Greetings Jerry..

Interesting situation but not unlike what has been going on for years
in the south SF Bay Area (San Jose). Sutro Tower is towards SF for
about 50 miles while KNTV (Channel 11) is the opposite direction right
in San Jose - behind you. For several years (many years ago now), KNTV
sold a small 2 element antenna that you could mount on your TV mast
and point the opposite direction to your normal TV antenna. It worked
like a champ and got rid of what Dick calls:

Reference:
"Although I mentioned that you "could" combine the two antennas into
one lead, the reason you may not want to is something called
"ghosting." The two antennas will be receiving the same stations,
although not from the same direction."

This is the laymen's term for multipath interference. Two paths
instead of a straight line point A = B. That reflection comes in a
bit slower than the original signal path, thus the delay results in a
"ghosting" affect. This can also be quite noticeable on FM reception.
Indeed, as a radio amateur, we can actually use it to our advantage by
reflecting our signals off natural points!

Although we tended to use 300 ohm twin lead back in those days, you
should be fine with 75 ohm coax. As Dick has mentioned, if you want
the trouble and expense of two pieces of coax to run (really
un-needed) go for it. Personally, I would either get an inexpensive
rotator (programmable now days) with a remote for it and put up a nice
single array OR go with two antennas and run the coax between them. I
should also mention, a large number of apartment complexes across this
country are doing the two antenna (or more) with a single lead in
routine.

Cheers,
Mr. Mentor

Jerry, be careful listing your actual e-mail address on Usenet, there
are folks out here that you REALLY don't want e-mailing you! Just put
in something bogus, it will take it! Notice what mine is...



"Jerry" wrote in message
...
|I have been looking at the post-February-2009 TV situation for my
| summer cabin, which is about 20 miles outside of Flagstaff AZ. Being
| mountainous, and semi-rural, it appears that there will still be a
lot
| of analog repeater signals, even after the digital switchover date.
| Specifically, the TVFool website indicates that there will be 4 or 5
| digital signals coming from Flagstaff, an azimuth of 56 degrees from
| my location; and maybe a dozen analog repeater signals that I am
| receiving now, mostly coming from a place called Mingus Mountain, an
| azimuth of 228 degrees from my location.
|
| Not really interested in using an antenna rotator. Did enough
Googling
| to see that stacking antennas might be my answer, point one at
| Flagstaff and the other at Mingus.
|
| Can I just connect the antenna leads together, or do I need
something
| to combine the signals from the separate antennas?
|
| Any other hints on how to maximize my reception?
|
| Also, the digital converter box I bought does not have analog
| passthrough. When I got it, I thought even the repeater stations
would
| be going digital in February, I didn't know that they would be
staying
| analog for some unknown amount of time. So, I guess I need to be set
| up to handle both signals, analog and digital.
|
| I was thinking to do the following to switch between analog and
| digital reception. Connect the antenna lead from the roof to the
input
| of an A-B switch (3 bucks at Frys Electronics). Connect the A output
| of the switch to the RF input on the TV, use normal TV analog tuner
| for the analog repeater stations. Connect the B output of the switch
| to the RF input of the digital converter, connect the AV outputs of
| the converter to the AV inputs of the TV, set the TV to AV In. Is
that
| going to work?
|
| Thanks in advance for any helpful hints,
| Jerry