Two Antennas

[Malibupacific]

Hi- I'm the president of an office condo. The condo is located in Agoura Hills, CA. We currently have two Weingard UHF antennas stacked on top of each other. They are on one mast separated by about 4 feet. They are both pointed to Mt. Wilson. They are combined with equal lengths of coax into a Weingard combiner. There is also an old Weingard VHF/UHF antenna on the same mast. That output is combined yet again with that of the two UHF antennas and fed into an old Quintar amplifier. From there the signal is fed to the offices. Am I correct in assuming that this arrangement is incorrect? That in order to improve the gain these two antennas should be side by side? We have had conflicting advise as to whether or not we even need the VHF antenna to receive the over the air signals from Mt Wilson.

Please Help!!!

Thanks

 

[Jim5506]

Either way works for stacking UHF antennas.

One above the other narrows the vertical beam width while stacking side-by-side narrows the horizontal beam width.

Obviously, it is easier to stack vertically.

Horizontal stacking may cause problems if the stations are not all in similar azimuths (within a few degrees of each other).

Look at www.hdtvprimer.com in the glossary under stacked antennas.

 

[Larry1]

The two UHF antennas can be placed either side by side or stacked on top as they are now. It is usually trial and error to find the precise distance apart (either up and down or side by side) for optimum gain on the channels you want.

With the channel repack happening, you need to check for what channels will be available for you after all the changes are made. Many channels are going back to VHF, but you need to check for your area. Most likely you will have some channels in the VHF area when the changes are completed.

 

[Jim5506]

Here is the Los Angeles repack plan from rabbitears.info.

RabbitEars.Info

2 low VHF, 5 high VHF channels the rest are still between channels 18 and 36.