Receive distant local channel and retransmit it to my house

[Brian Hall]

Is it possible / legal to set up a large outside antenna a couple of miles from my house and retransmit the signal to my house?

 

[Jim5506]

Very expensive, what is your zipcode, location.

Back in the old days (50's and 60's) farmers and ranchers used open wire 300 ohm transmissions for lines up to a mile long.

Can you erect a tower near your house to get the necessary elevation?

 

[Brian Hall]

Very expensive, what is your zipcode, location.

Can you erect a tower near your house to get the necessary elevation?

I can't get the necessary elevation. There is a mountain between my house and the Tulsa antennas. A couple of miles away and an antenna could have a good line of sight.

I have DirecTV, but because of a stupid law they are required to give us the Fort Smith, AR stations instead of the Tulsa, OK stations even though I am located in Oklahoma.

 

[Tower Guy]

Is it possible / legal to set up a large outside antenna a couple of miles from my house and retransmit the signal to my house?

Let's assume that you would like digital signals from Tulsa, here's how to do it:

Install an antenna on one side of the hill that is line of sight to the station that you want to receive. On the other side of the hill, perhaps 100' or so away and visible from your home, install a second antenna aimed at your house, but turn the antenna for vertical polarization. Position the antennas so that they are aimed away from each other. Get a preamp and distribution amp (750 MHz) that will run on solar power. Find a filter that will pass only the stations that you would like to receive. (Perhaps channels 55 & 56 KOTV & KJRH) Connect the preamp input to the receive antenna, connect the distribution amp output to the transmit antenna. The filter goes between the two amplifiers. Run coax between the output of the preamp and the input of filter, then the distribution amp. Set the gain of the distribution amplifier so that there is no distortion or oscillation. Install the antenna at your house with the elements vertical.

Such an installation is called a booster. Specific rules for a booster are here: FCC 74.701 as of September 6, 2007 - hallikainen.com

Your neighbors could share the signal with you.

Note that channels 55 and 56 will move on February 17th, 2009. KOTV will go to 45. I don't know about KJRH.

 

[Brian Hall]

Thank you Tower Guy. That is the kind of information I was looking for.

 

[Tower Guy]

Find a filter that will pass only the stations that you would like to receive. (Perhaps channels 55 & 56 KOTV & KJRH)

This filter is 12 mhz wide. The center frequency for channels 55/56 is 725 MHz.
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The filter would need to be replaced in 2009.