Hey everyone. Still learning, thanks for all the expertise and opinions that I’ve been reading through.
I live in the Tulsa area and pick up quite a few channels with no problem with a small RCA multi-directional indoor antenna. Almost all of my station towers are located to the southeast.
However, I want to be able to pick up Univision and Telemundo which are 14 miles away to the northwest, and antennaweb gives it a “blue” code. It recommends a medium directional antenna with pre-amp.
Are there any antennas like this that can be attic mounted, or would I have to have an outdoor antenna?
If it is “directional”, does that mean I would need two different antennas, since the towers for most of the other stations are in a completely different direction?
Any other recommendations on what I need for this situation?
Most antennas can be mounted on a roof or inside an attic.
A medium directional antenna, for ease of mounting in any situation could be either a Clearstream 2 or 4 (see two other recent threads regarding the Clearstream line of antennas). At 14 miles the C2 would be fine.
To get stations in opposite directions, if using directional antennas, usually means two separate antennas. However some people will buy a directional antenna such as a bowtie and remove the back reflector to get signals from opposite directions. That however lessens the signal strength for all stations.
Your RCA multi-directional doesn’t pick up channels in opposite directions? What is the name of that antenna? Perhaps it needs a preamp. It should pick up Univision and Telemundo. An alternative would be an omni-directional antenna such as the Channel Master SMARTenna. That would pick up all the stations from all directions. Several Tablo users here use it effectively.
Two directional antennas would mean combining them with a splitter ($2) inverted to become a combiner. Since the desired stations are diametrically opposite each other, there should be no signal conflict combining the two antennas via a splitter\combiner.
Are all the channels (north and south) within a radius of 20 miles or so? If so, a good multi-directional such as the CM should do the job (with possibly an inexpensive preamp).
It picks up Fox, CBS, and NBC (7 miles away) no problem. ABC is dependent on placement (12 miles away). The Univision/Telemundo at 14 miles, it can’t pick up no matter what.
Would it better to get a whole new antenna with preamp already installed, or just buy a preamp by itself?
Yep low powered station. If you have the time, you might want to run over to a Home Depot or Lowes and pick up a Winegard LNA 200 ($45) or RCA TVPRAMP1Z ($30) preamp just to test whether the LP station can be picked up using a preamp. If not you have 30 days within which to return it. I’d try that first with your existing antenna.
For the future, if the above case doesn’t work out, I would not buy a preamped antenna. I’d buy the antenna and preamp separately.
I’d agree with @CraigRoyce about trying preamps. I suppose another question to ask is if you’ve tried moving and reorienting your current antenna (e.g. laying it flay, turning it vertically, some combination in between…) to see if that helps your reception issues.
Your distances aren’t too far but a low power station can definitely be an issue at 14 miles with an unamplified antenna, But it’s not an extreme reception situation and so most likely it just takes finding the right combination of antenna/preamp.
IMO - elevation does more to improve signal reception than anything else. I often can’t believe some of the cheap antennas I get by with at a couple different sites just because of ample elevation. Best bang for my antenna buck.
Always compare to another HDTV tuner when surveying station reception. Tuners can suffer defects and you can chase around all sorts of things if you don’t take a moment and compare to another ATSC tuner.