Going OTA

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Thunder7

Thunder7

Well-Known SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Sep 9, 2005
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So last week I finally made the decision to go OTA and ditch Satellite after 12 years. To test it out I bought a basic indoor rabbit ears antenna and was surprised at how well they worked. But is very sensitive to weather. So I want to get a more robust antenna (and anything else recommended) to improve the performance. I will use the existing cabling in the house from the satellite and likely will mount it outdoors near the existing splitter. This may have to be replaced. I want to feed signal to 4 TVs. Below is my TVFool data.

I was thinking about the Wingard Freeview. I am 30-35 miles from most of my local stations that I care about. How well would this work? Would it be good to get a signal amplifier? What am I not thinking about?

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id=1dda4a08f54979

Thanks for the info.
 
Thunder7 said:
So last week I finally made the decision to go OTA and ditch Satellite after 12 years. To test it out I bought a basic indoor rabbit ears antenna and was surprised at how well they worked. But is very sensitive to weather. So I want to get a more robust antenna (and anything else recommended) to improve the performance. I will use the existing cabling in the house from the satellite and likely will mount it outdoors near the existing splitter. This may have to be replaced. I want to feed signal to 4 TVs. Below is my TVFool data.

I was thinking about the Wingard Freeview. I am 30-35 miles from most of my local stations that I care about. How well would this work? Would it be good to get a signal amplifier? What am I not thinking about?

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id=1dda4a08f54979

Thanks for the info.
Click to expand...
try the Winegard HD 1080 a little more robust and possibly cheaper
 
Thanks for the input...based on what I have seen/read/been recommended, I will be going with the HBU33.
 
I have a HBU33 here in Minneapolis and it works great. I am about 30 miles away from the towers and it works fine even going to 4 "items" (2 TV's, converter box and a Directv AM21)
 
Got the HBU33 setup today. Easy t put together and mount in the attic. Went from 19 channels with so-so reception to 60 channels with great reception on most of them. Glad I made the choice I did. Very happy.
 
Some questions and looking for input/advice.

Today I got the new distribution amp (Channel Master 3418) to hook up the remaining TVs. I have a total of 3 working at the moment and soon will be 4. The antenna (HBU33) is mounted in the attic and pointed at 41 degrees (mag). The direction it is pointing does have trees (mainly pines).

Tonight the weather is poor....very wind when I took the below readings. The pic quality in these conditions is ok but some channels have drops and pixilation. Hopefully tomorrow will be a clearer day so I can take more readings and see how the quality is.

NBC 11.1 ­80 steady great picture
ABC 2.1 ­ 60­-80 constant fluctuation some drops to 40s pixilation
CBS 46.1 ­ 60­-80 constant fluctuation some drops to 0 pixilation
Fox 5.1 ­ 68­-80 constant fluctuation some drops to 0 pixilation
PBS 8.1 ­ 40­-50 constant fluctuation

Is it possible to smooth this out or is the weather/trees just part of the deal?
 
weather will hinder reception especially rain.

Also on the meters each one is different. My Panny plasma will show 100 for alot of my stations yet the other TV I have will show a 87
 
How is the quality without the amp? Also remember that mounting in the attic is not the ideal situation. A thick roof or any foil backed insulation will really hurt reception.
 
Bob2011 said:
How is the quality without the amp? Also remember that mounting in the attic is not the ideal situation. A thick roof or any foil backed insulation will really hurt reception.
Click to expand...

Without the amp the numbers are much lower. Yep -- know that being outside would be the best of all worlds....
 
If your not using the 8 ports on the splitter you are introducing additional signal loss. A 4 way splitter would send twice as much signal to each output as the 8 way. The amplifier may also be adding cochannel interference that without amplification would be too weak to bother. The fluctuating signal strength is frequently an indication of the interference.
 

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