slightly OT: antenna upgrade

[mhardy6647]

I hope it's OK to ask about antennas here :-) I am one of those Luddites who refuses to pay money to watch television, so we have no cable service and use an outside, directional antenna for TV in our fringe location NW of Boston. Reception is decent, but the antenna (which was on the house when I bought it) has some bent elements and is well over 13 years old, so I am 'planning' to replace it this year.

I need a 'deep fringe' antenna... what brands/models do folks like today? Where's a good source to buy from?

Also, I plan to replace cabling. What are folks using for coax these days for UHF/VHF TV... RG59, RG58, RG6?

I have a new rotator motor (long story) so I am all set there.

I think I might stick a separate FM Yagi on top of things as long as I'm at it.

Any suggestions, opinions, and comments are greatly appreciated and gratefully received!


thanks!

[wa2ise]

Thicker coax has less loss. That would be RG6. Twin lead when new, and not wet, has low loss, but it doesn't age well.

As for antennas, Radio Shack's are pretty decent.


As for the old antenna, if it's a Yagi, those "want to work" despite bent elements and such. You might be able to "restore" it, but go easy bending them back. The aluminium rods can bust off if they got bent more than 10 or 20 degrees.

We have an older deep fringe VHF only antenna on the roof. It feeds several TV sets thruout the house via splitters. But we are only 14 miles from the Empire State Building of NYC, line of site, and definately not in a fringe area. Once, when I worked at the old RCA Smirnoff R&D Lab, we measured the signal strength of the NBC station (channel 4) and it was 27000 microvolts.

We won't pay for cable or satellite either.