ClearStream 4v only $79 at Bestbuy!

My compass will be here Wednesday, but now beside channel 4.1,2,3 and 6.1,23 I am receiving 12.1,2,3 from Beaumont and port Arthur

When I had just one c4 I received Beaumont four and six from the back side of the antenna, the antenna was facing Houston

So you have one C4 facing Beaumont and another C4 facing Houston now?

Houston is 240 degrees, 65 miles away.
Beaumont is 70 degrees, 35 miles away.

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Yes the antennas are five apart and one on top facing Houston an the bottom antenna facing Beaumont on my twenty foot pole

You have several options.

  1. Run a cable from each antenna into a splitter. Then from the splitter run a cable to the preamp (Winegard 200). From the preamp run a cable to the CM 4 port.

or

  1. Since Houston is the farthest, run a cable from the Houston antenna to the Winegard preamp. From the Winegard run a cable to the splitter. The Beaumont goes directly into the splitter. From the splitter run a cable to the CM 4 port.

or

  1. Run a cable from each antenna to the splitter. From the splitter run a cable to the CM 4 port.

See which scenario gives you the best results. You have multiple optionsā€¦ With a good configuration the TVFool report indicates that you could get up to 35 channels (or 70-80 counting sub-channels).

I will try all you mention when I receive compass Wednesday. I have them pointing in general direction. Running in to check TV and back out to move antenna and not knowing which way to turn

Would you believe, I still have my compass from my old Boy Scout days when they were teaching us direction finding if lost in a forest.

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You should be able to get a compass app for your smart phone - probably for free. Mine works really well.

That is really go I still have things when I played baseball in lake Charles and was only six then now 62 and birthday in January.

Thanks for all the advice.

This is the RCA preamp below?

Yes.

Just found out that a post has be at least 4 letters. A ā€œYesā€ did not do it, needed to add a period after it LOL.

BTW here are all the gory details for final review and inspection:

http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=13530

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/25-hdtv-technical/1794290-rca-tvpramp1r-preamp-technical-review.html

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Some good reading - seems like it will work well with the Clearstream 4V for my VHF station has occasionally has problems.

Not much to those amps, Mark I installed the winegard lan 200 before the splitter and after and it started affecting channels.

One test would be to bypass the splitter (see what one gets just for one antenna).

Antenna --> LNA 200 --> CM --> Tablo

Would you use the combiner that is part of the 4V and run one cable from the antenna to the RCA preamp? Or would you run one cable from the UHF antenna to the RCA preamp and then a second cable from the VHF antenna to the RCA preamp?

Or would both configurations result in the same quality of amplification.

The VHF antenna part of the 4V acts as a combiner with a UHF coax input.

Thanks again!

Interesting question!

Iā€™ve always run one cable from the C4 to the preamp. Iā€™ve run separate cables from a VHF antenna years ago when the C4 itself did not come with a VHF component.

Would be an interesting experiment to see which gives better results though I suspect one would need a scientific scope that shows signals in tenths of decibels to see a difference. Antennas Direct is a quality company so their UHF-VHF joiner is no doubt a quality component. The RCA will still amplify both signals through the common port.

For the time being Iā€™d leave it as is until you need to replace the AD VHS dipole (step 2) if you need to go that way. Sometimes less cables is better.

I just bought five sections of 5 foot mast, I am putting Houston antenna on this pole and Beaumont antenna will be on the other 20 pole.

We were remiss in not asking you is the 4v pointing directly at the CN Tower? Or are you splitting it direction-wise between the Toronto and Buffalo stations? As @MarkKindle pointed out in another post, every 15 degrees that an antenna faces away from its intended target means a lessening of signal strength by 10%.

You could easily get Buffalo with another antenna (as the guy did in that site @MarkKindle referred to above). Doesnā€™t even have to be a Clearstream - an inexpensive 8 bay bowtie clone.

Another thing. If you look at the pictures of @Monkey 's VHF antenna, they have a set of powerful reflectors at the back. Reflectors can add as much as 15% signal strength to an antenna. The v4ā€™s VHF component doesnā€™t have such a reflector behind it. One could add a light 32" aluminum tube 9" behind the dipole and gain more strength for 5 bucks or so.

Also I donā€™t like how AD positioned the VHF dipole - directly behind the UHF components. Should have been a foot or so above the loops for clear line of sight.

Hereā€™s a guy using a simple dipole for channel 9 in Toronto at 85% signal strength:

Talking about reflectors take a look at this pic. For those interested in history, this is an early version of the Clearstream 4 (50 years ago). The 4 part loop antenna was first designed by Telesine in Lousiana. It has UHF (small) and VHF (large) loops. The front loops are the active elements, the back loops are the reflectors.

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Looks like old bed springs. :slight_smile: