Problem Coupling a 9095 and 1713

[J Zolkoske]

Good Day,

I recently installed the 9095 UHF antenna and it performs fantastic. I am around 60 miles from most broadcast towers, and this even pulls in some of the low-power (15kw) UHF stations from that distance that previously faded in and out.

Today, I got the 1713 for the high VHF channels in this area also about 60 miles distant. As soon as I coupled the new VHF to the UHF antenna, the signal dropped to almost zero on all channels (VHF and UHF). I should mention that the box on the 1713 was fairly crunched-up by UPS and I had to try to unbend a couple of the elements. This made me wonder if the antenna or circuit box could be 'shorted', and causing the UHF antenna to stop performing as well.

Now, I read in your forum somewhere that the antennas should be separate by 4 feet or so? I'm a little space challenged on the mast, and cannot currently separate the antennas by 4 feet. In fact, they are presently only about one foot separated, vertically. Will this cause the signal to drop as dramatically as I saw (from 80% signal down to 10% as soon as I connect the two antennas).

Oh, I should point out that after I disconnected the VHF from the UHF antenna coupler, the UHF worked fine again - even though the VHF was still mounted a foot below (UHF performance unaffected as far as I can tell). I then tried to feed the VHF only into my amp (bypassing the coupling to the 9095), and it does not work at all. The VHF stations are fairly strong normally, so something is definitely amiss.

Best Regards
JZ

[winegard]

Good morning J Zolkoske,

The typical person I would send this question to is out on vacation until mid next week. I am going to track down one of our engineers but I may not get a response for a day or two. Just wanted to give you a heads up that we're working on an answer.

[J Zolkoske]

Thanks, I appreciate that!

[winegard]

J -

I received back kind of a laundry list of issues it could be from engineering.

1. Antennas must be mounted further vertically apart.
2. May be a bad cable connection.
3. May be a bad coupler board.
4. Coupler board may be installed incorrectly.
5. Wrong antenna for the location.

They stated they would have to just test each of those variables independently to see which was causing the issue.

[J Zolkoske]

Hi Winegard,

Thanks for the response.

I got the antennas further apart. It is indeed true that they need to be at least 4 feet apart vertically! Dramatic improvement. I still notice a slight decrease in UHF performance when they are coupled at 4 feet, so I am going to try to separate them even further and see if this helps. From this location, every little bit helps. This is a tough reception location (60 miles out and lots of trees), but the performance so far is very promising. We have not experienced any more dropouts on the full-power stations, and even the LP stations are more stable. Thanks Winegard! JZ