Valley woes.

[LoTech]

From my house I can only receive signal from one station. The rest are blocked by mountains. While looking at TV Fool I noticed that the top of the hill (on my property) behind my house gets reception from about 20 stations. The problem... its about 1000 feet away. Is there any way to get signal from the top of a hill down into a valley. I think that a cable run is out of the question. Any ideas?

 

[boba]

Cable companies run miles of cable so it is possible, how deep is your wallet?

You are the perfect customer for a DISH Network system with locals only if you don't want satellite.

 

[LoTech]

I read somewhere once that you could use a wireless broadband repeater to send uhf signals up to 1000 ft. Has anyone ever heard of such, and if so, how?

 

[boba]

Try googling

 

[Mr Tony]

I read somewhere once that you could use a wireless broadband repeater to send uhf signals up to 1000 ft. Has anyone ever heard of such, and if so, how?

I think those are only for existing things like a DVD player or satellite box. Not OTA signals

 

[pamajestic]

What you are looking to do is called “passive TV repeater” . I have read a few articles about it over the years. Here is one I found on a quick Google search.

Passive antenna Silicon Chip.doc - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

 

[Tower Guy]

What you are looking to do is called “passive TV repeater”

]

Here's another:

http://www.taylortransmitters.com/DTVRepeaters.pdf

In addition to "passive TV repeater" they are also known as "boosters".

 

[LoTech]

I just checked TV Fool again, and there are a couple places around my house where it says I can get signal for about 7 channels but it's really low (-18.7 NM(dB), -109.6 Pwr(dBm) to -24.1 NM(dB), -114.9 Pwr(dBm) all 2edge). I'm deep in the valley, so the signal would be diffracted over the top of the hills around my house. Would it be possible, and what would I need to get these channels?

 

[DRCars]

I also have valley woes, but not quite that woeful. Those are really low signals. My son and I did a site survey with a medium size antenna with about 100 ft. of coax and a CM7777 pre-amp to try and find hot spots for the signals I was interested in. Walked all over the property (within 100 ft. of course) watching the signal quality with a DTV converter box and was able to find a couple of hot spots, one of which was barely acceptable.

I was able to use an Antennas Direct 91XG to pull in some of the stations I wanted. Even then the end of the antenna had to be at a very specific spot about the size of a large beach ball to pull in the signals. The TVFool signal levels in my case were all above 0 NM (8-30 db).

On the other hand I did the same thing at my daughter's house which is closer to the mountain than I am by about 300 ft. (I thought it would be a worse location) and got 5 of the 7 channels that I get without using a pre-amp and just a simple dipole rabbit ear antenna (adjusted in length just right) mounted on a short pole outside in just the right spot.

This stuff can be very mysterious.

DRCars

 

[1ADAM12]

scrounge

I read somewhere once that you could use a wireless broadband repeater to send uhf signals up to 1000 ft. Has anyone ever heard of such, and if so, how?

Try an antenna of your choice a VHF/UHF preamp and another antenna aimed at you trailer. Might need car battery and solar panel or wind generator.

 

[migold]

You NEVER know til you try. I am behind a hill, but have a mountain to the west that makes a good reflector for the DTV signals from 50+ miles away. If you are willing to risk the expense, I would suggest that you run RG6 with an inline amplifier at the start from the top of the hill for 1000 ft. Back in the 50's it was usual to run the 'open-ladder' lead-in wire for distances of that length and more to get to the top of the hill, just to get a signal that was so snowy it was barely discernable and difficult to synch. We have much better equipment now than 60 years ago...