Antenna advice

[Bryan]

That's what I was afraid of. I was planning to put this all in a closet upstairs, far from my HTPC. My home server is in there, but I'd rather not give it that sort of job. I'm thinking I may just get a good antenna for the LOS stuff (which won't take much) and buy the season pass on Amazon for now. Then again, if WOW lets me have a card, it won't matter, though part of me wants to use them for nothing but internet.

[LuckyDay]

If they give you a card you don't need to pay them for cable to just get the OTA channels.

[Bryan]

I know, I just like the idea, mostly the idea of giving OTA a good shot this time. If they'll give me the card, I'm all over it, at least for starters.

[JAJ]

This is the antenna I have in my attic, and I have never had an issue. I also use a simple splitter to split the single to 2 separate digital tuners in 2 different htpc's without issue.

RCA ANT751

[Bryan]

Well, I called Wow, they won't do it here. Not sure if that's because I'm in a different area, or just because I'm not an existing customer. Either way, I'll have to go OTA. I'm planning to order an HDHR today and pick a simple directional antenna for the LOS channels. I'll just let my wife buy the remaining episodes of Supernatural for the season and deal with that later. Honestly, buying a second tuner and more expensive antenna for one channel is excessive, so unless we're watching everything on the channel, it can wait.

[LuckyDay]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you have to actually be a customer.

Then you just find your local WOW office and go pick it up. Like I said, the customer service people over the phone won't be of much help.

[Bryan]

I'll probably hang on to the Ceton tuner for now and give that a shot in a few months, once I've been with them a while. The HDHR wasn't much and I want something ready to go when I switch, so it's not a big deal. I'll definitely pursue it more before any extraordinary lengths for the CW.

[LuckyDay]

I'll probably hang on to the Ceton tuner for now and give that a shot in a few months, once I've been with them a while. The HDHR wasn't much and I want something ready to go when I switch, so it's not a big deal. I'll definitely pursue it more before any extraordinary lengths for the CW.

I think CW also has a Win8 app as well as most of their shows being available on the website, so maybe that's an option.

[Bryan]

Might be, I've considered upgrading the HTPC to 8 at some point. I have a feeling anything outside of using the remote may not be acceptable.

I got the HDHomeRun last night, and placed it and the testing antenna in the closet. Seems to work great so far. I decided to try the RCA antenna linked earlier, so that should be here Saturday. I may start by pointing it towards the CW and seeing what happens, but I'm not intending it for that. Either way, I'm planning to drop the cable soon.

[Bryan]

Has anyone used an antenna coupler such as this? http://www.amazon.com/Winegard-CC-7870- ... ql_qh_dp_t The RCA antenna is sitting on my kitchen table and picking up the CW with very little interference, so I imagine once it's in the attic it'll work even better. I'm wondering if the RCA combined with the Monoprice feeding a single HDHomeRun via a coupler would work.

[dmagerl]

Combining two antennas together is usually not a good idea but many people do it with no problem. It didnt work for me, I had too many problems with nearby metro areas.

Antennas are directional for a reason, they reject co-channel interference from their sides and back. When you combine with another antenna pointed in a different direction, you stand the risk of increasing interference to your desired stations from other metro areas.

It may work now, at this time of year, but when summer/fall rolls around and peak tropospheric-skip season hits, you may regret doing it as all your stations fade out to the "no signal" blue screen. A better approach is to not combine antennas and instead use a dedicated tuner for stations on the secondary antenna.

BTW, you dont need to buy a special device to combine antennas. You can use any old run-of-the-mill 1:2 splitter in reverse. There is a small penalty to pay for combining and that is increased losses in the combiner. So if your signal is marginal to begin with, it will be even more so afterwards.

So give it a try, it may work just fine, but dont be disappointed when stations fade out during skip season.

[Bryan]

Yep, the antenna was only $45 or so. Even if I do have to get another HDHomeRun, it'll come out ahead pretty quickly, and it'll integrate with Media Center.

[Moderator note: off topic discussion moved here-->http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =22&t=8461]

[Bryan]

Just to wrap this up, the antenna is mounted in the attic and working pretty well with the line-of-sight channels. CBS had a bit of interference, I'll play with it a bit. However, I've got the HDHomeRun setup on the HTPC, and using My Channel Logos, I was able to get the entire guide (11 channels) on a single page. As an added bonus, removing the Ceton card meant I could pull out a slot fan I had in the system, which has reduced the noise (I could only hear it up close, but it was still there). Wow will be out tomorrow to get us switched, and I'll have an extra $110 every month.

I'll debate dealing with the CW later. I would need to place a second antenna at the other end of the attic, which results in a longer cable and probably needing an amp on it. That plus the possibility of another tuner would get expensive for the result. It would, however, be nice to add a decent channel to the list, so we'll see.