We don't have cable TV service here so we started looking at alternatives back in July (see Cutting Cable - Part I).  

Review

My main interest back in July was to get local content from the major networks Over The Air (I.e. OTA). We used a Mohu Leaf, which is a thin indoor OTA antenna and connected it to one TV in the Great Room. Since we are roughly 50 miles from Atlanta where most of the stations are located I really didn't expect much.

I was surprised that we could receive as many as 68 channels on a good day.  Reception on the weak channels was spotty but the major networks have been consistently good.

Going Whole House

Since the small indoor OTA antenna worked pretty well, I decided to distribute the signal through the whole house.

During construction, we pulled RG-6Q coaxial cable to every point where we might put a TV in the future.

All the drops run down to the basement and are distributed using a PCT-VC9-U Drop Amplifier.  This unit delivers unity gain to eight drops.  Unity gain means that the output signal strength on each of the eight drops is the same as the input signal strength.  This insures a good signal without distortion that could result from over-amplification.

I like this unit for a couple of reasons.  First, it has a sturdy, cast aluminum case with integral mounting feet that make it easy to install. Second, with eight channels it handles the entire house in one, tidy unit.

The coax run from the Great Room (where we have the antenna) down to the distribution point in the basement is about 75 feet.  To ensure a good signal I installed a single channel drop amplifier in the Great Room.  For this application I used a Scientific Atlanta single channel amplifier because its thin and could be  easily concealed in a small cavity inside the fireplace enclosure. But also because it was inexpensive on eBay.

Antenna Placement

Now for the big surprise...  The Sky antenna is larger than the Leaf so I originally placed it in the window. 

With the new setup (i.e. better antenna and drop amplifiers) we lost several of the weaker stations.  I assumed it was due to the amplifiers or lengthy cable runs and spent hours swapping components and cables trying to diagnose the reduction in signal strength.

Then it occurred to me that the Leaf was just tacked up to the drywall while the Sky was sitting in the window.  I moved the Sky about two feet so it is behind drywall instead of behind glass and all of our missing channels immediately came back!

In retrospect, this actually makes sense.  Most Lo-E glass has a thin metallic film inside the glass to block UV.  It seems that the Lo-E glass also blocks some of the HDTV signal.


With the antenna in the window the signal strength on Channel 11 was between 50-55.

Moving the antenna a couple of feet so it's not behind glass immediately increased the signal strength to 77.

After doing a fresh scan for channels we are now receiving a whopping 98 stations over the air with an indoor antenna.

Admittedly, most of this is crap (there are at least 10 Home Shopping channels now) but all of the majors and twp PBS channels come in great.

I can now say that I'm completely satisfied with the Mohu Sky antenna.  It works so well that I just might leave it indoors permanently.

We don't have any cable TV service on the mountain so we have to look at alternatives.  Two of our primary candidates are Over The Air (OTA) and streaming services such as KODI.

In this post I'll discuss OTA which can deliver the major broadcast networks and some PBS stations.

To find out what Over The Air (OTA) stations might be within range I used the transmitter locator tool on antennapoint.com (click on the image to go to their site).

They identified 15 transmitters within a 60 mile radius. Most of the stations are directly south in the Atlanta metro area and should be within range with a suitable antenna.

Three stations (Chatsworth, Athens and Toccoa) are far off axis.

Note that each transmitter broadcasts multiple stations so we should be able to get quite a few channels OTA.

For the first experiment we tried the Mohu Leaf 50 amplified indoor antenna.

I selected this antenna based on small size, good reviews and the fact that the amplifier is separate so I could try it with and without the amplifier.

The antenna itself is about the size of a sheet of paper and only 1/4" thick.  This allows us to hang it on the wall with a couple of tacks and try different locations.

Most of the major stations are in Atlanta which is almost directly south. For the initial experiments I just tacked the antenna to a south facing wall near the TV.

Results

The results are both better and worse than I expected.

On the positive side, the indoor Leaf 50 picked up 19 transmitters with a total of 68 channels. This is 5 more transmitters than predicted by the locator tool.  As expected, we are not able to pick up 8 (Athens) which is off-axis and very low power. I'm surprised that we are able to pick up 18 (Chatsworth) and 32 (Toccoa).

In addition, we are picking  up 5 transmitters that were not identified by the tool. These include 4 (very poor signal), 26, 45, 47 and 50. None of these transmitters are significant for us.

• Virtual channel 26 is a low power station in Atlanta transmitting shopping, Spanish and French channels.
• Virtual channel 45 is W45DX-D which is a low power station in Atlanta licensed to Home Shopping Network.
  
• Virtual channel 47 is also a low power station in Atlanta. It is owned by Korean American TV Broadcasting.
  
• Virtual channel 50 is also a low power station located in Atlanta

On the negative side, reception is inconsistent. Sometimes we get 60 (or more) channels and at others we have almost no reception at all.  It does not seem weather related so I must consider the possibility that there's interference from our WiFi or other wireless devices in the house.