HDTV transmitter/antenna information


I recently bought a HD receiver for my Direct TV and want to hook up an outdoor antenna to receive local networks etc.

I am having difficulty finding good information on what antenna to use and if it is likely that I could even receive HD from my location in Kalamazoo Michigan.

My receiver is a HR10-250 for Direct TV.

Any websites that can help? I have searched the archives on Agon and googled but no real answer.

ANY info is appreciated

thanks

Phil
128x128philjolet

Showing 1 response by unclejeff

I have a cute story regarding my HD antenna, which I have related on another thread. I have a terk 35 antenna that points towards the main major area transmitter and it gets really good reception from my location which is about 15 miles from the transmitter. I got it from a fellow living quite close to me who for all intent and purposes has the same exposure and angle of reception as I, but he could not get any qualaity reception what-so-ever on his system. My picture is fine.

Still, I wanted to watch the Olympics in HD and the only station broadcasting them is located about 40 miles from me and there is a hill just behing my house that is in the way.l I went to Circuit City and bought another HD antenna that is square-looking(I don't remember the model...) which advertised that it could be used in an urban setting with inferior signals. I used a Radioshack inverse splitter(it allows me to combine to feeds into one cable) and I have the Terk antenna pointed at my main antenna and I tried to get the Circuit City antenna to bring in the remote feed, using the combined signal.

I logged into antennaweb and got the precise compass settings and I pointed the new antenna in the right direction, with a modification to compensate for the hill. Nothing.

I laid the antenna on my pitched roof and went inside to get a beer, having decided this was useless. When I got inside, the picture was perfect! It seems that the pitch of my roof matches just what I needed to get the picture, with almost no room for error.

The point(!) being that there is little room for error but luck and a beer helps.

One more observation, I tied my FM tuner into this system and it now gets great reception.