My apologies for "another antenna question"....

[machgnr]

But I'm at a loss for help. My grandfather is now living alone after my grandmother passed away last month. He lives approx 90 miles south of St Louis, Missouri.
(coord 37.50'34.28",-90.29'59.87") (zip code 63645) and since the digital conversion has lost most of his television signal, even with his RCA conversion box. This is his only means of entertainment, especially watching the St Louis Cardinals play baseball, so this would mean the world to us if we could help him get his TV back.

He lives at the end of a one lane gravel road, with a large hill behind his house (due west) but otherwise unobstructed. Before the digital switch over, they got nearly cable-quality reception using a normal arrow type antenna with a motorized rotating head mounted on a 25' TV tower, from 4 major St Louis stations, and from the major stations due east in Cape Girardeau,Missouri and Carbondale, Illinois.

I've scanned it 6 or 8 times, but his digital channels now consist of 3 from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and 3 from Carbondale, Illinois....and they pixel out with poor reception. He's still using the same old antenna but rotating it 360 deg doesn't seems to help, only when pointing it 5 degrees above east does it work marginally.

I'm sorry but don't know the model of TV, other than RCA I think, and he'll only be using one set. It's approximately 50 linear feet from the antenna itself as the tower is right outside the living room.

Any information would be greatly appreciated. Rick

[tigerbangs]

When I ran a scan of his coordinates: he appears to be only 51 miles from St. Louis , and shouldn't have any problems if the the right antenna is used. St. Louis is one of the few TV markets to have NO VHF stations left in it: everything has converted to UHF. You grandfather's antenna, may still be a VHF only antenna, or have a poor UHF section on it. In any case, we need to replace his antenna and amplifier with a very powerful UHF antenna and a separate VHF antenna. if his antenna rotator still works, we can probably still use that one, but we should replace all of his antenna wire with new RG-6u coaxial cable. I suggest looking at my Deep-Fringe prescription, which is listed here:
http://www.indoorhdantenna.com/products ... stems.html

When that system is installed and aimed at St. Louis, his beloved Cardinals should return, just in time to be swept by the Red Sox...again...LOL

[machgnr]

Thank you Tigerbangs, I'm checking out your system. Give me a day or so to figure it all out. ...of course now we might have to wait until after that Red Sox Series...I mean he is 88 years old, and we wouldn't want to get him too excited when the Sox fall.

He wouldn't be needing the rotating motor, it works fine, also no tower components (mast), or grounding hardware. It's all in tact. I'll have to go down there and measure how much coax he has.