OTA Antenna Installation

[pete_c]

Installed an OTA antenna last week. Last three homes had the antenna in the attic. I had configured the antenna with direct connections to the TV's and HDHomerun connectivity. The new Sony Bravia works with NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0). The older HDHomerun stuff I have does not work with Netgen TV.

Using the mast holding the Direct TV dish. We grandfathered to Direct TV but not getting any sort of deal. Probably time to move on.



Installion of new antenna mast to DTV mast.




Did all of the installation from the ladder and free hand without having to climb on to the roof.

hardware:

1 - mast clamps
Double Antenna Mast Clamp - Heavy Duty Galvanized Iron Mount for Secure Pole-to-Pole Connection, Rust-Resistant, Ideal for Antennas and Satellite Dishes 2PCS
Amazon - $15.99

2 - mast
Generic 5 foot mast purchased at local big box store.

3 - Antenna kit - great deal on Amazon.


Double Antenna Mast Clamp - Heavy Duty Galvanized Iron Mount for Secure Pole-to-Pole Connection, Rust-Resistant, Ideal for Antennas and Satellite Dishes 2PCS

Amazon

Five Star Yagi Satellite HD TV Antenna up to 200 Mile Long Range, Attic or Roof Mount Digital OTA TV Antenna for 4K Supports 4 TVs Installation Kit & Mounting Pole, Radio/FM Antenna $59.99

TV ATSC scan.​

Lightning Protection hardware:
1 - 10 guage wire clamped to mast and attached to a ground pole
2 - lightning coaxial adapter

Noticed the the DTV installation guy did not install any lightning protection. Here had a thunderstorm last night which is pushing me to finish this endeavor.

 

[ano]

No TV antenna will work at 200 miles from the transmitter, because of the curvature of the earth. If you can get 35 - 40 miles, your doing quite good. There is a great guy called Antenna Man on Youtube. He reviews antennas and provides lots of good info.

 

[pete_c]

Understood and thank you @ano . Been watching Antenna Man videos. Over 50% of the antennas sold on Amazon state a 200 mile range which is false advertising.

Antenna Man's been pushing Televes outdoor TV antennas which are way over priced. The Televes antennas are also sold at the big box stores.

Personally $200 is a tad too high for a Yagi TV antenna.

In the last house made a UHF antenna out of cardboard and aluminum foil and used it in the attic. Worked great combined with an old VHF antenna.

In the last two homes I had full size antennas and DIY UHF antennas in the attic and never got over 60 OTA stations. Putting the antenna outside worked much better.

Antennaman did review the antenna I purchased and gave it a bad review. That said the antenna worked fine for me. I am using the signal meters on my HD Homerun boxes. I used the included coax cable and will be replacing it with better coax. OTA channels is just an add to have but not really needed. I have had BUD, Dish, FTA and Direct TV satellite set ups.

I mostly watch movies and TV series on TV and wife mostly watches junk TV on Direct TV.

Five Star 200 mile Indoor/Outdoor Yagi HD TV Antenna Review

 

[ano]

I have the ClearStream 2V outside and get about 150 stations. I'm maybe 40 miles from the transmitters that are all located on the same mountain. Its quite directional but not super picky.

 

[pete_c]

Noticed yesterday using the old Android HDHomerun app that my signals average 60% and direction of antenna is about 30% off.

I have yet to ground the antenna / lightning protect it.

 

[pete_c]

Connected a USB 3.0 Gb Nic.

TP-Link USB to Ethernet Adapter, Foldable USB 3.0 to 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN Network Adapter, Support Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP for Desktop Laptop Apple MacBook Linux (UE300) $9.99 on Amazon. I do not understand why Sony has not put in a Gb Ethernet port and is still using a 100Mb/s port. Wireless is faster that the Ethernet port.

Got VNC working well now. Need to set up SSH server and get NFS working for NAS file sharing.




Kodi is working well / better now than before relating to streaming from NAS.





Like the Google TV OS much better than Roku OS which I was using but mostly had it disconnected.

Found that there are 147 stations in Chicago and my antenna is off by about 30 degrees. Going to try moving the antenna using the Android HD Homerun app outside, install a ground rod and lightning protection.

 

[pete_c]

I did comment on the video mentioned above:

Five Star 200 mile Indoor/Outdoor Yagi HD TV Antenna Review

Comment was removed.