I have a 30 foot tower at our cottage on the north shore of Lake Erie. The old antenna is falling apart and not connected so I am looking for a good replacement. I checked the Tv Fool and noticed that towers were in all directions. Would be nice not to have a rotor but wonder if it would be a good idea to receive more channels.
This is the Tv Fool report: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3De6a4e2dbf4d3fd
Any suggestion would be appreciated.
Others here pointed me toward Kitz Tech amplifiers a while back. Wow, what a difference.
Kitz recently started making antennas (with his amp built in). Getting great reviews on other forums. (I also beleive its a design modeled after one that many hobbyists have been building on their own for a while but don’t quote me on that).
Anyway, I can’t personally recommend it as I haven’t tried it yet, but I believe it would be awesome.
I REALLY want to try it, just haven’t had the chance yet…
I’m over in Oakville, but similar issue. Buffalo and Toronto are about 90 degrees apart. So I put an Antennas Direct DB8e in the attic, and pointed the 2 bays @ the 2 locations respectively. 32 channels with 5 dots each.
This is by far the best approach for this kind of situation…
More details here:
https://www.tablotv.com/blog/how-to-antenna-ota-signals-multiple-directions/
I actually have the Clearstream 4 Antenna pointed toward the south, and the DB8e with one bank pointed Northeast, the other NorthWest.
The DB8e is a great antenna but I actually got a slightly better signal with the Clearstream 4 (vs a single bank of the DB8e).
Cant beat the versatility though.
The channel to my Northwest is switching form UHF to VHF with the upcoming Re-pack… I will no longer have need to point half the DB8e that direction. Will probably start off just pointing all of it the same direction but again, tempted to try the KitzTech.
Thanks for the input. I am also hoping to get the 3 VHF stations. Any input on a Winegard Flatwave? :Would it pick up signals on the backside? What about putting it on a rotor?
Winegard GL5500A gets me channel 62 in the gall and winter but I lose it in the summer. Just got it back. It is broadcast on 13. My zip is 78758 if yoy want to see my www.tvfool.com report.
The HQ Frequency is just as good but no channel 62 but not ampligied either. I have a splitter on it and sill works.
Do not buy a low cost rotary antenna
They work great the first few years, later the will move in the wind
If you did I fix so will never rotate again now works GREAT
Dave
The flat antennas I believe are not made for picking up vhf signals.
They can, but they don’t work as well as larger antennas.
From the Winegard website regarding their FL5500:
“The FlatWave Amped receives more FREE HD channels than other antennas. Capable of receiving both VHF and UHF signals up to 50 miles away, and has an embedded amplifier with Clear Circuit technology to give you the absolute best signal quality.”
The comparison chart says H-VHF
I can attest to the Clearstream antenna’s. I have a Clearstream 2V mounted in my attic. I live in an urban area smack in the middle of multiple towers. The majority of the channels I care about are in one general direction but there are a couple in the opposite direction. With my antenna pointed towards the majority, I still get the channels in the opposite direction with a strong signal.
I live within 12 miles of the towers in question, but my buddy lives out in a rural part of the area about 25 miles from the towers & he has the same antenna & loves it as well. He has his mounted outdoors at his roof line & all the towers are in the same general direction from him.
The DB8e that I am using is picking up the one VHF station (CFTO) that I need just fine. They also offer a VHF add-on, which I had actually purchased in anticipation of requiring it. Once the antenna was up and tested, I didn’t need to incorporate the VHF add on. Can’t comment on the clearstream, but am getting great results with the DB8e.
Should also note that the VHF I need is about 23 miles away. The Buffalo stations are all UHF, and range from 50 to 80 miles. Here’s my TVFOOL for comparison.
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3De6a4628db0628f
Question @Daniel454 ; how are you merging the signals from the multiple antennas? I’m just getting into this, but I have read in a few places that you can get channel interference if cable lengths aren’t exactly the same, etc…
Simple 3 way splitter / combiner… Find one with the lowest loss possible.
If buying in odd number ports, you also need to make sure all the ports have the same loss. I found even number (2/4/6) it wasn’t an issue but odd number (3/6) would often have different loss values for one of the ports.
I have used both of these without issue:
As for same length wire, I found conflicting info here.
All agreed it CAN make a difference but many indicated the difference was minimal if using a decent RG6 cable to begin with.
I did go ahead and cut all of mine at similar lengths (within 2-3 inches) just in case.
This might work fine if the 2 antennas are on the same plane and have same length cables.
The trouble you can get into with a simple Splitter/Combiner is that there could be Phase Cancellation.
What you really need is a VHF/UHF Splitter-Combiner. RadioShack site has one.
Otherwise a little VHF coming out of the UHF antenna can cancel a little of the VHF antenna signal
( and visa-versa )
@kkoceski is correct, I responded to the single question about how I was combining antennas, I did not see the post above it that indicated you were referring to combining UHF and VHF antennas…
In my case, I dont yet have ANY VHF stations, I will soon but not today, so all of mine are UHF, making the splitter / combiner linked work just fine.
FL5500A by Einegard works great at VHF
It’s not great. It’s ok - it gave me problems with CTV Channel 9 in Toronto. Clearstream 4V improved things.
Maybe ClearStream would get me more channels. I lose 62 (broadcast on 13) during the summer but recently got it back.