UHF or UHF/VHF antenna

[Preho]

I live in the 15679 zip code area, I think all the digital signals from the Pittsburgh and Johnstown service area's are UHF. I can not find a site that can tell me that or whether they will stay UHF. What antenna would you recommend for this area? I was hoping to avoid a rotor, but will do whatever it takes to do the job right. I was considering a multi-directional UHF that had 15db of gain.

[tigerbangs]

A direction antenna will always give better results than an omni-directional antenna will. If this was my installation, I would use a medium all-channel antenna like a Winegard HD7082P, Channel Master Crossfire 3679, or a Wade-Delhi VU-935SR and use a rotator. Most of the programs that you'll watch will be from Pittsburgh,so you can aim the antenna in that direction, and move it when there is something from Johnstown that you want to watch specifically. You will have 5 VHF digital stations between the two cities after February 16, 2009, so an all-channel antenna makes sense for you.

http://www.channelmaster.com/
http://www.winegard.com/
http://www.wade-antenna.com/

[Preho]

Ok thanks, would all the vhf stations be high band?

[Richard Taylor]

All VHF stations that "re-transion" back to VHF after the 17th will be high band. Check antennaweb.org for your zipcode and there you will see a list of all stations in your area. The stations that will transition back to their (presumably) original VHF (where they currently broadcast in analog) will be listed with the new (old) channel in the "Frequency Assignment" column, with "Feb 17, 2009 (post-transition)" listed in the "Live Date" column.

It seems that, nation-wide, most high-band Vs are transitioning back to their original analog frequency assignment for Digital Broadcasting after Feb. 17. Since VHF travels farther than UHF for the same power level (ERF), they can cover the same territory on high-band VHF with less power than for UHF.

You might try "mixing" 2 directional all-channnel anatennas together with a 2-way splitter "backwards" to pick-up from the 2 cities without using a rotor. This would not work for analogue, but may work for digital.

Richard Taylor
Orange County, NC

[tigerbangs]

It is not true that all stations that transmit digitally afer Feb 17 will be on high-band VHF: there are still a handfull of stations that will operate on VHF-low-band. Neither is it true that most current high-band VHF analog stations will operate on VF-high digital, although there are many stations that will. If you would like to see which stations in your area will broadcast on what frequencies, you can look at this link:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachme ... 1216909477

it is not recommended that you join two antenna aimed indifferent directions with a broadband-style splitter as the result can cause severe multipath interference and channel 'suck-out': a rotator is always preferable to joining two broadband antennas.

[Preho]

Thanks guys. I got a vhf/uhf winegard HD7698. I got channels but they where marginal(none with old antenna). Next time I help someone out I will make sure they live on a hill not in a valley!

[hdtvlabs]

a rotator is always preferable to joining two broadband antennas

Though I understand your point about multipath, a rotator introduces delay in channel switching and that can be annoying. Also, some new tuners can split a TV screen and display few channels simultaneously. This feature would work in a two antennas setup, but not with a rotator (assuming the channels are coming from different directions). Your point about multipath is valid of course, but when I look at it from the user perspective, joining two antennas may have advantages ....