Antenna advice for 53098 Watertown WI

[caddywhompus]

Hello experts.

I live in a difficult TV reception area. Let me start by saying I currently have cable TV, and no existing roof antenna to try. The previous owner's of my house had been on cable for at least 15 years, though at one time there was a roof antenna because the old crusty coax is still stapled to the side of the roof.

I'm trying to save some money by ditching cable. I would like to install a single roof mounted antenna that can catch the two markets near me. One is Milwaukee (at 100 degrees) and one is Madison (at 255 degrees). Both markets are about 45 miles away.

I have used the C4 antenna on my Father-in-Law's house, and was really impressed with the improved reception, so I'm inclined to try one myself. But he is only 30 miles from Milwaukee, and wasn't trying to catch any Madison channels. It doesn't look like the C4 has enough spread to catch both markets without a rotor, which I do not want. I don't even know if there exists an antenna that can catch both markets without a rotor, so I'm posting here looking for advice.

I'm not against mounting two antennas if need be, but I'm confused how to combine the signals onto a single feed of coax from the roof. Additionally, if i need antenna-mounted preamps, I'm not sure how to power two from a single drop. And I've seen on other websites a recommendation for at least 4 feet of vertical separation on antennas mounted to a common mast, which would mean at least an 8 foot mast. The only problem with the 8 foot mast is that it would look ridiculous sticking out of the top of my small, single story ranch. A single antenna mounted 4 feet above the roof would be much preferred for curb appeal reasons.

So here's the rest of the details: The total length of the cable from the roof to the splitter would be less than 25 feet. From there, it would go to a 9-way splitter with 4 feeds going to various TVs (no more than 25 feet (4x) additional run) and 4 feeds going to my converter boxes (only 10 feet from splitter) which are being recorded by MythTV. Now you know why I do not want a rotor.

So any advice for an antenna, preamp and/or distribution amp is greatly appreciated. And keep it under your shirts, I don't want Charter to know I'm ready to defect.

[ProjectSHO89]

Let's see your exact address TVFool.com

[caddywhompus]

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3da3623b887d3c19

On that chart, I'm only interested in the channels on the 100 and 255 degree bearings. The rest of them I could take or leave.

[ProjectSHO89]

Bluntly, you are not going to get both markets with one antenna unless you use a rotor. You could try separate 7-69 antennas in each direction and USE an A-B switch, but that won't meet your needs to the PVR function. You could try a 7-69 antenna pointing each direction combined with a reversed splitter, but that opens a whole different can of worms that would end in a trial or error experiment.

Milwaukee is slightly easier than Madison. You could probably go with a 7698 pointed at Madison with 7696 pointed the other way if you were to go with two antennas.

I dunno. Let's see what TB offers.

[caddywhompus]

OK,
Here's another thought...

Of the two markets, Milwaukee would probably be considered "ours" more than Madison.

So I could mount one antenna pointed at Milwaukee, and use that to feed all the TVs in the house (properly split and amplified as needed).

I could also feed it into ONE of my MythTV tuners, and setup that tuner for the Milwaukee channel lineup.

I could then mount a second antenna, pointed at Madison, and feed that into a second tuner card in MythTV. I would then set that card for Madison's lineup only.

Now MythTV will combine multiple sources together and create a program guide and channel lineup showing all the channels AS IF they were all coming down one piece of coax. So when watching TV thru MythTV, I would be able to switch from a Milwaukee to a Madison channel seamlessly. Live TV on the units not connected to MythTV would be limited to Milwaukee only, but I think I can deal with that.

Hmmm. I may choose this path. All that that's left is antenna recommendations from the experts?

[caddywhompus]

Still looking for a professional antenna recommendation from the experts...

[tigerbangs]

if you want to avoid a rotator, you'll need to decide which city's TV you want to see, then aim an antenna in that direction, and go to town. I would pick Mliwaukee, and use an AntennasDirect XG-91 mounted on your roof, and use a preamp like a Winegard HDP-269 high-input preamplifier. You'll see all the Milwaukee stations with that installation. If you add a rotator, you'll also Madison and a few other stations.

[ProjectSHO89]

The 91XG, pointed at Madison, will cost you the Fox station. If pointed at Milwaukee, it will cost you one of the two PBS channels. If this trade-off is acceptable, go for it. If not, go for the 7698.

[caddywhompus]

So just to be clear, because I'm planning on ordering today, the AntennasDirect XG-9 is better than the C4? I liked the small size and decent performance I saw from the C4, but if the XG-9 is better I'll go there instead.

[caddywhompus]

I just wanted to followup on this thread for other's benefit.

I went ahead and purchased the Clearstream C4 antenna (http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/30-2106), and the CPA-19 low noise amplifier. (http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/30-2120) from MCM Electronics. I wanted to try the C4 first because it's so much smaller and lighter than the other Yagi-style offerings. I figured if it didn't work I'd return it.

We installed the antenna on my single story house, using only a 36" J-pipe mount attached to the gable end of my roof, right at the peak. In other words, as high as I could get it without a tripod. It is only about 18" above the peak of my roof. I have a new roof, so I did not want to screw a tripod into it if I could avoid it. Since the C4 is so small and light, a simple J-pipe mount is all that's needed.

I gave up on the idea of trying to catch both markets for now. I was worried that the C4 wouldn't work as well as I hoped, and I'd have to return it for something bigger, as recommended above, so I decided to just focus on Milwaukee channels and see how it went from there.

Last night I finally got a chance to plug in a converter box and do a channel scan. I was surprised and happily shocked that even though the antenna is aimed at Milwaukee, I am getting BOTH Milwaukee and Madison channels with almost equal signal strength! The only strange quirk is that for whatever reason, NBC from Milwaukee (channel 4 for us) doesn't come through at all (converter box says "no signal"), but NBC from Madison (channel 15) is coming through with 90% signal strength. I don't care, as long as every major network is getting picked up from at least one of the two markets, I'm happy.

So my review of the Clearstream's C4 antenna, combined with their CPA-19 amplifier is a complete WIN. Both Milwaukee and Madison are 50-ish miles away, the antenna is mounted too low, there are trees, hills and buildings in the way, I'm only aimed at ONE of the two markets, and I'm STILL getting every major channel with a minimum of 60% signal strength on the converter box (except channel 4, as noted above).

I would recommend this setup to anyone living in Watertown WI.

-Jimmy