to get a NBC station its subchannel CW from a bit over a hundred miles. The cost is minimal and if you don't like it, you are not out much. Conversely, if you do like the results, you got by pretty cheaply.

 

[Dan in VA]

I didn't realize you could make it that big.

 

[silvanthalas]

An update: like I said, I really don't want to do something outdoors. Another option with my apartment is that my north wall is not flat across the entire face of my apartment. I've got a chunk of it that sits further out due to a fireplace (in the living room) and a closet (in our 2nd bedroom/office). And thus, a west-facing option for an indoor antenna.

So, after doing some more reading, including threads in this forum, I bit the bullet and got an HDHomeRun Dual tuner. I was already going to get it from NewEgg due to the price, but they also had a combo offer for a HomeWorx indoor flat antenna, which made the $30 antenna free.

The antenna came with 10' of coax, and despite it saying it's multi-directional, I still taped the antenna to a west-facing wall in the middle of the closet. I got the whole thing up and running (more or less*) with Windows Media Center.

The worst signal strength I'm getting is ABC at around 67% (it's actually coming up on two different channels, according to the HDHomeRun, with the other at signal strength of 90%). It's running fairly smoothly on WMC right now. I'm rarely seeing any artifacts, but it does look like the occasional frame is lost. Either that or it's lag from the HDHomeRun itself.

I'll keep moving the antenna around to see if things can be improved further. Also, I want to investigate the coax that came with the antenna to see if an upgrade is needed there.

So, thanks for the help and opinions, and apologies for the change of plans halfway through.

*More or less: Windows Media Center refuses to update the guide. Apparently this is a common problem with no easy solution. Thanks, Microsoft!

Edit: It looks like WMC only found the ABC channel with the worse signal strength, so I manually added the better one. More thanks, Microsoft!