As I mentioned before signal strength and line of sight. When I lived in town ota was not a problem. Now I am on the fringe of everything + line of sight challenged. I do get 4 channels some times, 3 religious and 1 Bee-Bop, 1 of the religious and the Bee-Bop are in Spanish. No interest in any of the four.
By the book My antenna needs to be above the trees but I found that hasn't been necessary except in very heavy pouring rain the signal will cut out . I have a 15 foot pole attached to the side of the house with stand-offs and used a compass to aim the antenna in the recommended direction. Which in my case is between being aimed towards the nnw (Providence RI ) and north (Boston and Manchester ) - so two compromises and it still works 99% of the time. It doesn't work too good right now because the antenna is pointed East having been blown around in one of the Nor'easters a few months ago. On my long list of things to do. Redskins @ Patriots is the 9th so that gives me 2 more days to get at it.
Haven't seen this posted yet. This will tell you how far out and which direction the broadcast signals are coming from. www.tvfool.com I have this antenna mounted on 1.5" conduit about 20' high on the side of the house. I only use it during football season so I can watch the Eagles games. I'm about 60 miles away from the Philly stations. It was easy to install. Takes a little bit of patience when trying to get it dialed in. I'd like to go higher but there wouldn't be enough support for the pole. BoostWaves WA2608 Outdoor Amplified HDTV Motorized Rotation Kit with Installation Kit
See Dave, I'm thinkin' those were supposed to be ABOVE ground in this scenario. Maybe that was the problem?
I just started with this process. I just got a Clearstream Eclipse antenna. Now, mind you, I live 12 miles from the base of the mountain that hosts the broadcast towers for OTA. Antenna search shows I should get about 50 channels. Many of those are Spanish. Have had a FireStick for a couple of years but never really used it. Have discovered I can get most of the streaming stuff we want through it. Looking at Tivo or Tablo for an OTA DVR. Depending on what DVR and tv channel service I go with...looking at ~$400 to get rid of a $117/mth bill. Found this site....Cordcutters.com. A wealth of info on cutting the cord. Actually having fun w/this.
I'm coming up on 2 years without a cable bill. I have the Firebox loaded w streaming apps. They're starting to crackdown on things so keeping the box up to date can be a challenge at times. Even Youtube is starting to ban content producers who make videos on where to get the latest app updates, etc. Sports apps are the biggest PITA to keep up to date which is why I put up the antenna for football season lol
This thread got me curious so I checked tvfool and the info was clear as mud to me. So I checked on fcc-dot-gov and they showed what stations are transmitting in our area, with a color coded legend. It shows no signal on all stations. Guess Dish will be happy for that fact. We can't get cable out here yet either. Meh, no biggie I guess.
We live a mile from town on the second most traveled county road in the county...no cable, no gas! It's OK, I'm too cheap to pay for cable, we get 48 channels on OTA anyways...and the gas company can just pound salt!
Heh, the irony of gas here. We can't get Nat gas service, but there's right of way for the existing pipeline, and they paid us for new ROW for another.
I built one antennae for proof of concept and then bought a channel master antennae for like 40$. It’s in the attic and I’m about 40 miles away from the transmitters. Excellent reception of all the major networks. No cable bill for several years now. The original home built antennae is now in my shop, in the attic, working very well. It’s not really line of site. You can be in the trees, in your attic, etc. also you can get signal through buildings and it bends around hills. More like fm radio. The tvfool type sites take topography into consideration as well as height of antennae.
The "guy" I spoke with also said that leaved trees wouldn't bother the signal to any significance. But, he did add that its the needled trees that affect the signal.
Did you believe him? He was pulling your leg. Unless he specified that after the leaves drop. Radio geeks have a pretty dry sense of humor! I will agree that direct line of sight is ideal and that outside above the roofline is better than in the attic. Closer is better. Clear weather is better.
We'll see how it works out once I set up the appointment. I have some very close trees with leaves on them now (of course). Once again, if it doesn't get good reception, I only pay for his travel.
