GS 2200 reception

[Jlweber]

I am in Franklin, TN 37064. I just purchased and installed a gs 2200 and cant pull in channels 5 and 17. 5 is almost there, but blocky and pixelated with no audio. Channel 17 is just snow. The antenna is about 20' up. The cable run is about 50' with about 3 splitters. Do I need a another preamp or have a made a poor choice of antenna? Thank you

[winegard]

Good morning Jlweber -

The problem is that you do not have line of sight (LOS) toward all of your TV stations. There must be a ridge between you and the TV stations preventing your from receiving a strong consistent signal. 1 Edge and 2 Edge signals are reflected off of the ground or atmosphere getting to you so they will be marginal at times and weather dependent.

Normal TV reception is based on the TV antenna being at least 30 feet high so try raising your antenna. Also by-pass your splitters and go from the power injector TV out of the GS-2200 directly to one TV set to see if you receive a stronger/better signal. If your TV reception improves then you can add a Winegard HDA-100 distribution amplifier between the power injector and your splitter(s) to over come the splitter losses.

Going to a larger antenna may not help either. Raising your antenna and even relocating it to another location on the house may give you a stronger signal.

[Jlweber]

Thanks for the response. I do know that disconnecting the power injector degrades the signal. I also tried hooking up another tv directly to the antenna. Reception was improved, but still blocky with no audio on channel 5. 17 was decent, but occasionally cutout. So that tells me that part of my issue is the length of the cable run, correct?

I'm at about 20 feet now. Not sure I can get it as high as 30', but will give it a try.

Thank you

[TomV]

You have a low-gain VHF antenna causing you problems with ch 5. You have a very weak signal on ch 17 that will be challenging. None of your channels are line-of-sight. All of your channels are fairly weak and you could have intermittent issues with rain.

You need to use an antenna with a much higher RF gain than your MS-2200. I suggest something like the HD 7084P or HD-7082P. Channel 5 is forcing the use of a large antenna. Most low-band VHF stations were moved up to UHF, thus allowing for much smaller antennas. Stations that were in the hi-band VHF (7-13) could stay (though not all did) on those frequencies and use a smaller (narrower) VHF antenna. Lucky you.

The preamp can be any AP series that has both VHF and UHF capability. I suggest any of the AP-8000 series.

50 feet of RG-6 cable has about 4 dB of loss. Depending on your configuration of cables and splitters, you may handle lower gain units OK. You should not be in any danger of overloading even the hi-gain units because you are in a low power location.

[Jlweber]

Almost there!

I stuck my antenna into my chimney....not permenantly ..... just to see if height made a difference. I now get channel 17. Channel 5 is starting to come into view....very blocky and no audio. I'm thinking alittle higher with a preamp should do it. So here is my latest question. My preferred option is to mount it on the gable. I already have a j-mount that I intended for attachment to my satellite dish. Can I add your 60" extension to the J-mount and still have enough stability to mount it on the gable? As you know, the antenna weighs very little.

Thanks for your help! jw

[winegard]

Adding a TB-0005 5’mast to a “J” will not work. It is not the weight of the antenna but the wind loading of the antenna on the small “J” mount base (foot). If you wish to use a gable mount use the Winegard SW-0012 with two TB-0005 5’ masts. Space the brackets approximately 24” apart and that would give you about 8’ of height above your roof.