Cord Cutting. Get TRUE HD Television Via A Roof Mounted TV Antenna.

September 4, 2019

#325

Gentle reader,

My earliest memory of having a television in our home was around 1960 when my dad drove up to our small house in a borrowed pickup truck with a used TV in the back. 

We lived in a small rural town in Kansas where dad was the Presbyterian Church minister.

There was a man-made hill outside of town with a tall pole on it. I realize now that it was the town's TV receiver antenna. We were a LONG way from any city. So, we must have started out with cable TV then. Less than ten stations, more likely four or five. ABC, CBS and NBC and perhaps a couple UHF stations.

If you are in your twenties or thirties, you may not even be aware that television stations all over the world transmit their content Over The Air (OTA), just like radio. 
And it is in FULL HD. To get as many stations as they can crammed into one physical cable wire, Cable TV providers have to COMPRESS the signals, if you think your HD TV picture looks great, you haven't SEEN HD TV until it comes into your home FOR FREE over an antenna. 

This photo and the one below of the old antenna are taken from our deck. The antenna MUST be oriented so that the ARROW points AWAY from the transmitter towers. Think of the antenna as your arms, spread and waiting to give that certain someone a hug. Or block a basketball opponent, if you are too many to hug someone.

NOTE: If you click on ANY picture, a second window will open OVER this one, and the pictures will be larger. You can click through them or use your < and > arrow keys.

As you are no doubt aware, cable TV, including Verizon's FiOS which uses fiber optics, is expensive. Aside from the cost of the service, you RENT each cable TV box and your modem as well.

And you don't get to choose which stations you want to watch. You have to choose "packages" each more expensive depending upon how many cable channels you want to receive. The VAST majority of those countless channels you will never, ever tune to. So why pay for things you will NEVER watch?

We stream via our Samsung Blu-Ray player, Netflix and Amazon as well as YouTube. You cannot truly appreciate YouTube until you've seen it on the big screen. So, I am not some geezer living in the last Century. Just looking to Cut The Cord and save a bunch of money.

ALL of the pieces I used to install this antenna TOTAL less than one hundred dollars.

Some years ago, before I knew anything about TV antennas, I put up a cheap "HD TV" antenna as have countless others who did non know better. It is seen below:

If you compare the two photos, you see this one is a LOT smaller and mostly plastic. Despite that, it was not too bad. It has a built-in rotator motor and cheap preamplifier.

It was the second one I have bought, I don't know what went wrong with the first one. I came across the old one in the basement and took it apart. Those "X" shaped things are not connected to anything. Inside the front is one rod which is, and the two "U" shaped ones are connected as well. That's it, three small pieces of metal that actually receive the signals.

The thing hanging down behind the mounting piece (a second one was once on top, but must have been snapped off by the wind) has metal reflectors facing the front of the antenna.

The photo below is full sized so that you can see all of the pieces. Kind of hard with the trees in the background. And I have no way of knowing how large it can be seen on a "device" since I only use a PC for going on the Internet. 

The long pairs of rods, that's what they are called, are for VHF channels: 2 through 13. Each pair is longer than the previous, since the lower the channel number, the lower the Megahertz frequency and longer the TV radio waves traveling through the air. The higher the channel number, the shorter the waves, thus the shorter the rods to capture the signals.

Each long rod is electrically connected to the cable that travels from the antenna into the house and screwed into the back of the TV.

For a much better explanation of how OTA TV transmission and reception occurs, please check out this excellent web page:
Television antenna - Wikipedia

These photos were shot when the antenna, after assembling (consisting of unfolding the element rods and attaching the wires) and mounting it on the two five-foot-long (stacked to make ten feet poles, is standing on the deck where the patio umbrella usually stands.

These much smaller rods and blades which are perpendicular to the antenna shaft are for UHF channels: 14 to 53. The rods on the large "V" shaped structure and the blade shaped pieces are used to narrow the UHF frequencies and focus them on to the two blades which have electrical connections seen below, which have yellow labels on them:

Above, you can see where the wires attach to the antenna. The thin wires are attached to a transformer that changes the antenna's 300 Ohm rating to 75 Ohms for the white RG6 coaxial cable carrying the signals to the TV. 
Each black piece which has rods or blades attached is an insulator. The large rods and that pair of flat metal blades are all connected together electrically, but insulated from the antenna's aluminum shaft.

These blades which are each angled up or down a specific way are time proven to capture and focus the UHF signals. They are the end of the antenna that MUST be pointed towards the TV station transmitter towers.

This image was downloaded from the Wikipedia site. It is an UHF (only) antenna.

What first got me started on this quest to get HD TV into our home and save us considerable MONEY, was a young Pennsylvania man named Tyler, AKA Antennaman on YouTube. Antenna Man - YouTube  

He speaks from experience after installing many antennas for customers and from buying and testing numerous antennas for his YouTube channel. His unique experiences have allowed him to figure out which antennas to recommend and which to avoid.

Oh, and he often points out, "There is no such thing as an 'HD' TV antenna. All TV is broadcast over the air with the same frequency bands that they always have used. The signals are just digital instead of analog." 

I recommend your checking out his channel on YouTube, it will be worth your while and will save you money and heartaches by avoiding buying crappy antennas.

To learn what TV stations YOU can receive for FREE in FULL HD, go to: AntennaWeb.org - Antenna Signal Prediction
Type in your address and it will list all the stations, what channel frequency they ACTUALLY transmit on, how far away they are, and what compass direction they are from your home.

The antenna I chose, since all of the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD stations are northeast of us in northern Virginia, and all the DC stations are less than thirty miles from here, is a Channel Master 3016. It has a 45 mile "range" and if oriented properly does a superb job of receiving over 50 stations in our area.Yes, 50.
Channel Master: Over-The-Air Broadcast Entertainment Products 

Channel Master has been around since broadcast TV was first available. So their products are guaranteed to work and are of high quality. All of their outdoor antennas are made of aluminum, with the only plastic used for insulation and they made strong to last for decades.

This is a TV and radio signal amplifier. It was probably made in the 1960's. I found it in a thrift store. There are ones that you can buy new that are similar. While effective, the best are ones that you mount near the antenna. I just looked at Nippon America's site and they sell an almost identical one.

Warning: Do not attempt to install an outside antenna by yourself. I am a retired electrician and was trained to safely work on roofs and ladders. Hire a professional to install your antenna.

While this is an FM radio antenna, it pulls in many HD TV channels with a superb quality. Not nearly as many stations as the new Channel Master 3016 antenna does, however. But that it gets ANY TV stations was a surprise to us. 
And FM? Wow! It pulls in stations from all over the place excellently. This is the opposite end of the house from the chimney, so it is forty feet away from the other antenna. In both cases, the RG6 cable passes into our attic and from there through the ceiling via a plate with cable screw terminals.
Note the ground cable coming down from it. Just in case lightning strikes it.....A very important precaution.

One of the best ways to mount a TV antenna is to your chimney, if you have one OR beneath the roof as you can see (above) the way I mounted the FM antenna. 
I just noticed there is some paper inside the pole/mast, I did not see before uploading this photo.
I should have spread the chimney straps further apart, top to bottom, for this antenna, but being the entire assembly is very light and has no large pieces the wind could push against, it should be fine. 

Looking at these two photos, you see things the white RG6 cables attach to. The bottom one is VERY important. 
It is a Lightning Arrestor. And by it's name, if lightning strikes the antenna, it is directed to the ground via the wire attached to it which is connected to a copper rod driven into the ground.
It also protects the TV attached to the other end of the cable since the rods and blades are insulated from the mast and antenna shaft and thus the outside of the arrestor. But it is designed to pass the lightning's energy to the case and discharge it to the ground. That happens, time to install a new arrestor.
Plus, the TV/home theater components (and FM radio attached to the FM antenna) are plugged into a massive surge protector/power strips as a backup to the arrestor. One cannot be too careful when it comes to lightning. 

The black box mounted to the mast is a preamplifier. Unlike a preamplifier used in a stereo system, this one boosts the signals received by the antenna to counter any loss of signal strength due to cable length resistance. I used a total of 25 feet so it may be unnecessary. 
It is one of two components, and was made by Nippon America. It is model number W-15-259. Their official photo is below. I did not use the thin black cables that came with it.

Their website is here: nipponamerica  The other portion, a second black box is the main distribution amplifier to which the "wall wart" power supply is attached, provides the 12 volts DC that powers both pieces, and provides TWO outputs, for two TVs. 
The DC voltage travels to the preamplifier using the cable wire that carries the signals from the antenna. Being DC, it does not interfere at all.  The preamplifier has a switch on it to either block FM radio, or let is pass.
The distribution amplifier has a gain control in case signals are too strong, in which case, rotating it to the left will attenuate the signal. This black box is NOT meant to be used outside.

NOTE: Cable splitters, while convenient are NOT a good idea to use. Each split steals 3 decibels from the signals. A distribution amplifier sends full strength signals to each output.

While the white cables look confusing in the photos, I made them longer than needed on purpose. And thus looped them and wire-tied them to each other and the mast. It's easier to make a long wire/cable shorter than it is to make it longer.

The signals path is: Antenna to transformer to preamplifier to lightning arrestor to distribution amplifier to the TV. A total of five white cables, I use RG6 cables and bought the tools to trim and crimp them. RG6 is far superior to cheaper thinner cables and will last for many years with no troubles.

You can clearly see the new RG6 cable as it enters the attic via the vent. It is staked inside and out to prevent movement.

And now some antenna porn photos!

While the antenna was standing on the deck, above, you can see the structure from a tail-on angle.

The shot above shows the antenna pointed towards 40 degrees, the compromise angle in the middle of all the towers to the northeast.

These last two pictures clearly show the construction of the Channel Master 3016 antenna.

I wrote earlier "what channel frequency they ACTUALLY transmit on". 
Despite the channel number, in many cases, the actual frequency that the stations transmit on are often quite different that what they identify as. 
For example, here we receive VHF channels: NBC4, FOX 5 ABC 7 and CBS 9. As well as UHF: 14, 20, 22, 26, 32 and 50 66 and 68. MANY of them have side channels, 7.1 being the main channel, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, etcetera are side channels, many of them are older programing or kid channels.

Channel 4 transmits on channel 34.
Channel 5 transmits on channel 36. 
Channel 7 is still on 7, as is Channel 9.
But, Channel 68 is actually also sent on channel 9.
Channel 20 is also no channel 36.
Channel 22 is on channel 21.
Channel 26 is on channel 31.
Channel 32 (Maryland station) is on channel 33.
Channel 50 is on channel 15.
Channel 66, of which there is TEN side channels is on 35.

We also get Channel 44, but it is all in Spanish so we removed them from viewing. My wife was born in Puerto Rico, but lived here since she was two so speaks little Spanish.
There are four low-power stations that do not come in clear enough for our TV to accept. So the TV rejected them. I tried tuning to them by entering their assigned number, but they were very fuzzy.

All told, we get 31 channels we are willing to watch, having removed: QVC, HSN and other other "shopping" channel.




Final warning: Do not attempt to install an outside antenna by yourself. I am a retired electrician and was trained to safely work on roofs and ladders. Hire a professional to install an antenna for you!

Thank you for taking the time to read this rather lengthy article. I love to share what I've been up to and to my utter delight, plenty of people read my blog!
Your kind words and comments (below or on Facebook) are encouraging to me to keep the stories coming.

Scott
September 4, 2019