facesnorth

I took a look at the possible mounting locations. This looks like it's going to be my only choice. The other one up top won't work for us. The fascia is at too wide of an angle on the one side of the house. On the other, at the peak there is a small corner, so it would have to be off center from the peak, with one side attached to the descending fascia and the other side attached to a piece of vertical corner trim. It would look akward. I'd rather put it on the corner side of the peak, which doesn't face the front of the house (although it's in the front of the house, and it's at the peak). I'd have to use the above mounts and screw them right into the T-111 (hopefully will find a stud, because it's a narrow area, may be just a small section between 2 studs).

That's the prime location for mounting an antenna on my house, and the highest, with few to no trees blocking it towards Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Now on the opposite side of the house, also at the peak, facing Wilkes-Barre is a slew of trees only 15 feet away, and rising 40-50' in the air. That I believe is going to be an issue and kind of eliminates that as an ideal mounting location for a secondary antenna.

How picky are FM antennas? I don't have a lot of info to go by as far as determining all the local FM stations in my area, their direction, and whether I should go for a directional/onmidirectional (FM6 or FMSS), and how high it should be. Because I could also mount on top of my chimney, which would be lower, about 15' at the top of the chimney (it's at the low side of a cathedral ceiling). With mast the antenna would be 17' or so. There are trees way in the distance that would block it horizontally, but realistically in my area there are a lot of trees and hills.

Another user via PM has been suggesting that combo UHF/VHF antennas are weak on the UHF side.

I'm juggling right now and trying to decide on what my goal is. It would help if I had a realistic idea of what I could possibly achieve. I read about people getting stations from 250 miles away. Ultimately does it matter if I get 5 different CBS's? They all play the same shows right? I just get to watch the news from different locales? Can anyone determine from my location and the info I've posted what I could realistically hope to achieve, living in a populated community of a woodsy, hilly area?

Another question I need to understand has to do with grounding. I mentioned this in the first post above, but understandably it's a lengthy post and a lot of people probabaly don't want to read through the whole thing. I've never had an antenna before. Looking at my DirecTV antenna, I don't see a ground wire hooked up to the dish or the mast, just the dual DB6 wires which come to the house and connect to a grounding block. Then there is a copper wire which connects to the grounding block and comes down and attaches to a grounding rod in the dirt.

In the front of my house is another, much fatter and longer grounding rod. My main panel, telephone service, and cable TV (internet) all have grounding cables attached to that rod.

Am I going to simply run a DB6 from my antenna(s) into a grounding block, and attach a copper ground cable from the grounding block into either of those grounds? Does it matter how many items share a ground, or do certain items conflict with one another on a single grounding rod?

Also, others have mentioned (and I've read in the instruction manuals of some antennas) running a ground wire and attaching it to the mast itself. Does this imply running a second ground cable from the grounding rod, all the way up the top of the house (presumably with the DB6) and attaching it to the mast? Why doesn't my DirecTV mast have one connected to it? What's the danger, if the DB6 is going to run through a grounding block which connects to the ground?