Video Asylum

Posted by petew (A) on January 05, 2002 at 12:11:42

In Reply to: Which RS antenna and how from tower? posted by bstanQ700 on January 05, 2002 at 11:49:26:

oh, wait, I remember I didn't get the RS but one from the Sears hardware. I hate going into RS -- will do anything to avoid it. I think most of the building supply places have them too: like Home Depot and Lowes.

I bought the smallest "rooftop" model they had, it was about $30. It's not easy to get up in my attic or I'd go and get the model number for you, but it has about 7 or 9 VHF elements and the YAGI reflector in the tail with a bunch of UHF elements.

I suspended it from the rafters with string--but now I wish I'd put up some kind of mast with a rotor, even though it'd be a pain to run a cable down to the control...I may do that soon, now that it's cold up there.

Was worried about grounding and lightening for a while but it's been up there for 2 seasons and the house hasn't caught fire (yet). I suppose it's grounded thru the coax shield where I spliced into the cable TV distribution (had to cut the coax and put a "T" in line--that wasn't too hard and came out OK, but be sure to disconnect your cable TV feed where it comes into the house to the ground block, then just re-plumb the coax so the antenna feed goes on the IN side of the distribution/ground block where the cable feed was disconnected--get it?), but I really ought to do it properly, I suppose. don't turn me in.

I'm fortunate to be up on a hill facing a direct line-of-sight to most of Philly's broadcast towers, about 20 miles or thereabouts. I think I"m within 30 miles of all the antennas in the Philly area, and can even get Allentown, which is over the hill behind me. The link below says I don't even need the antenna in the attic, but what do they know.

But check out the link that Tom (was it tom??)posted below. I think I'm going to go with the biggest antenna that will fit between the rafters and still rotate. I'll let you know how it works out.