HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #539: DTV Green Dish – Dishtenna Review

[arad]

The best way to cut the cord without giving up TV is to go the old fashioned route, put up an antenna and watch all the HDTV you want absolutely free. It’s amazing that the signals are still floating across the air free of charge, but they are. But what do you do if you’re too far away from the local broadcast tower to actually receive very many channels, if any? You may want to give the new DTV Green Dish, aka Dishtenna a try.

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[Roger Halstead]

There is no magic in antenna design. The TV antenna shown in http://www.rogerhalstead.com/ham_files/tower39.htm is at the NNW corner of my garage and pointed at bearing of 170 degrees. There is a remote preamp mounted at the antenna. It does very well out to over 100 miles and receives over 20 stations consistently including low VHF out to about 60 miles. The signal calculator says I should not be able to receive any of these stations. There is no magic about installing the antenna either, but a signal strength monitor is very handy at setting up the pointing. Even better is a rotator (it's not rotor) and making sure the antenna is level. However these antennas are at a height of 90 feet. I did have two of those antennas with preamps up there with the second one pointed to about 300 degrees for Cadillac and Traverse City. TVC is about 110 miles but they are on higher terrain.

If these HD guys are really technically inclined they should not need "professional installers".

[720pete]

I agree with Roger. You don't need to spend a ton of money to get reliable DTV reception.

I have a pair of AntennaCraft yagis atop my roof (5-element VHF, 11-element UHF), coupled to a Channel Master Titan 2 #7777 dual-band low-noise preamplifier. Total cost is about 1/2 of the GreenDish. The installation was a piece of cake, using house brackets. The antennas sit about 5' above the roofline, or 25' above the ground.

I use a rotator to swing them around and can get reliable reception of both high-band VHF and UHF DTV stations over distances of 70 miles. Towards New York City (65-mile path as calculated by Longley-Rice propagation modeling), that path is a 2-Edge obstructed path. Towards Scranton, a 2-edge obstucted 70 mile path.

When I was in Irvine, CA on a recent trip, I used the Mohu Leaf Plus amplified indoor antenna (about $75) from my 3rd floor hotel room to pick up 27 major VHF/UHF channels and 130+ minor channels.

As for the antenna cables you folks use, go with standard Belden (or Alpha) RG-6/U. Shouldn't cost you that much money, and it will do the job just fine. Channel Master sells the preamps directly for about $85 (they used to be $60). The AntennaCraft HBU-44 is about $75; the HBU-44 is about $94. Couple them to the preamp and you will be in good shape.

BTW, I have also bent signals over the mountains to get reliable VHF/UHF DTV reception in Burbank, CA and Arlington, VT using inexpensive antennas and preamps, too. I simply took advantage of knife-edge signal refraction. Both areas were considered 'dead zones' for DTV reception.

Don't spend any more money than you have to!