# OTA HD in SE Minnesota



## jsherm007 (Jun 23, 2006)

Hi - I'm a more active poster in the DTV forums here at DBS, but this is my first visit to the OTA section. I have a question that I think this forum would have more expertise.

I live in Rochester, MN which is 85mi SE of Minneapolis, St. Paul. I have had a lot of luck with my OTA set up except on channel 5.1, the ABC station. The signal can range from 10% to 60% causing constant break up, while most other stations from the cities are constant 50-80% on the same line of sight and distance. There is an ABC station that is 40mi away in Austin, MN but they don't broadcast sports in HD yet.

I use the following antenna, I know it's not a channel master, but the range is great:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103088&cp=&origkw=antenna+uhf&kw=antenna+uhf&parentPage=search

Then I use it with an amp that I also got from radio shack that cost about $55. This one: 
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103094&cp=&origkw=antenna+amplifier&kw=antenna+amplifier&parentPage=search

My set up then is as follows, there is a 3ft cable from antenna to the pre-amp on the pole, then about 75ft to the inside of the house, where the wire connects to an amp, from there I us a 1ft line to a splitter to go to 2 TV's because I have DTV and not HD locals. One TV has a 3ft run, the other is about 50ft. Most of my wiring is this kind, also from Radio Shack:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062070&cp=&pg=1&origkw=100+rg6&kw=100+rg6&numProdsPerPage=50&parentPage=search

What can I do to better pull in the signals from the cities more consistantly?


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## Tower Guy (Jul 27, 2005)

jsherm007 said:


> I live in Rochester, MN which is 85mi SE of Minneapolis, St. Paul.
> 
> I use the following antenna, I know it's not a channel master, but the range is great:
> 
> ...


More antenna gain would be the best place to start. The Radio Shack U-75 really can't do 70+ miles very well. Two high end performers are the Antennas Direct 91XG and the Channel Master 4228. Channel 5.1 is really on channel 50. Both antennas perform well on channel 50.


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## jsherm007 (Jun 23, 2006)

Where have people picked up the Channel Master 4228? I did a quick check on Froogle and it looks like about $70 is typical. Can it be found any lower?


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## kenglish (Oct 2, 2004)

Are you saying you have TWO amplifiers, one at the antenna and another inside the house???

The RS preamp is already more than enough to overdrive a set. It has "up to 30 dB" of gain. This would also be enough to overdrive a second amp.

Try it without the second amp. Then, you might even want to try putting a bit of attenuation on the input of the preamp, using an in-line attenuator.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Lose the indoor amp, verify the power insertion for your pre-amp and check out your
RS antenna's effective range against the recommendations at www.antennaweb.org


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## Tower Guy (Jul 27, 2005)

jsherm007 said:


> Where have people picked up the Channel Master 4228? I did a quick check on Froogle and it looks like about $70 is typical. Can it be found any lower?


$55 plus shipping.

http://www.starkelectronic.com/allant.htm


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## w0en (Nov 14, 2006)

jsherm007 said:


> Where have people picked up the Channel Master 4228? I did a quick check on Froogle and it looks like about $70 is typical. Can it be found any lower?


Warren Electronics in the quad cities is close and has a hot price. I got 1 day shipping to Northfield.

Read read the Twin Cities HDTV forum, 5.1 has some issues with both the high channel and where they are mounted on the Shoreview stick. Should improve when they take over channel 9's UHF freq in 2009 after 9 moves back to VHF


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