# Need help deciding on HD antenna - Chicago Burbs



## quagmire0 (Dec 15, 2006)

Here's my situation:

I have the Dish 1000 w/ the DVR 625. From antennaweb.org I have the following:

*	yellow - uhf	WTTW-DT	11.1	PBS	CHICAGO	IL 63°	26.1	47
*	yellow - uhf	WPWR-DT	50.1	MNT	GARY	IN 63°	26.1	51
*	yellow - uhf	WLS-DT	7.1	ABC	CHICAGO	IL 63°	26.1	52
*	yellow - uhf	WSNS-DT	44.1	TEL	CHICAGO	IL 63°	26.1	45
*	yellow - uhf	WMAQ-DT	5.1	NBC	CHICAGO	IL 63°	26.1	29
*	yellow - uhf	WFLD-DT	32.1	FOX	CHICAGO	IL 63°	26.1	31
*	yellow - uhf	WCIU-DT	26.1	IND	CHICAGO	IL 63°	26.1	27
*	yellow - uhf	WCPX-DT	38.1	i	CHICAGO	IL 63°	26.2	43
*	yellow - uhf	WXFT-DT	60.1	TFA	AURORA	IL 63°	26.2	59
*	yellow - uhf	WJYS-DT	62.1	REL	HAMMOND	IN 63°	26.1	36
*	yellow - uhf	WGN-DT	9.1	CW	CHICAGO	IL 63°	26.1	19
*	red - vhf	WBBM-DT	2.1	CBS	CHICAGO	IL 61°	27.4	3
*	blue - uhf	WYCC-DT	20.1	PBS	CHICAGO	IL 61°	27.4	21
*	blue - uhf	WGBO-DT	66.1	UNI	JOLIET	IL 61°	27.4	53
*	violet - uhf	WYIN-DT	56.1	PBS	GARY	IN 126°	42.4	17

I live in a townhome, so a roof antenna is out of the question. (My dish is mounted on the back deck) What's my best bet for receiving these channels? Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance!


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## Spirit (Dec 14, 2006)

When I first setup my Dish equipment I bought a $120 UHF indoor/outdoor antenna to try. It worked, but then I dug thru my attic and found an old $30 dual bowtie indoor antenna I got from Radio Shack like in the 80's. I set it up on top of my receiver and I get all my 'yellow' stations (approx 25 miles away over flat terrain, at a signal level between 95 and 100!! I was real jazzed... and of course, returned the expensive one. You really do not need any special "HD compatable" rated antenna. 

So if you have a fairly straight shot, I would first try an inexpensive UHF antenna, aim it at the degrees specified by the antenna web site (or just keep pressing the info button to look at signal strength) and you'll be up and running just fine. That would be for all your 'yellow' signals at ~63 deg and within 30 miles. You should even get the 'blue' signal. On the violet at 126 deg, it is almost 180 deg from the others (almost the exact opposite direction), so you should be able to receive it well from the reverse side of the antenna. I just tested this on mine, by reversing the antenna direction 180 deg and the signal was just as high!

Enjoy!


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## psnarula (Aug 13, 2005)

why do you have a dish 1000 if you aren't getting hd channels?

why don't you just sign up for HD service, get an MPEG-4 compatible receiver, and then you don't need the ota antenna.

i'm guessing you have a hd tv although i must admit i'm a bit confused since you have a 625 receiver...


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## Spirit (Dec 14, 2006)

psnarula said:


> why do you have a dish 1000 if you aren't getting hd channels?
> 
> why don't you just sign up for HD service, get an MPEG-4 compatible receiver, and then you don't need the ota antenna.
> 
> i'm guessing you have a hd tv although i must admit i'm a bit confused since you have a 625 receiver...


While what you say is true, and perhaps valid for many, I found out after my upgrade that Dish only supports "four" HD locals... at least in my area. So, among the twenty locals I receive in the 8000 channel range in Standard def, only "four" of them are presented in the 6000 channel range as HD!! Dish confirmed that only four HD locals are sent to customers.... bah! I was rather discouraged about this because having 20 local (potentially HD) channels was one of the reasons I upgraded to the 211 and higher monthly price.

Those Dish locals are from San Francisco for me. I have a big mountain range between my location and SF so I can't get them from my off air antenna. However, I *am* within 24 miles line-of-site from Sacramento, which is where I've been receiving my off-air signals, and when the broadcasts are in HD, I receive them nicely in HD!

So, in my case, I double my locals by having an off-air as well as the satellite locals... and one of these is a nice 24/7 PBS HD broadcast. So the off-air antenna becomes an added benefit to add to the newer Dish Locals in HD.


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## psnarula (Aug 13, 2005)

oh okay this makes more sense -- i hadn't thought about wanting to receive HD locals from something other than the four networks.


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## ericgo (Dec 16, 2006)

With so many networks in a yellow zone there is a good chance you can get away with a simple indoor antenna, such as HDTVa or Winegard SS-3000. Forget about the red and blue stations though ...


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## bruin95 (Apr 23, 2006)

Spirit said:


> I was rather discouraged about this because having 20 local (potentially HD) channels was one of the reasons I upgraded to the 211 and higher monthly price.


20 local HD channels? Uh...no. The most you can possibly have right now is 7 (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, MyTV, CW, and PBS). And this isn't going to change anytime soon.


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## Spirit (Dec 14, 2006)

bruin95 said:


> 20 local HD channels? Uh...no. The most you can possibly have right now is 7 (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, MyTV, CW, and PBS). And this isn't going to change anytime soon.


Yeah... it dawned on me that not all stations have upgraded to HD cameras et al., but that was after I got the upgrade and realized it was an inadvertant deception when Dish Network sales said "... and then you'd get your satellite locals in HD"... hehe. .. he just didn't use the word "all" in there.


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## JM Anthony (Nov 16, 2003)

My suggestion would be to cruise over to AVSForum, our sister site and look for the OTA thread for your area. See what others in your area are using. I got a lot of advice from the Seattle thread. I ended up with a CM 4228 that's mounted up in my attic (nothing between it and the air other than a few rafter 2" x 4"s and vinyl siding. Works great!! 

Good luck. John


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## quagmire0 (Dec 15, 2006)

Thanks for all the advice all.

re: the Dish 1000 - I'm not sure, that's the dish they gave me. I'll be getting a plasma for Christmas, so I don't currently have the HD receiver or package. I figure that I'll give the indoor antenna a shot to save a little money and wait until Dish offers a little more HD programming.


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## jcrobso (Mar 30, 2005)

bruin95 said:


> 20 local HD channels? Uh...no. The most you can possibly have right now is 7 (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, MyTV, CW, and PBS). And this isn't going to change anytime soon.


I'm in the Chicago market. We have 2 BPS stations for example. Two Hispanic HD stations. Two other independent HD stations. This is a total of 11. If you count the sub channels it would come up to 20. John


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## jcrobso (Mar 30, 2005)

quagmire0 said:


> Here's my situation:
> 
> I have the Dish 1000 w/ the DVR 625. From antennaweb.org I have the following:
> 
> ...


All the others you can get one antenna. Do you have an attic where you can put the antenna??? Bollingbrook is about 40 or so miles out, if you can't get the antenna up high getting the locals on your Dish might be the best answer. John


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## cpdretired (Aug 25, 2003)

I live just a few miles from you in Lemont. Go with the HD locals and either a 211 or a 622. The 622 in my opinion is the receiver of choice. First off I have the HD locals provided by dish. I don't think your going to have good reception with an indoor antenna. WBBM transmits on VHF Ch 3 which gives everyone problems with an outdoor antenna. I have an outdoor UHF antenna. I can't receive WBBM with this antenna. The other channels come in great with the exception of WCIU which breaks up.


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## grooves12 (Oct 27, 2005)

I live in San Jose... 45 miles and in between LOTS of terrain to the SF broadcast towers, and I am able to get everything (including one VHF station) with a Silver Sensor antenna that I got for $20. It is a TINY indoor antenna, and by most reports is hands down the best around. Indoor I got almost all of the channels with no problems, but there were a few that were iffy, but I mounted it outside, on my patio and now get everything with no problems.

its a relatively small investment, so try one out before you go buying and mounting a huge antenna on the roof;


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## HomebrewerDan (Oct 26, 2006)

If you choose a HD OTA antenna, remember that one of those red channels is CBS HD. So a small HD UHF antenna will get you most, but not all, HD broadcast channels that you may want.


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## quagmire0 (Dec 15, 2006)

cpdretired said:


> I live just a few miles from you in Lemont. Go with the HD locals and either a 211 or a 622. The 622 in my opinion is the receiver of choice. First off I have the HD locals provided by dish. I don't think your going to have good reception with an indoor antenna. WBBM transmits on VHF Ch 3 which gives everyone problems with an outdoor antenna. I have an outdoor UHF antenna. I can't receive WBBM with this antenna. The other channels come in great with the exception of WCIU which breaks up.


Yeah, I may just upgrade my Dish service to HD. I just wish there was some way to get around the $200 they want for the receiver.  I realized the other day that the Super Bowl will be on CBS.


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## dakn2 (Sep 20, 2002)

I’m in Mundelein, IL (far northern Chicago ‘burb) and am using a Zenith UHF antenna that I bought at Menards on Tuesday (got the new TV Tuesday). It’s installed inside of my attic - I’m at 90% strength on all network HD stations from Downtown (sans CBS of course) – heck on the regular UHF band I’m seeing stations from Indiana that I never even knew existed.; now including their high-def sub-stations. I’m supposed to be getting a ChannelMaster 4221 antenna tomorrow; it’s ½ the cost and gets really good reviews, so I’ll see how that works.

As for why you’d want the antenna w/Dish HD – my brother-in-law (also in the Chicago area) also has Dish HD and an OTA antenna – there is a noticeable difference in the locals when we compare the two (w/ the Dish delay it’s very easy to compare identical sequences and freeze them on his TV) – OTA is definitely better.


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## Kricket (Nov 18, 2005)

as crazy as it sounds - try out the zenith "silver sensor" antenna - stick that puppy atop your entertainment center - face it in the right direction and watch the magic begin - i went through the whole gamut of indoor solutions ranging in the hundreds of dollars

then i bit the bullet, marched down to sears and picked up a silver sensor for $20 on sale - i now pick up 17 digital channels ota - granted, they arent ALL hd and im only about 10 miles away from the sears tower - but i get over 95% on pretty much every channel ota (note - this will NOT get you cbs in chicago)

plus - the thing doesnt look TOO atrocious - ive actually gotten complimented on how "cool" it looks from a few buddies of mine...

http://www.amazon.com/Zenith-ZHDTV1...s_1/102-4027276-6602557?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

thats the link to it from amazon - but im sure you can get it for a few bucks cheaper elsewhere...

EDIT - i just noticed grooves12 recommended the same antenna - sorry about that!


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## dakn2 (Sep 20, 2002)

I just following up on my previous post for those in Chicago considering OTA antennas. I received the Channel Master 4221 and was able to do some comparisons to the GEMDTV-1 Zenith Outdoor HDTV/DTV/UHF Analog Antenna available at Menards. Again I am about 40 miles north of downtown Chicago, and the antennas are installed inside of my roof.

- The signal strengths on all channels, were identical to the Zenith (ranging from 91 - 100), except for Channel 7's high def stations, which dropped about 8 points to 82 (on a 100 point scale). Neither anetnna pulls in HD Channel 2.

- The Channel Master is definitely not directional - I can very the direction of the antenna horizontally by 25 degrees, and vertically by about 15 degrees before you see a drop in the signal strength.

- I had also connected the Zenith antenna to my receivers and found that it did a good job of pulling in the downtown-based FM stations - not so w/the Channel Master - most stations are weak, and some don't come in at all; but again it doesn't claim to be an FM antenna.


Therefore I decided to return the $70 Zenith and go with the $35 Channel Master.


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