Repairing an old Rooftop Antenna

[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 !

[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.)