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Old 11-08-2006, 07:39 AM   #97
m_vanmeter
WD4JCM in KY
 

Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Lexington, KY
Posts: 669
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the 4228 will need to be "aimed" at the Huntsville stations and are you scanning for digital stations with your ATSC tuner ?

Have someone hold the antenna up outside and rescan for your digital stations - definately not a long term solution 8-), but will tell you if you can receive them or not.

I really doubt the 4228 mounted 30' in the air will need a pre-amp, unless you run more than 100' of cable. Then the pre-amp will be there to overcome coax losses in the long run.

Standouts: not needed for high grade shielded RG-6 coax. run the coax straight down the mast and tape it securely. Sometimes wrapping the coax around the mast can creat some unwanted side effects (you are creating a loosely wound coil ).

Grounding: The antenna is well attached to the mast. If you attach the ground wire to the top mast section with a self tapping heavy screw or bolt, you will be fine. Run the ground wire to a driven ground rod, and if possible, run a lateral ground wire to your house electrical ground rod and connect the two ground systems together. Install a coax grounding block at the entry point of the coax into your house. If you need to drive a 3rd ground rod here, again try to interconnect all the separate ground rods together into one ground system. I know it sounds like a huge bunch of work, but the National Electric Code requires it and for the safety of your home, it is just the right thing to do. Interconnecting all the grounds is not as critical has actually having them, but it makes the whole system much safer. The reason I recommend connecting your ground cable to the top mast section of your 30' push up mast is I'm not real sure how good the electrical connection between the mast segments will be with just a cross pin holding them up. If you take the time to "jumper" all the mast sections together across the joints, then the mast will also function as part of the ground system as it sits in the earth, but without the jumper connections you may not have electrical continuity across the joints.

If you install a rotor, than make sure you ground the rotor cable also, before it enters your house. There used to be special grounding blocks for rotor cable, I assume there still are. The ground can still be attached to the top section of the actual mast, below the rotor, because you will have good mechanical clamping connections between the actual antenna mast, the rotor, and the mast the rotor attaches to.

It's going to be a big project, so good luck.
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