Opinions needed

[Comptech]

Ok I am looking at a new OTA setup. If you read the FTA section you will see I took a second power surge/ lighting strike. Anything connected to a wall wart was toast. Well actually the wall wart was toast. I checked my CM 7778 power supply and it was outputting 29 volts instead of 15. So here is my old config, a Antennacraft HUB 55 with a CM7778 and got all my local market and all Charolette NC markets but the latter was spotty. So I ordered a winegard lma200 amp and it is to much. Lost all my VHF channels but was picking up Hickory NC channels. I do have a NOAA station on top of a mountain 3 miles away and one of my locals is RF channel 7 witch I think is about 174 MHZ. So I started thinking [always dangerous] and ordered a solid signal HDB8X. What I want to do is combine the HUB55 with The HDB8X with a Winegard CC7870 combiner, with a PAR NOAA trap on the HUB55, run equal lenths of Perfect vision quad shield solid copper RG6 to the combiner then put the LNA200 at the combiner instead of at the antenna. I know we want amps at the antenna, but with it's gain and a 162MHZ trap at the VHF antenna do you think it is worth while, or should I just try the HDB8X by itself with the amp?

 

[Mr Tony]

Please post your tvfool

Tvfool.com

 

[Comptech]

Ok Tv fool is back up. Here it is.http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id=8e03d9d8434db8

 

[primestar31]

Ok Tv fool is back up. Here it is.http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id=8e03d9d8434db8

Holy crap, you could pick up your stations with a paperclip with those NM margins!

You don't need any sort of amp, that will just jack your signal higher, and shut down reception on most of your channels due to tuner overload! Remove any amp you are using, and replace it with an FM trap filter.

Here's a great one from MCM Electronics, in fact, buy a couple of them as you can hook them together in series, and you might need TWO of them:
http://tinyurl.com/optp7kf

 

[Comptech]

but with no amp I only get a couple of stations. What do you think of combing the two antennas listed with no amp? And also remember I have terrain here, any stations listed to the south, I have a 1800ft mountain blocking me.

 

[primestar31]

With the signal levels posted in your TvFool, you could just about go out into your yard and FEEL the 12 top listed station signal beams crawling on your body.

If you can't get them without an amp, there is something seriously wrong. One thing I noticed, is your TvFool says it is "Block Level" which means you didn't run it with the actual map coordinates of your house, just your neighborhod. Do that, and re-post the new one. That might make a difference.

Otherwise, I can only suggest replacing all your coax with good Rg6u and coax ends, all the way between antennas and tv set. NO amp, and see what happens. TvFool isn't 100% fool proof, and there's a LOT of "voodoo" involved in reception of tv signals at any particular location and situation.

 

[localclassictvfan]

Depends on the location of your place, i tv fooled your ZIP and you got 17 diginets from stations in the green and yellow. WGGS has 5, WLOS has Grit, WYFF has Movies, WSPA has Me, WHNS has cozi/escape, WMYA has Get/Bounce, then PBS has 3 or 4 then the CW 62 has a cbs subchannel. Now if you live between Green Greenville and Charlotte DMA tack on The two Fox OTS stations that have movies and buzzr and WBTV has Bounce and Grit and the rest of the possibilities I could go on...

 

[Mr Tony]

Depends on the location of your place,

which he already posted a block level tvfool above

i tv fooled your ZIP and you got 17 diginets from stations in the green and yellow.

but in some cases a zip only gets you an approximate option. Depending on how big the zip is (and in rural areas it can be big) that is a big difference between 3 stations and say 10

 

[Comptech]

Thank you Tony, if you look at my report look at all the different azimuth's. Also WLOS shows strong Dbi but I have a small problem with it, it called a 5600 foot mountain between me and it. And all the stations to the south, guess what a small mountain at about 2000 feet and to make matters worse there is a NOAA transmitter on the top of it and I still have VHF stations. But anyway back to the question of combining the HUB55 and the HDB8. Anyone have any luck using the combiner I listed in the original post? I would use the HDB8 for Charolette channels and fine tune the HUB55 for my local market.

 

[primestar31]

While I used to be a dealer for Winegard, and I loved their antenna's, I think the Winegard CC7870 is a high-priced way to go for a simple UVSJ you can buy all day long for much cheaper.

I now use these, and they are excellent, and can be found even cheaper elsewhere at times: http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.as...-Separator/Combiner-for-Antenna-(UVSJ)&q=uvsj

 

[localclassictvfan]

While I used to be a dealer for Winegard, and I loved their antenna's, I think the Winegard CC7870 is a high-priced way to go for a simple UVSJ you can buy all day long for much cheaper.

I now use these, and they are excellent, and can be found even cheaper elsewhere at times: http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=UVSJ&d=Pico-Macom-UVSJ-UHF-VHF-Band-Separator/Combiner-for-Antenna-(UVSJ)&q=uvsj

That's the one I ordered earlier this month they sent one with a lo on one side and high on the other. When I called them they said they were out of stock....yeah i was not a happy camper....

 

[Mr Tony]

I now use these, and they are excellent, and can be found even cheaper elsewhere at times: http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=UVSJ&d=Pico-Macom-UVSJ-UHF-VHF-Band-Separator/Combiner-for-Antenna-(UVSJ)&q=uvsj

but the only issue is then one of his antennas will be VHF only. Sounds like he wants to combine two antennas for two different markets together

 

[primestar31]

but the only issue is then one of his antennas will be VHF only. Sounds like he wants to combine two antennas for two different markets together

That's a BIG issue, as then he's pretty much limited in using a standard 2-way splitter backwards to combine them, which means it'll suffer a minimum of 3.5db LOSS of signal. Then, with a regular splitter backwards, using two different antennas, pointed in two different bearings, may cause all sorts of problems with multipath.

He can try it, but if he can get it to work, it'll most likely take a lot of fiddling with to get it usable.

A better way with two antennas aimed at two different markets, is to use an A-B Switch to switch between them. That'll work perfect without the above loss of signal and other issues, but of course will be an issue if he's using a DVR and recording channels often.

 

[Comptech]

Primestar you are missing this in my original post. http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=cc7870 The antennas will be about thirty feet from each other and yes point at two markets. I know to use equal runs of coax to the combiner and also it allows me to use a amp on one side witch will be the uhf pointed at Char NC. Not the amp I have now though, something in the range of 10 DB gain.

 

[primestar31]

Equal runs of coax are only needed with two identical antennas point the same direction, to keep the signal in phase. Since you are using two different antennas, pointed at two different markets, the signal won't be in phase.

Otherwise you can use two different lengths, but all my other info still applies. The two antennas will still fight each other, (unless you use an A B switch, to select one antenna at a time) but you may get lucky and it'll work for you.

 

[boba]

See all those red blocks in the lower part of TVfool report those are COchannel and adjacent channel potential interference problems.

 

[FaT Air]

What do you have for antenna(S) now, that only gets a couple of channels, without an amp.
What coax? and how old. There's definitely something wrong here.
Maybe replacing the coax and transformer(s) is all it will take.
Any splitters 'in there' ? May be bad.

 

[Comptech]

See all those red blocks in the lower part of TVfool report those are COchannel and adjacent channel potential interference problems.

Thank you some finally looked at the whole report. Right now I Have a antenna craft HUB55. I just acquired a Solid signal HDB8x antenna and I want to intergrate the two. I am feeding three TV's The HDB8X is going to be pointed at the Charolette market and the HUB55 will be my local market. Again, I wish it was easier to find low gain amps, but it seems all are 20 Dbi plus nowadays. And the UHF antenna will be a good 80 to 120 degrees away from the HUB55 as far as pointing goes.

 

[Comptech]

What do you have for antenna(S) now, that only gets a couple of channels, without an amp.
What coax? and how old. There's definitely something wrong here.
Maybe replacing the coax and transformer(s) is all it will take.
Any splitters 'in there' ? May be bad.

Click on the channels and look at the terrain. All is solid copper RG6 with PPC connectors. Coax is not the problem, my sat dishes have no problem, the problem is location, one to the south 3 miles away with some stations giving me a suntan, and the ones to the north playing peekaboo between the mountains.

 

[. Raine]

What about one of these?

Amazon product ASIN B00006JPEA
I use these to add channels from my modulators onto my OTA setup and they've worked good for that, a lot better than a plain splitter did and they didn't cause much loss. I haven't used them to try and combine two antennas but I think that's what they're primarily made for.