Hey guys & gals,
I received this DTV antenna question from a friend who's having problems with her setup.
My only thinking is that the amplifier has raised the "noise floor" all around, and now that's she's higher, she's more directional. I'm recommending removing the amplifier.
What do you think ?
73's, Neil / KE6DCJ ==================
I am having a problem with my antenna and TV setups here.
As mentioned before, I have been running off an antenna hanging inside the garage just over the roof of the Mercedes.
I live not quite in a direct line between Chicago and Milwaukee. Heading of 172 degrees and 57 miles to Chicago, and 358 degrees and about 30 miles to Milwaukee. The antenna was pointing (roughly) at Chicago, I got most of the Chicago stations very well, most of the time. (CBS is always bad). And most of the time, I also got Milwaukee just fine. Once in a while, with bad weather, one city's stations or the other would not come in as well. But some of these are duplicate's (like 2 ABC stations etc.), so on the whole it worked well.
Well about a month ago, I decided to "improve the situation". I moved the antenna up to the roof, so it has an increased height of about 20 or more. I also installed a rotator and an amplifier. The cable run is no longer, but because of the amplifier, there are two more carefully checked connections. I wanted to do this before the permanent winter accumulation of snow had deposited itself on the roof. It is now snowed over.
Now when I point the antenna at Chicago, I get the Chicago stations very well, even better than before. BUT, I cannot receive the Milwaukee stations at all. And the same for the other directions. Point it at Milwaukee, cannot see the Chicago stations. So you ask, what's the problem?
In order to watch ANY station on either of the TVs, you have to do a channel scan. You CANNOT add a station that is not found by the TV in its automatic scan. You can subtract a channel, but not add one. You cannot even punch the the numbers (like 04.1) for a channel that was not found and loaded into the menu by the automatic scan.
SO, if I point the antenna at Chicago and do the scan, I can only watch those stations until I rotate the antenna and rerun the automatic scan (a process that can take 10-15 minutes) if I want to watch a Milwaukee station. And the stations are not all duplicates, and I really want the ability to receive both.
It is so frustrating !!!!
And I don't get why the "bi-directional" reception has degraded so much, when the individual channels (in the specific direction) seem to have improved ???
I know that there are many experts on everything on this list ......... any ideas.
ke6dcj wrote:
Hey guys & gals,
I am having a problem with my antenna and TV setups here.
As mentioned before, I have been running off an antenna hanging inside the garage just over the roof of the Mercedes.
I live not quite in a direct line between Chicago and Milwaukee. Heading of 172 degrees and 57 miles to Chicago, and 358 degrees and about 30 miles to Milwaukee. The antenna was pointing (roughly) at Chicago, I got most of the Chicago stations very well, most of the time. (CBS is always bad). And most of the time, I also got Milwaukee just fine. Once in a while, with bad weather, one city's stations or the other would not come in as well. But some of these are duplicate's (like 2 ABC stations etc.), so on the whole it worked well.
Well about a month ago, I decided to "improve the situation". I moved the antenna up to the roof, so it has an increased height of about 20 or more. I also installed a rotator and an amplifier. The cable run is no longer, but because of the amplifier, there are two more carefully checked connections. I wanted to do this before the permanent winter accumulation of snow had deposited itself on the roof. It is now snowed over.
Now when I point the antenna at Chicago, I get the Chicago stations very well, even better than before. BUT, I cannot receive the Milwaukee stations at all. And the same for the other directions. Point it at Milwaukee, cannot see the Chicago stations. So you ask, what's the problem?
In order to watch ANY station on either of the TVs, you have to do a channel scan. You CANNOT add a station that is not found by the TV in its automatic scan. You can subtract a channel, but not add one. You cannot even punch the the numbers (like 04.1) for a channel that was not found and loaded into the menu by the automatic scan.
SO, if I point the antenna at Chicago and do the scan, I can only watch those stations until I rotate the antenna and rerun the automatic scan (a process that can take 10-15 minutes) if I want to watch a Milwaukee station. And the stations are not all duplicates, and I really want the ability to receive both.
It is so frustrating !!!!
And I don't get why the "bi-directional" reception has degraded so much, when the individual channels (in the specific direction) seem to have improved ???
Inside, there was probably enough nearby material distorting the pattern to give sufficient pickup off of the back of the antenna to make it work.
Two possibilities:
1. As the stations are close to 180^ apart, consider a bi-directional antenna such as a dipole or stacked dipoles. Likely nothing commercially available, so you would probably have to make something like a bow tie array. Perhaps an antenna designed for an RV or vehicle might work, these often have a built-in amplifier.
2. Lose the rotator. Install two antennas, one pointed at Chicago and one at Milwaukee. Feed them both into a splitter wired backwards and then to your set. Ideally use equal length co-ax with the driven elements but this probably isn't critical.
-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
-
Jay Hennigan -
ke6dcj