[mythtv-users] Switch OTA antenna per tuner?

[Nicolas Riendeau]

Hi,

 > For the avoidance of doubt, are you saying that you have several antennas, all
 > pointing in different directions?

I currently have two antennas but unfortunately one of them no longer works (I think 
the preamp blew up) and the one that still works is for local stations only (I don't 
have a rotor on it, the rotor was on the other one).

I am planning to get these replaced (can't do it myself as I am afraid of heights) by 
multiple antennas since I do not want to use a rotor with MythTV and anyway using a 
rotor would require the use of a channel changer script to change the orientation of 
the antenna and that's not currently possible with some tuner types (though I have a 
feeling it wouldn't be that difficult to add support for it to these other tuners (it 
might even already work, maybe it's only the UI that doesn't permit it)).

The local stations are about 20 miles (around 30 kilometers) from here while the 
non-local stations are about 70 miles from here and in two different directions (I am 
not sure yet if the same antenna will be able to pickup from both directions when the 
antennas will have been replaced).

The local digital OTA stations are using temporary emitters which are not as powerful 
and as well located as the analog OTA stations.

One of the non-local stations is using the same frequency as a not so local station 
and getting it here usually requires using a cut-channel antenna (that one I guess I 
could join to one of the others using a combiner (best bet appears to be to use a CM 
jointenna...)).

 From what I could gather it looks like I'm in for possibly major multipath issues if 
I combine them so I am looking for other solutions and this seemed an interesting way 
to avoid the multipath problem altogether...

I've seen kits with multiple relays which can be controlled by a computer (either by 
ir or serially) but I am not sure if that would actually work to switch antennas (and 
most of these only switch/cut one side and I have a feeling that wouldn't work with 
an antenna) so I am trying to find something actually made to do that...

 > And that you can't plug each antenna into it's own tuner?

Even before thinking about having more than one tuner per antenna (for multiple 
recordings at the same time or fe) that would mean 2 analog tuner and from 2 to 3 
digital (ATSC) tuners. I would prefer to find another way to do this...

Have a nice day!

Nick