Connecting TWO Antennas to a TV?

I live in the country, and we dont have cable tv. Satellite is far too costly for the person who only watches a a few hours of tv per month. (Which is me). Anyhow, I installed a small compact antenna on the side of my house a few years ago, but it was limited on the amount of stations it got. Last year I got an actual rooftop antenna, and put it as high as was practical. It gets many more stations, but it's more directional, so I lack one station I got on that compact antenna.

I know I could install a rotor, and that would solve the directional aspects. But these digital tv's need to do the "channel search", to locate channels, which means that everytime I rotate the antenna, I'd have to re-run the channel search on the tv. (There is no way to lock stations). [For example, if i get channel 10 with the antenna pointing North, and lose it's signal when the ant. points East, the tv will eliminate Channel 10 when I do a rescan.].

I'm wondering what would happen if I connected BOTH antennas to the same TV? I recall trying this on the old analog tv's, probably 30 years ago, and got a lot of ghosting in the picture. But digital TVs dont get ghosts, so I'm just wondering what would happen ?????

If I had a coax TEE in hand, I'd probably just try it, but I'd have to buy one first. I know they are only a couple bucks, but why buy it if it wont work.....

Has anyone done this?

Reply to
Jerry.Tan
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A "splitter" in reverse worked fine for me.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

Yes, this splitter will work but with a loss of around 3-6dB to both signals depending on the design.

Simply, there's two inexpensive ways. This is one, the other is a A/B switch. Look for cable/antenna switch, 2 inputs and one output connected to your TV.

Thane

Reply to
Thane

The splitter should work. If I understand his problem correctly, an A/B switch won't. He will still only have one antenna at a time and need to rescan the channels each time he switches.

Which leaves me wondering about another option. A lot of TVs already have two antenna inputs. I would think either it must then keep the list of scanned channels separate for each or else combine them. In either case, if his TV has two inputs, then I would think that would solve the problem. But it probably doesn't as he would have thought of that by now.

Reply to
trader_4

Are you sure? All my TVs have the channel search function also. But that's just so that I can push the up or down button to surf without getting a blank channel. I can still key in any channel I want by direct dialing it on the remote. If there's a station there I get it and if not it's blank.

Reply to
scarecrow

On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 3:00:56 PM UTC-6, snipped-for-privacy@spamblocked.com wrote: [For example, if i get channel 10 with the antenna pointing

Regardless of it not being in the scan...it can be accessed directly (enter the number).

Reply to
bob_villa

As the others said, this *can* work. Using a splitter is better because the impedances are matched. That means you have fewer reflected signals bouncing around in the coax. Those reflections and signals received by both antennas simultaneously (one direct from the amtenna aiming at the station and a second signal received by the other antanna after bouncing off a hill or water tower, etc.) caused ghosts back in the analog days. As you pointed out, digital doesn't suffer from ghosts, but it does suffer from a worse problem. The signals get distorted and causes the picture to pixelate or not even be received by the TV. If you only have one station that is not received by your main antenna, you could by a single station antenna to aim at that station. Those are hard to come by, though. You could build one yourself if you like home brewing stuff and experimenting. In the end, any of these methods could work (a tee, a splitter in reverse, a single channel antenna) but the only way you will know is to try it. One other point about using a plain tee or even a splitter is that some of the signal received by your first antenna will be transmitted by the second antenna instead of going to the TV. High frequency signals traveling in transmission lines is a very complex subject. Without complex equipment to analyze the situation, most people are left with trail and error as their main tool. Best of luck.

Reply to
Pat

bob_villa wrote: "Regardless of it not being in the scan ...it can be accessed directly (enter the number)"

Not on what I've owned(a ChannelMaster 700 digital-analog STB, or my new Samsung Smart HDTV.)

During Daytona 500 today I learned that BounceTV is relocating to DTV 41.3 in New York. So I enter

41 - 3 on my remote, the TV stayed on the car race.

I went into the menu and did a scan - BINGO - was able to type in 41 - 3 and go right to it.

Reply to
thekmanrocks

Hi, Also you can put it in favorite channels memory bank. Combining two antenna with reversing splitter will mess up the signal. Stronger signal will clobber the weak signal and if there is two signals from same channel no. it'll create intermod. killing each other. Really need A-B switch. Then it will select one antenna while the other one is grounded vice versa.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

I don't understand your statement about them doing a channel search every time. On every TV I've had I can do a channel search ONCE and it stores all the channels it finds. If in the future the channel isn't "there" , say due to clouds being in the way, that channel is still programmed into memory and the TV 'stops' on the channel as I surf up and down "the channels". Also, all my TV's have had a way to enter channels manually into the memory. So do a scan with the good antenna connected and let the TV memorize all the channels it gets. Then just manually enter the one channel you get from the little antenna. You should never need to scan anything again no matter how many times you shuffle the antenna connection around with a splitter or AB switch.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

I'm sure it works many times, but there is a chance it won't work.

They key is to ensure that both antennas only receive the signals from their intended target station(s), otherwise the combination of signals from both antennas on a single channel may be slightly out of phase, and ATSC digital tuners can have trouble with this scenario.

Reply to
Steve Stone

Hi, eBay has bunch of TV antenna coax switches for few dollars each. This is right one to use.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Try it with a splitter If the splitter does not work, use an a b switch An a b switch will work for sure You will not have to rescan each time you switch

Mark

Reply to
makolber

My tv does not have an ADD option. It was an inexpensive tv. The picture is great, but it lacks a few features such as this. I guess I can punch in a station number manually, but I have not tried it, since all the channels that are active are on my list.

Reply to
Jerry.Tan

Not me. I would try the combiner first. I think channels can be entered manually, even if search does not find them. You have to know channel number.

Another method, use two directional antennas. Use of filters could get complex, such as pass and notch.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

You did it once because you had only one antenna. He's saying that he does it once with antenna A. It now has the channels for that antenna stored. He switches to antenna B. Now what happens? The channels that antenna is aimed at aren't on the list of scanned channels. He can probably still manually tune it, but he can't scroll through the channels because they aren't there. And if he scans them again for B, now he loses the ones that were stored for A.

Many TVs now have inputs for two antennas, so you would think they would either combine the scan lists or have separate ones for A and B. But apparently his doesn't. So, I think for $5 the easiest thing to do is try a splitter to combine the two.

Reply to
trader_4

Are you positive that was just from multiple antennas, or did one antenna point to something the signal was bouncing off of, while the other antenna didn't?

That's what they say, and I have rarely gotten one, but when Ginger Zee the weather girl was sitting at the desk of the so-called anchor, it looked like I could see a band at the top of her stocking. Her skirt was pretty short, but I still found it unlikely they'd dress her like that. On several days, and again with 2 or 3 other women sitting on a stool in the same place. Eventually I decided the line was a ghost, even though it didn't show where her leg was not.

No but I've read from a reliable source that it will work. I plan to do it myself when I have time.

Reply to
micky

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