# Antenna Height



## Link

We live in a rural area and have an outside antenna approximately 20 feet in the air. We replaced the outside antenna with a newer one, but so far the results haven't been what we hoped. There is one station north about 70 miles away that is UHF 950kw power and one south that comes in 80 miles away at 1,000kw power most times of the day no matter what. However, other stations from those directions that are within 10 miles of those towers do not come in. They broadcast at about half the power at 500kw of power. My question is, if we raise the height of our antenna to 40 foot in the air vs the current 20, do you think we will see an improvement to pick up more stations? I'm disappointed we don't pick up more from the one city northwest and the other southeast. We have rotor and a a pre-amp so that is already installed. The new antenna is Winegard 8200U.


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## onan38

I installed a Wineguard and pre amp several years ago for my parents 20 feet high.Scanned channels and a few within 30 to 40 miles wouldn't show up on the scan.Climbed up replaced







on the antenna.Checked the connections on the preamp and on the power supply







and the connection to the tv. Same results so i put the power supply on a power strip where i could kill the power to the power supply re scanned Bingo! it finally picked all the stations up.After tinkering a bit i found that the antenna on its own brought in the channels under 40 miles without the preamp but the preamp needed power to receive channels over 40 to 50 miles away. I would just retrace every thing including all the connections and try killing the power to the preamp and rescan the tv.I am pretty sure the preamp will still pass the signal even with the power off to it. Good luck!


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## AntAltMike

Go to the site called www.tvfool.com and enter your exact address specifying the two different antenna heights above ground level and see how much your signal strengths improve.

The Winegard 8200 is a behemoth that is designed for channels 2-69, but the biggest part of it is for channels 2-6. Do you need to receive those channels where you are? If not, you can get much better antenna performance from smaller, less expensive antennas that better mach your reception needs. If you will at least tell us your city, we can evaluate your situation better.

Very few preamplifiers readily "pass" signal when the preamplifier power is off. In fact, in the last twenty years, I have only seen one such preamplifier, and I install antennas for a living. What most people do not realize is that with digital reception, there is often so much signal surplus that a turned off preamplifier that is attenuating the signal power by 30dB, which is one thousand fold, will still leak enough signal through it to allow the development of perfect pictures.


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## Link

The zip code is 62454. We are north of town in the country with open fields. There are some trees to the north but not close to our house or property. The installer told me the antenna was a Wineguard but it looks more like this model here on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Antennacraft-DAS-HBU44-HBU44-Antenna/dp/B003EAW7A4/ref=sr_1_26?ie=UTF8&qid=1457126413&sr=8-26&keywords=80+mile+range+antenna

We receive all the Terre Haute, IN stations which aren't far away and we can receive WICD (UHF 41) Champaign and WTVW (UHF 28) Evansville pretty well all the time (by turning rotor). However, the other Champaign stations don't come in well and neither do the other Evansville stations. This new antenna apparently has a better VHF range than our old one because WEHT 25 (VHF 7) and WNIN (VHF 9) from Evansville both will sometimes come in at night as well as WTHR (VHF 13) Indianapolis which on the old antenna --a VHF station rarely came in, however now with this antenna I'm afraid our UHF strength isn't as good, but maybe I'm wrong...the old antenna frequently picked up WRTV 6 (UHF 25) from Indianapolis the best over other Indy stations when they would come in.

Thanks for your assistance.


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## AntAltMike

"How can I help you"

"I'm beyond help"

I hope that cable TV and satellite can meet your needs. It is remarkable that you can even get the distant reception you are getting. I just compared reception at 20 feet and *40*0 (edit) feet above ground level for the geographic center of your zip code, and you gain 3dB on your channel 41. I didn't compare the rest. 3 dB is better than nothing, but with obstructed signal paths, you will never have 100% reliability.

Can you even go up another 20 feet? It is tough to do with a rotor and requires serious guy wiring. It would help if you could identify the preamplifier model and more specifically identify the antenna. If you can't find the purchase information, then maybe you could at least exactly measure the length of the boom. There are Winegard antennas that look a lot like the Antennas Direct model you have found, but their gain varies with their length (and price).

The good news is, you only have one strong local FM station, 101.7, so it is unlikely that it is overloading your preamplifier, but it is always gof to insert an FM trap or switch in the internal FM trap of your preamplifier has one in it


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## trh

AntAltMike said:


> ....... I just compared reception at 20 feet and 400 feet above ground level for the geographic center of your zip code, and you gain 3dB on your channel 41........
> 
> Can you even go up another 20 feet?


400' or 40'?


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## AntAltMike

400 feet. 40 feet won't be enough.


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## RBA

Link said:


> The zip code is 62454. We are north of town in the country with open fields. There are some trees to the north but not close to our house or property. The installer told me the antenna was a Wineguard but it looks more like this model here on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Antennacraft-DAS-HBU44-HBU44-Antenna/dp/B003EAW7A4/ref=sr_1_26?ie=UTF8&qid=1457126413&sr=8-26&keywords=80+mile+range+antenna
> 
> We receive all the Terre Haute, IN stations which aren't far away and we can receive WICD (UHF 41) Champaign and WTVW (UHF 28) Evansville pretty well all the time (by turning rotor). However, the other Champaign stations don't come in well and neither do the other Evansville stations. This new antenna apparently has a better VHF range than our old one because WEHT 25 (VHF 7) and WNIN (VHF 9) from Evansville both will sometimes come in at night as well as WTHR (VHF 13) Indianapolis which on the old antenna --a VHF station rarely came in, however now with this antenna I'm afraid our UHF strength isn't as good, but maybe I'm wrong...the old antenna frequently picked up WRTV 6 (UHF 25) from Indianapolis the best over other Indy stations when they would come in.
> 
> Thanks for your assistance.


If it looks like the antenna direct it definitely isn't an 8200 and seeing Radio Shacks bankruptsy took down antenna direct it isn't that antenna though that was a good antenna. UHF is pretty much a 60-70 mile range maximum so you are doing good getting anything at 70 & 80 miles. VHF will take you out to 80-100 miles maximum but neither at those extreme ranges will be 100% reliable. Be content with what you can get LOS and hope your missing networks are picked up as a digital subchannel.

I had CBS and NBC at digital conversion since then ABC,CW,MY and FOX have been added so we have 6 channels now.


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## Link

Thanks for replying. I didn't want to spend money if it won't pay off...I do think we had better UHF reception before but maybe not. I'll check what the pre-amp is when I get home later.


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## Link

The antenna is Wineguard 8200U. The preamp is Wineguard WGDNLA100W.


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## Link

RBA said:


> If it looks like the antenna direct it definitely isn't an 8200 and seeing Radio Shacks bankruptsy took down antenna direct it isn't that antenna though that was a good antenna. UHF is pretty much a 60-70 mile range maximum so you are doing good getting anything at 70 & 80 miles. VHF will take you out to 80-100 miles maximum but neither at those extreme ranges will be 100% reliable. Be content with what you can get LOS and hope your missing networks are picked up as a digital subchannel.
> 
> I had CBS and NBC at digital conversion since then ABC,CW,MY and FOX have been added so we have 6 channels now.


What market are you in? We have ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. We didn't have ABC again until an affiliation change in 2010 that put Fox on a subchannel and brought ABC back. I get CW from another market with the antenna. I would like to be able to get some decent subchannels. We finally got one in December and it's ION Television of all things...We get an over abundance of PBS stations over the air. I can pick up three all the time, with about five available on a regular basis--all with the same programming and subchannels. It seems like they come in whether you want them to or not lol.


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