Moved into another house almost 2 years ago, in an area with lots of OTA TV signals available. We have internet for some streaming, but everything else is OTA.

All of our TVs are set up with a Roku and an antenna. The antennae vary from TV to TV. A couple are "old school" "rabbit ear" types from the 70s / 80s. Another is a flat panel "leaf", and the last is just an old FM sheathed copper wire tacked to the wall in a "T" shape. So, the channels received vary from TV to TV.

The house has an unused DirectTV dish on the roof, and I thought about using that attachment base to mount a TV antenna, type yet undetermined. Then, I could use the existing cabling and jacks to deliver an OTA signal to the various TVs. I have access to the "hub" in the basement, where the main line comes from the dish and then is distributed to the various rooms, and I thought about putting some sort of signal booster there.

Discussion on this, and recommendations on antenna and signal booster.

TIA.

Go look up the Antenna Man on YouTube.
This kid is a guru on the subject.

I believe you can use existing RG6 or 59 cable for signal distribution but not ethernet cable.
There are factors determining whether or not you need a booster or just a better antenna, so this is variable to that.

A couple of years ago I did an extensive search for a quality house-wide OTA antenna, found pretty much zilch. Plenty of cheap gimmicky Chinese crap, but nothing that looked like a solid design and build. I guess the market isn't big enough these days to justify the marketing expense. Anyway, from my old school experience what seems to best answer your requirements would be a traditional directional Yagi design with a multi-outlet signal amplifier with enough drops for all your locations. I would not try to get away with unpowered splitters unless on the drop side of an amp.

Back in the day, we'd have a motor on the antenna mast to direct the elements toward the station we wanted. Whether or not this is a good idea/necessary depends on your orientation to the various broadcasters. The TVFool website will show you where the signal towers are located, and what stations they broadcast.

One more thing, do not fall for any advertisement that claims they have a "digital antenna," THERE IS NO SUCH THING! All radio signals are analog whether or not they carry a digital signal, PCM, AM, FM or whatever encoding. If the antenna vendor is going to lie about offering a "digital" antenna, you have to wonder about what else they are lying about.

Maybe you can find an old-time TV repair shop that has a Wineguard on their old stock shelf. Heath also made decent units, IIRC.

I've been in the house I'm in now for almost 2 years. I've been using a "leaf" style antenna with only so-so results. Reception is better at night but sucks during the day. I used the same antenna at my old house and it worked great. The difference is that I was 15 miles from the transmitting antennas there, and more like 50 miles here. I think at some point I'm going to have to go to an outside antenna on a mast. I also have an old unused satellite dish on the roof and wonder if I can re-purpose its mount for a TV antenna.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
A couple of years ago I did an extensive search for a quality house-wide OTA antenna, found pretty much zilch.

Back in the day the radio shack VU-120 antenna was the gold standard, but I wouldn't want one now because some of the bands have been abandoned and it's a lot of extra metal in the air for bands that no longer exist or are not used.

Also, what you need for an antenna is so specific to where you are compared to the transmitting towers and what's in between that it wouldn't be possible make a recommendation with the info given.

I ran a line up to my attic, bought a $39 antenna and hooked it up, get all the DC channels and some Maryland ones too. I get about 1/2 dozen HD channels and another 40+ other ones. Didn't even bother mounting the antenna, just leaned it again a roof rafter. Very happy with my $50 set up.

That’s awesome Skins!

That’s exactly what I did. Reused the Dish Network mount for an OTA, and reused all the coax for OTA drops in the house. You will need a booster to even the signals out (I haven’t done that yet so I get packet or whatever they are called drops during broadcasts). And you have to point the OTA. There is an OTA app you can put on your phone. It works like a compass once you put in your address and uses GPS I guess. It works pretty well but long term I’ll pay an OTA company to come out, get it pointed a little better and get a booster put in to equalize the db in the attic on the coax so it all works 100%.

I’d like to punch the person in the face who thought we should get rid of the good old analog TV broadcast.
Such a gigantic pain in the tail to get all the local stations anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
I ran a line up to my attic, bought a $39 antenna and hooked it up, get all the DC channels and some Maryland ones too. I get about 1/2 dozen HD channels and another 40+ other ones. Didn't even bother mounting the antenna, just leaned it again a roof rafter. Very happy with my $50 set up.

I did this EXACT same thing and we get 34 channels. Bought my antenna at Wal-Mart for $40.00 and hooked it up using a 50 foot RG6 cable with ends already on the cable. Snaked the line down to the main tv and hooked it up with zero issues. When the DISH Network goes out due to weather, we switch over to the cable link. ALWAYS works when we need it.

This is the unit I purchased five years ago for just under $40.00.

General Electric Outdoor Yagi HDTV Antenna, Long Range, VHF UHF 1080P 4K, Black, 33685 https://www.walmart.com/ip/52162885

I bought this guy in 2009 when everything when digital converter box. I'm sure there's others, probably cheaper. It actually hangs inside and still picks up the local stations etc. I lost internet for 3 days and got my fill of Grit TV.

ClearStream 4 Indoor/Outdoor HDTV Antenna - 70 Mile Range https://a.co/d/8MdBOMi

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
...One more thing, do not fall for any advertisement that claims they have a "digital antenna," THERE IS NO SUCH THING! All radio signals are analog whether or not they carry a digital signal, PCM, AM, FM or whatever encoding. If the antenna vendor is going to lie about offering a "digital" antenna, you have to wonder about what else they are lying about.

Maybe you can find an old-time TV repair shop that has a Wineguard on their old stock shelf. Heath also made decent units, IIRC.

Old dusty Wineguard has likely been in my attic since the 1970s. I get a great free signal to watch football.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
I’d like to punch the person in the face who thought we should get rid of the good old analog TV broadcast.
Such a gigantic pain in the tail to get all the local stations anymore.

What?

The same VHF and UHF frequencies are still used to broadcast the digital signal as were used to broad cast the analog signal. The only thing that’s changed is the encoding and decoding at the transmitter and receiver. Same antennas as before, same cabling issues as before.

Side note: this is a practical application of all that geeky HAM radio stuff from our Baofeng and amateur radio threads. All the principles that apply to two people communicating with a pair of Baofengs apply to OTA TV reception.

For the OP:

VHF and UHF are line of sight. Get an antenna big enough to output a strong enough signal to your TV. Point the antenna at the TV transmission tower whose signals you wish to receive with as few obstructions as possible and away you go. Distance from the tower will determine how big of an antenna you need. Due to the Earth’s curvature, distance and the height of the transmission tower will determine how high you’ll need to mount your antenna.

Since you are getting signals with crappy indoor antennas right now, I suspect a small outdoor antenna mounted on your old dish mount will work well. The tricky part is how many TVs you want to hook up to the antenna. Every one to two split results in half of the original signal strength at the splits. In other words, hook the antenna up to one TV and that TV gets 100% of the signal strength. Hook the antenna up to a one to two splitter and each TV gets half the signal strength. Two TVs off one antenna would probably be OK, but three or four probably would not be. That’s where a signal amplifier comes into play. If your cable run is fairly short from the antenna to your existing distribution point, you’ll probably have a good enough signal at that point to install a signal amplifier. If you are hooking up four TVs, you’ll need about a 10dB to 15dB signal amplifier.

Analog transmissions travelled much farther and were much easier to pick up.
Prior to the change over I could pick all my local channels with ease with a simple antenna and being in Central Kentucky I could pick up channels from Cincinnati, Ohio and Knoxville Tennessee with an antenna in the attic.
Have difficulty getting the local channels that are on the north end of town.
No chance of getting the out of state channels anymore.
At my cabin in Southern Ky, I can get nothing now. I used to be able to get Knoxville and Lexington there with a Radio Shack antenna that was a 15” round plastic dish on a 15 foot pole.

OP here.

Thanks for the comments so far, and for the explanation regarding splitting the antenna signal between TVs. 2 of my 4 TVs have coax connections (from the old DirectTV system) available, and would be the prime candidates for this planned upgrade. These TVs are in the den and in the basement "man cave", where we do most of our watching. There are also coax connections in the living room and master bedroom, but I don't plan on putting a TV in either location. The other TVs are in the other 2 bedrooms, but neither have coax connections, although they could probably be added later from the basement.

Fortunately I live on top of a ridge, and most of the stations are within 15 miles on top of a mountain. So "line of sight" seems to be good. I have thought about putting an antenna in my attic, but I would have to do a little "finagling" to get a coax down below. Right now, I could probably drop it alongside the exhaust flue for the hot water heater and furnace, which are in the basement. The round exhaust flue is in a square chase up through the wall, so there should be some space. I don't know if this would be better than an outside antenna.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
Analog transmissions travelled much farther and were much easier to pick up.
Prior to the change over I could pick all my local channels with ease with a simple antenna and being in Central Kentucky I could pick up channels from Cincinnati, Ohio and Knoxville Tennessee with an antenna in the attic.
Have difficulty getting the local channels that are on the north end of town.
No chance of getting the out of state channels anymore.
At my cabin in Southern Ky, I can get nothing now. I used to be able to get Knoxville and Lexington there with a Radio Shack antenna that was a 15” round plastic dish on a 15 foot pole.

They did lower transmitter power because of the way the digital signal works. The FCC tried to set power limits such that the distances where you get a picture with digital TV would be about the same as the distances you would have a clear picture with analog TV. With digital TV you either get a picture or you don't. The signal strength can be much weaker than the analog TV and the picture will still be clear. If you were receiving a snowy picture with analog TV, then you probably won't have a picture with the same antenna with digital TV.

The other change is there's fewer physical channels. Most digital TV signals are broadcast on channels 7-51 in stead of 1-83. For example, if you have a channel 4, it's most likely being broadcast on frequencies allocated for channels 7-51 and your TV's tuner takes care of the work to have it show up as "channel 4". Having fewer channels/frequencies to work with means stations have to be more careful of overlapping stations in other areas. It's sort of like 2.4ghz WiFi in an apartment building, with only 3 effective channels; 1, 6, 11, everyone's wireless network is interfering with everyone else's.

The proper method to determine your OTA scenario from my nerdy engineering perspective would be to first see where the towers are and how well they can get to you.

https://otadtv.com/cgi-bin/tvangle.cgi

Then get the appropriate antenna and point it in the right direction.
You may have to deal with physical internal limitations of where you an mount it, obstructions of the signal from trees, terrain or buildings.
Then if and only you are running long distances from the antenna to the TV an antenna amplifier may be needed or if you run many, many TV's from the antenna.

There is no magic bullet or device that can fix problems without considering the fundamentals or basics.

I receive 36 channels on $9.00 rabbit ears.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
I ran a line up to my attic, bought a $39 antenna and hooked it up, get all the DC channels and some Maryland ones too. I get about 1/2 dozen HD channels and another 40+ other ones. Didn't even bother mounting the antenna, just leaned it again a roof rafter. Very happy with my $50 set up.

I moved the directional antenna that was in the attic in 1988 when I bought this house. It was pointed at the end wall which is covered with insulated foil.

It now shoots through the roof towards Washington TV hill, Baltimore, and Annapolis. I also added a pre-amplifier. I got about 60 channels originally and now get 99.

The only problem is two Ham operators are in the path of the antenna and cause interference at times.

A

Question from HAM tech license:

T7B06
What should you do first if someone tells you that your station's transmissions are interfering with their radio or TV reception?
A. Make sure that your station is functioning properly and that it does not cause interference to your own television
B. Immediately turn off your transmitter and contact the nearest FCC office for assistance
C. Tell them that your license gives you the right to transmit and nothing can be done to reduce the interference
D. Continue operating normally because your equipment cannot possibly cause any interference