Long range Antenna through woods

[wayne1106]

I am on Windmill Point Va Zip 22578 and am almost 60 miles from the Tidewater Va TV antennas and 50 miles from Salisbury Md. Most of the distance is over water but the first 1000 feet to the Tidwater stations are through heavy woods of pine and hardwood. Also the Navy base messes with my signal on Saturday AM.

I replaced a large old VHF/UHF antenna with a HD9032 and added a rotor to it. It is on a 48 foot tower.
With the HD9032, I find the UHF digital stations on one of the towers but not the other two or three.
To Salisbury Md the signal appears to be better but no NBC or Local VA news or weather.
I get better signals with a coat hanger type home built antenna on 17 foot plastic pipe.
I need digital stations from channel 10 and into the 50s.

What antenna would work best with the woods?
Is there a 4 bay version of the HD1080?
Would lowering the antenna to 20 feet or just over the top of my roof help?

[winegard]

Good afternoon wayne1106 and thank you for joining the forums,

This is a hard one to answer since digital signals are definitely affected by trees.

You can add a YA-1713 VHF hi band yagi to your HD-9032 antenna which would give you channels 7-13. On the HD-9032 make sure the tetrapole element (the flat looped element) at the downlead connection point is folded away from the boom. If it is not then you will reduce the UHF signal strength. The down lead connection is the bottom one on the antenna. The top of the antenna is where the elements are attached to boom. The connection point on the top of the boom is for coupling in your VHF antenna’s signal. The best channel 7-69 combination antenna Winegard has to offer you is the HD-7698P and I would also suggest the addition of an AP-8275 preamplifier. Winegard does not have a 4 bay hi band VHF and UHF antenna.

As for moving the antenna down lower on the tower normally the higher the antenna is the stronger the signal strength. You might actually try raising the antenna to see what happens.

[wayne1106]

I reinstalled the old 168 inch antenna with the new RG-6 wire I used with the HD-9032.
I checked all the connections to the wire and added plastic spacers so the rusty clamps would not
short out to the antenna. I am using the old antenna preamp with the old antenna. I get all the Tidewater stations and the Salsbury MD stations off the back of the antenna.

On the HD-9032 should anything other than the tetrapole connect to the wire to the TV.
I see three pairs of insulated metal wings that connect to the wire on my old antenna?
(See Figure 3 of the Install instructions for an example of the wings.)
Would the preamp help the HD-9032 antenna?
Wayne1106

[winegard]

A preamplifier should help overcome your equipment loss. A preamplifier will not pull in signal or extend the receiving range of an antenna. If you wish to use a UHF only preamplifier then use model AP- 4800. If you might add a VHF antenna to the HD9032 through the coupling connector then use an AP-8275. Or we have an AP-2870 dual input preamplifier also.