Question about antenna

[brianincbus]

Newbie here and I wanted to know if I can hook a pre-amp up to a non-amplified antenna? Directv sent me a Winegard Sensar III non-amplified antenna when they installed my HD, and according to antennaweb I have ABC and NBC right on the cusp of coming in... which they don't.

 

[Carl B]

Yes.

 

[Lorenzo]

If you've already got your preamp give it a try. I think given your stations are all about the same direction and less than 15 miles away and only the future CBS is on VHF, you'd be better off investing in an all channel antenna. Being as close to the stations as you are you're likely to overload a preamp. The Sensar antennas are really not much better than a rabbit ears antenna wheras even a 5 ft long U-V antenna will have significant gain at UHF and more importantly will discriminate against signals (ghosts and interferance especially) coming in from directions the antenna is not pointed at.

 

[bigOleB]

Pre-amp really helps if you plan to distribute the signal to multiple devices. I have 4 TV's hooked up and crystal clear picture from just beyond the "fringe".

Without the preamp I get snow year round!

 

[brianincbus]

Do you have any suggestions? I've read on some other forums the Channelmaster 4228 is about the best on the market. Does that get UHF and VHF? Thanks for your help.

 

[datwell]

The CM 4228 is UHF only. This is fine for me as that is where my digital stations are and I get the SD stations via E* and this ensures I get the guide info. BTW, the CM 4228 does a great job!

--Doug

 

[Kevinw]

yellow - uhf WZVN-DT 26.1 ABC NAPLES FL 55° 14.4 41
* yellow - uhf WRXY-DT 33.1 CTN TICE FL 60° 11.4 33
* yellow - uhf WTVK-DT 45.1 WB NAPLES FL 60° 11.4 45
* yellow - vhf WINK-DT 9 CBS FORT MYERS FL 01-06 61° 13.5 9
* yellow - uhf WFTX-DT 36.1 FOX CAPE CORAL FL 56° 11.4 35
* yellow - uhf WGCU-DT 30.1 PBS FORT MYERS FL 57° 14.2 31
* yellow - uhf WBBH-DT 20.1 NBC FORT MYERS FL 55° 14.4 15
The 4228 may not work as well because you have 1 VHF channel that is on the lowside- Ch9. Depending upon your exact adress you may only need a small uhf/vhf combo. The 4428 is effective for 11-13 VHF

 

[brianincbus]

Thanks for your help, I'm taking your advice and getting a different off air antenna. Would the Channel Master CM 3016 be sufficient. It's a medium directional antenna. My zip is 33914 BTW. Thanks again.

 

[Lorenzo]

The 3016 should be a great antenna. It's comes with an outdoor matching transformer so use RG6 type cable and for best results the antenna should be 10 feet or more above your roof line and not looking through trees in the direction it's pointing. The shortest elements point toward the transmitters. You might use analog ch 49, a low powered Christian station as your test signal to point the antenna.

 

[brianincbus]

10 feet above the roof line, does that refer to the lowest point, or the peak of the roof? Thanks

 

[Kevinw]

10 feet above the roof line, does that refer to the lowest point, or the peak of the roof? Thanks

Above peak. I would think fromyour location, with all tower near 15 miles and in one spot, you could get away with an attic mount or even a good indoor like the Zenith Silver Sensor.

 

[R-U-Q-R-U]

Newbie here and I wanted to know if I can hook a pre-amp up to a non-amplified antenna? Directv sent me a Winegard Sensar III non-amplified antenna when they installed my HD, and according to antennaweb I have ABC and NBC right on the cusp of coming in... which they don't.

I am using a Winegard Square Shooter SS2000 with pre-amp and get ALL the HD stations broadcasting from Bithlo FL. My lowest signal (89%) on the E* 811 is WESH (NBC) which broadcasts VHF not UHF.

Using a Samsung SIR-T451 HDTV receiver I get maximum signal on all locals HD DT stations. I am 23 miles from the towers.

Check it out: http://www.winegard.com/offair/squareshooter.htm

 

[gutter]

I want to ask a question regarding antenna's as well. Is there an antenna that can pick up HD or digital from 100 miles away? That is of course assuming the stations are broadcasting at full power.

 

[Kevinw]

I want to ask a question regarding antenna's as well. Is there an antenna that can pick up HD or digital from 100 miles away? That is of course assuming the stations are broadcasting at full power.

Not with out a huge tower- at best UHF in normal conditions is 50 miles. 100 miles is to far becasue of the curvature of the earth...

 

[Lorenzo]

I've installed hundreds of UHF antennas that were 90 to 110 miles from San Francisco. To get great reception on UHF we used 40 foot masts on top of the house and either a long range UHF-VHF (say 10 foot or longer) antenna or a long range UHF only yagi (about 8 foot long) coupled to a medium priced preamp ( 20 db gain and under 5 db noise figure) and got great results. Typically the San Francisco UHF stations were better reception than the San Francisco VHF stations chiefly because the spectrum at UHF is quieter- meaning there's less man made noise and interferance at UHF to mess up the OTA reception. The power levels of the San Francisco UHFs run between 300K and 5 million watts which is typical of major market UHF stations. The San Francisco transmitters are only about 1500 feet above sea level but we had a clear shot to them with no mountains in the way.

I was once the tramsmitter technician for a rural Oregon TV tranlator site that picked up Portland Channels 6, 8, and 12 at 190 miles on the other side of 2 mountain ranges both with peaks over 8000 feet. Of course the receiving antenna was a multi wavelength copper wire rhombic which was streched between 4- 35 foot telephone poles that were situated in a diamond shape about 120 feet apart and located at about 5000 feet elevation. This antenna fed 1 watt VHF low band transmitters that gave the rural area up to 20 miles away their only TV reception as this was at the dawning of the big dish era around 1980.

Lots of Canadian cable companys used large antenna arrays to pick up ABC, NBC, and CBS stations from Northern US states often at distances over 200 miles with results that they were able to sell to their cable customers.

Bottom line is that with decent locations and home quality antennas and preamps 100 mile UHF reception is no big deal for a carefully installed setup at say 55 feet above ground level.