Question about antenna placement, distance and much more

[jimmyh]

Hi, first of all, thanks for such a great forum!

This the information I can give:
Zip code: 32135
No buildings or tall trees around and flat land.
1 Samsung HD TV with build in HD tuner
Looking for Digital TV

- Could I install the outside antenna under the shingle roof? Would it weaken the performance? How about heat, would that be a problem?

- Directional, how precisely does it have to be? (Direction, within how many degrees)

- Is a 50 feet Cat6 cable too long? From the antenna to the TV? If it says Cat6, is that okay, or is there special grades of cat6?

- The Bahamas which are 200-250 miles away, would it be possible to receive their channels? What kind of antenna would I have to use for that purpose?

- Is it possible to hook up two directional antennas to get reception from two cities? (North, Jacksonville and south west, Orlando) Is there even a need for reception from two cities, it is probably the same channels, right?

- Is it possible to attach a 'splitter' to the cable and use the antenna also for HD FM radio with my FM tuner?

- Does a standard/typical amplifier use a lot of electricity?

Then to a question that may not be covered by this site. If I am attached to local cable or a satellite dish, and I cancel the contract, is something like free/public channels available anymore or will everything shut down? I am thinking about the NASA channel, that is free, would I be able to get that channel if I cancel my subscription?
Are there any free satellites out there I could point to, to get free HD, probably not, right?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Sincerely
Jimmy

[tigerbangs]

It appears that all of your TV stations are 60 miles away or more, so an attic istallations probably isn't a good idea, as attic installations at that distance are rarely completely successful. You appear to be about the same distance from Jacksonville and Orlando, so a deep-fringe antenna with a rotator and a preamplifier mounted on a roof or a seperate tower appears to be in order. If you are willing to go that route, I expect that all the major stations from both cities will be available to you.

You will have a few VHF digital stations in your area, so you'll need both VHF-high-band reception as well as UHF for digital TV. My deep-fringe prescription is as follows: a Winegard YA-1713 VHF-high-band yagi, an AntennasDirect XG-91 UHF antenna, a Channel Master 9521a rotator and a Channel master Titan 7777 preamplifier. Mount the antennas above the rotator on a mast at least 5' long, and seperate the VHF and UHF antennas by at least 4', with the UHF antenna on top. Combine the antennas' output using the preamplifier, and run the output of the preamplifier to the preamplifier ppower supply, which is mounted indoors, then your TV set or to a splitter which will divide the signals to the the TV sets as you need it.

http://www.channelmaster.com
http://www.winegard.com
http://www.antennasdirect.com
http://www.pctinternational.com/channel ... lation.pdf

[jimmyh]

Thanks for the reply...so I guess getting TV from the Bahamas is out of the question?

[tigerbangs]

No Bahamas on any consistent basis...no