Please help newb with antenna selection.

navi335

Here is the info to help decide which antenna to get:

green - uhf WSFA-DT 12.1 NBC MONTGOMERY AL 224° 56.5 14
* red - uhf WRJM-DT 48 UPN TROY AL FCC Ext 217° 44.2 48
* violet - uhf WGIQ-DT 43.1 PBS LOUISVILLE AL 177° 60.3 44
* violet - uhf WAKA-DT 8.1 CBS SELMA AL 250° 79.3 55
* violet - uhf WAIQ-DT 26.1 PBS MONTGOMERY AL 255° 47.1 27
* violet - uhf WNCF-DT 32.1 ABC MONTGOMERY AL 253° 45.7 51

Local Cable company only gets you 3 channels, so I'm looking here for a different opinion. As you can see, nothing is real close. Im interested in CBS, ABC, NBC mainly. Nothing should get in the way (buildings, etc). I am in graduate school so Im on a budget for the most part. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated on a trusted antenna setup. Thank you for any assistance.

Diogenes

CM 4228 UHF antenna, UHF preamp, rotator, outside mount, I don't know what your budget is, but to get 50 mile away stations consistently you will need a high gain UHF antenna and a preamp. Stations are in different directions, so you need a rotator. You may not have to have a huge tower, but otherwise Tigerbang's prescription for deep fringe should work for you.

I hit a station 80 miles away with a CM 4228 and a preamp.

NB make sure all these stations are going to continue to broadcast in the UHF, especially WAKA.

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Tower Guy

I'd ignore WGIQ-DT, the programming should be the same or similar to WAIQ-DT.

A channel Master 4228 aimed at 253 degrees will get you CBS, ABC, and PBS. A cheaper UHF antenna aimed at 224 degrees will receive NBC. A channel 14 jointenna will add them together and avoid a rotator. A Winegard HDP-269 preamp after the jointenna will overcome the line loss. This won't work for UPN, but it's not on the air yet anyway.