Apologies for the double post but I got new deets on my setup, and some more pictures, plus shots of the new tower and the antenna that came with it.

First a better view of the antenna we have now (The EagleStar 6305-2). The left bay and the right bay appear to be slightly (just slightly) misaligned angle-wise. This could be somewhat of an issue perhaps?


Next the vaguely printed instructions that came with it. (We mounted the rear bar horizontally because this looks alot more like a 4 bay, We got 2 of those and they were marketed as 8 so meh.)
Side 1


Side 2


And their claims (Which I still believe hold true somewhat if I can actually get it right)


Then our converter box. (Artec standard digital tuner yadda yadda)


Now onto the new stuff.

The neighbour gave us his tower and

This is the tower basically in 3 parts. One of those parts is already almost as tall as the current tripod our EagleStar 8bay (or 2 4 bays marketed as 8 :/) is resting upon. The thing should be 2-2.5x taller, and just slightly taller than the highest point of our house.


Next we have a closeup of the antenna part.


The model is apparently some RadioShack MiniState VHF Amplified/UHF antenna as shown here.


The top side of the antenna.


Problem is to test the antenna I'd actually have to figure out the cables. This one looks diffrerent than the standard coaxial connectors. I can only assume that the big one is an actual coaxial connector, and the smaller wire is ground, but what do I know. I'll send it off to you guys.

Cables from the antena.


Smaller cable end. Looks like it's messed (Ground?)


Larger cable end. Looks like a broken coax?


First off is this antenna even worth the try? If not I should make no effort in fixing those cables. If it is, how do I fix those cables?

Second, where exactly do I mount this tower in my backyard? Here is my yard right now, facing directly NE. The antenna is facing directly at Hamburg, NY. The house just slightly blocks it.


We have alot of trees and shrubbery and stuff because we like to grow organic food and other stuffs. ;) We also have a small railway with two small power lines running north-south towards petro-Canada on the east side of our backyard. Can anyone give a suggestion? It's a huge tower and there isn't much room for trial and error on this one. This is facing slightly northeast. As well, would it be better if we stacked the 2 4 bays vertically rather than beside each other? Will that make a difference? Or should I scrap one of them entirely.

Third, it's worth mentioning that recently WKBW's signal has reached the 67% mark again, but rather sporadically. Most of the Buffalo station's behaviour is very unpredictable. Sometimes one minute I'm getting 70% and the next 40% and back up to 70 or 60 or something.

I guess now I can get more general with the Buffalo stations receptions. For the past few days all of them have acted like this. ranging from 40-70 and changing rather quickly, though for the most part I've been able to maintain a clear picture with a few dropouts in midday. (WNED, WKBW, WNYO) are more prone to this. WNLO has also been acting more sporadic lately, but still clear. CBLT and CHCH have been coming in and dropping out every second at around 30%. No FOX, ION, or TCT still. (WUTV came in for about a minute a few nights ago).

Any ideas what's going on? And where I should go from this point based on the info I have?

Sorry for making this post so long again. I hope someone will bother to read it and help me. I make this detailed so much so I can get the best possible advice. Perhaps I can return the favour to newer members in the future.

Thanks! ;D

Update: Just a few hours ago I managed to pull in all Buffalo stations at 75-80! A first! Except PBS which was unfortunately hovering between 28-33% so meaning it dropped out constantly.

I even got WUTV at 35% for about 20 minutes, and I could have sworn that my recievers picked up the faintest trace of WNYB because in my list appeared 26-1 and 26-2. Although nothing was on it, not even callsign or program info. Still, tonight is pretty good! Still though, I wish it was more reliable....

Still no canadian signals, but I'm guessing because my antenna is pointed far far away from the CN tower.

so can anyone give any further advice to grab them all?