[mythtv-users] OT: ATSC "omnidirectional" antenna recommendations

[Simon Hobson]

Christopher Meredith wrote:

>All my stations are "red," according to antennaweb,

I've no idea what that means. Does "Red" mean good signal, or poor signal ?

>and are all within an arc of 8 degrees or so.

If they are within 8š then you will almost 
certainly be better off with a directional 
antenna. Not only do they pick up more signal, 
but they reject signals from other directions. 
Each antenna should have a specification which 
indicates the "beam width" - which is the angle 
across which it's gain is no more than 3dB below 
the headline figure (3dB = 1/2 the signal). Eg, 
if you had an antenna with a beam width of 8š 
then with careful alignment you would pick up all 
your stations, and the worse case would be 
getting half-strength from the ones at the edges 
(ie +/- 4š off axis). In practice, this is likely 
to be a lot better than you'd get with an omni.

Also, I don't know what frequencies you use, but 
over here most transmitters operate over a fairly 
narrow part of the allocated spectrum. For best 
results, it's best to get a "banded" aerial - 
which means one tuned to the part of the spectrum 
your local transmitter(s) use. A wideband aerial 
works over the whole band - but tends to be "jack 
of all trades, master of none" and will generally 
give inferior performance compared to a banded 
one.

-- 
Simon Hobson

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