Houston, we have ignition!
It took a quick trip to Wally-world, a female-female coupler and a short length of coax.
The Wally-world coax was horrible stuff. The inner wire had rough burs on both ends. A blessing with some 400 grit sandpaper took off the worst of it and we were in-like-Flynn.
We picked up maybe six channels but not the FOX affiliate or the Christian station out of Toledo. I need to do some fiddling with the antenna direction and raise the elevation another 6 feet.
I’ve successfully used tvfool.com for finding my directions and channels. My Sony tv is a bit picky as to scanning for and detecting some. They say the shorter the cable the better the reception.
ReplyDeleteOne of our hams swears by a 20 foot length of top rail he gets from the local fence contactor as a simple mast. I still haven't done that.
ReplyDeleteJim_R
Put up a small roof tripod mount and 16' mast on the roof of the house with a $100 antenna off The Nile. Get about a dozen stations. Wife took our old 40-dollar-wally-special and stuck it on a chair on the porch, we get 20.
ReplyDeleteRE: mast height. Talk to your local lumberyard (NOT a chain store) for longest PT 6X6 they can get. I was able to get a 27 footer. Bolt a 10 ft mast to it with 2 ft overlap and you've got 35 feet elevation.
ReplyDeleteAlso, talk to your local utility. A friend in another county got the pole contractor they use to put in a 40 ft pole for $200, got him 41 feet - 33 ft + 8 ft of the 10 ft steel mast. That was 15 years ago, probably at least double now.
You're using Antenna Web, they give antenna elevation recommendations for your address, but higher is better. Don't forget the braided copper ground cable and a 10 ft grounding rod, lightning is a real thing.