Yesterday we talked about the actual physical antenna, some of the marketing ploys out there, and concluded with a little discussion of indoor options. Indoor antennas aren't all bad, but they suffer from the fact that they're indoor antennas. Susceptible to all the interference and reduced reception that walls, windows, and other typical building materials we see in typical dwellings. Without a doubt outdoor antennas will provide much better performance.
Before I get into all the details of outdoor antennas, let's briefly touch on attic mounted options. Many look to the attic as a great middle ground between true indoor and outdoor installations. However you do have some tradeoffs. Here in the Charlotte area, spending any amount of time in an attic space is undesirable. Even when you can spend a few minutes up there the area is cramped and may not allow for optimum installations. Lastly modern roof construction does not lend itself to prime television reception, e.g. shingles, metal roofs. Thinking that an attic installation will be leaps and bounds better than an indoor install is not always true. However some attics are quite nicely finished off, and have plenty of space to maneuver without all the stifling heat of the summer. If that's your situations my doom and gloom may not apply as much.
In the eyes of Charlotte Cord Cutter an outdoor installation is an optimal installation. The ability to have one single device which can be fine tuned is much more desirable than setting up multiple devices, and you avoid a lot of the space constrictions you run into with indoor/attic installs. This means you can get a much more powerful device that will feed your whole house.
The key to getting started with outdoor/attic installs is becoming familiar with the existing television wiring in your home. Ideally you can find one single point where all of those wires/cables connect. Here at CCC HQ there is a box on the back of the garage where the cable, we still use the cable company for internet access, comes in from the street. This is where the previous owners hooked up their satellite dish. Inside the box there is a splitter which feeds the 3 different "cable jacks" in the house. If you're lucky enough to have something similar, an outdoor install will be that much easier.
A word of warning, the general rule is that you cannot run broadband cable based internet over wiring carrying the signal from an antenna. We ran into this when we installed our antenna. The route we went was to have the cable company run 2 new lines for us. One was to be used with the cable internet, the other tied in with the existing cables, and enabled the use of the antenna with the rest of the house.
From there you will identify the location that you'd like to mount the antenna keeping in mind that you need to make a connection with the rest of the television wiring in the house. Next follow the manufacturer instructions for installation, especially if you're mounting to your roof. Our,
Clearstream 2V included all the necessary pieces for a nice water tight outdoor install even though it is marketed as indoor/outdoor. Another consideration for outdoor installs is that you need to ground your antenna, both the mast (pole the antenna hangs on) and the wire/cable that carries the signal. We were fortunate enough to have a fairly new satellite dish install at HQ that was in place from the previous owners. This was removed and the existing wiring reused for our antenna. Making ground connections are no more difficult than the antenna itself. Grounding is vital as it provides a lot of protection from electrical storms. You may want to verify that your local ordinances have nothing to say on this matter either, but the National Electric Code states you need:
The National Electrical Code (NEC) requires that the antenna mast and the coaxial cable be bonded to the home’s ground electrode system (GES), which is usually the ground rod installed at the power meter and breaker box. There are other options listed in Section 250 of the NEC, but the GES is preferred.
A separate ground rod is not required, and is not recommended. If a separate ground rod is used, it must be connected to the GES with a minimum 6 AWG copper conductor.
The ground for the mast should be as direct and short as possible, with minimal bends, using a minimum of 10 AWG copper wire (or 17 AWG copper-clad steel or bronze wire). It can be connected to the GES using a split bolt connector available at most hardware and home centers.
The coaxial cable that comes from the antenna also needs to be bonded to the GES. This is accomplished by using a ground block located as close as possible to where the coaxial cable enters the building. The ground block then is connected to the GES using 14 AWG or larger with as short of a run as possible, and again with minimal bends. A separate split nut can be used to bond the coaxial cable ground to the GES.
Most of this article was written with the assumption that any outdoor installation would be to a roof structure. If you don't have this available to you you can mount on a separate pole in the ground. CCC does not have any experience with this, but it is an option.
When selecting your outdoor antenna, its important to consider where you are in relation to your transmitters. If you're very close a super high gain antenna may not be your best bet due to potential overload, but if you're a little farther away your reception may suffer if you undersize your antenna. As mentioned before the
Clearstream 2V has served CCC quite well. There is a
Clearstream 4 as well, and it would have been my next choice if the
2V were not enough. These were chosen mostly for their design as they do not have the typical antenna design. The
2V is probably more than enough for those in the Charlotte area with a good outdoor install. If you need the additional gain however you could consider sizing up.
If you are in a situation where you are a little farther out and the transmitters are mostly in one direction you might consider something like the the
Winegard HD8200U. This is an example of a very directional high gain antenna, meaning it is designed to have most of its receptive strength aimed in a single direction. That doesn't mean it can't pick things up in other directions, only that it will be less effective in doing so. So if you had 2 clusters of transmitters to aim at then you could point this at the middle and it should be just fine.
If you'll think back to Part 3 of this series the TV Fool had those color ratings for antenna types. I purposely stayed away from those as I think it is a little too simplified for most, and I don't like the idea of undersizing antennas or limiting yourself as you never know what you might happen over time.
Our recommendation is that if you can go with an outdoor install you should do that before an attic which you should do before indoor. Obviously that is subject to change if the scenario were different. If you have one TV and cannot get an antenna on the roof due to living in an apartment or something like that then yeah indoor is your best bet. However if you have a large rural house with 6 TV's in the house you will want the largest outdoor antenna.
To close out this part of our series I just want to throw this one last tidbit out there.
The Federal Government has issued legislation that largely prohibits various organizations from limiting your antenna usage. For example if you live in a neighborhood with an HOA they cannot stop you from using an antenna. They can do a little to regulate you, but saying "no" is not their choice to make. I would strongly encourage you to read the info at the above link and know what you are protected from.
Our next installment will cover amplifiers and some other special circumstances you might encounter when dealing with antennas. However by today you should have a pretty good idea of if this route is right for you. Other resources on the web are much simpler than the route we've decided to go, going from TV Fool straight to antenna recommendation, but we've taken the path of pros and cons to hopefully provide you with the best possible outcome. Stay tuned!
Indoor antennas are exactly what they sound like. Antennas designed to be used indoors. They usually have a design that doesn't stand out, and blends into your interior decor. That also often have stands that allows them to be placed on shelves and other flat surfaces. This one, the