what OTA antenna to use if two HD stations are in the opposite directions?

[bluemoose]

I have a big rooftop OTA antenna hooked up to the HR20. It has a powered control inside the house that allows me to rotate the antenna 360 degrees. This is useful because two of my local network HD stations are in the opposite directions from my house. One is 20 miles north of my house and the other one is about 10 miles southwest of my house. (12 o'clock and 7 o'clock positions) Depending on the HD station I want to tune into, I rotate the rooftop antenna in that direction.

Is there an antenna that will be able to pick up signals from both stations? :confused:

[jefbal99]

Yup, you'll want to look into an omni-directional antenna.

Here is what I have (http://www.winegard.com/offair/metrostar.htm)

and a pic of it on my house

http://home.comcast.net/~johnny_x/images/OTAslimline.JPG

[bt-rtp]

jefbal99,

Can you share more information with us about how this antenna performs in your environment. For example:

Do you experience any signal breakup/micro-blocking while watching an OTA station ?

Are you experiencing any multipath issues ?

What are the signal level readings on the HR20 ?

How far away are you located from each of the transmitter sites ?

Can you post the results of the www.tvfool.com analysis for your location ?

Thanks,

[Sharkie_Fan]

Another possibility is the Sensar III - GS2200, also made by Winegard. My stations are not quite 180 degrees apart, but they're close. This antenna, on the lower channels, has a pretty good reception band 180 degrees apart. ON the higher channels, the reception is fairly unidirectional.

In my setup, my lower channels are all one direction, and 46 is in the opposite direction. So I pointed the antenna so the front was facing channel 46, and I still get my channels 8-11 in the opposite direction. 25 is also in that direction and my reception on there is spotty. Thats PBS, and I can usually get 25-1, but the subchannels come and go. Fortunately, there's not much on our PBS subchannels that we care to watch, so the fact that we get the main channel 99% of the time works out just fine for us.

[jefbal99]

I will do my damnedest to help ya out :)

jefbal99,

Can you share more information with us about how this antenna performs in your environment. For example:

Do you experience any signal breakup/micro-blocking while watching an OTA station ?

HR20 no, H20 occasionally, but I get the same on the Mpeg4 HDs so i think its an HDD issue. During Severe weather, I will get some signal disruption but very rarely.

Are you experiencing any multipath issues ?

Not that I have noticed, like I said, very few break ups and signal loss issues.

What are the signal level readings on the HR20 ?

I'm in the office right now, but will check when I get home

How far away are you located from each of the transmitter sites ?

In the TV Fool image

Can you post the results of the www.tvfool.com analysis for your location ?

Thanks,

http://www.dbstalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11857&stc=1&d=1199900775

On my H20, I get everything on the report up to and including WOTV (minus the low power repeaters. I don't watch any of the out of market OTAs so I don't have a 2ndary zipcode added for the additional locals.

[houskamp]

I'm up in Grand Rapids.. had the simaler problem.. in my signature you can see that I have a VHF ant pointed at channels 3 and 8 with a UHF pointed north towards all my other channels.. works great..

[flogduh]

Had a similar situation here in the CA Bay Area and used a Channel Master CM4228. Almost every station was in the UHF band, so it worked perfectly. See if anyone else in your area has one up on their roof.

[K4SMX]

With the minimal distances involved, I think you'll find that any "bow tie" antenna like the Channel Master 4228 or its smaller brethren will work just fine bi-directionally, if you remove the reflector screen. It'll have a nice, broad "figure 8" pattern.

For those with stations in multiple directions, with experimentation you can probably find an antenna orientation where they're all acceptable.

A single stack 4 bay might actually be better than two side-by-side 4 bays in an 8 bay array if you have multiple receiving directions, because the side-by-side design narrows the beam width. With no reflector, a 4 bay would have a more broad and rounded figure 8 pattern than an 8 bay.

[bt-rtp]

jefbal99,

Thanks very much for the information. Seems like the Winegard is a really good antenna for your environment. I am impressed with it's receiption footprint. I live in Raleigh, NC and all of our major networks are consolidated at one transmitter site. The exception is PBS and I have a separate antenna to receive it.

[jefbal99]

jefbal99,

Thanks very much for the information. Seems like the Winegard is a really good antenna for your environment. I am impressed with it's receiption footprint. I live in Raleigh, NC and all of our major networks are consolidated at one transmitter site. The exception is PBS and I have a separate antenna to receive it.

I'm very happy with it :)

[MX727]

Two antennas, a combiner and an amp if you need.

[K4SMX]

Two antennas, a combiner and an amp if you need.
You'll find this has bad results if the two antennas cover the same frequency range, as predicted theoretically and proven empirically by your truly. With the antennas pointed in different directions, electrical interference patterns occur in both directions. This works fine, however, when combining a UHF and a VHF antenna, even if they're pointed in different directions. For two antennas covering the same frequency range and pointed in different directions, use a coaxial switch instead of a combiner.

If you have a typical ATSC tuner, which will only memorize one direction at a time, and the signals are strong enough, you might get away with doing channel memorization with both antennas temporarily connected through a combiner. After doing so, you should revert to a switch, unless the signals from all the stations you wish to receive are strong enough to overcome the dual antenna interference problem 100% of the time.