Southwest Georgia Antenna Setup

[vtjman]

Tigerbangs,

I have read your insight and it has been invaluable in helping me quickly get up to speed on dtv reception to help my non-techy friend.

My friend just moved to zip 31763, he just switched to dish, and they provide both NBC and FOX in HD and CBS in SD over the satellite. He is not too worried about having CBS only in SD, but the BIG problem is ABC.

He is 56 miles from WTVM and according to tvfool his reception will be pretty poor. WTVM is now operating on 11 (virtual 9.1) at 50kW. To his south at about 69 miles is WXTL operating on 27 at 1000kW. I know you mentioned its not needed to include the tvfool report here, but for this one there are many stations that are all around which could impact reception of one of these ABC affiliates. I have the report if needed.

He has a one story house, and he is looking at something that is not too high to be visible from afar, so probably something around 10-12 feet off the ground.

EDIT: Not sure about trees in his area, I know that it is a rather new development (5 year old houses or so), but there were probably alot of tall trees around before they cleared the land so some may remain in the area.

What ABC would be his better shot for the least expense? WTVM high VHF at 50kW or WXTL on UHF at 1000kW?

[tigerbangs]

Go with a VHF antenna and channel 11: it's about 7 dB stronger in that zip code than the UHF station.

[vtjman]

thanks for the quick reply. According to the tvfool report for his exact long/lat with a 12ft height it says that WXTL channel 27 would be at -81.9dBm and WTVM channel 11 would be at -84.5dBm. Does this exact location report change your opinion of which station to go after? And if you still think VHF antenna can you recommend the best for this distance and power at an affordable price?

Thanks again.

[tigerbangs]

the differences are small,: if you want to go for the VHF station, go with a Winegard YA-1713 or an AntennaCraft Y!0-7-13. If you want to pick up the UHF station, use an AntennasDirect XG-91