Homebrew Beer Blog

A little departure here, but something that others may find interesting.

With the arrival of baby Ben, we're looking to economize. Cable TV is the top of the list. I've read a lot on digital TV, and what's particularly cool about it is if it you have a halfway decent signal, you'll have a perfect picture. There's no ghosting, no fuzzy, no funky colors, no buzzing sound. So, it seemed I could get a great TV, but just fewer channels.

We watch some misc cable channels, but the bulk of what we watch in on the Tivo and from the broadcast networks. Everything else is on DVD or can be gotten on DVD from Netflix or the library. So, it seems we can cut the cable to save a good deal of cash with only a minor lifestyle change. The other question was whether to just keep the minimal basic for about $20/mo w/ taxes and fees, or deal with an antenna. I did some research and it seemed I should have no problem getting a decent signal at the house. And with a little upfront outlay, I should be able to have free TV and recover my costs within a year even over the costs of minimal cable.

The other part of the plan was we would keep Tivo. We're big fans, and we figure the Tivo will maximize the channels we get for our entertainment.

Here are a couple sites I used to gear up my migration to the antenna:

http://www.antennaweb.org/
http://www.tvfool.com/

These two sites are great for helping decide what kind of antenna to get, and how to point that antenna, and even what you may get over the air. A key point for me is I didn't want to have to rotate the antenna to use it. I just wanted a good fixed antenna. I was fortunate that I'm there's a cluster of antennas close to the same direction from my house (NBC, FOX, CN, ABC), and the other antennas (CBS, PBS) are close enough to me that I don't need to be pointing at them. Plus, there are some other misc channels with general syndicated programming, So, it looked like I could get away with a fixed directional antenna.

Gear

So, here's a breakdown of what I built. I got a lot of this from Warren Electronics, which seem to have good prices and great people.

Channel Master 4228 Antenna - $50
Heavy Duty Pole (4x - 20ft) - $30
Heavy Duty Wall mounts (4x) - $14
4' Grounding Rod - $5
6 Gauge Copper wire - $25
50' RG-6 Quad Shield Cable - $30
Grounding Block - $1
Channel Master 7777 Pre-Amp - $53

So, in total I was out $208 + shipping. The pre-amp wasn't really needed, but I've got about 100 feet of coax between the antenna and my living room set, so I figured I would do it right, and I'm glad I did. (see below). So Based on my current cable bill, I'd make that back in about four months, and in about 11 months with just basic cable. Sounds good.

I got my $40 coupon things from the Gov and I picked up a cheap-o converter from Walmart for a net $9.

Installation

There are a couple things I considered with the installation. I was originally going to put it up on the chimney, but I started thinking about a few things there. While it was an easy install, I didn't like the idea of putting more stress on the brick chimney with the wind blowing on the antenna. Also, that would be more cabling and I preferred to keep it as short as possible, and finally I was a little paranoid of lighting and I wouldn't be able to give a direct route to ground.

So, I went with a basic pole setup. I attached it to a shed attachd onto the garage, and that let me get inside the shed to build in some supports. I screwed in 2x4 braces into the framing and then I screwed the mounts into that. I used a total of 20 feet of pole. 10 feet is attached to the shed, and 10 feet in the air. this gets most of the antenna peaking over the roof line. I was going to go 25 feet, but felt a little iffy going that high without some kind of guy wire support. As it turns out, there's no need to go higher, so I left it at 20. I was going to make a cement base for it, but got lazy. Instead, I just used four mounts and that should be more than sturdy. Also, the mast poles from Warren are pretty heavy duty. Compared to what I found at Lowes and Menards, these are way better. I wouldn't be all that confident in the lighter poles holding during a good storm.

The cable run is pretty simple. I ran 25 feet of RG-6 quad shielded coax down the pole, tacked it onto the house, through the grounding block, and drilled a whole into the house. From there, I just ran it over to my existing cable splitter. Originally I was going to make my own cable. I've got the tools and cabling and figured I could save $30 or so. Even if you're good at it, I don't recommend it. I suggest buying a quality commercial cables because there would be nothing worse than something coming loose in a January blizzard.

The other big factor was the grounding. It's important to ground both the antenna and mast. It took a little effort figure out where the house ground was. My cable and phone hookups are just tied into the metal pole housing the electrical. Going down stairs with a flash light, I found a big copper wire running from the electric box along the top of the basement wall to the old well pipe. As it turns out, this is exactly where I would be placing my antenna, so that worked out perfectly. It's important to tie the antenna into the house ground, otherwise you will creating a ground loop. You want all electrical energy to be flowing in the same direction, if just to eliminate interference, or worse, keep an electrical spike from running through your equipment rather than the electrical ground. I also used a grounding spike for the mast. I ran a 6 gauge wire down the mast and into the grounding spike, and then tied the spike into the house ground. The idea here is first the mast ground should discharge any electrical energy, which should minimize the changes of a lightening strike, but in the event that happens, I'm providing a direct path straight down. For the grounding block, I just drilled a hole into the basement next to the hole for the antenna coax. I ran the copper wire around the house ground wire and then tied it into the block.

As it turned out, I've got about 100 feet of between the antenna and my main TV. I've got a powered amp I used with cable TV, and the signal was decent. Most my channels were coming in at 60-75%, with my lower power PBS down in 50%. CBS and PBS was behind me, but only about 8 miles away. I would get occasional broken signal, but with some antenna tweaking I had it pretty good for all channels. I tried using just a good splitter, and the signal went way down. Most channels were down to 40% and the PBS was marginal and the CBS broke up frequently. It seemed I need an amp of some kind to get my signal to the living room, so I decided to spring for a pre-amp and do it right.

Basically, by running an amp in-line I was boosting the signal, but also boosting any noise I picked up along the way. Boosting the signal at the antenna will always give a superior signal. I figured since I was in this deep already, might as well go another $50. This increased my signal well and got most my channels into the low 80's and PBS up to 60%. Everything came in well, and I was satisfied. The pre-amp seems highly rated with good power and minimal noise. It's kind of nifty since you put the amp up on the antenna, plug the antenna into the amp, then run the coax down into the house. At the TV, yo plug the coax into the power adapter, then from the adapter into the TV/converter. This send power the amp so you don't need to run a dedicated power up the mast.

Tivo HD

The final piece of the puzzle I decided to upgrade the Tivo. The thought process here was I wanted to get a higher end converter anyway since the cheap one was just for testing. I wanted something with component out, and since digital TV had 5.1 surround sound, that would be cool to plug into my stereo. These specs are pretty high end boxes, and I figured one would run me $110-$120 even with the $40 coupon. Contrast this with a refurbished Tivo HD, at $180, basically I'd kick in an extra $60. And I could probably sell my old Tivo on Craigslist. In exchange, I'll get higher quality Tivo viewing since the Tivo records in HD and converts down to SD, I'd get 5.1 sound both live and recorded, and I'd get dual tuners. And also, whenever we get around to getting a HD set, our Tivo will be ready. So, it seemed like a good move. Not surprisingly, the Tivo seems to have a better tuner than the Wallyworld special. This boosted up my signal into the mid 90's, and PBS up into the upper 70%. Bonus.

So, now I'm getting very strong signals that's actually much better than cable. The down converted HD looks fantastic, and my digital cable would occasionally scramble out on me, so the antenna is actually proving to be more reliable. Plus, I'm getting 5.1 sound. All in all, this is a good upgrade, plus a money saver.