Upgrading antenna - PNW

[matias]

Help! I need help upgrading my outdoor antenna. I live in Olympia, WA (98516) and get broadcasts from Tacoma (32 miles away) and Seattle (44 mi) stations. I have 3 tvs (panasonic) with digital converter boxes on each one. It is moderately forested around my house. Currently I only receive channels 9, 11, 13, and 20 from the Tacoma area on my old outdoor directional antenna, even after repositioning and rescanning. I would like to get channels 4,5,7 from Seattle and anything else (I'm confused because these are listed as UHF channels on my antennaweb.org search result). I was thinking of ordering the Winegard 7084P or 8200U; am a little scared of the large size of the 8200. I think I need the full range of channels from low VHF to UHF, but am not sure. Should I be looking at other models? Does the "Channel" or "RF Channel" determine if it's UHF/VHF? Thanks!

[tigerbangs]

Olympia is one of those cities where specific coordinates are very important when suggesting antenna solutions: the mountainous terrain makes it very tough to predict reception based on only a zip code. If you can get back to me with your specific coordinates, I can be in a much better position to help you.

[matias]

Oops- sorry, I should have included those before. My coordinates are lat- 47.0873, long- 122.82771.

[tigerbangs]

Based on what I saw on your TVFool.com report, your observations about the 4 stations that you are now getting seems accurate: they are the 4 strongest signals in your location, but that means that you aren't seeing the bulk of the stations Seattle, which includes most of your major networks. If we are going to succeed in seing the other Sea-Tac stations, we are going to need a deep-fringe UHF antenna aimed at the cluster of transmitters in Seattle, 45-50 miles from your house.

The stations that you are calling "Low-channels" , channels 4 and 5 have since moved off to UHF, so you really don't need an antenna like a Winegard HD8200U, since the most of the size of that antenna is meant to see the old low-band channels 2-6. I am going to recommed a two-antenna system to you that will out-perform any existant combination antenna, but is a more managable size and cost.

I usggest using a Winegard YA-1713 VHF high-band yagi and an AntennasDirect XG-91 UHF antenna mounted on your roof. Mount the Winegard and the AntennasDirect on the same mast, with the Winegard 4' LOWER than the AntennasDirect XG91 on the mast. The XG-91, which is fairly light, shoud be mounted at the estreme top of the mast. Aim the XG-91 at about 15 degrees by your compass, and aim the Winegard in roughly the same direction.

Connect the two antennas using RG-6u coaxial cable, and bring the leads to one point on the mast where you will use a pico-Mcom UVSJ antenna joiner: connect the VHF antenna to the correct input, and the UHF antenna in the same manner. Run the output of the joiner into a Winegard HDP-269 preamplifier, then run the output of the preamp's coax cable into the house. Locate a place in the house that is central to all three TV sets that also has AC power available: an attic, basement or utility closet is ideal, then connect the preamplifier's power supply to the incoming coaxial cable, and connect the output of the preamp power supply into high-quality 1 ghz or better 3 or 4 way splitter, then run the output of the splitter to each of the TV sets. Please follow the instructions in the installation manual that i will link to you below, especially regarding grounding and safety instructions.

Once the antenna is connected up , and the power supply is plugged in to the AC, go to eacn TV tuner and have the tuner scan for digital stations. In some cases, weak TV sations may be bypassed by the scan, but can later be entered manually into the remote-control's keypad. Once done, you should have all of your Sea-Tac stations restored to you.

http://www.winegard.com
http://www.antennasdirect.com
http://www.picomacom.com
http://www.channelmasterintl.com/docume ... lation.pdf

[matias]

Sounds like a good plan. Thanks for giving your time and expertise to us all in this time of need. I will get to work and let you know how things turn out.

[tigerbangs]

Great: let us know how you make out...

[matias]

Well I ordered the Antennas Direct XG91 12 twelve days ago and it finally arrived yesterday, and after assembling it and hooking it up I am able to pull in channels 4,5,7,16,22, and 28 with great reception, in addition to the VHF channels I was already getting. I was able to use an old distribution amplifier to boost the signal to my three tvs, so it looks like I won't even need to use the preamp. The XG91 was a bit of a challenge to snap together but is otherwise fairly sturdy, and I had to beef up my mast to support the extra weight and height. I'm just very happy I didn't have to order satellite tv after all.

Thanks again for the great site and advice!

[tigerbangs]

I'm glad that it worked well for you: Thanks for the update!

[pmsoro]

I also live in Olympia and am trying to figure out what antenna(s) I need to receive signals from Tacoma and Seattle. I first purchased an indoor amplified antenna from a local store which is suppose to receive signals up to 45 miles away. The employee that helped me warned me that it was probably not going to work but to give it a try and that otherwise I would need to find something over the internet that was longer range and probably a outdoor antenna. We were able to get some channels with the indoor antenna which I believe are broadcasting from Tacoma (KCPQ ch 13 for instance) and even able to receive channel 4 (ABC) coming from Seattle very very inconsistantly with a lot of moving it this way and that. Better than I expected and so I just order a Antennas Direct Clearstream 4 multi directional outdoor long range antenna expecting to get great results. We set it up initally inside and got just about the same results as with the indoor antenna with slightly better consistancy getting the Seattle area channels when it was sitting in a North facing window seat. Feeling like there was a chance once set up on our roof we might get something we could live with we tried it on our roof and didn't get very good results. In fact, not much better than inside.

So here are some details about our property that probably influence our ability to get a signal or not. We live on a forested hillside that faces I would say east, northeast. We are at about 350-400 foot elevation and our home is three stories tall. Our location specifically is 47 degrees 3' 20"N, 123 degrees 1' 13''W. From the advice you provided the other person from Olympia, I'm thinking I may need more than one antenna, probably a directional but I'm really not sure and we probably will need to do some tree pruning. Our specific situations may be very different however so I didn't want to just go purchase what you recommended for someone else. Can you provide some direction about what antenna or antennas I should try? Thank you so much for all the great information provided in this website and for this great resource.

[tigerbangs]

If you already have the Clearstream 4, we can use it along with a VHF high-band yagi and a preamplifier to solve your reception problem. The Clearstream 4 is a moderate-gain, highly directional UHF-only antenna, so you will need a VHF antenna and probably a rotator in order to make it all work. I would buy an AntennaCraft Y-10-7-13 VHF yagi and a Channel Master 9521a rotator, and also a Pico-Macom UVSJ antenna joiner, and mount the two antennas on the highest part of your roof, mounted on the same mast, separated by 4', with the Clearstream 4 on top, the Y-10-7-13 b elow it, sitting above the rotator, and combined using the UVSJ. Run the output of the UVSJ into a Winegard HDP-269 preamplifier, then run the coax cable down to your TV set, mout the power injector behind your TV, and connect the cable to your TV set. The rotator will allow you to turn the antenna from the main Seattle stations towards KCPQ-FOX and a few other stations available in your area that are not where the main Seattle transmitters lie: you'll see all of your Sea-Tac stations if you use that combination.