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  #1  
Old 05-28-2013, 05:56 AM
cg1973 cg1973 is offline
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Channel Master Antennas

Doese anyone know if there are any antennas's as good as the Quantum models? I mean the ones that I believe the model was 1111. It had a compartment that opened where the wire connected. I used to have one on a tower at the house I lived in. I moved and my sister and her family moved their a storm came over and knocked the antenna off the tower. A few years later my nephew cut the tower down with a hacksaw. I don't know how he did it but he did. He took it to scrap to get money and only got like $30.00I was a little upset. Anyway I will not go into that I would like to get one or find one that is as good. I have a Radio Shack I think it is VU 160 I aucually have 2. It needs to be replaced. I live over 50 miles from transmitters so I need a good antenna.

Thanks
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Old 05-28-2013, 10:08 AM
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Get a bigger one than you think you need or you'll be getting it twice....

I use the hd7698p Very good, but not that strong, especially the front end, snow broke it, so now its got a brace. They have one a little bit smaller, something like a hd7697. Smaller front end. The VHF part is smaller because 2-5 old VHF are not part of the tv band now....
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Old 05-28-2013, 12:50 PM
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zeno zeno is offline
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havnt done antennae for years but look into Wineguard. I think
they still make them here ! Whatever you do get the biggest you can.

In the good old days I ran a Jerrold VU937 IIRC. Twas a beast
20' long & double boomed. From 25mi NW of Boston could get UHF
out to Me. & a ton of them from Ct & W. Mass. . VHF was fully covered including 2 ch 6-8-13. 6 was New Bedford or Portland 8 was New Haven
or Mt. Washington NH. 13 was Portland or NYC. At night when stations
went dark could get all the NYC VHF's & half the time ch 3 Philly.
I wasnt even up high ! Try that with HD.
Boy do I miss NTSC

73 Zeno

BTW Your nephew needs serious help
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Old 05-28-2013, 03:48 PM
cg1973 cg1973 is offline
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I need the 2-69 model because I use them for FM also. Unless I just get a seperate one for FM. If I find another tower it will be just 1 antenna. The problem with the Radio Shack is the plastic that holds the rods (not sure what there called) but the plastic will break after so much rain and then the wind really messes up the antenna. But the hd7698p looks like a good antenna but I need one that will cover FM. I tried to google for a picture of a
Jerrold VU937. You said double boom? I wonder if it looks like the one I am thinking about.

Quote:
Originally Posted by zeno View Post
BTW Your nephew needs serious help

Yes you are correct. I do love him because he is family. But I told him one day I was going to pull it down with my truck and I was going to use what I could. He could have atleast told me he got it down he knew I wanted it. Maybe that would have been crazy but I was planning on trying it. It was only 30 feet. I would have to bought another base and would have maybe added 2 top sections to make it 50. Now my cousin she bought my grandmothers house and there is a tower there. It has the CM 1111 the one I posted about. I am not sure what kind of shape it is in. I know it was hit by lightning I know once because it ran in on their (My Grandmothers TV) not too long before she passed. I think it worked after that but the AMP on the pole was changed. The Antenna was put up in the early 80's I was there when it was put up. Maybe she (my cousin) will let me have it if I take it down some people will do that.

Last edited by cg1973; 05-28-2013 at 03:56 PM.
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Old 05-29-2013, 03:08 PM
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I have a CM 1111 in pieces, which is simply the VHF part of a CM 1160, which I am using now. The quantum series was discontinued because Channel Master greatly reduced thier offerings. The HD7697 is nearly the same performance anyway, per my testing on a 45 foot height.

MR Squirrel is spot on regarding Winegards. They are still stronger than CMs and perform like Channel Masters used to. I recently put up a HD7697 with CM7777 mast preamp at our hunting camp, 40 miles NE of Scranton. It gets 5 the five transmitters there and two from Binghampton NY. There is only VHF-Hi and UHF there.

If you want ONE antenna for ch 2-51 HD and FM, I highly recommend the Winegard HD8200. Unless your RG-6 wire is less than 30 feet long, use the CM-7777 preamp and switch OFF the FM trap. Mine trap needs to be on due to two 25 kW FM stations which affect ATSC tuners which do not have very good filtering or image rejection.
first putting it on my tower...
CM 1160.jpg

Last edited by DavGoodlin; 05-31-2013 at 09:28 AM.
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Old 06-14-2013, 08:12 PM
cg1973 cg1973 is offline
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I purchased a Channel Master 3677. I think thats the model. It looks like the Winegard HD8200. It is doing alot better than my old wore out Radio Chack. I now get a few low power analog stations and most of the HD channels and their sub channels. ME TV is my favorite. I do not have an amp on it right now. It was suggested by a friend that I get a wineguard amp because they do better than CM. Right now I got it maybe less than 30 feet not much less. I need more guy wire to get it tied down real good. Also have the same Radio Shack rotator. The rotator has CM round wire I do not like the flat wire. It is is not the remote kind I already have too many remotes. One of the analog I get is a low power that is over 45 miles away but it is high on a tower about 800 Foot. I was susprised I get that. What name of antenna is this?



And this one is what mine looks like.


Last edited by cg1973; 06-14-2013 at 08:17 PM.
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Old 06-15-2013, 11:59 AM
cg1973 cg1973 is offline
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The one in the first picture I am trying to figure out who made it. I remember having one like that up when I was real young. The only reason I remember it is I used to see it turning everyday when I was outside. We lived in a neighborhood that for awhile did not have cable. When we got cable my dad took it down and took it to my grandmothers. I cannot remember taking it. I bet it was a job because she lived over 50 miles away. I also remember we lived about 25 miles from the stations then and the city they were in were north. The antenna had to point west because if it was pointed north the radio station that was less than a mile would make trouble. I remember crazy things like that. I also remember getting a set of walkie talkies and when I turned them on the first time. What did I hear? The radio station. Those walkie talkies did not last a year. I took them apart. my mother got upset and said "wait until your dad gets home" my dad did not make a big deal he told my mother well maybe he will learn to fix things some day. I was one that always liked to take things apart. May dad told me to be real careful with the TV's he said if I touched the yoke I could really get hurt. He said it would hold eleictricty for days. They is what strared me away from messing with TV's. Now I take computer's apart. I have not tried a laptop yet. I do have a laptop I could take apart. Just haven't done it yet.

Last edited by cg1973; 06-15-2013 at 12:04 PM.
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Old 06-15-2013, 12:04 PM
cg1973 cg1973 is offline
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As far as my 3677 if I add the amp and it does not help will it do any better adding a UHF maybe a 4 bay or 8 bay? I have seen plenty of all purpose antenn's with a UHF added but does it really make any difference?
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Old 06-15-2013, 01:56 PM
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Before the NTSCs went dark, I could always get the UHF ATSCs
out of Indy (120 mi) and St. Louis (180 mi) and sometimes Louisville and
Lexington when the tropo propagation was good. If I got snowy
reception on NTSC, I got the ATSC. This was two different
home-made "natural bandwidth" 16 element Yagis, one for Ch. 27 and
one for Ch. 44. I have not tried since I moved, as I'm now on the 2nd floor
and before was on the third. I still reliably get a Ch. 44 ATSC at 68 miles.
All this with a dedicated Ch. 44 GaAsFET 0.5dB NF preamp. The season is
approaching, I'll try again.

It really impressed folks if I was watching HDTV baseball with an absolutely perfect picture
and told them the station was in St. Louis.

Doug McDonald

Last edited by dtvmcdonald; 06-15-2013 at 01:59 PM.
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Old 06-15-2013, 03:26 PM
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As far as pre-amp and booster amps, make your decision on noise figure. ATSC is very sensitive to noise, so get the lowest noise amp no matter the company. And with that you can get a good gain amp too... I have a pre-amp, and a distribution amp. and ground everything, it keeps the noise down too..

dtvmcdonald; where can I find good antenna design stuff so I can make myself a better yagi for those trouble stations....? Thanks.
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Last edited by Username1; 06-15-2013 at 03:30 PM.
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Old 06-17-2013, 02:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cg1973 View Post
I purchased a Channel Master 3677. I think thats the model. It looks like the Winegard HD8200. It is doing alot better than my old wore out Radio Chack. I now get a few low power analog stations and most of the HD channels and their sub channels. ME TV is my favorite. I do not have an amp on it right now. It was suggested by a friend that I get a wineguard amp because they do better than CM. Right now I got it maybe less than 30 feet not much less. I need more guy wire to get it tied down real good. Also have the same Radio Shack rotator. The rotator has CM round wire I do not like the flat wire. It is is not the remote kind I already have too many remotes. One of the analog I get is a low power that is over 45 miles away but it is high on a tower about 800 Foot. I was susprised I get that. What name of antenna is this?


And this one is what mine looks like.
The first antenna is a Winegard CS-8100, no longer available.
That one you have is a CM 3671, the biggest one also. Your UHF section on that will probably do as well as a separate antenna.
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Old 06-17-2013, 03:16 PM
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dtvmcdonald dtvmcdonald is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Username1 View Post

dtvmcdonald; where can I find good antenna design stuff so I can make myself a better yagi for those trouble stations....? Thanks.
In an old ARRL handbook, like 60s or so, or, better, in one of the
old special ones the made for antennas and transmission lines. Let
me search eBay ... search for ARRL ANTENNA. They are there, cheap.
For the plain Antenna book, 60s or 70s or early 80s should have
what you need. There is also a current "classic" one that might.

In any case ... what I used was a very basic multielement Yagi
for 432 Mhz simply scaled to the frequency I wanted. The only
problem is the coax attachment. I STRONGLY suggest a driven
element that works like the old twin-lead antennas, a 4:1 step
UP in impedance ... the natural impedance is about 25 ohms.
For balun use the kind that attaches the coax directly to the two
elements, and has a 1/4 wave piece of 1/2" copper tubing
attached to the shield of the coax 1/4 wave plus 1/2 inch
down.

I can email you a design scanned from an ancient book. These
things are NOT CRITICAL ... they just work, and put commercial
ones in their rear view mirror. For indoor use or reachable outdoor,
you can make the boom out of 3/8 in copper, steel, or brass rod or tube and
the elements out of 1/8 inch copper rod or tuning, soldered on.

Equally important is the preamp. I suggest the best, the difference really does matter:
http://www.advancedreceiver.com/page12.html
near the bottom, the 0.6 dB one for TV, its GaAsFET and not cheap. Made for
specific channel, but rather wide, see the Amateur or Commercial pages
for price, its same as nearby standard ones. Really ... the difference between
this and a wideband one is just what the specs say. For digital 1 dB is a
really huge difference if its on the edge. Really.

Last edited by dtvmcdonald; 06-17-2013 at 03:43 PM.
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Old 06-17-2013, 05:12 PM
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Well thanks for this posting. I have been looking for something along these lines. There are a few stations that come in well all the time, mostly VHF, the UHF ones get lost in the winter. I got a deal on a 91GX yagi and plan to put it on a rotor and add it to my existing antenna. I also want to add a pre-amp, plus possibly filters to help reduce noise a little.

Those amps are quite impressive, except for the very narrow band they cover. I was thinking of passing the part of the band where I have a mousies butt of a chance of getting the station(s) and stopping the rest. You know those arr amps will have the NF shoot right up if they covered the entire UHF tv band.

And I agree on NF being one of the largest factors to consider while setting up an antenna/amp system.

With digital every little thing helps. And for this I ground everything, all wire, amp cases, antenna masts, etc.

I'm going to do some looking into that book too.
Thank you!

Almost forgot, I bought a specialty amp once by RF Bay, from someone on ebay, something like this:

500-1000MHz 35dB Gain, NF=1.8dB, LNA-1035, New, SMA

I didn't get this one, but you can see they have quite the low NF and cover a very large BW. The one I got was one of the models limited to the tv band, and since it was not a perfect match, I just made sure nothing was on that part of the band, like it may have not covered the very upper UHF, or part of the VHF which don't need as much help here....
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Last edited by Username1; 06-17-2013 at 05:27 PM.
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Old 06-19-2013, 03:41 PM
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Zenith26kc20 Zenith26kc20 is offline
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The newer CM7777 preamp (only one input, the older one had two) is not doing so well. A friend bought two and both were defective. The seller did admit that Channel Master quality had gone way down. I have an older CM3671 that stayed up for hurricane Isaac with no damage. The best performer I have is a reproduction Finco 400-A. It's hugh and hard to put up but incredible for DXing. The CM4251 is second to the Finco for UHF. It has no VHF (it's a big parabolic). When putting a new antenna up I use the Winegard amplifiers. They seem to work good.
Waiting to go back on the mast is a Wade (Jerrold) VIP-307 vhf only. Another monster!
Has anyone compared the build quality of the newer CM3671 to the older ones?
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Old 06-21-2013, 06:27 PM
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I got one dead amp too, don't remember who made it. But I don't put the pre-amps on the mast, I put them inside where the wire comes in, about 20~ or so feet from the antenna. Then a few feet of wire, then the distribution amp. Any one actually try both arrangements, on the mast, and inside the house, to see if there is any difference in performance?
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