Long TV cable run up to mountain top

[meldar_b]

Hi Guys

I live in southeastern Kentucky and in this area KY it is a very hilly/mountainous part of the state. I can't get any OTA signal when I try to use an rooftop antenna Back in the day in the 1950's-70's before cable and satellite TV people would run ladder lines and a TV antenna to the mountain peaks to get the TV signals and they could receive OTA signals from Huntington/Charleston WV stations which is around 50-70 miles away (through the air), Hazard (30 miles) and Johnson City Tenn (80 miles) by using this simple OTA setup.

I need to know what all equipment and materials that I will need to run a OTA to the top of a hill behind my house up the side of the mountain so I can get OTA and HDTV from my local stations from Huntington/Charleston WV the channels are WSAZ 3 (NBC), WCHS 8(ABC), WVAH 11(FOX), WOWK 13(CBS), WQCW 30(CW) WPBY 33(PBS) and my local KY stations from Hazard KY WYMT 57 (CBS), Pikeville WKPI 22 (PBS/KET) and maybe a few more from Tennessee. I like to know what type of cable (coax or ladder), amplifiers and How to power the amps up the hill and TV antenna's. I know that I will need to make about a 2500 foot cable run and a couple of long distance Yagi antenna's as cheap as possible.

I currently have cable TV through my local cable co. "Internmountain cable" www.imctv.com (and they suck) I was thinking about going back to DirecTV. But instead of getting the highly compressed locals also my local HD stations are not offered for my DMA yet, So I'm looking to make a investment in an OTA system for full uncompressed network TV signals. This will be a long building process for me to get done. I will need to win the lottery first I believe Please be a sport and give me some helpfully info on how to do this or how about some info of a company or person in my area that might be able to help in this build If and when I decide to do this.

Then again with all the copper theft going on around here this might be a bad idea,

Thanks
Darrell B
aka
meldar_b

 

[Tower Guy]

I know that I will need to make about a 2500 foot cable run and a couple of long distance Yagi antenna's as cheap as possible.

2500' is hard. Back in the day it worked better for VHF stations. Now, many DTV stations are UHF. The loss of the line on UHF is much higher than VHF. RG-6 and RG-11 won't make it that far.

I'd try to find some scrap pieces of 3/4" hardline from a cable company. Even then the loss on UHF is about 50 db. You would need to amplify the signal twice; once at the antenna, and again about halfway down the line. You should use amplifiers with less VHF gain than UHF gain such as the Winegard AP-8780. The preamp powering method would require multiple "bias tees" to jump the power past the amp in the middle of the coax and a power supply with twice the current capacity.

 

[ciwsguy]

If I had to fight that much cable length, I'd give up on OTA and go back to Satellite with HD service.

 

[roashru]

If their isnt any electricity on top of the mountain 300 ohm wire soldered together all the way would be best. Main thing the wire MUST stay away from anything grounding about 2 feet off of the ground and about 4 inches away from a metal fence post. Do not nail 300 ohm wire to a wood fence post the (2) wire leads will be made too close!. I have relitives in wisconsin ( large rolling hills) that did something like this.

 

[Jim5506]

Use an open wire (ladder) line like the good ood days, it worked then it will still work today. Y

Merits of Open Wire Lines

 

[meldar_b]

Thanks

Thanks guys:up for the replys on my question. I guess it will be better if I just go back to D* and keep my basic cable (2-13) for my local networks in SD instead of getting the highly compressed local channels from D*

Thanks
Darrell B
meldar_b

 

[dish_in_the_sky]

This is possible, but expensive.

Use RG-11 cable, 1 CM-7777 preamp (2-2.7 dB NF) ~$60 at the antenna, and 5 MCM Electronics 5-950 MHz 10 dB (4 dB NF) ~$15 ea. in-line amps (DC passive) every 400 feet down the line. You might get 800' from the CM7777 to the 1st line amp.

You'll need ~15V at ~1A fed into the line (probably a high guess) to run all of the amps. A solar array (expensive) could be used to feed power at the antenna end, otherwise send it in from the house.

Get out your checkbook. The coax will be the most expensive part, I think.

 

[roashru]

Use RG-11 cable, 1 CM-7777 preamp (2-2.7 dB NF) ~$60 at the antenna, and 5 MCM Electronics 5-950 MHz 10 dB (4 dB NF) ~$15 ea. in-line amps (DC passive) every 400 feet down the line. You might get 800' from the CM7777 to the 1st line amp.

You'll need ~15V at ~1A fed into the line (probably a high guess) to run all of the amps. A solar array (expensive) could be used to feed power at the antenna end, otherwise send it in from the house.

Get out your checkbook. The coax will be the most expensive part, I think.

WHAT IS THAT. all of that coax cut crimped and jointed will loose way too much signal.

The less coax is cut the better and MUST be grounded at each end.

 

[AntAltMike]

RG-11 won't work because the voltage drop over the lengths involved is too great. Also, there is a problem called excessive "Intermodulation Distortion" that develops with multiple amplifiers if their application is not well engineered.

I don't have any cable loss charts handy as I type this, but I think 1/2" hardline (which cost less than .750 and is easier for you to work with) loses about 2.2 dB per 100 feet at 700 MHz, which is the highest, post transition frequency, so you could sustain your input level over 2,500 feet with two 30dB gain cable TV amplifiers, but they use 60 volt AV power inserters, so at the antenna end of the cable, you'd have to make up something to convert 60VAC to roughly 15-18 VDC to power the preamp.

Other problems are that the signals coming off the antenna will be at different power levels and may be coming from different directions. Dealing with those complications is requires technical expertise that most people do not have.

 

[nsaspook]

RG-11 won't work because the voltage drop over the lengths involved is too great. Also, there is a problem called excessive "Intermodulation Distortion" that develops with multiple amplifiers if their application is not well engineered.

I don't have any cable loss charts handy as I type this, but I think 1/2" hardline (which cost less than .750 and is easier for you to work with) loses about 2.2 dB per 100 feet at 700 MHz, which is the highest, post transition frequency, so you could sustain your input level over 2,500 feet with two 30dB gain cable TV amplifiers, but they use 60 volt AV power inserters, so at the antenna end of the cable, you'd have to make up something to convert 60VAC to roughly 15-18 VDC to power the preamp.

Other problems are that the signals coming off the antenna will be at different power levels and may be coming from different directions. Dealing with those complications is requires technical expertise that most people do not have.

Just skip the cable and use a version of the passive reflector. Passive TV Repeater

 

[truckracer]

the ladder wire would be best. A balanced transmission line is always less of a loss than unbalanced (coax).

You need need a couple of good low noise high gain amps, I would recommend a quad stack of UHF antennas on a heavy mast or small tower material.

You get 4 identical Uhf yagi antennas (high gain models) and put them 1 wavelength apart.

You cut four identical lengths of coax and run each antenna into a 4 way splitter (splitter running backwards). connect the splitter to an antenna amplifier (low noise).

Use a balun to convert the 75 ohm to 450 ohm on the ladder wire.

You will need to run a cable to power your amplifiers. 120V from the house. Probably small gauge since the amps just use a few watts.

You will have a little bit of money tied up on it but you will have good reliable reception when all is done.

be sure there are no rotton tree limbs hanging over your transmission wires.

Some of these guys on here can tell you how to better stack uhf antennas to increase gain.
Our local cable company does it at their headend.

 

[dish_in_the_sky]

Revisiting the coax

I believe our friend was right when he bailed on this idea. It's solvable, but not easily and not cheaply.

Ladder line: How do you control losses when the spacers get wet in the rain?

About any line used, but especially coax: Animals may chew on it!

It seems I didn't review the coax problem in sufficient detail. Here goes:

Belden 1859A has 3.1 ohms/1000 ft R on the center conductor and 0.7 ohms/1000 ft on the shield (1/4 ohms, 2 parallel.) For the total run, it's 9.5 ohms for a loop through both conductors. 4.75 ohms if power is fed from both ends. This is not prohibitive.

Loss at 73 MHz is 1.3 dB/100 ft, ~3.7 dB at 400 MHz and 5.6 dB at 720 MHz. So a 10 dB (700 MHz)-2dB (50 MHz) sloped-gain line amp every 200 ft would be required, with the run from the CM7777 being 400 feet to the 1st line amp. Some power would be required at both ends, fortunately these amps don't pull that much current.

Total loss at 720 MHz would be 140 dB. The way to reduce IMD is to limit signal strength. Filtering out the VHF/FM and cell phone, (and higher) frequencies may be required, and sloped-gain amps must be used, say 2 dB on 50 MHz to 10 dB at high UHF (700 MHz.)

I advised lower-gain amps spaced closer because then S/N ratio will be at its best, and overload potential minimized.

The gain structure is set up to maintain the antenna level at the input t o each amp. This will work well unless the signals are too weak at the antenna without a preamp. In such a case, 2 CM7777s can be used at the antenna, but beware of overload. (Overload is a potential concern with any preamp or line amp) If the signals are strong enough at the antenna, the CM 7777 and other amps could be moved down the line to attenuate them.

So:

ant-CM7777-400 ft 1st amp-600 ft 2nd amp-800 ft 3rd amp-1000 ft 4th amp-1200 ft 5th amp-1400 ft 6th amp-1600 ft 7th amp-1800 ft 8th amp-2000 ft 9th amp-2200 ft 10th amp-2400 ft 11th amp-100 ft run to house.

Signal at the house is 1-5 dB lower than at the antenna, with almost as good a S/N ratio. Another line amp could be used at the house, which might help with weak signals overriding the tuner noisse in some cases.

Unless the CM7777 overloads, I'd filter just after it, with as little insertion loss in the passband as possible.

Power at the antenna would be supplied by a small solar array, probably 5-10 Watts required, and an appropriate battery for nighttime.cloudy weather.

This is quite expensive!