> I have ordered an HDHomerun to add TV functionality to my Xubuntu > desktop. I will want to watch only over the air broadcasts. According > to tvfool.com (a website that I learned about at the last Clinic) there > are roughly 20 stations approximately 4 miles SSW of my house (about > 220 degrees) and the weakest has a power of -47.5 dBm. I assume that > means that I probably don't need cutting edge antenna technology, > however, it would be most convenient to have it indoors and downstairs > in the middle of the house, although putting it in the attic wouldn't > be tremendously difficult. > > There are a bewildering number of indoor TV antennas on the market. I > could use some suggestions and advice from real world users - not only > as to makes and models, but also as to how it should be oriented. All I > know about RF is that it is tricky and unpredictable.
There's also http://antennaweb.org I would suggest that you make sure you can return anything you get. You may find yourself going through the same drawn-out procedure I did. I am literally 4.5 miles west of towers. They are easily visible from my yard, but there are random trees between them and myself. I started out trying various indoor antennas, with terrible results. Then I tried amplified indoor antennas with no real change. I tried amplified "indoor/ outdoor" antennas. Then I moved them out to the garage attic space. I went to Radio Shack and bought an external directional antenna and a chimney mount. That almost worked. Being on the roof I now had a considerable run of coax, so I bought a pole-mount preamp and a power injector. That was much better. Then I realized that the antennas they typically sell are UHF only (most stations migrated to UHF frequencies with the switch), but a couple of Portland stations are still VHF, so I bought a decent sized VHF/UHF antenna, specifically http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?mc=03&p=HD7694P (note this is claiming a range of 35 miles). I now get almost perfect signal on every local station except channel 12. It turns out that most of the local stations broadcast at 45KW, with a couple at 1000KW (1MW), but channel 12 only broadcasts at 25KW. I don't know what their radiation pattern looks like, but I assume they're configured to send most of that east over Portland instead of purely omni-directional over the entire metro area. Even with a roof-mounted directional antenna with a pole-mounted pre-amp I still can't reliably get channel 12, and I'm about to upgrade to something like this: http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=cm-5646 Remember, I'm 4.5 miles line-of-sight from the towers. :-( The frustrating thing is my Sony TV tuner can handle most of the issues with channel 12, but my two HDHomeRun units have fits with the signal (I have a 1-to-4 splitter connecting the TV and 3 HDHomeRun cables). After you work through your indoor options drop me a line, I may still have the HD7694 laying around. john- _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
