Standard "Newbie needing advice" thread

[Hoodoo]

I live in Fayetteville, NC 28304 and I am looking to drop the local cable provider for an antenna. I have one HDTV and two SDTV's that I would like to hook up. I went to antennaweb.org but I am not sure I understand the matrix for my area.

I actually plan on using my home network to stream a lot of content to the HDTV (Netflix, Hulu, etc...). I still need local channels for news and football. The only channel I will miss is Noggin (preschool TV... I have 2yr old twins who love the channel).

Can anyone give me some advice on which equipment/setup I should look into? Thanks.

[tigerbangs]

Your local TV stations come from the Raleigh-Durham area, about 50 miles away, but they appear to be of moderate signal strength in your area, so you should have good success installing an outdoor antenna system that will pull them all in. There are a few other cities that you can also pull in if you have a rotator on the antenna, so the choice as to whether to install one is up to you. I would use a VHF-high-band +UHF antenna like a Winegard HD-7696 plus a high-input preamplifier like a Winegard HDP-269 to have enough power to run multiple TV sets. Your TV stations lie at compass heading 30 degrees, with the Florence, SC stations at a compass heading of 200 degrees. A rotator will allow you to pick up both cities, as well as a few other scattered stations. I would suggest a Channel Master 9521a rotator if you want to pick up stations from multiple cities.

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

[Hoodoo]

Thanks. Would a omni-directional eliminate the need to rotate the antenna or would it suffer in loss of quality by not being "focused"?

Also, let me say that my primary concern is picture quality. I have a HDTV for a reason. I primarily use it to play video games (whenever I can get the control away from the kids) but when I do watch TV I want it perfect.

[tigerbangs]

NO OMNIDIRECTIONAL antennas...EVER! They just don't work, especially at distances greater than 20 miles or so. If you want the picture quality, go with the recommended antenna system: you'll be glad that you did later on! Look at the reviews of omnidirectional antennas, and you'll see what I mean!