One could actually use a set of old bed springs as an antenna! This one was known as the “Finco Bedstring” antenna:
Whoever said old timers weren’t resourceful.
Thanks Craig for sharing that.
If someone was really angry at their homeowners association or annoyed with a neighbor, they could haul up an old bedspring to the roof and wire it up as an antenna (perfectly legal according to FCC rules). Watch the neighborhood reaction…
Every time I hear about someone taking on an HOA I think of this episode of XFiles:
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Yep, it appears he’s using an AD DB8e (or clone) to aim one part at Buffalo and the other part at Toronto with the VHF dipole on top.
I received my compass(cc4580) and poles. Have the antennas on separate poles. The antenna for Beaumont was off 12 degrees. I am receiving channels better now. Thanks for all the help
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Wow that is one heckuva compass!!!
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Thanks for that. Got mine Open Box last one for $63 while visiting in NC and brought it home. This is a 2nd one I just put up and coupled with a Winegard CC-7870. I was having problems getting some of the Rockford IL Stations consistently so I put this 2nd Clearstream 4V up and pointed it 323 degrees. Worked like a champ. No more pixelation and now I consistently get Chicago and Rickford Stations.
I tried 2 Clear Stream 4V antennas last year. My daughter purchased one and I was so impressed with how well it picked up the local channels when simply connected to her TV and placed up against the living room wall. The two I purchased went up the 10ft pole on my 5ft tripod on my roof, replacing my two very inexpensive HDB8X (on sale for $49.99) from Solid Signal. I was disappointed with the performance of the 4Vs. While they did receive most channels and quite well the over all signal strength (however by small amounts on the signal meter) was lower on nearly every channel. And the 4Vs did not pick up at all the 2 high VHF channels. My HDB8X pick them up quite well, weather and atmosphere depending of course. After playing around with the configuration for several days and trying different adjustments on my Radio Shack amp and distribution amp I went back up on the roof and reinstalled the HDB8X antennas. And now I am really reluctant to ever try different antennas again. The barely used 4vs are up in the garage attic waiting for me to decide what to do with them. Will likely sell them.
I am in the Sheboygan WI area exactly halfway between Milwaukee and Green Bay. An ideal location for OTA being roughly 50+ miles from the towers in both directions. I receive 43 channels after weeding out the 7 useless ones I’d never watch.
See photo of my antenna setup.
The 4v comes with a VHF addon extension. Was your Clearstream a 4v or simply a 4? Did you have the VHF dipole attached?
The Clearstream 4 by itself is not intended to pick up VHF. The 8 bay bowtie antennas (such as the 4228, DB8e and HDB8X) do pick up VHF (my 4228 did that quite well) because of the larger reflectors. The VHF wavelength requires larger directors and reflectors than what a C4 has (unless the VHF dipole is attached to it).
If any of you are of a scientific bent of mind, the following is a presentation done when the Clearstream family of antennas was being designed:
http://www.johnross.com/SBE_2008.pdf
Fascinating journey about the design tradeoffs arrived at by the chief Clearstream designer(s) for Antennas Direct. With pictures of early prototypes.
As well here is a humorous YouTube video for creating your own Clearstream 1 type antenna:
Yeah sorry I should have noticed that. When I purchased them, the VHF dipole was an additional cost on top of already pretty expensive antennas. And their specs for the 4 (not 4V) says you “may” need the VHF dipole for lower power VHF stations so I thought I’d take my chances. One of the VHF stations is a very powerful one out of Milwaukee that my current antenna setup never struggles with. With the Clearstream 4 this station was non-existent.
Like I said the Clearstream antennas performed well. And if it’s the only antenna you try along with the VHF dipole (if you need it) you will be satisfied. The typical difference between it and my HDB8X antennas was if the HDB8X showed a 92% signal strength the Clearstream showed 87%. Two channels were slightly better with the Clearstream by about the same marginal amount. And as I tinkered with the setup I always re-scanned the channels on my TV’s and ultimately the Tablo, something you must do when changing antenna configurations.
I always recommend the Clearstream antennas (depending on distance from the broadcast towers) when ease of handling is an issue (particularly for attic installations). The Clearstreams are compact.
However the 8 bay bowties such as the 4228, DB8e and clones (HDB8X) historically have always had higher gain figures (which is why I used the original Channel Master 4228 in my situation).
BTW is it an optical illusion or does it appear that the left side of your array differs from the right side?
That’s not an optical illusion. It is so. I have configured and reconfigured those antennas in every position possible over the years. The original setup was to have one antenna’s 8 bays adjusted flat and aiming in the northern direction and the other aiming south. But then one antenna was higher up the pole than the other so I always assumed the higher up one was getting a better signal. Never proved it. But as an engineer, and one who cannot sit idle when there’s experimenting to do, it was always on my mind. I also tried mounting them back to back as high up on the pole as possible. To do this I made some wooden blocks out of treated lumber to spacer them far enough apart so when they were adjusted at their precise angles they would not hit each other. That was a big failure. All stations signals tanked. Proves there is signal coming in the backside of the antennas as well as the front (and maybe other scientific stuff as well). And in this configuration VHF stations would not come in at all. Later on is when I decided to reconfigure it to the way you see it in the photo. Required me to completely disassemble them and reassemble so one side all 8 bays would aim 245 deg north and the other side 190 deg south. Also experimented with how they were wired. Tried wiring all the north bays together before the combiners and all the south together. That did not work so well. I then rewired it so each antenna independently had the north 4 bays and south 4 bays going into the OEM antenna combiner then each of those cables into a second combiner before going into the mast mounted amplifier. That works great. I’m not sure if this present configuration was significantly better than the original but I do know it did not degrade any signals. It looks nicer as well. And now I can sleep at night knowing there is no favoritism being shown with the north getting a better view of the towers than the south. 
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Thanks for the advice from you and @TabloFan
Finally installed the RCA preamp so my setup is:
Clearstream 4V antenna -> RCA preamp -> 20 foot coax cable -> RCA power injector -> 20 foot coax cable -> Winegard HDA-200 disitrubtion amplifier just before the Tablo -> 3 foot coax cable to Tablo
The minor signal issues with the VHF channel are gone.