Repairing an old Rooftop Antenna

[vortalexfan]

Hello everyone, I recently bought a house that was built in 1921 and its about 85%-90% original inside (all of the original stained oak trim and doors are still intact inside, the original oak floors are still intact, but were covered under old carpet which I tore out to reveal the original oak floors which are still in nice shape yet), and the original windows are still intact.

Anyways The house has on the roof an old TV Antenna that was probably installed by the original owners of the house in the 1970s but unfortunately the 300 Ohm to 75 0hm Adaptor that went between the antenna and the coaxial cable going into the house had broke off the antenna at some point in time in the antenna's history (because the wires either got corroded or were chewed on by rodents) and I really want to be able to utilize this antenna again if at all possible but I'm not sure if that will be possible or what all I would need to repair this antenna to make is usable again.

Another thing about this antenna and my house is that my property only has 2 trees on it that are taller than my house, the other two trees on my property are either shorter than my house or the same size as my house and next to my house to the east of me is an empty lot with no trees whatsoever on it, so I'm kind of concerned about lightning hitting my antenna if I were to try to utilize it again, so what would I need to use to make the antenna so that lightning wouldn't target it if it were to strike nearby and damage my TVs?

Also Is there anyway to fit a rotor to an antenna that never had one before, and if so how does one hook it up and where would one get an antenna rotor these days? I know I can go to just about any antique shop near me and find an antenna rotor control module for about $5 and some change but I don't understand how they wire up to the rotor itself or where one might get an antenna rotor assembly.

Thanks for your help in this matter.

[MIPS]

The cool thing about those old antennas is they will pick up DTV programming no problem. I use a fringe region antenna still as well.
Personally I would make use of a ChannelMaster or equivalent Active amplifier that mounts up at the antenna, converts to coax and inside the house the coax passes through the power injector. If you just want to convert from 300 ohm to 75 almost any of the countless variations of 300 to 75 ohm baluns will work but as to where you can find one the last time I bought one it was the 2000's and RadioShack still stocked antenna parts.
I can't help you with the Rotor, unfortunately.
For lightning there's not a lot you can do. Lightning arrestors and spark gaps are countermeasures but at the end of the day my grandparents had one sure way to protect the TV and radios when a storm rolled through: Unplug the antenna.

Way back in ye old day their place was struck by lightning twice. The first time it hit the antenna and that was the end of that TV. In the 80's it happened again but instead it hit the lightning rod on the roof, jumped from the insulated ground line to the eaves and then the aluminum mast mounted to the side of the house and again killed the TV, a radio and a VCR.

[Electronic M]

The 300 to 75 ohm outdoor baluns are still made and obtainable. IIRC they're available on Amazon.

The antenna is still usable if the rods are all still present and either not bent or able to be straightened, the insulators aren't ruined and or conductive, and you verify and or fix any issues with the jumpers between rods getting corroded and not having good continuity at connection points to the rods and balun.

You can't really stop lightening from going places...You can install a lightening arrestor for TV antennas to encourage it to take a different path to ground than your TV ant, but that still doesn't guarantee anything. I know people who install outdoor TV antennas in their attics to prevent lightening, and antenna damage.
Rotors are still made....IIRC they're more of a ham radio thing, but you should be able to get a new rotor and control box. Some of the old control boxes were proprietary to their rotors so don't use a mismatched set without doing research.

[vortalexfan]

Thanks for the information!

I was looking through ebay and there is listed on there a NOS Alliance 'Tenna Rotor Model U100 that has everything there in the box including the control box, the rotor assembly, the instructions, and all the mounting hardware for $150 BIN, would that be something worth looking into? I would definitely like a vintage unit to kind of go with the vintage feel of the house, but also because I really wouldn't trust any of the modern rotors to last very long (and also they looked really complicated to operate.)

Also I'm going to assume that you can get the outdoor antenna 300 ohm to 75 Ohm adaptors at places like lowes or menards too besides amazon?

Sorry for all of the questions but this is the first time I've ever dealt with an outdoor antenna like this, so I want to make sure I'm doing this correctly.

Now, my grandparents lived in an old farm house that was built by my grandmother's grandfather in 1920, and my grandparents had a large antenna tower outside their farmhouse that they had hooked up to their TV and my dad told me that they were able to pick up WGN Channel 9 out of Chicago on their TV when he was growing up back in the 1970s and they lived in Culver, Indiana out in the middle of nowhere.

Would it be possible to pick up WGN out of Chicago using a rooftop antenna that is properly setup these days or is the days of DX'ing TV stations a thing of the past?

Just Curious.

[zeno]

First get the balun from a safe source like Wineguard or Channel Master.
MANY of them will not pass UHF, They cut off abt 500 MHZ.
Rotor is necessary especially on a big antenna & HDTV. Alliance & CM
are good. CM is quiet & the U100 clicks loudly. If guyed mount up high
if not a few ft above roof.
You can put lightning arresters on BUT almost all hits are on power lines
not the antenna.
When you put on the balun cut back the coax & be sure its clean & shinny.
Most of the antenna parts are riveted. Great place for corrosion & no
easy fix.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[old_tv_nut]

DX'ing digital TV is possible, but much more difficult than analog. Analog signals can be recognizable even when the signal is very poor, but digital signals have a threshold, above which they are fine and below which you get nothing. If you are in an area where the analog signal was very weak and snowy, digital probably won't work.

[Electronic M]

If you want to do DTV DX and the station you're interested in has a UHF carrier (which is most DTV stations even the ones with VHF virtual channel numbers) then there was a channel master 6' parabolic UHF antenna from the 60s and 70s that's the gold standard for that.
But at any rate you need a highly directional UHF antenna with a reflector for optimal UHF DTV DX.

[vortalexfan]

Here's a picture of my rooftop antenna setup.

[vortalexfan]

As for signal strength when TV was Analog goes in my area I have no idea what it was like with an actual rooftop or tower antenna goes, because when I was growing up my parents only ever had rabbit ears on their TV or else an amplified TV top UHF/VHF/FM Antenna that had a "fine tuning" knob and or for a short period of time an outdoor antenna hung up in the attic of the house suspended from the rafters with shoe string for ease of antenna rotation for best reception.

My aunt and uncle who used to live in a house down in the rural part of Warsaw, Indiana used to have a tower antenna with a rotor but I don't remember how good their reception was because we only visited them for holidays and I was too young to remember it, they used to have that hooked up to an old Zenith Console TV through an old Hi-Fi VCR from 1989.

Then my grandparents had a tower antenna on the side of their old Farmhouse in Culver, Indiana that was hooked up to an old Sylvania TV from the early 1980s through a VCR from the mid 1980s that I don't remember the make of, and they had that tower installed until about the early 2000s when they took it down to redo the siding on the house (it had old stucco on the outside they then replaced with vinyl siding), and they never reinstalled it and from what little TV viewing time I remember enjoying with my grandfather when I was growing up, we used to watch the Hoosier Lottery (which was a locally produced show for the state of Indiana that was part of Indiana's Lottery Program), Unsolved Mysteries, Matlock, and some other related shows, they got pretty decent reception for being about 30 miles away from the nearest local stations, and they didn't have a rotor that I know of.

Anyways so as far as TV Reception goes I think that with a proper Rooftop antenna installed with a good rotor setup I think I should get pretty decent channel coverage because I'm a lot closer to the nearest Local stations than my aunt and uncle and my grandparents were, and I'm also a lot closer to Chicago than my Grandparents were (referring to reception of WGN out of Chicago.)

[Popester]

That’s a pretty nice rig. Tripod adds stability. Just make sure where the hardware that bolts the tripod has sealant on them or you could have leaks into the house.
I’m surprised as high as it is that they didn’t attach guy wires to secure it a bit better. I think what you’re looking for is called a matching transformer that goes from 300 ohm to 75 ohm. 300 was the standard back when flat twinlead was used and 75 was the impedance on coaxial cable. Should still be able to get this without a problem online.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

Here's a picture of my rooftop antenna setup.

That's a UHF reflector antenna... Should be fairly good for UHF DX once it's been spruced up. It isn't the channel master parabolic UHF ant that is the holy grail, but it should still give good performance.

That's a directional antenna so you will want a rotor for that unless all the stations you care about are in one direction relative to your house.

[zeno]

Yup its UHF ONLY but it will get some VHF if very close. We put a
few of this style up at "problem" locations. Used a quality foam
300 ohm twin lead ( less loss than coax ) & sometimes a preamp.
From the Boston area could get UHF from Saco Me, Hartford Ct,
Springfield Ma & others. NTSC of course All way out there
up to 100 miles.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[init4fun]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

Hello everyone, I recently bought a house that was built in 1921......

Hi vortalexfan, very very VERY much congratulations on becoming a homeowner!!!!!! I am happy to hear your great news and I wish you all the best with this new chapter in your life

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

That's a UHF reflector antenna... Should be fairly good for UHF DX once it's been spruced up. It isn't the channel master parabolic UHF ant that is the holy grail, but it should still give good performance.

That's a directional antenna so you will want a rotor for that unless all the stations you care about are in one direction relative to your house.

The reason why there's a UHF Antenna on the roof of the house (strictly UHF Antenna) is because when UHF TV channels came onto the Scene Northern Indiana was one of the Test Markets for UHF TV because all of the TV Stations in Northern Indiana (South Bend and Fort Wayne area) were all on the UHF Band, and nothing on the VHF Band, the closest VHF Band Station was WGN out of Chicago on Channel 9 where it still remains to this day.

The Original Big Three Networks (NBC, CBS and ABC) were on 16, 22, and 28 respectively, and then you had some independant channels as well (LP stations) that were on 46, and 67 (before there was a channel reconfiguration after Fox and The WB became a thing in the late 1990s) Then ABC was moved to 58 (then to 57 eventually), Fox then took over 28 (which had previously been where the ABC Affiliate was at), The WB (which is now the CW) was on 69 (then to 25 eventually) and 67 was TBN (Trinity Broadcast Network) was then moved to channel 18 (and now it doesn't even exist at all on Antenna in our area, because it went away when the DTV Transistion happened) That's the Channel Lineup for the North Central Indiana and SouthWestern Michigan area.

The channel lineup for the Northeastern Indiana and South Central Michigan area was 15 being the CBS Affiliate, 21 the ABC Affiliate, and 33 Being the NBC Affiliate, and Fox was on 55.

AFAIK there was no WB/CW Affiliate in the Fort Wayne Area, and Fort Wayne didn't seem to have any Independant stations either like we have in South Bend (46 WHME which is a Christian Station that was owned by World Harvest Ministries that was started in the 1970s by the late Dr. Lester Sumrall.)

Fun Fact: The NBC Affiliate Out of South Bend, Indiana was originally owned and operated by Notre Dame University (WBND, which the ND in the station's call letters referred to The University of Notre Dame, its original owners.)

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by init4fun

Hi vortalexfan, very very VERY much congratulations on becoming a homeowner!!!!!! I am happy to hear your great news and I wish you all the best with this new chapter in your life

Thanks very much, I'm really enjoying this house because its been my dream to own a 1920s house that had all of its original details in it yet and being able to restore the home back to its former glory along the way.

The interesting part about this house was that it still had its original Gravity Furnace in the basement when I moved in, which was converted over to gas in 1957, and the fun part was that when I was tearing out the old masonite board ceiling in the basement on the "finished" side I uncovered old utility company receipts from 1957 (when the furnace whas converted from coal to gas) that were from the original owners of the house!