Recommendations...

[tbest1797]

I'm in Racine and would like to put an OTA antenna on my roof for picking up Chicago stations.  I'm a little worried about doing it myself because I want to make sure it's done properly.  Are there any area installers you guys recommend?  How much could it end up costing me?  Should I just suck it up and do it myself?  Thanks.

Tom

[JohnRacine]

Hi Tom.

I'm on the south side of Racine, just north of KR.  Two years ago I put up a $20, tiny, YAGI antenna from Radio Shack.  I put it on a small tripod so it's just above my roof line.  I bought an inexpensive rotor from Menards as well.  I don't use an amp...just the coax running down to my TV.  I rarely use the rotor as I leave the antenna pointed south to Chicago...all the Milwaukee stations come in off the back just fine.  And, I rarely watch Milwaukee TV anyway...Chicago doesn't display weather graphics and ABC 7.1 news is HD fulltime which is very nice.

I don't know of any installers in our area but there's got to be one or more.  I suppose you can find one in the yellow pages.

I probably could have put my antenna in the attic.  When I was installing it, I had it laying on the bed in a second floor bedroom for a few days before I got up onto the roof.  It easily pulled in all stations...that's why I'm thinking that I could have just layed it on the attic floor.  So, you may want to try your attic first just to see if you don't need to bother with a roof installation.

Good luck...