I just bought me cabin off the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Mts of Virginia. I don't want to spring for satellite so I'm thinking of a antenna. Who has installed one that you recommend?

I got one of these and pulled some stuff in from the horizon. The two sides can be adjusted separately which helped getting a signal from two towers the same general direction. Need a stout pole, higher the better..

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C4XVOOC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought this system and I cant brag enough about it. I am getting about 50 channels on FREE TV, and the picture is so much better than the "processed" picture I was getting from Dish-Network, Direct TV, etc... and did I mention it is FREE TV!

After you buy your system, you are done...NADA, FREE!

If you are old enough (I certainly am) to recall when free TV was the norm, it's nice to know it's still there.

For anyone reading this, I highly recommend this antenna system. It might be overkill for some folks, but I am in a fringe area and am getting signals from several diferent areas just fine, with the farthest being 70+miles away.

Here is the MADE IN USA system:

http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/hd_stacker_tv_antenna-html.html

dave

NIce!

What sort of channels are you getting with this antenna?

check this website tell you a lot of info you will want to know

http://www.antennaweb.org/

My cabin is up in the mts in the middle of nowhere. Hate to go to all the trouble and end up getting nothing.

Use this tool below, and enter your zip code for a list of stations you will likely snag on the air. Bear in mind, that with each listing station, all have at least 2 sub-channels (I.E. channel 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, etc..) and on each of these is different programming. I have some stations that have 5 sub-channels all with different programming..

My channels are news, weather, movies, public TV, sports, like me-tv, PBS, create, cbs, nbc, abc, comet, get-tv, grit, light-tv, charge, stadium, ion, qubo, ionlife, escape, antenna-tv, bounce, justice, diy, and several local news and broadcast stations.,.

So, if you get say, 13 channels on your search list, you can be pretty sure you will have 26-50 channels or so... That's why i spent a little more money and ordered the system above, for its directional receive capability.

Here is the search tool:

https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps?startpoint=62274#

dave

off air antenna I am getting 20 channels in Hispanic , Chinese , Japanese and everything else that I don't understand.

This, I have a $100 RCA antenna from the local Farm store for free TV

How many airline miles will the antenna pick up a signal?

mine about 50 miles in Iowa

The dennysantennaservice antenna has quite a bit of structure dedicated to pulling in VHF TV channels.

There are no longer any VHF TV channels to pull in. That spectrum space has been reallocated to other services since the advent of HDTV.

HDTV gets by with a weaker signal than the old analog signals. It lives in the UHF part of the spectrum.

One of the better designs for those frequencies is the bow-tie antenna, with an amplifier at the antenna. Typically, this antenna has a bow tie shaped element, with a reflector screen behind it. For weaker signals, you can get models with two bow ties, one above the other. For weaker yet signals, you can get a four bow tie antenna.

The amplifier on the antenna is important because coaxial cable losses at UHF are very high. A little amplification before the coax solves that problem.

English please

I guess I’m missing the point of having tv in a location like that.

Haha! 10-4!

A guy has to relax somewhere sometime.

I too, am looking for a antenna for my Camp. I get confused with the language and reviews on which one to get. The one I have seems to work OK, but it's the regular kind about 50 years old. Any help?

You don't need to spend a lot of many on these digital antennas. There isn't much difference between a $20 one and a $100 one, reception-wise.
You can make one yourself out of some wire and AL foil.

LOL! Here's a link to a REALLY simple HD antenna. Probably not the best, but reading the comments, someone bent it into a bow-tie and picked up a few more stations. I sure would not spend $100 on an antenna!

https://www.channelmaster.com/Digital_HDTV_Outdoor_TV_Antenna_p/cm-4221hd.htm

While it may not pull in channels from quite as far as a "directional", the "multi directional" will pull in signals from a 180 degree sweep, so you're not having to constantly adjust/aim the thing. If you need pure distance (transmitters are FAR away, get the directional. If the transmitters are a little closer (30-40-50 miles) but coming from multiple directions, get the multi directional, and your aiming won't have to be so precise...

This one works good for me. You'll want to get a signal amplifier, too, if your antenna is more than 20 feet or so from the TV, due to signal loss in the cable.

I want to be able to watch a game after hunting

I bought the system listed above at Denny'sTv because I am, what you would call, in a "fringe" area for reception. With my antenna system and an inline amp, also from denny's, I am picking up signals consistently out to 70-80miles, and anything closer is no problem.

I have a rotor on mine, but I can leave it in a 300-degree heading and pick up about 80% on my broadcast stations without moving the heading.

The small antennas out there in the $20-$50 dollar range will work if you are really close to tramsmitters, or in a large city area that might have a few broadcast stations. By "close" to the transmitters for these antennas, I am talking 20miles or less....you might receive stations further out, but not likely unless their transmitter output is very high.

Without getting too deep into theory, when the FCC forced broadcasters to drop their analogue transmitters to go digital, the digital signal has to be received at the TV at a higher signal strength, or it wont "lock on" and display the picture. So, digital broadcasting is a bit more fickle to receive than the old analogue mode.

When analogue was the normal transmitting mode, you would receive a picture, even with it being weak, fuzzy picture, lines of interference on the screen, etc...

Digital looks much better, but if you cant receive a signal strong enough to satisfy the receiver, you get nothing... with digital it's all or nothing...

There are analogue-to-digital converters out there also for older "pre-digital" TV's that are still out there..

dave

Where do you mount the pre amp? Seems like it needs power. I don't want to run power to the roof.

This is not true for all areas. Checking antennaweb for your area will show which bands and channels the available broadcasters are transmitting on. In my area digital channel 10 is actually on VHF channel 8

You know, this discussion is funny in that it's the same as in the pre-cable days. Digital sucks in that you need a 100% readable signal. Watched many shows on analog with varying degrees of snow and atmospheric conditions. The human brain is wonderful in the ability to compensate and extract the data you want.

In any weak signal work the preamp should be as close to the antenna as possible. Power is typically piggybacked on the same cable that the signal uses. I've not worked with digital preamps but that should all be included with the amp.

If not for the amplifier on the antenna, I don't think we would get TV. A rotor helps if you need directional.

In NW Ontario , there is NO over the air TV. Dish, Satellite, internet, or nothing.

When the signal reaches the antenna, it is simply a radio frequency signal. The amplifier has no way to "know" what form of modulation the signal is carrying, digital or analog. Same old analog amplifier works for all signals. It mounts right at the antenna, and gets its power over the same coaxial cable that brings the signal down.

By Google Earth, I'm 49 miles from the mountain where our local transmitters are. I pull in all the stations solidly on a two bow-tie antenna, good weather or bad. That said, I have a favorable location, though my antenna is "looking" through some greenery, which tends to reduce the signal in summer, but not enough to make a difference. The attached picture is my installation, a simple chimney mount.

All our local stations are in the 500-675 MHz UHF range. I thought everyone had moved out of the lower bands. If some DTV broadcast is still going on on the old VHF band, then my assumption was wrong. So you'll have to check the frequencies used in your particular area. If you're UHF only, then this installation is effective.



If there is a mountain between you and the transmitter, chances are you're out of luck. If the problem is just too many miles, then you can go to a four bow-tie or an eight bow-tie arrangement. If your antenna is pointing through a lot of greenery, more bow-ties will help.

They make a lot of different antenna designs. I'm partial to this one because it offers reasonable gain and bandwidth with modest wind load characteristics, and aiming is not quite as critical as some other designs. I'm sure that the other designs work just fine as well.

When denton speaks, I listen.

Denton,
We've got one here in the upper VHF band. I have an old portable Sony with continuous tuning, no detents. Makes a nasty racket sounding like cable bleed. Used to enjoy tuning that little Sony when atmospherics were right. With ducting Kansas City would come in like I was at the transmitter and not 500 miles. Now it's the low end of FM, occasionally get a killer signal from a Texas religious station. Usually when I want PBS classic music, wipes out the PBS station - and then you get the back-and-forth as the ducting goes unstable.

I'll try to be careful about what I say.

nighthawk....

Yes, when you get those tropo duct openings, interesting things happen.

When I lived in Michigan, there was a distant two meter repeater on the same frequency as our local one, but it had the transmit and receive frequencies inverted. When we got a little tropo going, the howling of the feedback loop was kind of amazing.

Sadly, the days of monitoring channel 2 to catch ionospheric openings on 6 meters are gone. As are most of our sunspots and exciting propagation. Hope we don't slide into a long term solar minimum.

denton, on rare occasion, some folks here have said nice things about me. Now I have a reputation to try to keep. It sorta cramps a fellers style when you get angry

The pre-amp is normally mounted just under the antenna on vertical mast pipe, or I have seen them on the boom of the antenna. The amps are powered thru the coax cable via a power unit that can be mounted anywhere in the coax run.

True, the signals that reach the antenna are just "radio waves" and it doesnt care what they are...but the receiver on the end of things needs to be digital these days to receive TV signals, unless you have a converter for use on the old analogue receive tv's.

dave

I did the signal finders search thing. 3 stations, one weak, two no signal. Same it has always been around here. Living in the mountains ain't always a plus.

If you got that on a little indoor antenna, something outdoors will probably get the weak station solidly and might bring in the two it could detect but not display.

I bought one of these for use at the cabin, and it works very well, other than the fact it is directional, and the tv stations are all around us, needs to be rotated, but it does have a built in rotator, and amp.


https://www.walmart.com/ip/HDTV-Rot...&wl12=34176799&wl13=&veh=sem

There was another site that I remember that would also show the direction in degrees for the TV stations listed for your zip code. That way you could marginalize the direction to pick up the channels you wanted.

Tvfool.com

Most all of these, all you have to enter is a zip code for them to work:

http://otadtv.com/tvtower/index.html

http://www.overtheairdigitaltv.com/tv-station-locator-tool/

https://www.antennaweb.org/Address

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29

dave

tag