60 Mile Range

A great little antenna at a nice price, but if you live in a fringe reception area or below the peak in a hilly/mountainous area, read on.First, the backstory. I cut the cord on Satellite TV (Cable is not available in the rural area where I live) in Sept. 2009 shortly after the HDTV transition. I connected up a Channel Master CM-3016 antenna (a directional, Yagi-style antenna) that was already on the roof attached to the chimney on a five foot mast when I bought the house. I rewired the antenna with RG6 cable and used cheap "twist on" style connectors along with a Winegard AP8275 pre-amp/injector setup powering a 4-way, DC pass-through splitter going to a Silicon Dust HD Homerun (HDHR2) tuner (2 coax inputs, and one Cat 5e network connection output going to my Home Theater PC with Windows Media Center), one coax input went from the splitter direct to my Vizio HD TV, and one input going through a digital-to-analog converter box to an old, analog, tube TV. The setup also was grounded using a 4 foot copper-clad grounding rod with a 1GHz ground block between the antenna and the Winegard injector inside the house (All items are available on Amazon). I live below the peaks of two low mountains in Southwest, VA which are arranged in a kind of herringbone topography with a pass between them (sort of facing the direction of two HDTV towers) and without a direct Line of Site (LOS) to any HDTV towers (more on this in a bit...). My total out of pocket costs for this setup was about $100 (not including the TV, Home Theater PC, and UPS backup), this was equivalent to about two months’ worth of satellite bills at the time. This setup worked great for four-plus years – great picture and unlike satellite, no trouble with reception during bad weather. I was able to receive all available channels in my area, about 21 in all, being transmitted from four HDTV transmission towers, one each at 76 and 80 degrees compass reading and about 5 miles away, and one each at 261 and 262 degrees and about 26 miles away.Recently, we started having trouble being able to record channel 10 (local NBC affiliate), which is a UHF station using the 569 MHz broadcast band and is broadcasting from a tower located at 262 degrees compass reading and about 26 miles away from the house. The signal was reading low in signal strength and in signal quality based on the HDHR2 signal meter (which only provides a % reading, not decibels) in the GUI and recordings were choppy/pixelated as a result – basically un-watchable. The first step I took, and one you should always start with also, was to check the alignment of the antenna as storms with high winds can twist the antenna just enough to reduce the reception. Next always check that all connections are tight, look free from corrosion (common over time with cheap connectors), and that there are no obvious cracks, abrasions, or breaks in the RG6 cable (If you have RG-59, or unlabeled cable you should replace it with RG6 or RG6/U quad shielded, low loss cable). The third step is to ensure that your pre-amp/injector is operating correctly as the pre-amp, the injector, or the AC power block may have failed. The next thing to check/fix is to remove as many tree branches and obstructions as practical from the LOS between the antenna and the broadcast tower(s). I checked the location of the towers by searching online at the Government FCC HDTV web site (http://transition.fcc.gov) for the compass location of the towers and checking that with a compass app on my cell phone as well as cross-checking that with a cheap compass I use for camping. Finally, don’t forget to rescan for available channels on the HDHR/DVR and the TV. Doing these “quick and free” checks/fixes will solve many reception issues.When I checked these items on my setup, there was a little improvement in signal for a couple of channels, but nothing significant – especially for channel 10 which started the whole situation. Bummer! Now the real work began.Before I go on, here is a quick Bottom Line for some/many of you in hilly or semi-mountainous areas without a clear LOS to your transmission towers: Unless you are about 25 miles or less from your HDTV towers and have a direct LOS to the towers (you can see them with binoculars or a telescope), you are going to have to do some experimentation to get a good signal for all the channels you care about (or that are available in your area). Also, if you are nestled somewhere between various mountain peaks without clear LOS, the compass reading is just a guide as reflected signals come into play in your setup and positioning/alignment of your antenna(s). More on this aspect of HDTV signal reception below.Moving on... The next step I took was to replace all of the cheap, twist-on connectors with high-quality, weather-tight, PPC EX6XL compression connectors (available on Amazon along with proper installation tools - and well worth the peace of mind now that I installed them on the cables). Another general, "Rule of Thumb" (ROT) is to raise your antenna higher off the ground. Sometimes, this will help all by itself without further trial and error and can be a quick (and cheap - about $15 for a 5-foot mast extension) fix for reception problems. A couple of other ROTs are to keep your cable runs as short as possible since signal diminishes with coax cable distance (you will most likely need a pre-amp for cable runs over 50 feet), and to limit the number of breaks, connections, and/or splits in the cable as there is a signal "loss" for each connection or split in the cable (about 3 to 3.5 Decibels for each connection or split - this may not seem like much, but is actually HUGE when it comes to getting good recordings with a HDHR and Windows Media Center on a Home Theater PC).Over the past 5-6 weekends (usually just part of one day each weekend, but you get the idea on the time investment…) I have experimented with various combinations of antennas, pre-amps, distribution amps, antenna locations and compass settings for the antenna and so on. As I mentioned, if the “quick and easy” fixes above do not solve your problem, you will (almost certainly) have to experiment with adding/removing different pieces of equipment starting from the antenna down to the TV. Signal reflection from the mountains, trees, and weather (snow, rain, sleet) has made me half-crazy during this trial and error phase, but after five or six weeks of experimentation and testing I have a decent, working setup. It will be far less frustrating if you treat this as a challenge/problem to solve, rather than a quick home repair job (like I did initially).Here is my setup today that is working satisfactorily for my needs (subject to change without notice...): I have one Antennas Direct DB8 and one Antennas Direct DB2e (UHF tuned, “bowtie” type antennas) mounted on a ten foot mast attached to the chimney on my roof – the DB8 is on top of the DB2e. Each antenna has a Winegard SLA-200 Pre-amp attached (keep the connecting cable as short as possible between the antenna and the pre-amp) and they are coupled using a Channel Plus 2512 DC pass-through combiner and using one Winegard injector from an SLA-200 in the house along with one of the included 5 VDC power blocks. I then send the cable through a two-way splitter with one output going to a HD Home Run HDHR3 (it has only one coax input versus two on the old HDHR unit) tuner, and the other output is split with a two-way splitter with one input going to the Vizio TV and the other going to the converter box to the old analog TV in a remote part of the house. With this setup, fully half of my HDTV signal is going to the HDHR tuner for recordings, versus one-third of the signal to the HDHR if I used a three-way splitter (remember that each split results in loss of signal strength). The grounding block and the EX6XL connectors on the RG6 cable remain as before.The key to this setup was to first align the DB8 on the mast for the best overall reception on all channels, and then to connect the DB2e and "tweak" the alignment/orientation of it to get the best overall improvement in reception for the stations I cared most about. The way I did it was to install the HDHR3 GUI Software on my laptop and bring that up on the roof with me (connected with a Cat 5e network cable to my home network so I could read the signal readings off the HDHR3) and tweak the antenna direction while looking at the signal meter. To look at it now, the DB8 is generally facing the two towers of the stations 26 or so miles away (most of my available channels), and the DB2e (I believe) is picking up signals reflected off of the mountains as there are no towers in the direction that antenna is facing – it is facing almost 45 degrees due South of the DB8! The stations from the two towers only 5 miles away come in strong all-around even though they are technically going through the back side of the DB8 and DB2e antennas without the benefit of the signal reflector grid. The bottom line is that now all available stations are getting 100% signal strength and 100% symbol quality, while all have signal quality in the 65-75% range (some channels are on the higher side, some on the lower side of this range…antenna is oriented for best overall reception for all channels) – ideally you would like signal quality to be >75%, but this level is "good enough" to get a reliable picture and reliable recordings through the HDHR3 and Windows Media Center (I have Windows 8.1 installed on the HTPC). Bowtie style UHF antennas are not as directionally particular as Yagi style antennas, but they can’t perform miracles either. All else being equal, more bowties equals more signal reception, but you may have to experiment with combinations of different antennas facing different directions depending on where your towers are located and what is between the towers and your antennas (terrain). For some people, a Yagi and a Bowtie do the trick…It took a while to get here, but as I said, unless your have a clear line of sight and are not too far away, prepare yourself for some experimentation to get a good signal – Over the Air (OTA) HDTV is still way better HDTV picture than cable or satellite since the signal is not compressed, and there is no monthly fee to pay for OTA HDTV. My total out of pocket costs (not including my time over 5-6 weekends) for all of the items used (and unused) from various “experiments” is about $350 – which depending on your cable/satellite charges is probably 4-6 months’ worth of monthly bills. A six-month ROI is worth it to me and between Amazon Prime for movies and such and my DSL line to the internet, I receive all the programming I could ever want.Bottom line, I did a lot of reading and research and a lot of experimenting, and as a result I now probably know as much or more than your typical satellite system or cable installer and I know for certain the exact setup and quality of materials and workmanship in my installation. A good antenna installer likely would have gotten me to this very same place in a day or so, but at maybe $75-100 per hour plus retail costs of all the equipment and materials used it would have been a lot more money overall and I would not know a thing about the setup, thus handcuffing me to the installer when the signal goes bad next time (which mine did with satellite about every 6 months or so). Maybe this write-up will save you some of the time it took me to learn the basics and oddities of OTA HDTV transmission/reception in a less-than-ideal geographic terrain area. Good luck.

do your research well and if you do you will hopefully only need to order once. That is what I did and I am very happy with the DB4E antenna so far. If you are going to cut your cable TV and go with over the air signals (OTA) the biggest piece of advice I would give is this-When you go on to one of the websites, like tvfool.com, that will tell you what digital channels you will be able to receive based on your address, you may see you can get 10 channels or 60 channels. Some people have bought an antenna and complained that they dont receive as many channels as they thought but the vast majority of those digital channels are not major networks but local channels that you may never watch because you never received them when you had cable TV anyway. I live 25 miles SE of the Providence RI broadcast towers and about 50 south of the Boston MA broadcast towers. I tried this antenna in my attic crawlspace and received all the providence channels (PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) but the Boston channels were too weak. then tried holding the antenna out a 2nd floor window and picked up the same Providence channels plus the same networks out of Boston but a lot of channels i will never watch like QVC, HSN, Univision, and all those My TV channels that show shows from the 50's-70's because i can get them all on Hulu anyway. I bought a 30 inch mount to mount it on the side of my house and faced the antenna between the Boston and Providence antennas and I pick them all up with great reception. So far, neither rain not wind has affected the reception. wind can throw off your signal a little if the antenna sways back and forth a little so getting a good mount and securing it tightly helps alot.The antenna is almost fully assembled, you only have to attach the clamp that connects to the mount you purchase and it is very easy to do. it is very light weight but even still when you are holding it trying to find that perfect location it does get a little heavy on your hands. Again the most important part of any antenna is know how far away you are from the broadcast towers, which direction is best to receive the best signal, and how high you are going to mount it. the less obstructions and the clearer line of sight, the better the reception.A side note about the reception I got while it was in the attic. I brought my antenna to my fathers house to try in his crawl space and he is only 5 miles closer to the Boston stations them I am but he got a clear signal through his roof while i did not. Even though the antenna says 65 miles+, I knew that trying to go through roofing shingles and foil backed insulation would degrade the results a little bit so i dont blame the antenna for getting that great of a signal when tried in my attic.By cutting out my cable TV and going with the antenna I am saving $104 a month. Keep in mind when you cut out cable, you not only save the cost of the rental of the cable boxes and the service but the taxes and government fees that cable charge to you. getting a digital signal OTA is free to use and there are no extra taxes or fees to pay for every month.UPDATE: i just wanted to report that 2 years later this is still working just like it did the day i bought it and i have not had any issues with reception, minus the occasional pixalation due tot he neighbors trees.

I replaced a 5 year old “Focus 8HD” 8 bay antenna that worked well picking up weaker 1 edge stations from 30 mi/48 km away no problem pointing in that direction, but recently I started to experience annoying occasional drop outs on my stronger line of sight local stations 22 miles away. The DB4e (4 bay) claims to perform like a bigger 8 bay. To my surprise when I installed this DB4e (pointed in the same direction as the old focus antenna 3 feet above my roof) it did perform like my old 8 bay, but even better!! On my weaker 1 edge stations I gained 4db signal strength on my TV. Through the back end for my local stations I didn’t lose any signal strength. Even radio stations are coming in clearly on my amplifier. This DB4e is a big for a 4 bay, but smaller then the old 8 bay focus antenna was. I am very impressed at the DB4e performance! No more drop outs. This antenna pulls in weaker 1 edge stations way better then I expected for a 4 bay. It’s very well built and sturdy, easy to assemble, and should last many years. Well worth the extra money!

Works great, probably a little too sensitive for me. I live in Coquitlam and have it pointed towards the towers on Seymour and I get all the channels broadcast from there with ease. I actually needed to point the antenna a little "off" as my signal was so strong that it would actually cause problems. Nice and light, sits in my attic, works geat.

Bought this antenna to replace one that had the plastics crumbling after 30 years. I hope to get the same longevity or better. Easy to install and 2 complaints. Main aluminum pipe that everything is mounted to, could be more durable, i collapsed it a bit when mounting it to the tower mast. Also no lock washers for the clamps that hold the antenna to the tower mast.

Did my research, this seemed like the best bang for the buck. In Mississauga, it easily gets 30+ channels from both Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo. Pretty impressed! Also seems well made, not flimsy like some of the copycats out there. Used a satellite J-mast which fit fine with the included clamps.

Mounted outside the antenna is quite powerful. I am picking up all the channels that can be picked up in my area, even ones from over 65miles away (granted, the latter not always working well, especially if it is bad weather).