Rural tv antenna

[tastebud]

I live in Iowa about 50 east of Cedar Rapids and 50 west of the Quad cities. We just installed dish network, but they do not have HD on the locals. We should be able to pick up about 14 stations between iowa city, cedar rapids, muscatine, quad cities, and Ottumwa. Can you recommend an antenna that can reach over 50 miles in different directions. years ago we had an antenna up, but could not receive most of the channels in the cedar rapids and QC. We have a tower formerly used for 2 way radios that is higher than anything out here. There is no way I am climbing up on that thing, but I hope to find someone who will. My zip code is 52776, I would be connecting to two HD televisions.

thanks,
Tastebud

[tigerbangs]

You have a LOT of choices out there for TV reception: some of them are pretty close, some farther away. I suggest that you will need a deep-fringe all-channel antenna (because of WHBF-DT, which is on channel 4), a rotator and a high-input preamplifier. I would look at a Winegard HD-8200u or a Channel Master Crossfire 3671 and a Winegard HDP-269 high-input preamplifier, which won't overload on the strong, local TV stations. You'll also need a rotator, since the stations come from several different directions, and the Channel master 9521a remote-controlled rotator is a popular choice. Put the package all together, and you'll have some pretty good TV reception. You'll need a splitter inside the house to divide the signal between the TV sets, and be sure that your TV sets are digital, or you'll need a digital converter to get the over-the-air channels.