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       ANTENNA ORIENTATION FOR DIGITAL TELEVISION

I find this webpage to be ironic.  In the early 70s I remember my father up on the roof of our house with his hands on the antenna mast, and I would be on the inside of the house, and we would have a window open so that we could hear each other.  I would be watching the TV, and when the picture was perfect I was to scream out the window, and my father would stop turning the mast.

While standing on a roof top, and rotating a mast by hand, and waiting for a cue from someone inside the house to yell up to you to stop means that you have probably gone past the perfect direction for the antenna.  Now the person inside will be yelling up to you that you past it, and you need to turn it back.

My father would keep track of where the pole would be oriented, and as I yelled up he would note which way the antenna was pointed.  He would move back just a small amount, and then wait for my responce.  Once we had a good picture he then would move it slightly left, or right to see if we could place the antenna right on the perfect orientation.

Once the antenna is oriented you only have to move it back when it gets blown of course by the wind.

I remember that some TV stations came in great, and others would have awful reception.  My father would point the antenna that gave us the most TV channels, and we would have to sacrifice one channel for the sake of the others.

Once in a while there would be a TV show that my dad would want to watch on the station that was not tuned in very well.

My father would have me stand at the open window, and we would turn the antenna to get the lone station to come in perfect.  As you can imagine all of the other channels would go out, and become unwatchable, but the other station would now be perfect.  The next day we would be at it again to get the antenna back to it's proper place.

My father was just starting to get in to CB radios at the time, and he bought an antenna, a mast, and the antenna coax.

On the mast allready attached was a powered rotator.  My father had the brilliant idea to mount the TV antenna to the mast of the CB antenna.

From inside his home my father could rotate the antenna any way he wanted.  All of a sudden it became his mission to see how many stations above the usual that we can watch that he could tune in.  He was trying to see if he could watch TV stations from other areas.  Kind of like a ham operator trying to see if he can talk to someone halfway around the world!

In those days we could only get 3 TV stations, and maybe 4, or 5 if you rotated a UHF knob on the TV which was no fun to do.

I was really grateful when cable TV came along.  I grew up on cable, and I have forgotten what it was like to place aluminum foil on rabbit ear antennas to get a station to come in.  I remember putting my hands on rabbit ear antennas, and if I stood with my arms one way the TV station would come in clear, if I moved my arms another way then it would fade.  If I let go all together then the TV station would fade.  If you really wanted to watch that show then you would have to hold on to the antenna to watch that show.  I really do not miss those days.

It was not to long ago a few years back that I was installing a TV on to a wall, and going through the channes.  The customer only had basic cable yet we were picking up all kinds of channels.  It was very impressive.  We were begining to think that the cable company forgot to put the upper channel "block" on to his cable feed allowing all of the channels to come through.  When we were picking up high def channels then that is when I knew something else was up.

This TV was pulling over the air programming without an antenna!  It was amazing to see high def without having to have a cable feed!

Some of our customers say our antenna fed high def programming on our showroom monitors, and were stunned at the clarity.  They wanted to know why their high def did not look as good at home.  The secret was that we were not using a cable feed because of the compression used.  Over the air high def is not compressed, and you are getting it in it's natural state.

The next thing I find us installing is TV antennas!  Wow!  I thought I would never see this day again.  It is really nice having cell phones, or walkie talkies nowadays!

DIGITAL TV ORIENTATION TOOL

This is an FCC tool to help you with your antenna orientation.  Enter your zip code, and it will tell you what stations are available to you, and how strong those signals will be, and the direction the station is located to you.

DTV RECEPTION MAPS

Here is more information about Digital TV Transition

Trouble shooting guide for Digital to Analog Converter boxes, and Televisions