Blue Herons those birds are huge! I had one fly over my house really low to the ground... it was so prehistoric looking it was scary.

You have no worries with a properly mounted and grounded CM4228 in typical everyday use. :)

Blue Herons those birds are huge! I had one fly over my house really low to the ground... it was so prehistoric looking it was scary.
They do look prehistoric - My wife and I call them Pterodactyl's! If the 4228 can support two of those there should not be any issues. The only issue was trying to spell Pterodactyl properly ;)

Hello everyone,

http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll170/drew99_99/channelmaster.jpg

I have a mystery about the attached channel master antenna. Can anyone tell me what model it is? The seller does not know and I want to be sure it will work where I live. Probably 30 km further away from the stations then the seller.
He is selling the roof mount, rotor (channel master model 9537), and the antenna for $150.00. Is that a good price??
That in advance for the help.
The antenna is worth about $60 new, the Tripod is $28 new, and rotor $69 new.

$150 for old used stuff is not worth it! If you're in the USA go to solidsignal dot com and check what they have there.

There were some nasty wind storms this past winter and I never had to re align it. Its pretty sturdy

Even though I have the auto-sync setting ON for my C/M rotor on my 4228 I have to do a manual sync before the auto program kicks in. High winds can mess up the presets on the rotor controller.

I just got a CM-4221 from solidsignal, and I looked at the antenna and was wondering the same thing. The bracket on the bottom of my unit was bent nearly flat, so that the distance between the elements and screen at bottom of mine was only about 2 inches while at the top it was about 3 inches. I had a DB-2 in the past, and that antenna was completely symmetric top to bottom. So I think that my CM-4221 also got squashed in the process of shipping, similar to what happen to yours.

I tie wrapped the two screens on my 4228 together to give it more body. I read that this could cause some reception problems. Is that correct?

Channel Master now has a new small outdoor VHF-HI/UHF antenna (model 2016 (http://www.channelmasterintl.com/pdfs/Channel%20Master_2016_Outdoor%20Antenna_20080519.pdf)) designed for channels 7-51. It is multi-directional for VHF and directional for UHF. Surprisingly the gain is speced. highest for channels 52 and 60.

It is intended for post analog shutdown in cities that won't use VHF-LO (apparently only 37 stations will continue to use VHF-LO in the US). In the coming months we will likely see more and more of these antennas come out to provide better gain on UHF as they target a smaller frequency range while remaining reasonably small as they won't have the large elements required for VHF-LO.

This generation of antennas won't be of much use for us here in Canada yet as VHF-LO and UHF channels 52-69 will continue to be commonly used until at least 2011, though they should still work reasonably well for the latter. Large combo antennas will still continue to be available for those who need VHF-LO reception, though the designs may gradually be modified to optimize them for the smaller UHF band.

Channel Master now has a new small outdoor VHF-HI/UHF antenna (model 2016 (http://www.channelmasterintl.com/pdfs/Channel%20Master_2016_Outdoor%20Antenna_20080519.pdf)) designed for channels 7-51. It is multi-directional for VHF and directional for UHF. Surprisingly the gain is speced. highest for channels 52 and 60.
It looks like a set of rabbit ears stuck on a UHF yagi-uda and the gain figures say as much. I wonder how much that corner reflector shadows the VHF dipole.

Hmm... I wonder if it would be possible to make the corner reflector using elements of a VHF LPDA...

All new Channel Master gear manuals (PDF) are available online:

http://www.channelmasterintl.com/documentation/documentation.html

Agreed - the whole "HD antenna" and "optimized for HD" thing is a joke.

The new design certainly looks more rugged and should also have less wind resistance. Also, if you look at the "Reception Range," it is rated for channels 7 thru 69, so they are at least intending it to perform well for VHF-HI. It may even be better since you won't have to try and tie the screens together. It will be interesting to see the simulation results for it and even more interesting to see real world results. I am surprised they didn't make a short and wide 4-bay to get VHF-HI reception on it as well.

I was thinking that it might now fit into a small enough box now for regular shipping, but it's now 49" wide! HUGE! I think it will have MORE wind resistance, with the plastic pieces at the furtherest point from the mast. It may oscillate more in the wind than the current version.

It looks a lot like the digiwave 4221 clone now. Perhaps they had a better design and CM decided to incorporate it into theirs?

http://www.digiwavetechnologies.com/images/pagemaster/ANT20842.jpg

Yes, the look of it is uncannily similar. I think its more likely that Channel Master hooked up with a cheap antenna source (Digiwave) in China and is shutting down their U.S. operations. Just a guess.

Now we need to do some tests!

My guess is that the new screen is easier/cheaper to fabricate.
I agree. 16 straight aluminum rods molded into plastic at the ends is a lot cheaper than 1" X 2" aluminum mesh, check the prices. It looks like they put a lot of thought into making it easier/cheaper to fabricate while maintaining light weight and strength. I like the slotted reverse angle cross bars for holding the square aluminum tubing, pretty clever. And the single piece aluminum standoffs with the bend in them to prevent up and down movement is also very clever. They go from one side on the reflector beam to the other on the element beam. Yeah, that new balun may not be just a simple 300ohm to 75ohm balun and thats an interesting phasing line shape.

So, my guess is since its cheaper and easier to make, they will charge more, heh.

Interesting that they chose about a 2 inch reflector rod spacing versus 1 inch what they were previously using, since I use 2in by 4in mesh in my SBGH/DBGH plans. Also my SBGH to DBGH conversion plans dont call for connecting the 2 reflectors togethers, since modeling for that would take many hours of processing, I was just going to manually experiment. Maybe I dont have to ?

the new Channel Master catalog, its listed at 5"L X 49"W X 33" H. The old one is listed at 5"L X 39.5"W X 36"H. So, its about 10" widerI think I just said that.

I'm waiting for a call back for a few more details, especially if it is shipped assembled or unassembled.

With the latest release of Channel Master's product catalogue, several DHC members have commented on the changes to the model line, not the least of which is the replacement of the legendary and still premium CM4228 and CM4221 bowtie reflector designs, which is a shock to those of us who hold them to be the benchmarks for commercial TV antenna design to this day.

Out of curiosity I surfed through what I could find online that might account for replacing them with models that look suspiciously similar to antenna products that are made in China. The vaunted CM7777 and CM7778 preamplifiers have been replaced as well.

Here is some well known and maybe some little known info, along with what I've been able to find about their latest incarnation. I welcome further input to confirm or correct any of it:
Channel Master is a long time OTA antenna and gear manufacturer
Channel Master had been owned by the Andrew Corporation over the last 2 or 3 years
Andrew Corporation was the target of a buyout by another company, but when that didn't go through another direct competitor, Commscope, moved in to buy Andrew
As they are direct competitors, the sale was subject to U.S. Justice Dept. anti-trust proceedings, in which the courts ordered Andrew to divest some of its product lines to a minority stakeholder, PCT International, before Commscope could take over
The divested items included the Channel Master product line, some "last mile" home connectivity products, and a manufacturing plant in Yantai, China, all going to PCT International.
I'm not suggesting that the replacement antennas and other OTA gear are inferior. We don't know that yet and we may very well find that the updates are beneficial. Several of our DHC antenna design experts are ready and willing to test and computer-model the new CM antennas as they come available.

I've titled this thread the way I did because we're looking at a very significant overhaul of the Channel Master product line, as great as it is/was. Anyone remember what happened to "New Coke"? ;) I sure hope for PCT's sake that Channel Master's new products aren't inferior.

I think I just said that.


Heh.

See if you can find out if its all aluminum.

The vaunted CM7777 and CM7778 preamplifiers have been replaced as well.


Page 19 of the new CM catalogue still lists the 7777 and 7778. Do you have an another source telling you that these models are being discontinued?