Cutting The Cord And Looking For Help

[Jim5506]

Your reception will be best served by altitude.

Buy a tower and get your antenna up to 65 ft AGL and you are probably LOS with excellent signal

 

[jayn_j]

It appears that the intent here is to connect the antenna to a DVR server of some sort.

I missed that. Not a huge fan of the Tablo. If you look at the Amazon reviews, about 1/3 are negative.
Amazon product ASIN B00MWLZR0I
I am fairly familiar with TIVO. You can purchase a used unit with lifetime included for about the price of a TABLO. I would recommend you stay away from TIVO Premiere models since their tuner is weak. The Roamio tuner is much better and I have no issues with it here. Make sure you are looking at the basic or OTA model, since the upper end ones are cable only (stupid marketing decision)

 

[harshness]

The problem I see with TiVo is that the Vox devices are relatively expensive.

 

[jayn_j]

agree, but the regular minis can be had for next to nothing these days. My home setup is a Roamio 4 tuner basic with 2 TB upgrade and a regular TIVO Mini feeding off that. It just works and never has hassles. The 2 TB disk upgrade is a simple drop in plug&play.

 

[osu1991]

The TiVo Vox minis are overpriced, but as long as one has internet for the guide updates, the TiVo Roamio OTA with lifetime service and a couple of TiVo minis is still the best whole home solution for OTA dvr services.

The Roamio OTA can be had for $$250-300 on sales and the Gen 2 minis for $100-$120 on sales. Just have to watch and act when the sales happen.

 

[Ironmagz]

Yeah I didn't think the signal was going to be so difficult.... I think this is becoming a personal challenge now!

Towers (self supporting) are expensive and I would guess very difficult to erect... big tall masts require guy wires which I think get in the way of things... unless they are up on the house. The wife already fussed about having it on the roof... but maybe I need to convince her of the roof mount since it adds a bunch of elevation free of charge.

I had measured the peak of my roof and I think it was pretty much 15'. A 10 or 15' mast on a tripod mount with guy wires on the roof sounds a lot better than a full tower or tall telescoping mast on the ground. Of course part of her concern was the new roof being about 3 years old now, and her thinking leakage. But I would think leaking can be overcome with good tar pads or whatever they're called, along with some good sealing on the topside... Do you see that as correct long term?

So mounting on the house fixes several things. The aforementioned height advantage and a shorter coax run to the TV or DVR. How many sets of guy wires would a 10-15 ft mast require?

What seems difficult to me is trying to compare different antennas and brands since they don't all seem to provide the same info. They may show the gain and not the front/back ratio... some show beam width and others don't...

Like the Winegard HD8200U shows: 69 elements, beam width of 28-66 based on channel ranges, 14-20 front/back ratio (channel based), with 5-14.2 dB gain.
Or the Channel Master CM-5020: 28 elements, no beam width, 17 f/b ratio, with 10-16dB gain.
Or the CM-3020: 50 elements, beam width of 30 deg., 16 f/b ratio, with 8.6-9.5 gain.
Or the CM-5018: 17 elements, no beam width, 15 f/b ratio, with 9-13 dB gain.

So in my case what's the number one thing you would want that is better than another antenna?
Front/back ratio?
Total dB gain?
More elements?
Other?

Or is it more pick your poison and live and learn?

Thanks for reading and any more advice.

 

[Ironmagz]

The TiVo Vox minis are overpriced, but as long as one has internet for the guide updates, the TiVo Roamio OTA with lifetime service and a couple of TiVo minis is still the best whole home solution for OTA dvr services.

The Roamio OTA can be had for $$250-300 on sales and the Gen 2 minis for $100-$120 on sales. Just have to watch and act when the sales happen.

Getting those on sale sounds reasonable... I can do some online shopping! I think a subscription based guide was one of the things that turned me off about some of the other DVR boxes...

 

[jayn_j]

I've been a ham radio operator for over 50 years and have mounted many antennas.

You can support a 40' tower against a house and make it sturdy. The key is adding 4-6' underground with a sturdy concrete pad. The house then becomes the guy support at the soffit. If you are willing to spend a bit more, go for a crank up tower, so you don'5t have to climb it, and so you can lower it down when really high winds are anticipated.

Roof mount can work well. I have done several. The key is getting a strong footing going so a strong wind does not tear the tower off the roof. I'd recommend a 6' tripod with 8-10' of mast extension above the tripod. That should get you 30' AGL. The key with this though is a strong guy wire system. Mount the tower as close to the center of the roof as possible and run 4 guy cables to the corners of the roof. That gives the most horizontal support.

Once the roof mount is in place, I would an additional ground wire from each corner down to a 6' ground rod. You have just put a huge lightning rod on top of the house, and proper grounding for lightning protection is a must. I would also get a lightning protection block that goes inline with the coax and connects to the strong earth ground.

But then, I am an electrical engineer and I tend to overdesign my projects. Most would say that a single ground rod and line are sufficient, and I am probably also overdesigning the guy wires. There needs to be at least 3 and they need to extend down at no more than a 45 degree angle though.

Good luck figuring this out.

 

[pamajestic]

I would not be overly concerned about the 2Edge reception unless the ridge is within a half mile of you location.

I would use 2 antennas joined with the RCA amplifier, Stellar Labs 30-2370 and 30-2476. Mount the VHF on the bottom and the UHF 3 or 4 feet above it. Use water tight connections and good quality solid copper cable.

http://www.newark.com/stellar-labs/30-2476/deep-fringe-directional-antenna/dp/71Y5462

http://www.newark.com/stellar-labs/30-2370/long-range-uhf-hdtv-91-element/dp/72Y2542

 

[Larry1]

The TiVo Roamio OTA works great for me. I have poor reception, and the box works good. The TiVo trys to keep recording when the signal starts to break up and does not just abort the recording. (unless the signal disappears altogether) The Roamio OTA however does not have built in streaming capabilities. The Bolt however does, but is much more pricier, especially once you count the subscription price. I did have a Tablo refurbished unit, and after a year of them not being able to solve the network connection issues (each time they would reboot the box and re-load the software, but 2 to 3 weeks later, it would not connect again) they offered a refund even though the refurbished product can not be refunded.... and it was them that said to return it for a refund, not me asking for a refund, I was just asking for an exchange. I use the TiVo classic interface and have not upgraded to the new Hydra interface. I do not have a VOX remote. The TiVo is easy to download the shows from and easy to setup recordings over the internet when away from home. With the TiVo thumbs up and thumbs down rating system, it get pretty accurate in its own recordings of what you want to see. I would rate the TiVo a 9 and the Tablo a 4 based on my experiences, but yours may vary.

 

[jayn_j]

The Roamio, including OTA has streaming of the main services. Just not as wide a selection as you would get from the dedicated streaming boxes.
I receive Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu and a dozen others on my Roamio.
These are in 1080P. The BOLT adds support for 4k streaming.

 

[osu1991]

The Roamio, including OTA has streaming of the main services. Just not as wide a selection as you would get from the dedicated streaming boxes.
I receive Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu and a dozen others on my Roamio.
These are in 1080P. The BOLT adds support for 4k streaming.

Taking a guess he meant mobile or out of home streaming of live tv or dvr content from the Roamios, which the Bolt has built in, but requires the now obsolete TiVo Stream for that functionality on the Roamio.

I just use a slingbox connected to a TiVo Mini for the same functionality that the TiVo Stream provided. Otherwise yes the Roamios have access to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Pandora and several other streaming services built in.

 

[Ironmagz]

Taking a guess he meant mobile or out of home streaming of live tv or dvr content from the Roamios, which the Bolt has built in, but requires the now obsolete TiVo Stream for that functionality on the Roamio.

I just use a slingbox connected to a TiVo Mini for the same functionality that the TiVo Stream provided. Otherwise yes the Roamios have access to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Pandora and several other streaming services built in.

No my streaming goal was only to stream OTA to my other TVs, I don't have a desire to watch on mobile, other than just to play around with maybe if it's there. But I may just wait to decide that all till after I see what kind of signals I can come up with from the depth of the fringe through my antenna.

 

[osu1991]

No my streaming goal was only to stream OTA to my other TVs, I don't have a desire to watch on mobile, other than just to play around with maybe if it's there. But I may just wait to decide that all till after I see what kind of signals I can come up with from the depth of the fringe through my antenna.

I should have multi quoted, I was referring to Larry1 post above about streaming not being built into the Roamio, to which jayn_j was referring. The Roamio can't stream the tuners or recordings out of home, whereas the Tivo Bolt can. They both have online streaming services from 3rd party's built in.
The Roamio and Bolt's can both share/stream live tv or dvr content via moca or ethernet, from the main DVR to a Tivo Mini within the home

 

[Ironmagz]

I would not be overly concerned about the 2Edge reception unless the ridge is within a half mile of you location.

I would use 2 antennas joined with the RCA amplifier, Stellar Labs 30-2370 and 30-2476. Mount the VHF on the bottom and the UHF 3 or 4 feet above it. Use water tight connections and good quality solid copper cable.

http://www.newark.com/stellar-labs/30-2476/deep-fringe-directional-antenna/dp/71Y5462

http://www.newark.com/stellar-labs/30-2370/long-range-uhf-hdtv-91-element/dp/72Y2542

The bolded part is good news to my ears among the mostly dire news...!
As you can maybe see on my coverage map below I do have a small rise in elevation as I move off my property to the west toward the towers. But I'm pretty sure I am peeking over this elevation with just a 20 or 25' antenna elevation.

I think the main ridge I'm probably dealing with is the bright green that starts just over a mile away.... When I show a 50' tower on the other station map I get a couple towers that become LOS.

 

[Larry1]

Sorry, I should of made it clear, the streaming I was referring to was streaming my recorded shows from the TiVo to another device. Netflix does work great on the TiVo, and there is a limited amount of streaming apps (i.e. Hulu, Netflix) for it. Also, not being an open android box system, there is not endless apps to load on it.
For your tower, I have most 2edge signals in my area and tv towers are common. Most in my area are 40 feet or higher. (2 sections below the roof peak and 2 sections above the roof peak) They can be self supporting or attached to the house.

 

[Ironmagz]

Sorry, I should of made it clear, the streaming I was referring to was streaming my recorded shows from the TiVo to another device. Netflix does work great on the TiVo, and there is a limited amount of streaming apps (i.e. Hulu, Netflix) for it. Also, not being an open android box system, there is not endless apps to load on it.
For your tower, I have most 2edge signals in my area and tv towers are common. Most in my area are 40 feet or higher. (2 sections below the roof peak and 2 sections above the roof peak) They can be self supporting or attached to the house.

So are you going up 40' to receive the 2Edge signals or are you getting up to 1Edge or better by doing so? And I'm guessing the signals are pretty solid at that point.


I understand an $800 tower probably ensures good reception... and 8 months after cord cutting it will be paid off...

- what does it take to put them up? are we talking a small crane, or a rented cherry picker or hiring a crew?
- does one climb them to work on the top of it or to mount antennas etc.? (and yes I know they have tilting bases too)
- where do I look for someone to hire for erecting one?

I guess I'm still unsure if 2Edge signals are usable and with any amount of regularity. And I guess it depends on how far away that last edge happens. And in my case I'm thinking it's happening at 1 mile away.

 

[jayn_j]

The key to any tower is the poured footing. It is best to get a professional to do that work as you want the foundation to be both strong and true. Besides, who wants to dig that 6' x 6' x 8' hole
Look at ezup style towers. There are both folding and crank up telescoping styles. The folding can be a bit stronger and cheaper, but the crank up doesn't require free space to bring it down. Both styles allow you to work on the antennas without climbing a 40' tower, so worth it for me. YMMV.

You might want to talk with the ham radio folks about installers. We hams put up a lot of towers. A nice starting resource is Ham Radio Outlet (hamradio.com). They don't have a location near you, but the folks at the Dallas or Denver store might have suggestions on an installer.

 

[Larry1]

Because of my location and hills in my area, even my 40 foot tower does not get reception all the time. Winter is the worst for me and spring, summer and fall are ok. I really need a 60 foot tower, but make due with the tower I have. My tower is mounted to a patio stone and pinned to the house at the edge board inches below the shingles with a threaded rod going in to the rafters. I must still be on 2 edge. To raise and lower my tower, I walk the base out until the antenna comes down to the roof. Make sure to tie it off for it does not get away from you, and the more people to help the better, after all better to be too careful then to have it topple over. The nice thing about the TiVo is I get broken up recordings that are still sometimes watchable, and if the signal gets too bad then the recording just stops.

(the patio stone does have stakes around it to keep it from moving)

 

[Ironmagz]

Well WOOOT!

I put my antenna together (pretty simple) about 10 minutes and no tools.

Quickly mounted it to the top of about 15' of mast and propped it all up and eyeballed the general direction of all our towers 40-60 miles away with weak 2Edge signals.

Didn't take the time to hook up the RCA preamp yet and went inside and told the TV to scan for channels.... lo and behold it found 11 out of 22 channels that different sites thought might be possible at 30-40 feet of elevation...

Some of the channels are a bit blurry or with edge pixelation (could just be my TV upconverting to 4K) but not dropping signal at this time. To be fair though, it's a picture perfect evening...

Maybe now I'll head out and put a little turn on the antenna and see if I can clear up any of them.

Tomorrow I'll hook up the preamp and see what that does for picking up any more... again at only 15' elevation! I have 40' more mast coming soon. And I found it used at a fence company, so it's the good stuff!

Thanks all for the advice as of late!!