[kwlug-disc] Cutting the cord

[zixiekat at gmail.com]

When I first started, I had two home brew antennas and an 8 bay combined with a 4 way combiner. I got it from Orion electronics in Kitchener.    They're a good resource, but not sure where to get those in Mississauga.

If you use just a standard 2 way splitter, from the good old days, you can get weird issues if you have strong signals. I tried it here, CKCO transmitter is only 2 km away, it interfered with Global. ‎

Worst case, you waster a dollar on a splitter. :)‎   The combiners are a little more pricy, at‎ about $10 - $15.  If I remember correctly.  

You won't kill an antenna or TV with a splitter.  


Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network.
  Original Message  
From: William Park
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 6:34 PM
To: kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
Reply To: KWLUG discussion
Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Cutting the cord

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 04:53:08PM -0500, R. Brent Clements wrote:
> As for what equipment seems to work best, our most effective
> installation in SW Kitchener used a pair of our cheapest antennas and
> picked up all of the Canadian content available, plus most of the US
> stations transmitting out of Buffalo as well. This antenna has a VHF
> element integrated into it, which does help pick up a couple of
> Canadian channels that are unlikely to transition to UHF, which is
> something that all of the US has apparently done.

How do you connect the two antennas together?

I have a 4-bay antenna. Where I am in Mississauga, CN Tower and Buffalo
are 90 degrees, and I'm getting all CN Tower stations and some Buffalo
stations. I want to try two antennas, one pointing at CN Towers and the
other pointing at Buffalo. But, I don't certain how to connect the two
antennas together. Online reading says just use 2-way splitter with
exactly same cable length. But, I'm not sure.

> A preamplifier will almost always help. You can split the signal
> after the amp's power inserter. If you need to split it more than
> once sometimes a distribution amp can be of benefit as well. A four
> way splitter is almost always a two way split with each output split
> two ways again. Three way splitters will usually have outputs labeled
> -3.5dB and -7.5dB. The signal is stronger on the -3.5dB because that
> one is not split a second time like the other one is.

Right now, I am not using any preamp and the cable length is 30m.
I'm told, this is the reason why I get so few Buffalo channels.

PS.
Could this be a topic of short show/tell/demo for KWLUG?
-- 
William


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