[mythtv-users] OTA and attic antenna

[Barry Martin]

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 12:14 PM, Marc Paré <marc at marcpare.com> wrote:
> I am considering moving from cable to OTA and was wondering if any on this
> list would have any recommendations for an attic antenna.

"All Depends"  when it comes to OTA.  Unlike Dave's location (transmitters at opposite compass points) in my location all of the local stations except one are located at an antenna farm about 15 miles from here.  The exception is one which stayed at an antenna farm about three miles from here.

Because the transmitters are relatively close (15 miles) I found the combination of an AntennaDirect DB-2e antenna (also in the attic) with a Winegard HDP-269 pre-amp seems to work best.  The pre-amp is designed to be more forgiving of sudden signal strength changes.  

If in your location the transmitters are spread out but relatively local I would not recommend an active omnidirectional antenna as the built-in amplifying circuitry can be overloaded, causing signal drop-outs.  (Too much signal is as bad as not enough.)

My backend has four tuners, so needed a 4x splitter: 7 dB loss; 50' of RG6/U is 2.5 dB loss, hence the need for a pre-amp.


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