My new Blonder Tongue AM40-550!

[Electronic M]

Words of advice: If you use UHF first use a DTV box with a signal meter (like a Zenith DTT901 in the menu's manual tune mode) to find all receivable and too-weak to receive DTV carriers (I made a list of all active carriers and their channels) and select a channel that is unoccupied and has at least one unoccupied channel on either side of it (not always easy on UHF)....If you don't you will get interference (out shouted if on the same channel, or otherwise adjacent channel) from OTA DTV stations. The transmit antenna you use is CRITICAL to performance. Shango66 has a good youtube video on custom making a good one (I lack the SWR meter so I fine tune by rough guess), but UHF antennas are too short to use that technique accurately without an SWR meter.

The AM40 series can muster about 60-100' of transmission range (before complete snow-out) under optimal circumstances, if you wish to cover your whole house/yard snow free you want an AM60 or BAVMz series.

Unless you have a LOT of TVs, TVs in several rooms, or portable sets it is usually cheaper and easier to get a generic ch 3/4 modulator or VCR with one builtin and go with a wired interconnect system...I had 7 sets that would get used on a wired system in one room till I moved and wound up with 5 in one room (main signal source cluster), 7+ in another, and over 30 in the basement....At that point the amount of wire spliters and modulators to make that all work was more expensive than a good BT modulator or three, and a change in strategy was made.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Words of advice: If you use UHF first use a DTV box with a signal meter (like a Zenith DTT901 in the menu's manual tune mode) to find all receivable and too-weak to receive DTV carriers

You could use a UHF channel above channel 52. You should be clear of any current DTV stations. You might get some interference with cell phones, but unless the cell tower is next door, this shouldn't be a big issue.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

You could use a UHF channel above channel 52. You should be clear of any current DTV stations. You might get some interference with cell phones, but unless the cell tower is next door, this shouldn't be a big issue.

In addition to the 550 series being limited to ch 26 there is also the issue of having plenty of VHF only sets....I don't want each one tethered to a modern VCR or the like, and of the 5 vintage UHF converters I've had not a damn one has worked (even with recaps)...I'm thinking of gutting some to use a project boxes.