Want to replace old flat tv cable with better coax.

The website you are referring to is located at:

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- but be careful using this site. With your zip code, you might get the idea that your local stations and the San Francisco stations are in the same direction. NOT SO. They list so many channels in that same GENERAL direction that you really can't decipher from that website which direction the signal is coming from.

The Sacramento and San Francisco stations are NOT located in the exact same direction. That is why you need a highly directional antenna with a very narrow beamwidth. You can separate the locals from the Bay Area stations. You can "pick up" the San Francisco stations when the antenna is pointed towards the Sacramento towers, but you can get a STRONGER signal when turning the antenna towards Mt. Sutro (San Francisco towers), and at the same time, REDUCE the local signals, thus giving you a stronger signal with less interference. To help clear up the confusion between coax and twin lead -- First, twin lead must be installed properly - not touching any metal to say the least, as it should be a few inches from any metal. It's not good to install twin lead between walls, etc. As far as loss goes, coax is consistant regardless of the weather. Twin lead losses can be greater than coax during wet or damp weather. To have low loss, twin lead must be dry. Also, twin lead is more suseptible to breakage during high winds. You want the SAME lead in all the way from the antenna to the television. Don't mix twin lead with coax. You might get excellent reception of the local channels, but it can make a big difference on distant reception. IF your antenna is high gain on UHF, has good directional characterics, you should easily get channel 19 from Modesto UNLESS there is a mountain near you blocking signals from that direction. However, channel 14 in San Francisco is also Univision. I have picked up weak signals from channel 14 even here in Fresno. I can tell you this - When living in Fair Oaks, I had the largest Channel Master UHF/VHF antenna available, installed on a 40-ft mast with rotor and I could NOT get any signal on channel 14. But my neighor had a cheap, small antenna mounted on the chimney and got a good signal on channel

  1. Higher is not always better on UHF. Also, ANY bad balum OR even twisting wires combining coax to twin line can totally wipe out some UHF frequencies.
Reply to
garyarnold
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Funny that you mention that. I have a linux box that I've setup with MythTV. I've also tried Freevo.

Reply to
jg

Is the antenna 40-ft high from the ground or roof top? How do you get up to it? With an antenna that high you want to do it right the first time. I strongly suggest getting a new antenna with a good UHF front-end and a rotator to fine tune the aiming. An antenna amplifier would be a good investment too. I would use coax because it's stronger and more durable than twinlead. This will minimize the possibility of a broken downlead, requiring you to go back up to the antenna. Be very careful with this project. Have a helper close by and look out for power lines that might come in contact with the antenna and mast. Good luck.

Reply to
HFguy

In that particular area, you have to be very careful using an antenna amplifier, especially if you are talking about a pre-amp mounted at the antenna. Only a professional will know which amp will work in that area. Some of the Sacramento signals are so strong on UHF that the pre-amp can do more harm than good. Remember, doubling a weak signal will help, but also doubling that very strong signal can put that signal all over the dial. I had a pre-amp in a large directional antenna in Sacramento and had to have it removed. I couldn't get ANY distant channel as all the locals wiped them out. Using a weak amp MIGHT help in this case. You CAN NOT improve the signal-to-noise ratio at the antenna. What you hope to achieve is to keep as much of that signal as possible. In other words, to reduce the lead losses. But ALL pre-amps/amps introduce some noise. You can't get a better signal that what you are getting at the antenna, no matter what you do.

You might check with dealers in your area. But I have an idea that if you replaced your lead to just ONE coax cable from antenna to tv, you'd see a major improvement in reception from San Francisco and/or Modesto.

Reply to
garyarnold
40 ft. from ground. Getting to it is fairly easy. I just get on the rooftop, take a couple of nuts out and bring the antenna down towards me. I did it in the past. Thanx for your suggestions.
Reply to
jg

Here's a link to a picture of my antenna, maybe someone can tell me what I have. Also, does the fact that the "receivers" are off place and therefore touching affect the signal? Since I will be up there, I will straighten them, but odds are they will get crossed again. (I've aready fixed this in the past.)

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Reply to
jg

If you want a really detailed list,

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has database search pages for various services. I can't remember the exact URL, but go to the FCC site, then the pages for the "Media Bureau" and then there'll be links to television and other broadcast databases.

When you find the query page, you feed it your latitude and longitude in Degrees/Minutes/Seconds and feed it a radius distance in miles (or kilometers?) and it will come back with a list of every TV station (analog an digital), repeater, and station under construction, with a distance and degree heading.

Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

Reply to
Mark Zenier

information I can get on this antenna is: gain is only fair to good and directivity is probably below average to average. This antenna is made mainly for local/suburb reception, NOT for distant stations. The beamwidth on this antenna is NOT narrow enough - that is why you can pick up San Francisco stations without turning the antenna. NOT A GOOD ANTENNA FOR WHAT YOU WANT TO RECEIVE. Stick with Channel Master, Winegard, or Jerrold brand antennas. They are built to last and have much higher gain and much better directivity. In YOUR case, I would add the Channel Master 8-bay bowtie antenna for distant UHF signals and keep your other antenna for the locals. Otherwise, you are talking about a $200 UHF/VHF antenna. The 8-bay antenna is not high priced, and beats the UHF section of EVERY UHF/VHF antenna on the market that I know of. But it is extremely directional and you will need a rotor. Also, not only is the gain high and the directivity outstanding, but the design of an 8-bay bowtie gives more "signal capture area" because of the large screen behind the active elements. This really helps in mountainess areas and other weak signal areas. The design of the antenna also narrows both vertical and horizontal beamwidth, resulting in less ghosting. If you can barely pick up a UHF signal with your current antenna, chances are the signal will be very good with the

8-bay bowtie. And I'm talking about your current antenna with NEW coax cable, not your current mixed lead.
Reply to
garyarnold

More info on your antenna compared to the 8-bay bowtie on UHF signals. The following are approximate figures based on all the information I can find. Your antenna gives an average gain of about 6 db while the

8-bay bowtie gives an average gain of 13.0 db. Depending on the channel, the MINIMUM gain on your antenna is about 0 db while the MINIMUM on the 8-bay bowtie is 9.5. I don't have specifics as to the channels on your antenna. Every 3 db DOUBLES the signal. The average horizontal beamwith of your antenna on UHF is about 31 degrees while the 8-bay bowtie is about 21 degrees. BIG differences. The 8-bay bowtie rejects signals coming from the sides and back several times as much as your current antenna.
Reply to
garyarnold

Back in those days there were a lot of fly-by-night TV repair shops. Most breakdowns didn't require a great deal of skill to fix, and the industry was much less regulated than it is today. Someone could read a few books, buy some tools and tubes, and set up a business.

Reply to
Bob

All I have is a RS amplified antenna in the attic -- the amplifer is in the antenna -- and I love it because I'm in Baltimore and I can get all the DC stations**. Rarely but sometimes, the signal is too strong with Baltimore stations, so I have an A-B swtich that disconnects the entire antenna if I want. Then I just use the one foot piece of co-ax from the VCR to the A-B swtich, and even that little signal is more than enough when I'm tuned to any station that overloads when using the amplified antenna.

I suppose I could have gotten a variable reducer, or an amp with variable amplification, and sought the best compromise value, but this was simpler, and lets me use maximum for the DC stations. For example, for a few months channel 9 was weak. Then it got to be fine and about the same time channel 7 got weak. Now they're both fine, but I want to keep amplification at its max for the hardware I bought.

**BTW, this is better than cable because cable doesn't have DC stations. Often there is a sports game or even a non-sports show on tv in Baltimore while DC is carrying the regular weekly show.

Also, once when I was watching Law and Order on two tv's at the same time (fiddling with one of them) I saw that the last minute of the show, the part after the last commercial, was shown on the DC channel, but on the Baltimore channel, they put in another commercial. Very distressing. The earlier part of the show they had been totally synchronized. Channel 11 in Baltimore basically cheated everyone out of that last minute or 30 seconds, which resolved some of the plot issues. Now I watch channel 4 in DC more often.

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Reply to
mm

Not sure what you have but it may be called jamais vu, never seen. The feeling that you've never seen something when in fact you have seen it. You may even know logically that you've seen it, but you feel like you haven't.

Sort of the opposite of deja vu, the feeling that something was already seen.

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Reply to
mm

This is boring. Skip to the last paragraph at the end.

It's possible, remotely possible, that he brought the splitter, tried it and decided he was getting better reception, all in all, without it. I think the antenna lead only went to one room, the den?, and my mother wanted a tv in the bedroom too. (Although I don't remember us having two sets. !!! or what the second set would have looked like. After the Dumont broke, we got a Zenith with remote control. But that was in the den. Plainly I do remember the three runs of flatlead twisted together,(one from the antenna and two from the sets) so we must have had two sets.)

Or maybe the previous owner had an antenna wire in the living room and that's why there was a splitter in the attic, but I don't remember seeing such a wire.

The industry is regulated today? I'm serious. I haven't heard anything about this.

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Reply to
mm

After David's post, I realize you really have never seen it. :)

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Reply to
mm

Is this the bad boy you are referring to?

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Reply to
jg

I don't think Univision shows cartoons anymore.

Reply to
Tony Calguire

Not to get too far off-topic, but how's that working out for you? I've always been intrigued by the idea of MythTV.

Reply to
Tony Calguire

Close, but no cigar.

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The site I saw about 3 years ago, actually mapped out (mapquest style) all the towers within any given radious.

Reply to
jg

Hi, Coax impedance is typically ~50 or ~70 Ohm range depending on the type and it's so called unbalanced feeder vs. twin lead is 300 Ohm balanced. Balun means Balanced/Unbalanced kinda transformer to keep the impedance matched for minimum signal loss. Buy good quality coax like Belden brand and use also good quality weather tight balun. You connect the balun at the antenna terminal, screw in coax at the other end of balun. It's done. Good luck, Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Hi, Twin lead also has better quality foam ones not the skinny twirly kind. Coiling up extra coax is not a good idea it can act like RF choke and could lower signal level. Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

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