TV tower dealers in SE Texas?

[boba]

Dee Ann it is just the simple facts of life, distance has it's consequences. You already have the answer you just aren't ready to accept it. Is space warm or cold? Does the sun shine on Houston at night? Is 100 degrees in Houston at ground level still 100 degrees at a mile above ground? Put up as tall a tower as you can afford and vertically and horizontally stack all the antennas physically possible, reliable daytime reception will probably elude you just simple physics. Never mind the "himicanes" that will blow through S. Texas.

 

[rgk]

[QUOTE="
As for that, what is happening at night that lets me watch a great signal but not in the daytime? Is it bouncing off of something?
I remember back in the 70's there was an FM radio station in Houston that played GREAT rock but it only came in during the winter. Someone told me that it was because the cold air was denser and the signal was bouncing off the cold, dense air. But this is summer and it's insufferable hot, there is no cold air here until you get like miles up. I don't know, I just have no idea what it is that's causing this situation.[/QUOTE]

This is a link to a pretty good explanation of what is happening:

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/01/radio-signals-travel-night-day/

It's also why most AM radio stations have to turn down their transmitter power at night. In the 1920's when radio was first starting and before the FCC there were major issues with radio stations interfering with each other at night.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Thank you, I didn't understand (and mostly still don't) how all that works. It's rocket science to me.

As for antennas, I decided to just go ahead and try putting insane numbers into the TVfool thing just to see what it would take to get past the problem of the earth being in the way.
I tried telling it I have a 200 foot tall antenna, it still said "2edge" (more rocket science terms) which I take it to mean that it's not going to work well.
Then I tried 500 feet and that gave me a "1edge" result. Better I presume but still not ideal.
So just to see what it would take to get a LOS (I do understand this one) I tried putting in 800 feet but it rejected that and knocked it down to 500 feet.
So the app limits what you can tell it you have. And that's fine because there's no way in the world I would ever have anything like that.
I can't even do a 50 foot tower because it MAY come too close to power wires when laying it down. For that reason I would have to keep it at 40 feet.
Secondly, I live less than a mile from the airport so even if I didn't have a lot of neighbors I couldn't do that.c

No matter what I do I guess there's no way to win in this game. I really thought I could cheat the devil of distance but I guess not.

I guess this is an exercise in futility after all.

 

[primestar31]

The "1 edge/2 edge" stuff means it has to bounce off of something before getting to you. Such as a mountain, or a ridge of some sort. It might not even be a noticeable mountain. It could be something as simple as the elevation of the tower in Dallas, versus where your house is located. Perhaps THEY or YOU are mighty lower or higher, so that makes them be too low below the horizon to be able to compensate for true "line of sight".

I see Dallas is around 430ft of elevation. Add that to the height of their tv tower. Then, you have your elevation at your house? Nederland? That's only 16ft elevation. Anyway, it might be far enough distance away that the Earth itself rises/rounds up and gets in the way of the signal.

 

[Dee_Ann]

The "1 edge/2 edge" stuff means it has to bounce off of something before getting to you. Such as a mountain, or a ridge of some sort. It might not even be a noticeable mountain. It could be something as simple as the elevation of the tower in Dallas, versus where your house is located. Perhaps THEY or YOU are mighty lower or higher, so that makes them be too low below the horizon to be able to compensate for true "line of sight".

I see Dallas is around 430ft of elevation. Add that to the height of their tv tower. Then, you have your elevation at your house? Nederland? That's only 16ft elevation. Anyway, it might be far enough distance away that the Earth itself rises/rounds up and gets in the way of the signal.

Ok, thank you, I think I understand it a little better now.

However it's not Dallas I'm aiming for it's Houston. Dallas is like 450 miles away, there's no way in the world to pick them up.
Houston (the towers) are 93 miles away and they are very close to the coast like I am so I think their elevation is going to be close to mine.
As for the towers there it appears that there are about 5 of them clustered within like maybe a 1/4 mile area and they all seem to be about 1,900 feet tall, plus or minus a few dozen feet.

Also it seems there are about 75 channels coming in on those assorted towers. Most of them I have no interest in, there's maybe at best 10 channels that I would ever care about.
I haven't taken the time to get the signal strength maps for all of them, I don't see any point in it because I'm going to assume they are all going to be similar since all the towers are close to each other and about the same heights.

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?mktid=13

http://www.rabbitears.info/locationmap.php?request=location&location=Missouri+City+(TX)


On the other hand there are the locals to my area and those come in like gangbusters.

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?mktid=174


And get this, all day long it's been raining and all day long Houston stations have been coming great.
So the clouds are reflecting the signal back down to this area?

One thing that really has me worried is that a little hick station in the sticks, KAOB-LD seems to have gone off the air a few days ago.
I've been getting PBJ on 27.5 but like just days after I put up my good antenna, POOF! Gone...
That reminds me of the same thing that happened when I fought so hard to get White Springs, I had soooooo many problems
but by the time I got them all figured out and fixed, they went off the air. I hope this isn't a repeat of that.
I still don't have my big dish up so I was depending on KAOB for PBJ. I can't really put the big dish up yet because I'm going to have to get new siding on the house soon
and I don't want workers trashing my dishes or knocking the poles out of alignment so I have to wait until that's taken care of.

All this OTA antenna stuff is pretty much new to me, I haven't put any effort into learning about it until just recently and I really know very little about it.
I doubt I'll ever understand how it all works, I figure that at best I'll be able to copy antennas I find pictures of in google images.
It's not easy trying to figure this out and make it work when you don't understand how it works.
Like the Chinese girl assembling iPhones, she can put one together but has no idea what makes it tick inside. That's going to be the limits of my skills in this stuff.

 

[Mr Tony]

Dee you need to move somewhere that tower systems are readily available

There is probably 6 or 7 tower systems just on the road I live on (including my neighbors)
The town nearest me (12 miles away) thats all you see are towers (there never was cable there)

 

[Mr Tony]

Hell I dragged my Tivo Series 3 up to the roof today to peak my "local only" antenna (the one that is fixed for the couple locals I get). Since I'll be using that Tivo to record stuff might as well use that tuner to get the max signal

 

[Dee_Ann]

Dee you need to move somewhere that tower systems are readily available

There is probably 6 or 7 tower systems just on the road I live on (including my neighbors)
The town nearest me (12 miles away) thats all you see are towers (there never was cable there)

Ah, easier said than done though. I just took over the family home which I'm obligated to keep and maintain. If I didn't have this house I would move north, I can't stand the 11-1/2 months of summer, it's truly miserable.
I'm pretty sure I'll eventually find one, I only started to look for one a few weeks ago but I haven't really put all my effort into it just yet. I've got some other stuff I need to get out of the way first before and I also have to save up.
I could buy a new one outright for cash but that would put me in a major pinch for a month and I don't like that so I need to set aside a few hundred dollars a month for several months so I can buy the whole nine yards. Plus I'll have to pay the handyman to pour a huge cement base in the ground for it. I've googled for pictures of towers and I've seen where guys dig huge holes they can stand in then build a metal reinforcement cage to put in the hole and pour the cement around it.
That's way more work than I can deal with so I'm going to have to pay a guy to do that, I figure he'll charge me a few hundred dollars for labor, at the least. And I want to put an electric winch on it to raise and lower it, to heck with cranking on a hand winch !

Another thing I saw was people used C-band actuators to make antenna tippers. I can buy a short one and I have an unused G-box to control it with. I saw all sorts of neat ways people built the dual antennas and I thought of a few ways to make my sturdier by removing some of the mounting brackets. Since I have fiberglass tubes to mount them too I can eliminate the part that would hold it up and away from a metal pole and just clamp them right to the fiberglass poles. It should make them much stronger and a tiny bit lighter. Looking at pictures of stuff other people built gives me all sorts of ideas. Most of them are probably lame but eventually I'll figure it out.

Oh and then there's a professional motor I would have to buy, those cost like $450 and up. Arrrrrgh! By the time I get everything it's going to run me $2,000 easy!
One way or the other, I need to get it done in the winter time. I'm soooooo sick and tired of the heat. We're still months away from cool weather down here.

Oh yeah, your little screen.. Those are pretty decent. I bought three of them..

 

[Mr Tony]

Ah, easier said than done though. I just took over the family home which I'm obligated to keep and maintain. If I didn't have this house I would move north, I can't stand the 11-1/2 months of summer, it's truly miserable.

Dee I was being funny. No clue how people live there and deal with the heat and humidity like that. But then again folks may ask how I can deal with -30 in January and Winter 8 months of the year

The reason there are so many towers around here is to get TV outside of PBS & CBS its pretty much a necessity

 

[Mr Tony]

I know this wont help but just found a nice tower about an hour south of Minneapolis
The Antenna looks kinda banged up but the tower is nice...and so is the price

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/ele/5215447472.html

 

[navychop]

Man, I wish that was a bit closer.

 

[Dee_Ann]

I know this wont help but just found a nice tower about an hour south of Minneapolis
The Antenna looks kinda banged up but the tower is nice...and so is the price

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/ele/5215447472.html

WOW! That's a crazy good deal !! I would love to find a deal like that around here!
That gives me hope though that there are still good deals to be found. I'll just have to be diligent and check CL every day so I don't miss out on something like that!