Indoor/Outdoor HDTV Antenna with Mast


 
Your first step might be to check out antennaweb.org to see your distance and antenna type recommendation. You may not even need an outdoor antenna.

I am about 30 miles from the St Louis broadcast towers and get about a dozen stations with my basement TV and indoor antenna.
 
JSaus said:
Your first step might be to check out antennaweb.org to see your distance and antenna type recommendation. You may not even need an outdoor antenna.

I am about 30 miles from the St Louis broadcast towers and get about a dozen stations with my basement TV and indoor antenna.
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Mine is in my attic. I’m about 32 miles from the antennas. My antenna is a 60 mile range to ensure I had no issues.

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Even though I have an open stick built attic, my antenna is so huge and requires me to have a rotor on it as even "local" stations come in on slightly different compass points and I also need to point it pretty much due north as well as west, SW and NW along with NE.
 
I had tried to use the compass on my iPhone to set the antenna direction. However, every time the phone gets close to the antenna, the compass goes haywire giving erroneous direction.

I wound up using the iPhone compass app on the ground and squared off to the house and fixed object on the horizon. Then while on the roof, aimed at the object, came down, rescanned the TV, rinse and repeat.
 
ChuckO said:
Looks like one station (KRCR-TV) is "Fair" and most are either "Poor" or "Bad"


Just curious what the results you get from this site, especially those who are getting several channels

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The rabbit ears for my location says many of them are poor to bad yet I receive them just fine.

I’m an amature at cord cutting but I think my success stems from:
- mast mounted antenna on chimney. It is probably 25’ above grade
- 8 bay UHF antenna with claimed 80+ mile range
- VHF dipole add on antenna
- mast mounted pre-amp
- distribution amp
- RG6 quad shield coax with runs as short as possible. I added a weatherhead thru the roof which allowed me to eliminate almost 100’ of cable
 
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Wilmer Cogburn said:
The rabbit ears for my location says many of them are poor to bad yet I receive them just fine.
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That's what I was hoping to hear :)

I ordered the EXTREMEtenna 80 for $169 and the TV Antenna PreAmp 1 for $85 tax was $18, total $272 and it should arrive 02/21/25 at the latest. At some point I'll go to Home Depot and get a 30' pipe (1.25" outside diameter) I'll get several Chimney Straps to hold the pole in place and we'll see what we can get with this setup. Thanks everyone
 
ChuckO said:
Finally got the ground “wire” from True Value Hardware in Palo Cedro, that completes the hardware, now to get up on the roof and get me some free TV
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just make sure you have your pointing direction in degrees. you can use your iphone compass (or similar) to get your heading to point the antenna in the correct direction. and make sure you're using all-weather outdoor connectors on any wires/stingers that are exposed to weather. this way you'll be watertight for the duration.
 
Pipe a pee trap on any wire going into your house.
A simple down and up will keep the water outside.
Meaning your line should be going uphill at the point of entry.
 
Looks good ChuckO. One other thing I thought about, you probably noticed that the coax connector on that Channel Master antenna is mounted in a plastic box.
Be careful not to over tighten the cable connector when connecting to it (hand tighten recommended).
I have known some folks who unfortunately over tightened the cable and twisted the antenna connector, severing the connections inside the box. Very difficult to impossible to repair the damage if that happens.
 
Speaking of grounding rods...
Are you also installing some lightening protection / arrestors on the lead in from antenna ...
And bonding the arrestors and mast to your home's ground ...
Asking as a ham (radio operator...)
 
Bob Bass said:
Speaking of grounding rods...
Are you also installing some lightening protection / arrestors on the lead in from antenna ...
And bonding the arrestors and mast to your home's ground ...
Asking as a ham (radio operator...)
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See post 28 above. Looks like he has a hard ground wire setup to install.
 
Brett-EDH said:
See post 28 above. Looks like he has a hard ground wire setup to install.
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And how is he going to protect the coax entering his house and all of the equipment attached to the coax, ie TVs , from surges ?
We Hams normally use arrestors / protectors from company such as Alpha Delta Radio and Polyphaser.
Thankfully all of my antennas (VHF, UHF, and HF) are emergency ( portable / temporary ) in nature. Prior to a storm, if lightening is possible they get taken down. ;)
 
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Bob Bass said:
And how is he going to protect the coax entering his house and all of the equipment attached to the coax, ie TVs , from surges ?
We Hams normally use arrestors / protectors from company such as Alpha Delta Radio and Polyphaser.
Thankfully all of my antennas (VHF, UHF, and HF) are emergency ( portable / temporary ) in nature. Prior to a storm, if lightening is possible they get taken down. ;)
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excellent points. above my level since my antenna is inside the attic with no exposure to weather/storms.

@ChuckO, this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBW5MM13?tag=tvwb-20
 
This is my grounding hardware. There’s a Lighting filter that will blow on a power surge and a ground insert that I’ll ground to the hose faucet. There’s copper wire will ground the actual antenna to the copper rod that’s already in place, 6’ I believe

If there’s any suggestions, I’m all ears. Lighting is a real threat up here
 

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