Hardware recommendation

[jeffedmo]

Hello. I'm very new to this idea of moving from cable tv to antenna and wondered if you might be able to give me some recommendations in regards to what hardware and components I might need for my home. I live in Chatham, Illinois 62629. I have a 2-story home in a neighborhood with pretty tall mature trees and no tall buildings anywhere nearby. I would prefer to mount an antenna in my attic. I have 5 televisions but never have more than 2 or 3 on at a time. Currently, 3 of my tv's are HD but I don't know for sure yet whether or not any the 5 total tv's have built in receivers or HD receivers. I would like to utilize my existing coaxial cable runs currently in my home. I have no idea for sure what equipment I would need; antenna? pre-amp? receivers? rotator?...

What would you recommend as the best setup for me?
Thanks!
Jeffrey

[tigerbangs]

Springfield is unusual in that it has no CBS affiliate: the nearest CBS station is in Peoria, and it's 65* miles away. if you can do without CBS, you can use a small antenna, preferably mounted on your roof, rather than in your attic. If CBS is a priority, you will need some heroic measures to get it, like a very large UHF antenna mounted high on your roof along with a high-input preamplifier. If you have 5 TV sets, then you need to wire 5 TV sets with TV cable, and provide a proper distribution amplifier/ splitter to make sure that all for your TV sets get enough signal. Before we go through the whole antenna design process, tell us what you expect, please...

[jeffedmo]

I'm not exactly sure what to expect. From what you're saying, it doesn't sound like I have much of a chance to get CBS. So, if I can only get the closer stations, how many different channels do I end up with? Only 4?? That's not much of a selection, huh?

I guess my hopes were that I could eliminate my expensive monthly cable bill and still end up with an entertaining enough selection of channels. How do I figure out what channels I would be able to get and what their line-ups would be? I'm really not sure about what I would end up with. If it's only 4 channels of nothing interesting, then it's really of no interest to me.

I'd be willing to do an in-attic antenna of any size and whatever other amplifiers/splitters or equipment I would need... as long as I could eliminate my expensive cable bill and still have a few good stations to enjoy. I would consider the exterior antenna only if the channel selections were more significant. But I don't want to mount an exterior antenna and only get a few stations. You know?

[ProjectSHO89]

CBS is provided to Springfield residents as a sub-channel on WCFN on VHF 13, a rebroadcast of Champaign's CBS affiliate. There is no need to go to heroic measures to try get it from Peoria, Champaign, or St Louis. In a somewhat similar fashion, NBC from Decatur (WAND) is provided by translator in Springfield on UHF-31.

A handy online tool for TV scheduling is http://www.titantv.com You should be able to get all the networks, two separate PBS stations (one directly, one via translator), and all their subchannels. The only network that you'd probably struggle with in a attic would be the CW (WBUI).

I'd suggest an attic-mounted 8-bay such as the DB8 pointed at Decatur. Any of them would work as you really don't need any real gain on 13. Feed the antenna into an 8-port distribution amp (cap unused ports with terminators) and you should be okay. The biggest problem will be if those trees you mentioned are in your signal path.