Cant Decide???

[dodge]

Putting up new antenna for a friend for ota hd, I have it narrowed down to 2 choices.

Winegard HD8200U
or
Channel Master 3671

Money is not an object Here, it will be going on a 30' tower out in the county with a rotor, only reason i am doing it is he has access to a boom truck otherwise I dont climb.

I am leaning towards the winegard as that is what I have and Have had good luck with them. I will also be using a winegard Ap8275 preamp and Rg11 coax. We are attempting to get chicago locals.

Antenna is going up in Spring Valley IL 61362

 

[charper1]

OUCH what an ugly location map; LOL!

I would also go with the Winegard IMHO.

 

[No Static At All]

With readings in the -130's; you will definitely need a separate UHF antenna. No combo antenna can match the UHF performance of the 91-XG or CM4228 in an extreme deep fringe situation.

For "reliable" performance; I would strongly recommend the Winegard 8200, or Wade VIP-306 for VHF; and the 91-XG for UHF.

**Don't forget to activate the FM trap. You have some fairly strong FM in your area.

Good luck

 

[No Static At All]

You may need to go even higher than 30 feet to get those weak Chicago stations reliably.

 

[dodge]

He has an older winegard on the roof now it is 30+ years old now, he gets all chicago analog decent and some chicago digital and all of quad cities digital now, he is shooting for all of the chicago stations in digital.

 

[No Static At All]

Unless those TV Fool results are innaccurate; getting Chicago "reliably" will be very tough at that location.

 

[ziggy29]

The first thing I'd ask myself is whether or not I really needed WHBF, since it will be on low VHF (channel 4) even after the transition. There is another reachable CBS affiliate on the list (WMBD) and if you can live without WHBF and use WMBD for your CBS programming, you won't need to worry about low VHF.

For the best shot at Chicago I'd take a 91XG and VIP-306 with a CM7777 preamp and a rotor -- assuming you don't want to deal with the hassle of low VHF to pick up WHBF. And I'd be really curious to hear the results if you choose such a setup.