struggling to get reception

[reddogracing]

Hello all,

4215 antioch dr mesick mi 49668 i am on the highest lot in the small neighbor hood

My goal is to get the majors ABC 7-2, CBS 9-1, NBC 7-1 , FOX 9-2 and PBS 27-1 having no troubles getting the 9s. I use a tablo so i can record and playback show but i do have a direct hookup to the tv to compare, same reception on both. i have run just a short pole and tried both a spectrum rotating antnnes

and the 1 BY ONE ufo antenna

June 5th I put up a 45' tower that is 25' above the house peak. I put the 1 BY ONE on the very top.

I had 200' of brand new cable from a viasat install that dint work out so i ran that since it was all hooked up. I scanned and got 19 channels

Looked really good. 27s seemed to come in good, 7s were touchey. So today i thought i would remove all the excess cable. they had it run to the back of the house to the electic meter and then back. So i cut about 140' of cable out and put the ground block and the base of the tower screwed to the tower, no ground rod yet though, then i ran it directly to the little amp. Now 27s are weak and 7s are bad if they come in at all. rescanned and got this

I didnt update so i can go back and try the channels, but they are weak if they come in at all. i rechecked the ends i installed, they look good but they are just crimp on type. I will have to hire a bucket truck to work on anything now. I cant even spin the pole i installed down the center, i guess i got it too tight and i painted everything. first step will be to loosen it up so i can turn in form the ground. then when i have the bucket truck try going back to the spectrum.. I also left a loop in the coax up top that i think i will remove just in case.

So i am open to suggestions on where to go from here. sorru for the long post

 

[Jim5506]

You have a tough situation here.

Looking at your reception and comparing to Rabbitears.info data, I'd say you were fortunate to get what you are getting.

That UFO antenna is an omni-directional antenna which receives signals from all directions but is very limited in range for that same reason.

Then again your stations are scattered all around you so you have a catch 22 situation.

Here is the Rabbitears.info data log (Rabbitears is more up to date than TVFool.com):

RabbitEars.Info

Only 4 stations are fair reception and one is a duplicate. As we go down the list reception becomes more difficult in the red area. Below red is the nearly impossible segment for stable reception, possibly intermittent when atmospheric conditions are right.

Height is the best friend of OTA reception and you have already done that with your tower.

It appears you have two main clusters of stations, those to the northeast and those to the southeast

I might try a Winegard HD7698 pointed to the NE and an 8bay bowe tie type UHF antenna pointed SE, each with a separate down lead to a switch or a recorder with two inputs.

Another idea might be a Winegard HD 7698 on a rotator so you can turn it toward the station you want to watch (problem if you have multiple TVs.)

Perhaps others will have better suggestions but your situation is very difficult with weak signals from every direction.

 

[reddogracing]

update. first thing this morning 7 June i got 20 station and they all came in, by 10 am the 7s and 27s started to deteriorate. i can probably safely go up another 15' if i can find a tower section and a michgan supplier that can match the tubing i used down the center. even this may not clear the trees as they are very tall but it will be close. wish i had the drone to see how much higher it would take.

 

[Tower Guy]

If I lived where you are I’d start with a DB-4e aimed at 42 degrees. The goal for that antenna is to pick up WPBN on channel 35 for NBC/ABC, WCMV on channel 34 for PBS, and WFUP on channel 21 for FOX/CBS. If you are lucky you may also get WGTU on channel 29 for additional ABC/NBC.

WWTV on channel 9 (CBS) can be received simultaneously with a VHF antenna aimed at 137 degrees. The two antennas can be coupled using a UVSJ.

Of course, you also need a preamp. With this set-up you’d get 5 networks with no rotator.

 

[reddogracing]

thanks you i noted your suggestions.. i cant use a rotator with the tablio. I do not knwo what a switchor recorder is and if that would allow the tablio to record shows at will or would i have to have it switched to the proper antenna? sorry noob on OTA stuff Without it i have no recording options. the 9s and 32 come in excellant even when i was 25' shorter. I think i may try going up another 10-15' first then if not i will look at antenna replacemtn. the surpirse was that this morning we checked 20 stations and all were great early in the day.

 

[reddogracing]

ok thanks is 42 a split? what i looked at for my house says 53 degrees and 136 for the station i want. i am geting everythign for 136 pretty clear it is the 53 that fades during the day. I may try also facing the antenna towrds 53 jsut to see. i will need a bucket truck so might as well ad 15' to the tower since i have to hire help

 

[solarvic]

The way I get channels from 2 directions was to get 2 tablo players. Youconnect 1 tablo to 1 antenna and the other one to the other antenna. You will have to have a hard drive for each tablo. I think you can connect up to 29 tablo playes if you wanted but 2 is good for me.

 

[Tower Guy]

With separate VHF and UHF antennas combined in a UVSJ there is no need to switch antennas, nor any need to rotate either one.

The UHF antenna is aimed halfway between the UHF stations that you need. The DB-4e has the optimum beam width to get everything you need except for VHF channel 9. That’s why you need two antennas and a UVSJ.

 

[907TECH]

There is an old saying in the radio and/or TV business, an Omni receives equally poorly in all directions. You have already found any low hanging fruit by being at a decent height already, much of the problem with Omnis is multipath interference which kills digital signals, and lack of any gain. This job calls for directional antennas some good suggestions are already made. Embrace Aluminum.

 

[Ypsiguy]

Even in the Detroit area, I have to use three antennas. Two directionals using a signal combiner are pointing NE to the Detroit majors, another is pointing ESE to CBC in Canada.
Directional antennas sound like they may help you, but you probably will need 2 of them. One thing u can try is feeding both antennas into a signal combiner and see if you get usable signals within one cable. That’s how I was able to get WJBK RF 7 at a strong signal level into the same cable as our other majors which are UHF.

 

[solarvic]

With separate VHF and UHF antennas combined in a UVSJ there is no need to switch antennas, nor any need to rotate either one.

The UHF antenna is aimed halfway between the UHF stations that you need. The DB-4e has the optimum beam width to get everything you need except for VHF channel 9. That’s why you need two antennas and a UVSJ.

What is a UVSJ? Most of the combiners I saw had 1 port for vhf and 1port for uhf. Not much good for me as all 3 directions I aim antenna.s to have both uhf and vhf channels. Why I have 2 tablo players. Thinking I might get the third tablo player

 

[Jim5506]

UVSJ = UHF VHF Signal Joiner. Combines the signal from a UHF antenna with the signal from a VHF antenna into one downlead.

 

[FTA4PA]

Here's one.

ASKA UVSJ UHF/VHF Band Separator/Combiner | eBay

ASKA UVSJ - UHF VHF Band Separator/Combiner (Ultra Rare). The UVSJ combines or separates the signal from a VHF TV antenna (Channel's 2 - 13 ) and from a TV UHF antenna ( Channel 14 - 70). Particularly useful when the TV transmitters are located in different directions.

www.ebay.com

 

[solarvic]

Do they hava any signal combiners that combine 2 separate vhf /uhf antenna,s? I couldn,t find any.,

 

[pamajestic]

Do they hava any signal combiners that combine 2 separate vhf /uhf antenna,s? I couldn,t find any.,

Some of the guys on AVS report this fella from Europe does a good job with combiners. They are custom-made and take a few weeks to be delivered. I have personally never tried one but I have been tempted.

| eBay

www.ebay.com

 

[Larry1]

It sounds like you have the antenna feed split to multiple devices. If you connect it up to only one device with no splitter installed, do you get all the channels reliably? If so, a powered splitter may be used to overcome the loss of signal. You may try an antenna pre-amp, but with so many channels with full signal strength, you may over power your tuners of the channels you get reliably now for the weak ones will come in but the strong ones drop out. Also the signal strengths change with seasons and weather conditions. What you get now, you may not get latter in the year.

edit... I see the 1 BY ONE ufo antenna has an amplifier built in.