Go to tvfool.com or antennaweb.org. Pretend you're putting in an antenna (hey! you are!). Put in the address. Get the map that shows the directions from your location to the stations.
Study the list of stations. It will give you two station numbers -- one is the channel number it would have been in the old days. The other is the channel number that it calls itself. For instance, in Los Angeles, NBC calls itself KNBC 4. In analog days, it broadcast on ACTUAL channel 4 (66 MHz per one way of describing it). Nowadays they broadcast the digital signal on another channel... let's say UHF 36 (it might be different; sorry, I'm not going to take the time to look it up). That means that the TV tuner is going to look for NBC on UHF channel 36, but the channel will be called 4.1.
In general, the VHF channels are not used. VHF-Lo are actual channel frequencies 2 - 6. VHF-Hi is 7 - 13. If no VHF channels must be received, then you can get away with a UHF-only antenna.
However, in some areas, one or more upper VHF channel is used. That means you need a UHF antenna with a couple of elements to pick up VHF-Hi channels. It also means that any needed amplifiers must be able to amplify two ranges of channels, Upper VHF and UHF. The bandwidth (and I mean that technically) of TV amps is not wide enough for a single amplifier to amplify all the channels.
Whew!
Anyway, armed with that you can see if it's possible to just aim one antenna in the right direction, then amplify and split the signal as needed to wiring that gets the signals where you need them.
I've done this before with many antenna systems. Three of them had one antenna, a crapload of amplifiers and splitters (drop taps, actually) and ran more than 400 TVs and 60 FM tuners (FM is located in the 20 MHz above TV channel 6). If you have questions, ask me.
Let me make a comparison with computer network wiring, though. Wiring a house for antenna is similar to installing CAT cable throughout the house for computers. Does wifi now serve all your locations perfectly? If it does, why would you toss it out and wire up your entire house, only to end up where you started, performance-wise?
There are other subjects to go over, too: if you have to point your antenna in more than one direction to point at all the stations, what are you going to do? What if one station is monstrously stronger in your location than all the rest? In that case, that station's signal, put through an amplifier, might cause distortion products that will degrade the performance of other channels.
It's a can of worms that I'm really familiar with and that I cannot exhaustively write about. It's a Saturday and I'm not on the clock.
RC has a forum concentrating on TVs, which evolved from a general purpose all sorts of TV forum into more or less a reception forum for Toronto and Buffalo. There's lots of good info there if you look for it.
edit: added the section about VHF channels.
edit: added the section about RC's TV Forum
Last edited by Ernie Gilman on November 28, 2020 16:32.