Help in Central Pa

[cuffjones]

Hi all! I'm in a bit over my head here, so please bear with me. I have an Antennacraft HBU33 Antenna, a philco converter and a cheapo amplifier/booster. Here's my tv fool info:http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d67d9d3e3d0d925. I get five of the top stations, and those all come from the harrisburg/york area. I get signal strength from 60 to 90%, but I can't get the Fox station, which is from the same direction and about the same distance/strength. Any idea why or how to get it? It seems like I should. Thanks in advance for any input.

[gcd0865]

cuffjones:

Even though your HBU-33 is rated as a "fringe" antenna, it is more of a medium-gain/medium-range antenna suitable for suburban situations that only require small-to-mid-sized antennas. Your Fox station is shown at -3.3 dB NM on your TV Fool report, which is a fairly deep fringe station unlikely to be received from your location using an HBU-33. A higher-gain antenna on the UHF band would be required to receive that station from your location. If you wanted to use a combination VHF-UHF antenna, something larger like the Winegard HD7696/7697/7698 might work. However, many people on these boards (including me) believe that separate VHF and UHF antennas provide best performance, without having huge boom lengths. Examples of more suitable, higher-gain UHF antennas would include:

Winegard HD9032 - http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=HD-9032
Antennas Direct 91XG - http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=91XG
Antennas Direct DB8 - http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=DB8r
Antennacraft MXU59 - http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=MXU59

Any of these could be mounted on the same mast 2-3 feet above your existing HBU-33 (which would then only be used for VHF channels 7, 8 and 10), and combined with a special UVSJ combiner (don't use a regular splitter in reverse):

UVSJ - http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=UVSJ

Alternatively, replacing the HBU-33 with a good-quality VHF-high-only antenna to combine with the UHF antenna would tend to keep the outside appearance somewhat more respectable because the VHF-high antenna would be of a flat/horizontal configuration that would look less unwieldy up on the roof:

Winegard YA-1713 - http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=YA1713
Antennacraft Y10-7-13 - http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=Y10-7-13

Hope this is helpful - good luck!