Good Off Air Antennas/Amplifiers

[flipper2001]

I am in an apartment with a south view, and my local tower is southwest. I have a 15 story building blocking my direct view of the tower. So, I am frustrated that I am not receiving locals.

I have tried the TERK TV55 which picked up diddly squat. I bought a SilverSensor which if you hold it in the right place, scratch your butt and stand on your left pinky toe, will get two stations. i have successfully received OTA for all mapped stations with the antenna in different places, but have yet to find an all in one solution.

Anyone out there, PLEASE HELP!!! I don't want to be stuck without locals! I want my all HD locals...badly! Can anyone help me?

Digideal,

I too have the TERK55. Here is my rundown of antennas... I originally got all the small antenna's best buy and circuit city had but none of them worked unless I "stood on my head". I live in South Florida and there are lots of stations but for whatever reason none of the small antennas worked. I got the TV55 thinking it would be better, hey it's 100.00 so more money = better reception.. nope... Then I got the Zenith Silver Sensor, but that was better but i still had to "stand on head" and not budge to get a station clean.. This was with the antenna relatively close to the TV. Then I moved antenna to attic and Voila that was the key, 100% better but still some issues. Then I went and bought the TV55 again and placed this in my attic and this worked even better and i was able to get stations i didnt even know existed digitally. When I get my voom installed next week I will speak to the installer to see what I can do... every once in a while it pixelates but that is maybe 1ce or 2ce in a hour on some stations in worst case scenario..

 

[ahavill]

getting WRAL Tower signals from Orange Co.

I'm curious about the using 2 antennas together idea...

I'm out in the woods of orange county, NC.

Here's what antennaweb has to say:

red - uhf WUNC-DT 4.1 PBS 247° 1.7 miles away
red - uhf WRAL-DT 5.1 CBS 120° 37.2 miles away
red - uhf WRAZ-DT 50.1 FOX 120° 37.2 miles away
red - uhf WNCN-DT 17.1 NBC 120° 37.2 miles away
blue - uhf WLFL-DT 22.1 WB 120° 37.2 miles away
blue - uhf WRDC-DT 28.1 UPN 120° 37.2 miles away

PS - I should also say that I had not found this forum before my install, so I'm hooked up using a diplexor.

Go to Radio Shack and buy a cheap small outdoor directional UHF-only antenna. Model # U-75R. This will get you all of those stations as you only need to point at one location... they're on the same tower (see <http://www.klinesteel.com/KlineTowers/towers/historic2.html>)

BUT the stations owned by the Sinclair group (WB22 and UPN28... WLFL and WRDC) are in "debug" mode-- I see the channels come on and off as the engineers "play" with them during the day-- They finally seem to have WB22/WLFL online in HD mode though... although I've yet to see content (I hear Smallville and Everwood is there only HD content).

However, the outdoor antenna is worth it for WRAL alone-- the best (and first) HD OTA station in the nation.

As for linking two antennas together, if you're going to bother to buy a _real_ antenna like the U-75R, you may as well buy two of them (they're cheap) and mount them on a five foot mast rather than mess with the dipole/dish-wrap on your voom dish. Or you may get lucky and be able to pick up your WUNC channel with the directional U-75R even when pointing in the wrong direction because it's so close and strong. Also, if you ditch the dish clip-on, you will still have a HD OTA solution even if you leave VOOM.

PS. If you occasionally lose PBS channels 4-3, 4-4, and 4-5... don't worry. It's not a signal strength problem. It's because they're running content in HD on 4-2. Apparently, WUNC can do SD on 4-1 + HD on 4-2... OR SD 4-1, 4-3, 4-4, and 4-5... but not both. Even though Time Warner Cable gets both feeds. Sigh.