How do I do this right - Old dish/antenna hookup

[FTLOSM]

My old setup was full voom with dish and OTA HD antenna, voom is long gone and this was packed up in garage for a while, but we recently moved and i thought why not hook up just the box & antenna for some voom local ota hd since at the last place it still worked for OTA after voom went under... IT WORKED YIPPIE!

So currently i have the antenna with full dish setup hooked up (was in living room for a bit till wife swatted it out on me hehe) now is outside on deck (nothing firm mounted yet) just to see what signals I would get if I went higher, & I got 10 channels very happy! (except one rebooting issue everytime I get to one particular channel but that is mentioned in another thread here).

Anyways time to mount this antenna out there, I was thinking of just taking the dish off and making the antenna mount to house by itself vs the whole big dish assembly, my questions come in about wiring.

See the dish and antenna both run into this big combination box
wineguard Dp - 3020
then from those 3 wires in it combines them to one wire that runs to my voom box.

Can I bypass that combiner type box (for lack of real name), and just run straight coax from antenna to back of voom box (taking out the combiner box and the dish all together).

Just trying to simplify it but want to make sure I do it right and don't mess up any equipment in the process. I figure if nothing else it's free HD OTA for a bit... (my tv doesn't have an ota hd tuner built in).

If I have to I will mount the whole assembly and the combiner box as it originally was installed, but i just won't aim the dish I guess, (all I am interested in is the ota hd) heck I DONT want that dish aimed incase oneday they send some big HIT and the box goes black hehe..

Thanks for any help on this,

Bill

 

[fayrich]

I would just eliminate the dish and mount OTA antenna somewhere. Perhaps on the dish arm since the cable is already there. Not sure what the Winegard box is, but I would eliminate it and run unbroken cable direct to the V* box. If your results are not as good as previously, then reconnect the Winegard box. Maybe it is a preamp for OTA reception?? Don't understand the 3 wire input though. The V* setup would have required only 2 or only 1 if diplexor was used.

 

[Hoopnoop]

Yes, my understanding is that you can just run a straight line to the antenna and to the back of the Voom ant connection. Also, you should check to see if you need to power the antenna. The diplexer on the Voom boxes powers the Winegard Sensar antennas. So, if you have this antenna then you need to power it with a PS-9370. If not, then you may be fine.

 

[FTLOSM]

heck ill just disconnect the combiner swith and try a straight line to and from voom box with this winegard antenna they gave me (looks like a big bird) I am gonna modify the mount here to just have the antenna arm (no dish) outside here... Just today it started snowing again yuck...

Once I do that switch ill know right away, if i dont get a signal or check signal strengths and it drops from my current 85-95 ranges ill know ok that thing has to be connected, but ill try connecting it without the dish hookups (just antenna) if that is the case...

I was just worried if i did that (tried bypassing the combo box etc) it might mess something up (fry something etc)... hopefully not and it will just work...


Bill