[mythtv-users] Antenna wiring question
Craig Treleaven
ctreleaven at cogeco.ca
Sat Nov 9 16:15:47 UTC 2013
At 9:12 AM -0600 11/9/13, Barry Martin wrote:
>After my Comcast bill went up $29 in one month,
>I decided to start exploring alternatives.
>
>Don't blame you! Did the same here.
>
>I have an antenna in the storage area (attic for
>a story-and-a-half house) which goes to a 4-way
>splitter to feed the three tuners to my
>Mythbuntu Backend. Use a 75 terminating
>resistor on the unused splitter terminal. I
>also found I needed a pre-amp to boost the
>signal strength. Because the antenna farm is
>only about 15 miles away I had to use a Winegard
>HDP269 to minimize pixellation when the wind
>blows and the signal strength suddenly
>increases/decreases. (Too much signal will
>cause the AGC circuits to shut off.)
You need a pre-amp at 15 miles?!? What antenna
are you using; a rusty nail? Perhaps the problem
is that the antenna is indoors? In general, you
only get half the signal indoors compared to
outdoors. However, a steel roof or stucco siding
can mean that only a tiny fraction of the signal
makes it through. (Think Faraday cage!) See
below regarding getting the signal from the
antenna to where you want to use it.
> The Mythbuntu Backend feeds the Mythbuntu Frontends via the Ethernet network.
>
>I originally wanted to also use the one antenna
>to feed the various TVs for OTA. Didn't quite
>work! If the TVs had sufficient signal that
>overloaded the Mythbuntu Backend; proper signal
>levels to the Backend was insufficient for the
>TVs. I tried various combinations of
>amplifiers, attenuators. Ended up getting a
>second antenna to feed the TVs; that one also
>needed a pre-amp due to the 8-way splitter.
>(Not all TVs are on the Mythbuntu system.)
I wonder if the real problem is/was wiring. For
example, RG-59 has higher signal loss than RG-6
for a given run. Lots of other little problems
can kill the signal on a branch. Following link
has some does and don't:
http://www.familyhandyman.com/electrical/wiring/tips-for-coaxial-cable-wiring/view-all
In the US, AntennaWeb is a pretty good resource
for determining the recommended antenna type, etc:
http://www.antennaweb.org/
What I find funny is that homeowners in the
1960's knew all about this kind of stuff. When I
was a kid, we had a big Yagi antenna on a 45'
tower next the house with a rotator. Two of the
three channels we could get were at roughly 90
degrees to each other and both were 50+ miles
away. Worked pretty darn reliably.
Craig
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