OTA antenna for HD locals

[darkon]

My apologies since I am all new to DirecTV and OTA HD. Had cable all my life until I moved to Michigan.

Had it installed a few weeks ago and just get the basic locals (No CW either) in the Lansing, MI area. I don't see where Lansing is getting them anytime soon. Now I want to at least get my locals in HD.

I have been reading through the posts for a while now. I would like to have an outside antenna that possibly could be attached to the satellite dish. After that is where I am not sure about. What do I need to get it to my directv box. I see that I need the AM21 since I have the new HR22 receiver.

I am not sure what dish I have on my roof. It has 4 cables coming down and going into the house (only have 2 rooms hooked up).

1. Do I need to run the antenna line directly to the AM21 box?

2. What is a good outside antenna or should I use an indoor antenna?

I live in zip 49240.

[BattleZone]

With an HR22 receiver, you have the standard Slimline 5-LNB dish.

I strongly recommend NOT buying any antenna that mounts on the dish itself, and in fact most OTA antennas that are "designed for DirecTV dishes" are both junk and not compatible with the Slimline and the much larger range of frequencies it uses on the cable.

Instead, your best bet is to install an external OTA antenna and run a coax from it to your AM21.

The question is: what kind of antenna do you need, and are all of the transmitters that you're trying to pick up coming from the same direction?

The best way to answer those questions is to go to http://www.tvfool.com and plug in your address. It will give you a list of your local stations, what channels/freq they transmit on (many digital channels are actually broadcast on different channels than their "call letter" channel), and the direction and signal strength it estimates you'll receive at your location, based on terrain analysis.

You can even save the results as a picture file and post it here, so we can help you interpret it.

In many cases, the antenna that you'll need will be relatively small and simple to install, but that isn't always the case. OTA is completely different from place to place, so TVFool is really the best place to start.

[wildbill129]

go here:

www.antennaweb.org

Click "Choose an antenna"

Punch in your address, and you will get a list of available stations, their frequency, distance and direction from you. The color coding used is the same color coding on antennas.

I did it based on your zip code. Some of your stations will be going back to VHF digital post February transition. So you need a combination of VHF/UHF antenna. It appears that the furthest station is about 60 miles away. I would consider a good outdoor antenna, similar to this:

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=HD7696P

And to answer your last question, personally (I did) I would run a seperate line from the antenna to the AM21. You may also need a pre-amp to get some of the distant stations like the ones in East Lansing.

Good luck!

[mjones73]

The local info section over at avsforum is a good resource also, lets you get in touch with other people in your DMA. Just search for a thread for your viewing area, there are a few MI ones there.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=45

[Partner45]

Depends a lot on how much you want to spend. I have done 2 things with the antenna I installed. . One was use an AM21 and a SWM8. Another was dropping a seperate lead directly to the AM21. With (2) H20 IRD's, I get the OTA signal directly from the SWM and it's incorporated into my channel guide. The seperate antenna drops, I split those and one goes to my AM21 and also into the monitors I use. That way I can switch input's on the monitors and just view OTA. I also did the same thing with the H20's too. Overkill, YES, but I paid a lot for the equipment and can set up things a lot of different ways.

A lot of people don't realize that all antennas that receive, also transmit. Thus when I went looking for an antenna, I wanted performance. I can also re-sell this to someone in the ShortWave field if I want to do away with an antenna. See below link.

I ended up getting a Log Periodic.

Mine is 12 x 12 Ft. Sounds bad, but actually blends in very well in my neighborhood. It's attached to my chimney and on a rotator.
http://www.qsl.net/w4kma/vhf_uhf.htm specifically the KMA4113 one. I even spray painted it, a camo look of light blue and white. After doing that I've had no more black helicoptors flying around my neighborhood!

And here is an interesting link you may want to read. Soon OTA antennas will be making a comeback, like during the 50's, but they are not your fathers antennas anymore.

http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/comparing.html

I have also installed an Antennas Direct C4 in my attic, and haven't anything good to report about it. http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=C4 I was/am attempting to tie these 2 antennas together to pick up only one station that I wanted to get in analog. But after Feb. '09 that will be a moot point.