no UHF reception

[old dirtbeard]

Installed a new roof mount Radio Shack VU-120XR VHF/UHF/FM antenna, have stunningly clear VHF, but zero UHF. We are within the UHF range of the antenna, have a clear line of site to the broadcast antenna. We live on

1,000 foot elevation hill in Palos Verdes, California, and can see Mount Wilson (where the broadcast towers are located) less than 60 miles away.

I have checked to see that the antenna is pointed the right direction, no inline splitters, using good 75 ohm cable the full length, cross over wires are not touching, UHF/VHF isolation network parallel to main boom, all elements fully extended, etc.

I replaced the previous cable system with this antenna (using the same cable lead in), and previously was getting channels in the UHF band.

I am stumped -- any ideas? Thank you.

[Kevin Ricks]

Does your TV have separate terminal inputs for VHF and UHF? If so you will need a 75 to 300 ohm VHF/UHF/FM spliter .

If you have a newer TV check the setup, perhaps it is set to CATV instead of ANT. Kevin

Kevin

[old dirtbeard]

Kevin,

Thank you for the response. After sending the message, I thought about the tuner setup, too. That was the trick -- the television tuner was set to "cable" instead of "air."

Now the UHF is as strong and clear as the VHF. I am pretty impressed with this antenna -- actually better signal than we got with cable and it is digital-ready.

I guess it does not hurt being on hill with line-of-sight to the broadcast antenna, either, Now if I could just get my cell phone to work here. :)

Thanks again, Kevin,

doug

[Jay]

Kevin:

There are external 'plug in' cell phone antennas which you can mount on the roof which will capture a signal for you. You could probably mount one on the top of your TV antenna mast. I had to do that one place I lived as I don't usually subscribe to a landline phone.

Jay

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Got any lightning protection with the antenna?

[mm]

I have a middle aged Magnavox vcr that I set for ANT and the next time I look at it it is set at Cable again. Over and over. I finally got it to scan for Antenna stations iirc by setting it at antenna, then getting out of programming mode, then going back in and telling it to scan, and after that I might have had to get out and in again and set it at antenna again.

If there is a power failure, I think it will forget and I'll have to do this all again.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[mm]

Great. I should have said that VHF channnel number frequencies are the same for cable and antenna. For UHF they're different. That's why your VHF always worked. mm

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[Mark Lloyd]

I could use one of those cell phone antennas. I've seen them mentioned here several times, but never anything about how you might get one.

[Mark Lloyd]

True. As for UHF, broadcast channels 14-69 are in the same frequency range as cable channels 64 (approx.) to 125. The frequencies are

1.25MHz off. This is within some TV's auto-fine-tuning range. I have taken advantage of this to get UHF channels with cable.

Also, I hear the FCC is discouraging the use of VHF. I notice that all the newer broadcast stations use UHF. Only one of the local stations (ABC) here is on VHF. I just got a HD PCI card that came with a UHF-only antenna.

[Mark Lloyd]

I have used RCA VCRs that (annoyingly) forgot important settings after a power failure.