looking for advice for 43071

[melreejr]

Just found your website and while looking around it I believe you provide good advice. Our situation is we live in the country on the top of a hill at 12142 Purity Rd NE, St Louisville, OH 43071. We have DirectTV in our main living room only and look to use OTA reception for our bedroom and basement televisions. The antenna we have is some sort of Channel Master that is about 5 years old. It currently will pull in Channels 6 and 51 most of the time, channel 10 pretty often and channel 4 less than half the time. Any other channels are very sporadic. The antenna choices online are many so we would like to focus on what is most likely to provide us with the most stable signal our location can expect. Thanks for any advice you can provide. I am at work so it might be a while until I can look at any postings. Thanks again, Mel Ree

[tigerbangs]

Do you have a picture of your antenna, or could you pull it's model number from the Channel Master Website, so I can get an idea of what you are currently working with? Also, do you currently use a preamplifier and/or a rotator, since you do have an NBC station closer to you than Columbus., but in a different direction.

[melreejr]

Thanks for getting back to me. When the wind (40+mph today)lets up or this weekend for sure I will get up on the roof and see if any identification remains on the unit. It worked great until the switch over on the analog local stations but so far not quite up to the job under the new realities. We do not use any pre amp or rotator and the signal splitter I have could probably be much better. There are several things I can think of like new coax cable and a new splitter to start with but the choice of antennas out there was starting to boggle my mind with all the various claims. I will post again soon as I can get the picture or other info on what we now have. Thanks again.

[tigerbangs]

If you are using multiple TV sets in your house with no preamplifier, I am sure that we can make some of your stations more solid by using a preamp. We may also want to consider using an antenna rotator to take advantage of a few other stations that lie in different directions from Columbus.

[melreejr]

Got home before dark and took these pix of our current antenna. Hope the quality is okay not sure about file size allowed.

[tigerbangs]

Thank you for providing the pictures of your antenna! I recognize that antenna as a Channel Master 3020, which is the largest antenna in Channel Master's Mass-Market Advantage line. That antenna is sold at hardware stores like Lowes and Ace. It's not a BAD antenna, but it doesn't surprise me that you are having issues with some UHF channels, because UHF is not that antenna's strong suit.

If we were starting from scratch, I would suggest replacing it with separate VHF and UHF antennas, plus a Channel master Titan 7777 preamplifier and a rotator like a Channel Master 9521a. But since you already own the 3020, and you have said that you are using a splitter, I suggest that you consider adding a preamplifier like the Channel Master Titan 7777 before you do anything else. That preamp will overcome the line and splitting losses incurred in your antenna system, and should help you lock in a couple of those iffy channels. WSYX will be especially helped by using the preamp. If you find that you are still missing essential stations like FOX after we replace add the preamp, we can discuss replacing your antenna with an AntennasDirect XG-91 UHF antenna and a VHF high-band yagi like a Winegard YA-1713 and possibly adding a rotator.

[melreejr]

Glad the picture helped identify my model. Starting at the preamp and going from there sounds like a sensible approach. I am waiting for one to be in stock at my online supplier and then will get my hands on it to see what it will do for us. Looking at the station location maps, most of the Columbus stations are in the same general area from our home and getting those would be what we will shoot for. With the Directv in our main room we plan on using the bedroom and basement sets for local channels and dvds. Will post again after we acquire the 7777 and hook it up. Discovered a big yellow jacket nest in our attic while looking around so guess I will have to find a pest forum next. Mel Ree

[tigerbangs]

One serious consideration when installing your new preamplifier: Antenna aiming is CRITICAL to getting the best possible picture, especially in fringe areas. When I run a TVFool.com scan of your address, it indicates that your antenna should be aimed at 250 degrees, as measured by a hand-held compass.

Secondly, when installing the preamp, be sure that the preamplifier power supply is installed in the coax line between the preamplifier mounted at the antenna and the splitter: mounting the power supply behind the splitter in the coax line will cause the DC signal from the power supply to be blocked by the splitter, and you will see WORSE reception.

Last of all, it is a good idea to get a little vertical tilt to the front of the antenna in an area that has big hills between the receiving antenna and the transmtters. If you can get the fromnt of the antenna UP 10 to 15 degrees, you should see an improvement in the quality of your UHF channels. This can be done with the 3020 by readjusting the lower support brackets of the antenna. Remember that WSYX-DT is on VHF channel 13 now, not on channel 6, and the other Columbus stations are on UHF, regardless of their advertised channel numbers.

[melreejr]

Thanks for all the great ideas. I am pretty sure we can do all of them and turn it on to see what we get. Kind of a shortage on the Channel Master preamps at the moment but I am sure we will get one pretty soon. After we have hooked it up we will post again with how it all goes.

[melreejr]

Finally was able to find and order the CM 7777 preamp but it will not be here until next week so it will be a job that weekend. Also got some new RG6 cable and splitter from an antenna online store in Michigan. Now just waiting for delivery and the opportunity to put it all together.