KAA

KAA

30' TV Fool

Eureka

Ah, North Little Rock, my old home town. I grew up there and watching OTA TV always required an outdoor antenna, due to all the hills and the fact that LR TV towers are in two different directions.

You will likely need an outdoor antenna. If you're lucky, you will be able to aim it somewhere between the two antenna locations (Shinall Mtn & Redfield), say around 225º SW Compass direction and pick up everything.


Something like this small outdoor antenna may work well. If you're aiming for a reception "sweet spot" between the directions of the two transmitter locations, don't buy a giant fringe antenna like people use in the boonies. They are too directional for your situation.

If shopping for a new TV, you should try to get one with a sensitive tuner. Newer Samsung, Sony & LG sets have some of the best tuner chipsets available for problem reception areas. Avoid Vizios - some models do not have a manual "channel add" feature that you may need in your situation.

If buying a converter box, basically avoid RCA models.

Piggie

Eureka, I did some surveys around town near him and in fact he is behind hills. So I wonder when you lived there if you were not blocked by hills? The reason I say that not far from his house at all (not sure just the center of the zip code) the signals are 20 to 35 db stronger. TV Fool at center of Zip Code at 15 ft

The reason I bring this us is a the 7694P would be an ideal single antenna solution for someone not behind a hill positively, but does he have enough signal to split the difference (love your map). Up on top of a hill no doubt you could hang about anything up there outside or even an indoor antenna.

He has both UHF and VHF stations separated by 90 degrees plus.

I don't know how well the 7694P actually does at 45 degrees off the center beam.

Using Winegard's antenna plot (attached), notice they do their signal strength in electrical units from 0 to 1. So to convert to power you have to square the value. At 45 degrees off center beam for Ch 7 there is 48 percent of the electrical power, squared is 23 percent of the wattage. 23 percent is very close 6db (25 percent) of the signal in terms of power.

So converted to db at 45 degrees on ch7 a 7694P has 6.3 db less than the main beam, which is 8.3, hence there is 2 db gain in that direction. Still more than I though before I did the calculations. This means you can raise the NM on Ch 7 by 2 db that should give reception.

Then on Ch 12, I had to interpolate and came up with a loss of 9db at 45 degrees from the main beam, and that means it's about a dipole at ch 12 at 45 degrees off the main beam. But that still leave about 10 db more than Ch7, so that may well work also.

The headaches may start on UHF, where the gain loss from the main beam across the band goes from 10 to 12 db, more than the center beam. In other words it averages about 0 to neg 2 over all gain for UHF at 45 degrees.

Looking at the AntennaCraft HBU22, while it has less on beam gain, it has more gain at 45 degrees than the Winegard 7694P. The AntennaCraft doesn't supply the nice graphs of Winegard, it's not built quite as well, but is also lighter, less expensive and less wind load though it's boom is 5 inches longer.

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We would need to do a FMFool plot to determine if an amp would help. The TV signals at his house are certainly weak enough to allow a small amp.

However I would not design with an amp and add if only if a few stations particular UHF are marginal, yet come in fine pointed at them. Even then it might not help.

I think I would go with the AntennaCraft HBU22 .

__________________
The more I understand, the less I know.

KAA

Hey Eureka, Where in N.L.R. did you live? I'm in Lakewood. Thanks Piggy for the help. Feels like you live right behind me. My backyard slopes up hill then I have people behind me whos back yard goes up to there house that is on top of the hill.

Eureka

I grew up in a little post-war cracker box house near the Ark. River, off of Pike Ave. When I was a kid, we used to leave the cars & house unlocked, but now, I wouldn't even want to drive through that neighborhood, especially at night. Lakewood is a nice neighborhood.

Lots of NLR has hills that affect TV reception. Growing up, watching analog TV was tiresome, trying to view the main imge between all the ghosts! LOL Ft Roots hill was right between our house & the main antenna farm, Shinall Mtn.

@Piggie, I know other people with similar TVFool results, using the 7694P with good results. But the HBU22 might be a better choice - I don't know. I do know that reception behind hills is doable, but takes patience to find a sweet spot! Here's a good article on the subject:
Reception behind a hill

Just curious, how sturdy is the HBU22, compared to the 7694P? The 7694P I installed for a friend here withstood a 2" ice storm last winter, without a single bent element.

Piggie

Knife edge reception works behind a hill well on UHF, not so much VHF. For VHF the hill needs to farther away. So the same hill that helps UHF will often just block VHF being too close.

I agree, Winegard's antennas are built like brickyard ship houses. In two years of having mine up in Florida thunderstorms they have not lost any elements either. Ice is worse but we get gusts up to 40 to 50 knots in bursts during the summer.

With any full size Winegard without seeing it I would tell someone short of a commercial grade antenna nothing will stand more weather. If you think about it they build them in Iowa, not exactly calm weather all year. But then so are the AntennaCraft, as they were a group that broke off Winegard years ago. Both in Burlington I think it is Iowa.

AntennaCraft doesn't have a good reputation for strong antennas. But I am not sure how true that really plays out. I know a lot of people with Y5-7-13 that don't complain about them tearing up. The HBU series is new to the transition.

So you know people with 90 degree spread on UHF with signals in the 30 nm range and a 7694P works? I wish I had the money to just buy every antenna, and I have to rely on engineering specs, which never seem to play out in the real world.

Two good examples I am familiar with on VHF, An AntennaCraft Y5-7-13 has a wider beamwidth than they state in their specs. But the Winegard YA-1713 is much narrower beamwidth than their specs. Another one that is wider than stated is the Radio Shack U-75R. It works about 10 degrees wider than they rate it. Part of why I love that antenna so much. It has decent gain (not super), wide beamwidth if you need it for spread out stations, yet superior front to back and front to side for such a short boom corner reflector yagi on UHF.

If you have seen a 7694p work on 90 degree beamspread with 30 nm signals, I need to know that to help others. There are so many antennas out there, I have to rely on feedback to know the real world aspects of a lot of them.

__________________
The more I understand, the less I know.

Eureka

I don't have the address but it was in the NLR area and the TVFool results (NMs & Azimuths) were very similar to the screengrab I posted above. Redfield & Shinall antenna farms were ~100° spread. IIRC, the sweet spot they found was slightly more toward Redfield than Shinall, but not much.

Not saying it would definitely work for the OP. Having grown up there, I know TV reception in Central Arkansas is definitely a trial & error, walk the roof operation for most parts of town. It's probably also why the vast majority of people there subscribe to cable or sat. NLR had cable long before many parts of the country. Initially, most people just subscribed to it for watchable local channels. There was not much else on it but a couple of stations from Dallas.

Piggie

Real world tests beat theory every time. Tim will wonder because I nixed his real world testing as non-practical because it involved two antennas pointed different directions with a set up the average person coming here would not use.

But if you say that a 7694P has 100 degree spread needed at the 30 some NM level in LR, then it does. It is possible that where you put the antenna there was a reflection that narrowed the spread, so that is hard to tell but no real likely, though possible.

One thing I am sure about, in their full size line of antenna (not mobile wingman or batwing) the best antennas made for the home market in general are Winegard. And they have a history of surviving ice storms in many places.

But doesn't mean other antennas are not good. Don is way up north and uses a Y5-7-13 and hasn't complained about ice.

My final thought is if a 7694P has the beamwidth, it's the better antenna.

__________________
The more I understand, the less I know.

Eureka

I won't go so far to make the 100° spread claim. It is very possible a reflection was making the thing work. You'd have to see the hills....

Exactly.

The thing that gripes me about some antenna companies is the marketing claims made about their products (particularly an unnamed company that sells under two names).