ok so looking at your tv fool report you have a few channels with really strong signals above 50 is considered pretty good reception you should have no problem getting them your next batch is in the 40's and shouldn't be a problem and then you have a yellow in the 32 range which is acceptable and get able but might need a bit of effort but it is UHF 18 so low UHF normally come in pretty well at that signal strength ..
below that you have 15,8,9,20 all of those are somewhat possible but they probably would glitch and you might only get them at night and only with both a strong antenna and a strong amplifier
the unfortunate thing is 15,8,9,20 are also in opposite directions from your better selection of stations and they co channel with other stations using the same frequency so all of that combined means you should not even think about getting those stations.. if they happen to come in one night at 2am hey bonus but they probably won't
so that means that the top 5 stations on your report are the ones you can hopefully receive.. the 6th one is a duplicate rebroadcast .. probably to reach people in a different direction.
of your top 5 stations 2 are VHF .. NBC and CBS and they are suposedly really good signal to your area but the fact is you can't trust TVFool to be completely accurate because they are just using calculations of distance and topography and other things to calculate a number that might be somewhere near what you could expect..
Most antennas have about a 30 degree width of reception so whether you use a large bay antenna or you use an antenna like you have.. or the large one I suggested .... all of your stations are basically coming from the exact same place so if you point for one station and find the best signal for one station .. that direction will be perfect for all the others.
Now we already talked about the difference in dipole lengths
this is a list of full length dipoles for different stations
Channel 2 - 102"
Channel 3 - 92"
Channel 4 - 83"
Channel 6 - 72"
Channel 7 - 32"
Channel 8 - 31"
Channel 9 - 30"
Channel 10 - 29"
Channel 11 - 28"
Channel 12 - 27"
Channel 13 - 26"
Channel 14 - 12"
Channel 69 - 7"
so you can see UHF that starts at 14 and goes up as high as is available is between 12 and 7 inches long and on those Bay Antennas you can see the length of the >< are about 8 inches and that is considered optimal for UHF reception... CAN A UHF ANTENNA PICK UP VHF... sure it can under the right situation.. there will be people that say put a bent paperclip in your coax antenna port and scan and see what you get.. and a lot of people with signals with 60nmdb or higher will get those stations with a paperclip
but for optimal pickup you use a full sized dipole
Your lowest station is 7 so that would mean 32 inches
SOOOOOooooo
a small yaggi like this might theoretically work for you
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HOMEWORX-HDTV-Outdoor-Antenna/dp/B01C1YL16Y
There are a few out there Mediasonic's is not as sturdy as an RCA small Yaggi antenna but it will work as long as it stays in good condition. good for an attic or even an apartment maybe
That small yaggi should improve your signal optimally about 7db .. you have a station at 62.8db .. add them and you get ~70db ... personally that is getting close to my safe zone... because your tv tuner can't take signals over theoretically 92db and when it gets them it can cause problems .. you might lose everything.. you might just lose the strongest station.. .. it can be random but too much amp and signal is as bad as not enough ...
so all of the antennas you are interested in have amps.. that first two and then the one you are thinking about i believe both have amps? probably very strong and very low quality meaning dirty signal.. but they work so its good if you need it.. unfortunately .. the one with the box .. i think you said your second one.. I believe the amp is in that box.. the first one has the amp in the antenna.. .. so you could maybe remove the box from that second to test for over amplification but the other ones you can't remove the amp.. and if the amp isn't powered then you might as well be hooking a brick to your tv because unpowered amps block all signal.
so what do you do?
you can find an antenna that has a rear dipole of 32 inches or better and point it at 12deg and you should be able to get all your stations.. without an amp..
you could also go with a full sized antenna which may help.. but the thing is you don't have stations that actually require the really long dipoles IF the antenna you pick is decent quality AND if new VHF stations dont show up in your area in the next few years because of the digital auction ... channels will be moving but all of them will be below 36 UHF and down to 2VHF
so I would say based on your TVFool you don't need an amp
what you need is a quality antenna of the right size
and that size really matters
I have VHF 6 in my area and I could never get it until i went with a full size antenna even though its signal is maybe twice that of other stations I did get with smaller antennas.
ok so thats the deal you need a higher quality antenna built specifically for your needs
and I will tell you another thing I tried medium sized yaggi antennas and I could not get 8,11,12,13 with them even though they say High VHF which means channel 7 and above.. I could not get them until i went with a full length antenna.. thats just a bit of trial and error I am extending to you.
If you have the option then get that RCA huge ass antenna if you throw it in an attic and point it to 12deg it should do fine .. If you are serving a bunch of rooms then use a weak 8 port distribution amp that will boost the power just enough to overcome cable length loss of signal
was this long enough HA .. hope you have good results
ok so here is your www.rabbitears.info report
look on the Direction (True) column and you can see where your best stations are coming from
the best ones are all around 35deg
then you have 146 good and 65 Fair and 188 at the bottom ehh
when you look at the Channel Column it reads like this
6‑1 (25) where 6 is the virtual channel on your tv and 25 is the channel that they actually broadcast on
Your (real) station is the only one that really matters because that is the station your antenna has to pick up so you can watch the channel
Channels 14 and above are UHF stationsChannels 13 and below are VHF and 7 and below are Low VHF and often hard to get
So for every station 13 and below you need an antenna that does VHFUHF stations are pretty easy to pick up and antennas that do VHF will do UHF really good normally
For VHF you have 9, 13 and 8 that need a VHF antenna
Channels 27 and 9 look like they have duplicate stations on there and normally that means they cancel each other out but in your case it looks like the duplicates are just sharing of the channel so you should be good and not have Co-Channels
So you want to point your antenna at real.. not magnetic.. real 35 degrees to get your best lineup of stations
problem for you is CBS and ION but it looks like you have another CBS wttk in kokomo which is also at 35degrees and coming in strong for you. WTTV Bloomington might just be a loss for you or it might come in because it is rather strong.
Hopefully you get WBXI it is close and strong and it has START which is not the worst station to get and START is going to have another station join it in a month or so.. its not 24/7 sports but its something else to turn to you know..
Channel 30 has stadium which is like college sports.. and it has Quest and thats a great channel its all Discovery and History channel shows.
15 is too weak but it has a sports and weather station.. i don't think you will get that
Ok so what have we learned?
Nothing... ok then...
your best set of stations is at 35degs true north not magnetic ... point the antenna that way and make sure it is on a flat side of your roof and nearest the wall and there are no metal obstructions like an attic fan or brick outside or aluminum siding... its best to go through the flat wall and not the sloped wall because when snow falls it and lands on the sloped roof it will block your signal.. also if you have a metal roof you are screwed you need to mount your antenna outside.
but you have decent signal so unless you have another building blocking you... or lots of trees or maybe a hill in the distance... something... then you should get good reception even if you hook your antenna right to your tv and not put it in your attic.. but if the attic is a better position because you can run the wire across the attic to the north side of your house and put the antenna right up against the wall.. then attic is a good plan
Ok so what type of antenna?
Roginator's suggestion might work it is a small antenna for High VHF and UHF
Antennas Direct ClearStream 2MAX TV Antenna might work real good for you but they are expensive .. you can get them reconditioned on Ebay sometimes for $35 or so...
This is a very light weight antenna but it does well
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HOMEWORX-HDTV-Outdoor-Antenna/dp/B01C1YL16Y
Those Flat antennas don't really do well for attic antennas.. i mean you can but they don't
If it was me I would get one of those mediasonic antennas or get the antenna that Home Depot carries that is very similar.. i think its an RCA antenna.. people like the home depot one too
I would try to get those northern stations first and see if i got a bite at the southern stations.. sometimes they will scan into the tv but not lock.. then i would turn it and see if I could get the southern stations.. There might be a point where you can direct the antenna and get both but maybe not... often if you point at the weakest stations the better ones will come in anyway..
If not then if turning the antenna south gets good signal and turning it north gets the other signals real good I might try getting 2 antennas and combining them with a combiner.. combiners look like splitters but normal splitters normally will not work.
This is a good cheap combiner and if you needed to use an amp it will pass power through it but the most important part is that each port says ... In / Out .. so that means you can do a 2 antenna into one out cable
https://www.amazon.com/CHANNEL-2532-2-Way-Splitter-Combiner/dp/B00006JPE1
so thats where I would start off...
you could also try combining the antennas you have but often those amps have to be turned on or the antenna does not work at all and as others have said that amp might be too strong.. probably is too strong .. so that means you can't use it with the amp on or off .. too strong or no signal..
Its tough but you got a lot of really strong signal so when you figure this out you should be very happy with your reception and with your channel offering.
boy that was a long one ... heh
I was thinking trenton too
You have amazing signal so thats not your problem and using an amplifier is not going to help... well it could but only as a last resort.
are you running a single cable off the back of the antenna to your homerun?
have you tried hooking straight to a TV instead of the homerun sometimes homerun tuners suck and a tv will pick up everything
what kind of splitters are you using if you aren't running a single wire to your homerun?
splitters eat a lot of signal.. one that has 1 in 2 out will cut half your power.. one with more outs cuts it even worse maybe you are getting 25% of the power if you had something like a 5 port out splitter.
you can't run your antenna on a live cabletv coax if you are getting internet off of cable and trying to merge them both.
if you have metal infront of the antenna or stone or brick that will block the signal you should try to get the antenna to the side of the attic with a vertical wall and point it through that wall which is just plywood and siding... aluminum vapor barriers can also cause signal problems .. sometimes they are on the slope of the roof under the shingles or on the sidewalls of the house..
house across the street is ok .. but house right next to you might also block your signal.
umm..
Like I said i am over 65 miles out and I run a large antenna and a strong amp and I pickup a lot of stations...
https://www.amazon.com/RCA-ANT3036WZ-Outdoor-Element-113/dp/B0027VST0I
with your signal strength you should be able to use an antenna like that which i have also and pickup everything without an amp that is coming from the 260 magnetic direction
its 9 foot wide and 9 foot long and it was difficult for me to put up in the attic but i got it pointed ok.. I actually have two of them .. one pointed at philly one pointed at baltimore and I pickup stations from Philly Baltimore and the DC area pretty well
once you find out if you can get signal on a single tv and if you have more tvs then you can think about a distribution amplifier .. they just boost the signal about 4db enough so you aren't losing any signal by using unpowered splitters .. i have an 8port and I power 4 rooms ... a single wire runs to the distribution amp and then single wires run to each room out of the distribution amp.. you may not need one.
so yeah i am betting your antenna can't pickup the stations or you have interference because of the material your roof is made out of.. normal shingle roof shouldn't be a problem..
if you want to try running a smaller antenna you should still use one that is of the same style..
Something cheap like this might work .. i also have one of theses.. it won't get you channel 6abc or 2
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HOMEWORX-HDTV-Outdoor-Antenna/dp/B01C1YL16Y/
the thing is the lower stations WFMZ WPVI WDPN are all VHF Stations so you need a really wide dipole rod to pick up these channels..
The mediasonic is really only rated for high VHF which starts at 7 and goes to 13 ... it has about a 30 inch wide dipole on it
for channel 2 you need the 9 foot wide one heh .. it sucks but sometimes if you have strong signal a smaller antenna will work
The antenna you have right now is suppose to be for UHF which is 8 inches wide and then for VHF high which is like that mediasonic one
SO BEST BET.. get yourself a big fucking antenna like I did heh
For antennas bigger is always better.
and Fox29 is at 64db now... if you tried an amp you would probably overload your tv tuner or homerun tuner.. which maxes out between 85 and 92db
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SO FIRST THING FOR YOU... recheck your direction.. take note of any metal or wires or motors / furnace .. whatever that might be blocking your signals
Next.. run a wire right to your tv see if you get better results
after that ... you have options to consider.
but yeah you have tons of signal if nothing is blocking it too much you should be able to work this out and get tons of stations.