Anybody know about Combining OTA antennas?

#1
Most of my channels are south.
One channel is 180 degrees from the others.

I'm looking at adding a 2nd antenna facing North for the one channel.
Anything I need to know?
 
#3
Blending both antennas in one wire with a combiner will cancel one antenna or the other out. So that rules out using a signal combiner / splitter.

For a dual antenna system, the best setup is an A/B switch at the TV set.

A decent alternative is an omnidirectional OTA antenna such as Winegard's Flatwave.
 
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#4
I live in Grand Rapids Mich.
Omni Directional and powered don't work for some reason I read ... I wish I had bookmarked it.

However I have read you can use 2 antennas but they must be separated on the mast by the distance of half the wave of the Lowest channels frequency.
The calculation is 467 divided by (about) 58Mhz .... = 8.05 or just a tick over 8 feet. Any closer and you can get ghosting.

Channel Master made a trap a few years back for specific channels.
Meaning it will let one channel through from one antenna and the rest of the channels through the other antenna.
But it has been discontinued.

I have a Wineguard HD7084P mounted at the top of a 10' mast to the roof of my ranch.

Does the 2nd antenna have to be identical?
Is there an updated version of the Channel Master trap?
 
#5
I know enough to be dangerous so I got up at the crack of 9 and called "Solid Signal" in Novi Mich.

Bottom line they sold me this antenna Solid Signal Xtreme Signal 2-Bay Bowtie UHF/High Band VHF TV Antenna 35mi (HD1080X) from Solid Signal and this combiner Winegard CC-7870 2-Way TV Antenna Joiner Coupler (CC7870) from Solid Signal .

It will be mounted to the mast near the tripod, at least 3' from the other antenna.

The dealer said I could buy an identical antenna and have them within a foot of each other but that would be a lot of aluminum on the mast.

The new antenna should be here tomorrow (Tuesday).
 
#6
The new antenna arrived as promised. I was going to install it Wednesday. Went out to grab coax, compression fittings and weather boots. I found everything but the weather boots. Checked 6 stores. Got on eBay, ordered them, they will be here Monday.
I will update the post when I get the install done and we will see if it's worth a hoot!
 
#7
Its Saturday, the weather boots came sooner than expected.

"Recap: most channels I want are south. TV 13 is north and is on the fringe. My main (large) antenna faced south. I was adding a 2nd antenna to aim to the north to capture TV 13."

I got the 2nd antenna installed but TV 13 was no better.
I turned the mast 180 degrees so the main faces north and the new antenna faces south.
1 Channel to the south (TV 3) is a little weak, it got to a low of 47 (40 or less pixilates) and a high of 52 but it may work.
For now we will see how TV 3 works and I hope that will be a wrap.
I will update this thread if anything changes.

Here is a pic of the antenna setup.
 
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