SE of Cleveland, OH

[thefirm]

I am located 15 mil SE of Cleveland OH. The Antennas are ~20 WSW of me with others 35 mil S. I have a FM station 1 mil from me. I get SAP all the time on the analog band. I have a Channel Master antenna with 8 horizontal elements and 14 vertical, Channel Master Amp and rotor. It is not very easy to run wire to all rooms. I would like to replace the outdoor because the reception is very directional. And also replace the indoor one in my bedroom because it is old. I really only want to do this digital thing once. So I would really like some professional advice.

[tigerbangs]

If you plan to do this yourself, hire an electrician to run new RG-6u coaxial cable to the rooms where you want TV sets installed. Expect that you are going to have to rotate your antenna if you want to see the non-Cleveland stations, because it makes no sense to install an omnidirectional antenna in place of your existing directional antenna setup because omnidirectional antenna usually are poor choices for digital reception. If you wna to replace your existing antenna, look at a Winegard HD-7696P antenna mounted on top of your rotator. It will look smaller than what you have now, but it will be a lot more powerful. You will still have to turn the antenna, but you won't get the drop-outs on digital that you may be experiencing now.

[thefirm]

Thanks, I was wondering if the vertical Winegard are any better then the horizontal? I won't need an electrician, I'm pretty handy. So you're saying the indoor ones aren't even worth trying. I figured as much. Thanks for confirming. What about a amp? My channel Master seems to be working. Thanks.

[tigerbangs]

If your Channel Master amp works, continue to use it. I don't know which amp you are using, but most 10db or more amplifiers should power up to 4 television sets when run with a high-qualitry 1 gHz or better splitter. If you feel conmfortable running your own cable, then by all means, do it. How many rooms are you planning to wire?

[thefirm]

Right now 2 TVs maybe a third down the line. I'm more concern about the huge variations in the signal strength I get now. I swear on New Years Day all the station were very strong and then the next day they went back down. I'm wondering if the station are running at a lower strength digital while they run the analog. Do you know if there is any difference between the vertical antenna and the horizontal. Thanks, I really appreciate your time. These are questions that you usually can't get a straight answer.

[tigerbangs]

I am not sure of what you mean by a vertical verses a horizontal antenna: all TV signals in the USA are corizontally or circularly polarized, so vertical, whip-type antenna are rarely effective for TV reception. If you are talking about vertical antennas like the AntennasDirect DB-8 or the Channel Master 4228, they are horizontally polarized, but vertically stacked bow-tie-type antennas.

[thefirm]

yes, that is what i meant

[thefirm]

sorry, i was talking about the DB-8