I have not gotten on my roof to check it out, but here is the deal:

I have SD dishnetwork and get local SD channels over the dish. I have added a TV to the bar. Knowing I was going to put in a bar, I had them run a line so that I could eventually add a dish receiver.

Well, it is a HD TV that I have added and since we regularly would not just sit in the bar, I figure OTA is fine for the time being. At least until I upgrade to HD Dish. So I might just add one of those attennas that attaches to the Dish antenna to pick up OTA HD.

How does that work? Do you just plug it in at the Dish antenna area and it carries the signal to all lines? Would I be better off just tracing the line from my bar and unhooking it from the dish antenna and hooking the OTA antenna directly to that???

I started out with one of the little amplified indoor units, it got some channels, but there was fade, so I wanted more

Then I went to the one similar to what you are talking about, it was made by Terk and my local radio shack had it on clearance for $30 (you had to ask for it as they kept them in the back room, this was about a week ago, so they may still have them at that price).

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-izoDj48....asp?i=209TV44

It was only slightly better. I still got fade. This model draws power from your satellite receiver and has a bit of a complicated hook up because of that (it comes with like 8 coax patch cables to get it all hooked up)

I returned it and I have this model now
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search

in my attic, and although it is doing a great job 95% of the time, I have noticed some fade drop outs here and there that I am trying to eliminate. I can't find anyone locally that has anything bigger, so I decided to just order one.

I chose this

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=AD-DB4

antenna's direct DB4 and I also got a mast amplifier to go with it. Since the DB4 is rated better than either of the other antennas I have tried, I am hoping it will clear up that last 5% of the problem.

From what I have read, this is also a very good antenna

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_disp...p?PROD=SS-2000

but I have not tried it.

BTW - I am 15 miles from the transmitting towers in my area. It should have worked fine with the small indoor antenna, but I guess becaue of how my house is situated I have problems getting signal.

That Terk thing that wraps around the dish is a complete ripoff. Don't even try it. The only way it can possibly work is if your dish happens to also point at the transmitter farm for your city, and that's only a maybe. If your city has transmitters in more than one place, the Terk is also not a good idea.

Start at antennaweb.org to figure out where your stations are and what size antenna you need. That DB4 antenna 4KRG mentioned is very popular, although that price ain't great. Try http://www.starkelectronic.com/allant.htm, scroll down to the Channel Master 3021 for a better price on the same thing. Although a local purchase would be best, shipping is a bitch on stuff this shape.

An option, if you only need a small-medium antenna, is to add a pole to your dish mount. Puts all the devices together, like that Terk thingy, but you can put whatever antenna you want on it. Up to a certain size, anyway. The pole and hardware shouldn't be more than $15.

As for the line, if you are happy taking that one line off the dish for now, and only using it for OTA, that's the best idea to start. Later you can make sure it will run both when you need it. The answer there is diplexers to combine/separate antenna and sat signals. Probably built into the multiswitch (I'm not sure on Dish), but you need one on the TV side, too.

Oh, how about some more....

About that Square Shooter, the last one 4KRG mentioned, it is apparently quite good for what it is, which is a less obtrusive, funky, gimmicky type. The DB4 should beat it on everything but looks, though. And that one is actually a better price at Solid Signal than most places.

It is more expensive than the DB4, but keep in mind it has a built-in amp. Good amps are usually $40-60, so that accounts for the difference pretty easily.

If your OTA equipment doesn't say "Winegard" or "Channel Master" on it, you are taking chances. These 2 are the cream, basically undisputed. Derivatives like Antennas Direct are also pretty good, although I don't know if their amps match up to Channel Master.

Not the same thing

CM #3021 This antenna is about 40" tall by 21" wide

From the DB4 specs
Dimensions 29" H x 19" W x 4" Deep, Weight: 4.5 pounds, Lifetime Warranty

The extra 10 inches in height wouldn't work right for me where I want to mount it. Also, I never found one bad thing said about the DB4 anywhere.

Hey guys, thanks so much for the advise, I really appreciate it, but....

So what you guys are saying is to skip going thru the dish at all, but follow the line I had installed by dish, un-hook it from the dish system, and put a seperate OTA antenna directly into it.

I'm good with understanding the antennas and what I might need (I already have one OTA antenna that picks up HD for my theater room). I just wasn't sure if I should try to go thru the dish set or seperate it.

BTW, if I remember, I around 30 miles from our broadcast antennas. They are all on the exact same hill.

[more clear] I would separate it [/more clear]

Yes, separate.

But, you already have one? You ought to be able to use the same antenna with a simple splitter. Assuming you can get the wires to go where you want.

You would think! Especially with my bar being next to my theater room. But that is the issue, I'm not sure I can get the wires there. My theater room and garage (where I put the antenna for the theater room) has 8' ceilings. My bar as a vaulted ceiling. Plus they just stuffed the area with insulation. I would have to feed the wire blindly and likely be just dumb luck if I got it to work. I can't see a way from the garage/attic side on exactly where I need to feed the wire. So I would have to cut a hole in the ceiling of my bar and hope I can feed it that way. But if not, I would have a hole in the ceiling to cover. Not a huge deal, but would prefer not to have a hole if I can't make it work.

Ok, I'll find an antenna and try splitting up from the dish...

OK messed around today trying to get my TV in the bar live!

First I cut a hole in the ceiling near the tv in hopes I could feed a like to the garage area and tie into the antenna I'm using for my theater room. After a couple of hours, it was a no go. I either couldn't keep the fish wire from getting snagged on the ceiling joists or there is a beam blocking the area.

So I went to home depot was my x-mas gift card. The ONLY antenna they had was this little GE Futura TV24769. It basically looks like a mini square shooter. I figured a way to hang it from my dish network antenna, and then traced the line dish had put in the bar. I unhooked it from the cluster of wires and stuff and hooked it into the OTA GE antenna.

I had my TV do a search...no luck. Not a single digital channel and only 2 very bad analog channels. But, low and behold this little antenna came with a line amp, so I hooked it and and boom...over 20 digital channels.

I need to do some checking to make sure I got all the major ones, but watched the end of the Philly/Giants game, so know I got Fox. And saw I picked up 60 Minutes, so two out of four so far! Think it will be fine. Will hide all the wires tomorrow and be set.

Sdallnct

One question since you seem to have low signal - do you see any "noise" in your picture at all while watching OTA broadcast?

I know it is a digital signal and everyone tells me I should not see any "static" (<-- for lack of a better word) but I swear I get digital static on mine even with the much larger antenna and booster combo. It's not always there and it's not on every channel, so I assume I am picking up something that is causing "static" or "noise" in the digital signal. It is certainly not pixelating, but like white static lines.

OK, in my media room I'm using a wingard wing looking antenna mounted as high as I could in the attic. It feeds an old VOOM box to my projector.

In the bar, I got a little GE something that looks like a mini square shooter and figured a way to mount it to the bar of my dishnetwork antenna.

I'm right at 30 miles from the one hill in Dallas that has all the broadcast antennas which are (per antenna web) between 194 and 197 degrees.

In the media room, the picture is just perfect. Now depending on the exact channel, I can see a difference in quality. It even varies a little from show to show. I guess the biggest difference I see is on a bad broadcast, it seems a touch grainy. But over all very, very happy. And shows like CSI are awesome. On occasion, I'll lose the signal and it will break up the image. But this is rare and usually fixes itself quickly.

Now in my bar, I'm having trouble getting dialed in for all the channels. I'm missing one channel. I had it for a while, then lost it. It is the only channel in the area that is VHS, so I'm wondering despite what the box says if it by chance it does not work with with VHF.

But I never get any ghosting or something I would call static. One of the games over the weekend was not as good as the others and like I say I thought it was a little grainy. But it stayed that way for the entire game, so I chalked it up to a bad broadcast. Wasn't terrible, but noticeably.

OK, this is about the worst it gets - stormy night and my signal fell to 50% My signal is nomally 60% and I maybe get ONE of those little lines blip through every so often.

http://img346.imageshack.us/my.php?i...renoisefr1.jpg

focus on the lines on the back of the blue shirt, much of the rest of the "grainy" look is from the camera. I know what you mean about broadcast differences, after you look at the pic, you will see that is not what I mean. Nor do these blips look like any digital tv artifacts that I have ever seen before (there is a web site somewhere that lists them all by name with pics, this matched none of them).

This seems to be signal related, but my brain has a hard time understandin how a "digital" signal could possibly have "noise"

BTW - I have a belkin Pure AV PF60 filtering the AC power feeding the TV - I first thought this was a power issue, like when I was younger and my mom would turn on the blender and it would show lines in the TV, but I think the belkin should have filtered all that out. Problem also mostly shows at night and I do have stations that broadcast HD during the day, so it is not strictly HD at night. Very odd...

Wow, no, I have never gotten anything like that. Usually the 1st thing I have issue with if I have a bad signal or storm or something is the audio. The audio will cut out for a second and then if it is bad enough, the image with break up. But nothing with lines.

Is it only with OTA HD? I did have an issue with my new HD70. I got this slightly darker large image band that would scroll across the screen from top to bottom. But this was on multiple sources and I narrowed it down to bad component cables. I ordered new CL-2 rated cables from Monoprice and that solved the problem.

Well I finally got all channels dialed in.

I got to say that Antennaweb.org is full of information, but not entirely accurate. I realize it is supposed to be a "guide" but in my case a lot is off.

First, based on my exact address it says I can only pick up 2 of 4 of the major channels and only 5 d-tv channels total. If I put in just my zip, then it says I can get them all. Yet I can get all 4 major channels and about 25 d-tv channels total.

second based on the color codes I should need a pretty big antenna. I am using 2 very small antenna's.

Lastly, based on orientation of my house is shows I should point the antennas SE. Yet I have one antenna ESE and the other just about exactly East.

But I'm happy. I get all channels in my bar and media room on two separate antenna's. All is good!

I spent some time today playing with the antenna and radically changing where it was at in the attic and the direction it was pointed.

I found range of sweet spot and set the antenna to point in the center of it. All those strange lines went away and the antenna is about 12 ft from where it was (more towards the middle of the attic) and pointing at a slightly different angle out the back of the house.

Been watching it tonight and it looks really nice. Compared to my neighbors comcast HD package, I would agree with the peopel that say OTA looks better. He gave up on the antenna without a fight, that wussy.

Good for you! I have mine all dialed in as well. Took me about 20 trips up the ladder. I may still need to fine tune. We are having rain/ice storm, and one channel I'm not always getting perfect (but not going on roof with rain and ice, thanks). But I have no doubt I will get it dialed in.

And I totally agree with you. Why pay for crappy HD from somewhere else. Now I do wish I had ESPN in HD, but really that is about it for what is not available OTA.

You are also right about your friend "giving up", many must be giving up on antenna's. The CC by me had a open box OTA HD tuner marked down from $200 to $50. I was going to buy it (don't really need it, but figure it might be better then my old voom box in my media room), but I asked the guy if he would take less and he said "I'm sure we will, nobody will buy it, but only my manager can mark down further and he wil be in on Monday". So I'll check on monday and see.