In article , dpb wrote:

Eric in North TX wrote:
On Oct 21, 9:37 am, dpb wrote:
Eric in North TX wrote:
...

We live in a fringe area, and barely got reception even with a 200
mile antenna and a top quality amplifier.
since we got the digital converter box, or reception is fantastic,
more channels, flicker free, bright picture, flawless sound.
We had a bad wind storm that broke 1/3 of the radials off of the
antenna, & it didn't effect our reception at all, that would have
killed it on analog.
What's your line-of-sight distance and tower height?

That's essentially the description of our situation but my initial
experiment w/ the converter box was a complete failure.

Oh, what converter box do you have? There was only one on the shelves
here when my coupon was expiring, unfortunately, having forgotten about
it...

Are you using any amp now and if so, what is it, do you recall?

--

The converter box is a Digital Stream bought at Radio Shack, The
antenna is abut 30' up , no tower, just on the eve of a 2 story
I estimate my line of sight at 50 miles with near by hills to
interfere, my Amp is Winegard not sure of the model, it mounts on the
pole with a power supply in the house. I just bout the biggest DB gain
I could find.

OK, thanks...about the same except no hills here...

Our closest is about 60 mi. The antenna is on a tower but it also sets
at eave height of the two-story farmhouse. Right now I'm not using an
amp although the antenna is nearly new after a big blow destroyed the
old one last year. I bought about the highest gain I could find for the
idea of this coming.

Somebody else mentioned the twin-lead--it's what Dad pulled when he
redid the house in the mid-70s so that may be a weak point but
previously a coax run directly didn't make much difference altho I've
not tried the experiment w/ the digital box.

If aiming turns out to be so critical that an average of the three
that's been adequate for analog since forever won't do I guess it's
possibly a rotor.

Whatever, it's a real pita to have to deal with when as is is just
fine...

OBTW, I did look at the signal strength map for a coarse guesstimate
based on zip code--it thinks we should have 20+ dB NM (noise margin,
however they figure it). That seems as though _should_ be adequate so
perhaps when have some time to look at it further it'll be not too bad a
fix.

--

Whatever you're using for lead wire, make sure you think about impedance
matching. Twin lead is 75 ohm, coax is 300 ohm IIRC. Twin lead was used
with antennas on the old screw terminal TVs, and when coax, cable, and
new TVs came along everyone had a little dongle that not only physically
mated the TV to the cable, but also performed impedance matching.

Twin lead and coax are both susceptible to deterioration in the
elements; said deterioration causes substantial changes in impedance.
So, rule of thumb, if your wire is old and your reception is poor, get
*brand new* store-bought wire.