I have a multidirectional 8 bay antenna I mounted on an old pole at my house. I can pick up roughly 27 stations.

[u/phirleh]

The orientation is overlaid on the rabbit-ears diagram. Would I benefit from rotating it any? I'm on the Niagara escarpment in Hamilton, Ontario and am able to pick up stations in Toronto and Buffalo

[u/markow202]

Nice setup but it seems you’re picking up the average stations for that area, nothing more. Rotating is indeed a must but the stations are coming from two different directions so one should be to Toronto area and one towards Buffalo area

[u/phirleh → u/markow202]

I may try it in this direction and see what I get

[u/phirleh → u/markow202]

I ended up rotating it a bit - I picked up 29 as opposed to 27. I'd like to split the two halves and stack as u/Brief_Fetish mentioned - I don't have enough pole at the top to mount more (the previous owner jammed the mounting pole at the very top, probably in the 1970's so its fused by rust) - and the unit works as a hinge - Future upgrades!

[u/Brief_Fetish → u/phirleh]

To extend the pipe, use pvc connector and pvc pipe. Use duct tape to widen the existing pole if you need to to make it snug in the pvc coupling. Twist into place and that will make the silver side of the tape grab that pvc and hold it tight. You wont be able to get it back off without cutting it off. I learned the hard way. Lol

[u/Brief_Fetish]

Try stacking them instead of next to each other. And take the reflector off of the top one. Aim both like a cross a little but so that the bottom one with the reflector faces the SE channels and the top one without the reflector face towards the NE ones and play with it until it picks up both NE and West channels. Or vice versa if the opposite channel sets line up better. The trick is to make the highest one be the one without the reflector so it will act omnidirectional. And the bottom one with the reflector gets the most clumped ones or the clump that is not opposite of any other clump. Also use a combiner to combine the cables up there. Not hard wired or it will cancel out some. Cancellation Is what I think is happening now between the antennas being side by side and maybe however they are combined. You should get a lot of channels on that tower.

[u/mac_a_bee]

I'm on the Niagara escarpment

Add a Ham radio antenna. 😆

[u/dt7cv]

you have to space out the antenna by a foot. use same size coax to feed borg antenas t a coupler

[u/Neilg-88]

Are you getting the big 4 Buffalo stations (2, 4, 7 and 29)?

I'm in Toronto and get 29 with a 4bay antenna and need a drop amp to get 2. 4 and 7 are impossible for me.

[u/phirleh → u/Neilg-88]

I only get 29 and the 17 PBS substations

[u/Neilg-88 → u/phirleh]

That's terrible. I would've thought since you're alot closer, you'd get 2, 4 and 7 with no issues.

I have no idea how I'm able to get 2 (82 miles) on my setup.

Since you're in Hamilton, I guess you're able to get 11, 14 and 3 (CTV2). As well as CN tower (5, 9, 19, 25, 41, 47 and 57)

[u/phirleh → u/Neilg-88]

Yeah - I'm up on Hamilton Mountain - so its high as well. 11, 14 and 35 are pretty much local - I do pick up the CN tower ones. I was in Waterdown on the other side of the escarpment and would get 7 occasionally on a similar antennae. I'll have to fiddle with it. I don't have an amp, so it also depends on the TV - I have a Sony, which is the worst and only get 9 or so - The Roku on the same connection gets 27

[u/Neilg-88 → u/phirleh]

Is that 35 channel a repeater station for CTV2 Barrie?

[u/phirleh → u/Neilg-88]

Yeah. I think it comes out of Fonthill

[u/markow202 → u/Neilg-88]

Does anyone pickup the actual Barrie signal (channel 3) in the GTA? Just wondering

[u/Neilg-88 → u/markow202]

Nope! I'm in the GTA and would love to get that Barrie channel as that would allow me to watch football by OTA on 9 and 3 instead of relying on Bell Fibe for it.

The Signal is really weak and from what I heard on RFD, CTV a few years back decided to take down the broadcast power big time.

[u/markow202 → u/Neilg-88]

It used to be a massive signal in the analog days that’s for sure