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<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">Once analog TV was dead, two of the networks moved down to their<br>original analog frequency: 5 & 13. I was able to get 13 OK with my UHF<br>
antenna but I could no longer get channel 5.<br></blockquote>
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<div>I had a similar problem with Channel 7 in Detroit. Seeing as how it was the only VHF channel I was interested in, I built an antenna tuned strictly for that channel.</div>
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<div>The problem with many VHF antennas (except the crazy long ones) is that they cannot include elements for EVERY frequency, so they usually pick element lengths that do well on more than one frequency... at the cost of maximum gain on each of the channels.</div>
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<div>I created a simple folded dipole antenna out of standard twinlead, and balun, and a strip of wood following instructions found here: <a href="http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/dipole.html">http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/dipole.html</a> if it hadn't worked so well, I might have remade it by bending aluminum or copper tubing... but it was perfect so I just left it alone.</div>
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<div>There are many tweaks you can make, such as adding reflectors and directors to help add some directionality to your antenna, but you may not need them. I saw pictures somewhere where someone created a simple antenna like this by simply stapling the wires to the side of the house up under the laps in their siding. You honestly couldn't see the anteanna from the ground and he eliminated one wall worth of signal loss.</div>
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<div>Either way, for almost nothing you can build one and test to see if you get any improvement.</div>
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<div>One other thing to look out for is the combiner you are using. While a standard 3.5db splitter will work, there are better designed combiners available. And there is a huge variation in quality when it comes to splitters/combiners; enough that I would try swapping yours before doing anything else, it may be the cause of your issues. Oh, and your baluns... they can be pretty crappy as well!</div>
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<div>Good luck!</div></div><br>