2023 Antennas

[indysteve]

Mike Glass (thanks, Mike!) and I lowered the 73' tower at the Milford, IL remote site last week to replace a broken VHF-hi antenna (Funke 1922) with an Antennacraft CS-1100 (2-13) @ 88 ft. So far the reception results have been much better for VHF-low channels compared to the Channel Master Quantum UHF/VHF (1160A) on a 30' tower @ 34'. Some area stations like WHBF 4, Rock Island, IL @ 162 miles, WOCK-CD 4 and 3.0 WRME-LD 6, both Chicago @ 86 miles have been seen much more often with stronger signals. More time is needed to see how the VHF-hi reception compares to the previous Funke antenna at the same height.

The FM SDR tuner is currently connected to the Channel Master antenna. I have plans to connect it to the Antennacraft antenna to test results with it. I also want to make some coaxial cable changes to both the DTV and FM tuners and may also add a Televes distribution amp (model 552380 w/5 ports & LTE filtering) to have fewer splitters in the lines.

The antennas on the 73' tower are connected to a Channel Master 7777 preamp and the single antenna on the 30' tower is connected to a Channel Master 7778 preamp. The 7777 provides a little more gain to help compensate for a longer cable run between the tower and the tuners.

Pics of the two towers attached. The two horizontally-stacked Channel Master 4251s are mounted @ 77' (center of the parabolics) with the Antennacraft VHF @ 88' above them.

[antennanut]

Did you find the CS-1100 new, old stock, or was it used?

[indysteve]

I purchased the CS-1100 new from an electronics store in Moline, IL that was clearing them out of stock in 2015. Since then, it's been moved to a few other towers and now it's back at Milford.

[antennanut]

That was a good purchase.