OTA antenna Q's

I would use an amplifier at the antenna end. You're going to lose half of your signal over a 100' run.

A.

Use the website for some really good advice on OTA antenna's

http://www.antennaweb.org/

Consider a rotor for the outdoor antenna.

First off, it's a mistake to choose antennas based on how they look. Your problem is signal quality so you need to get an antenna that solves that problem. You might be able to get a "stealth"-looking antenna that solves that problem but you might need something less stealthy instead.

A general rule of thumb is that pretty or nearly invisible antennas tend to be poor antennas while big, massive, (classic) ugly antennas tend to be great antennas. Something at either end of that spectrum might be best for your situation or you might be able to find something in-between.

A key piece of information you've left out is how far your home is from the broadcast towers. Is there obstacles (hills, buildings, etc) between where you are and the towers? And so on. Such issues influence what kinds of antennas might work best for your situation.

Better option: look around your neighborhood and see what kinds of antennas others have put in place. If you can find 5-10 on other roofs within a mile or two of your home you can probably get a good sense of a type of antenna that works well enough in your area.

Since you are having some success with rabbit ears, I'm guessing you are reasonably close to your towers and there probably aren't many obstacles between your home and those towers (except that garage door). Based just on that assumption, you'll probably see a "good enough" improvement by just getting a decent antenna outside and up on your roof. An easy test is to take the rabbit ears outside, get up on your roof, run a long cable from them down to your TV and have someone else check the problematic channels. If all is good, a smallish antenna will probably do well.

Also use that antennaweb website to verify whether your area has a mix of VHF and UHF channels or just UHF. if the former, you generally need a bigger antenna capable of reliably pulling in those VHF channels. If only UHF, you can probably get by with a smallish "stealth" antenna. That website will make a recommendation on the type of antenna best suited for your area (they use a color coding system). Take that recommendation seriously and recognize that going for a little bigger antenna than they recommend is putting up something that will probably yield a stronger lock on your signals. In other words, they'll recommend a just-good-enough antenna level so going just-good-enough-plus-1 is simply improving upon your signal reception.

Last tips: higher is generally better. Think peak of the roof instead of roof line, and as high above that peak as you can safely mount it. Look up something called multi-path to get some info about this.

Position on the roof can matter too. Don't pick a spot based on some subjective, "I want it here" view. Get up there and hold it in various spots while someone checks signal strength or just subjectively checks the channels (signal strength is much better if you have something that will numerically show it- like satt and some DVR boxes). Even a few feet can make a difference, especially if there are nearby trees or other potential signal obstructions.

Direction can matter too. Experiment with various angles or also get a rotor so you can rotate the antenna from inside. If all of your stations are in one general direction, you probably don't need a rotor. However, if they are all around you, it probably will help. Again, look around at neighborhood solutions and see if any of them are using a rotor. If they are, you probably need one too.

Big & ugly or stealth somewhat disappears after it's in place. When you do your neighborhood tour, since you'll be looking specifically for antennas you'll probably notice a number of them- maybe even some big & ugly ones- you've never noticed before. That's how it goes with antennas- they're always biggest & ugliest when you imagine putting one up on your own house but then they are mostly lost in the background once they are up... completely invisible at night and only visible during the day when you are outside and looking right at them. Otherwise, they tend to seemingly disappear after they are in place... like chimneys, weather vanes, roof vents and so on.

I hope this is helpful. Good luck.

If the stations are all around, an omni-directional antenna on top of the roof would be better than a rotor. What if you want to watch two stations at once in perpendicular directions? But hopefully that isn't the case, most cities have a single area for transmitters so antennas work for people.

Otherwise, what Darryl said.

I've tried omnidirectional vs. rotor and the former seems to work "good enough" only if you are reasonably close to the towers (while very subjective, if OP is not about 20-25 miles away from all of his towers, I'd give less consideration to the omni models (though I'm sure there's going to be a few guys who have omnis working with towers 30-40 miles away). While omindirectionals can work well in certain situations, they also amp up the multi-path issues in other situations. After experimenting with both, I settled in on the rotor setup, then used it to find the optimal angle between towers both south and northwest of me so that I could get a fairly strong signal from all towers. I don't hardly ever rotate it now, except during some bad storms when I need to strengthen one of the signals that I'm watching at the moment.

And OP, don't be suckered by the "miles reach" marketing on the boxes or descriptions. Those claims are much like wifi or USB claims (theoretical max in perfect conditions vs. the realities of actual installations). If your towers are 30 miles away (I'm just picking a number there) and the description says 35 miles and another is rated for 60 miles, you probably need the latter. I suggest applying the divide-by-2 guideline: milage claim divided by two equals the signal lock consistency you actually seek.

Also, don't be too quick to fool yourself into believing the minimal "get by" antenna plus a signal booster will be better than a modestly overkill antenna without the booster. Again, depending on the situation, a booster can help... but they can also hurt. They can boost a signal but they also boost multi-path. I went through a number of trials with various power levels of boost before arriving at not using a booster for my own installation. The non-boost signals- while weaker rated- ended up delivering every channel in my area. The modestly boosted signal made a few channels fail to consistently lock. Too much signal is just as problematic as too little signal.

If you use a good signal testing approach, don't do those tests on very cloudy days. TV signals bounce off clouds. On a very cloudy day, I can sometimes lock in channels from upwards of 200+ miles away (I've even had a 300 miles away lock at one point) but they only last while the clouds are in just the right spots. If you are doing your testing on a very cloudy day, you can get fooled into thinking everything is great. Then the atmosphere evolves and the signals start failing. It's not necessarily just clouds right over your head either; it's often clouds about mid-way between the towers and your antenna. Certain other atmospheric conditions (like ice crystals way up there) can bounce TV signals too.

When you get it down to a favorite or two and you want to try the prettier one over the uglier one (that you think you probably need), buy local so you can more easily return the prettier one if it doesn't work out. Beware online orders with "restocking fees" as shipping it back and restocking can end up costing as much as some of these antennas. And use quality cable. And you'll want to test signals in bad weather conditions before believing you chose the perfect antenna (signal strengths seem to fluctuate in sunny & clear vs. torrential rain conditions). A minimal "get by" choice on a rainy SAT or SUN can lead to missing parts of the games. Did your team score or not? Sometimes you don't find out until after the game is over.

Best advice of all: BE CAREFUL. Falls off roofs can kill you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruhs5dAm4-k&feature=player_embedded . Electrical lines around your roof and a metal antenna in hand can kill you if the two accidentally bump together. Don't be working on your roof on gusty days or when lightning is looking for a fool holding a metal lightning magnet at a high point in his neighborhood (see approx 1:30 on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3M-d_eIqo#t=17 ). Wet roofs (after a rain) are water slides with bad endings. Snow or ice-covered roofs are ABC Wide World of Sports "and the agony of defeat" scenarios waiting to happen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2AZH4FeGsc A unseen wasp or hornets nest in the wrong spot can lead to you flailing about on a dangerous slope with at least a 10ft plunge at the bottom (or a 20ft or 30ft plunge off the side). Be sure to ground the thing correctly (so one lightning strike down the road doesn't toast your AV setup and potentially set your house on fire). And so on.

If you decide to buy, I suggest going one notch further than green.

Installing inside vs. outside is giving up signal strength in all cases I've ever seen. If you can get something outside, it's the way to go.

All that said though: if rabbit ears have been working pretty good and all of your towers are in the same direction, try that front room idea with the rabbit ears right in front of a window (facing the towers). That might do the trick.

By the way, I used to live in between (what I'm guessing is your Dayton area) and Cincinnati and had little problem pulling all of your stations plus all of the Cincinnati stations with a rooftop antenna. If you end up on the roof, you might see if you can also pull Cincinnati.

Why would you want another market? Sometimes sports coverage varies by market. You probably won't get all Cincy stations with rabbit ears or one of those smallish, stealth antennas but you might be able to lock in some extra stations with one of those bigger (uglier) antennas (and probably a rotor).

Now, if you found any of this helpful: please send me a couple of cans of Goldstar Chili, a fresh batch of White Castles and maybe a Frisch's Big Boy or two. (just kidding... sort of)

what do you use for internet? you've probably already thought of this but many cable internet providers include local channels without telling you that they do. I've been with Comcast, Charter, and now Brighthouse and all have fed local channels through the cable without advertising it. I've just run one line to my router and another to my TV and it's worked great.

dewthedru said:

what do you use for internet? you've probably already thought of this but many cable internet providers include local channels without telling you that they do. I've been with Comcast, Charter, and now Brighthouse and all have fed local channels through the cable without advertising it. I've just run one line to my router and another to my TV and it's worked great.

Click to expand...

Does that work with Verizon FIOS? That would make my life TONS easier...

dewthedru said:

what do you use for internet? you've probably already thought of this but many cable internet providers include local channels without telling you that they do. I've been with Comcast, Charter, and now Brighthouse and all have fed local channels through the cable without advertising it. I've just run one line to my router and another to my TV and it's worked great.

Click to expand...

Interesting. I have Mediacom. If I drop TV and keep broadband, they'll charge -- $20, I think -- to send a tech out to install a trap so no channels can sneak through.

dewthedru said:

what do you use for internet? you've probably already thought of this but many cable internet providers include local channels without telling you that they do. I've been with Comcast, Charter, and now Brighthouse and all have fed local channels through the cable without advertising it. I've just run one line to my router and another to my TV and it's worked great.

Click to expand...

That's usually only if you pay them for TV service, already. If you are internet-only, it may not be available. Every service, every city will be different, of course.

Your system will likely work. But for 15 bucks you ought to try this. I am using it and it kicked the rabbit ears butt. It may not work, but it may save you a lot of hassle...

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10901&cs_id=1090101&p_id=4729&seq=1&format=2

JAT said:

That's usually only if you pay them for TV service, already. If you are internet-only, it may not be available. Every service, every city will be different, of course.

Click to expand...

I'm with Time Warner and can tell you that they have put traps on my feed to filter out tv as soon as I cancelled.

I had been running 2 Silicon Dust HDHR tuners off their unencrypted signal that I got with my internet only service for about a year before they did this.

I'd say overall i'm much happier since I put up an attic antenna. I'd have to rescan channels 2 or 3 times a month when I was connected to TWC - they shift channel frequencies quite often - and if you're not on top of it you end up recording dead air or a blue screen with EyeTV.

Local over the air channels in HD should likely be free through that cable feed. I don't believe the cable company can filter them out even if you only have cable internet. I also don't believe you'll be limited to only the SD versions of the channels. Try it with a digital TV (hook up the cable directly and do a channel scan) and see. There's a good chance you'll find them if you do a search for them.

Lord Hamsa said:

Does that work with Verizon FIOS? That would make my life TONS easier...

Click to expand...

no idea. i'm not an expert....it's just what i've experienced.

----------

JAT said:

That's usually only if you pay them for TV service, already. If you are internet-only, it may not be available. Every service, every city will be different, of course.

Click to expand...

I'm not paying for TV service...just internet and I get the local channels in HD for free.

----------

sidefx said:

When hooked up to the cable line should I scan air or cable channels?

Click to expand...

cable

----------

sidefx said:

I'm assuming the stations that would be coming in the from the cable for free are SD correct? When I had cable I could only get HD with the set top box, our bedroom TV just got the SD stations.

Click to expand...

mine are HD but YMMV

when doing the cable scan, your system might give you the option of digital channels only or "analog + digital" or "all". The digital option is the one that is hunting for just digital (probably mostly HD local channels).

If your system doesn't give you that option, the final list of channels successfully scanned will probably give you a clue as to HD vs. SD by showing channel numbers with dashes. 45-1 or similar will likely be a digital channel and probably an HD channel of channel 45. A plain-old listing of just "45" in the channel list will probably be the SD channel version of 45. If you are hunting for HD, those dashes will generally be the key in the final, scanned channel listing.

Lastly, if you are quality hound (like I am), the cable version of HD may not be quite as high a quality as the over-the-air (via good antenna) version of the same channel. There's no rule on the cable company that they have to provide the channel at peak quality... so they generally don't. It will probably look very good- maybe even to a level where it's hard to see a difference- but if you want best possible local HD quality, you'll maximize quality with the antenna as long as you can get a consistent signal lock.

HobeSoundDarryl said:

when doing the cable scan, your system might give you the option of digital channels only or "analog + digital" or "all". The digital option is the one that is hunting for just digital (probably mostly HD local channels).

If your system doesn't give you that option, the final list of channels successfully scanned will probably give you a clue as to HD vs. SD by showing channel numbers with dashes. 45-1 or similar will likely be a digital channel and probably an HD channel of channel 45. A plain-old listing of just "45" in the channel list will probably be the SD channel version of 45. If you are hunting for HD, those dashes will generally be the key in the final, scanned channel listing.

Lastly, if you are quality hound (like I am), the cable version of HD may not be quite as high a quality as the over-the-air (via good antenna) version of the same channel. There's no rule on the cable company that they have to provide the channel at peak quality... so they generally don't. It will probably look very good- maybe even to a level where it's hard to see a difference- but if you want best possible local HD quality, you'll maximize quality with the antenna as long as you can get a consistent signal lock.

Click to expand...

.

yup. the cable/satellite signal is usually a bit compressed