Good point Sugar. The system is only as strong as its' weakest link.
As to Celtic66's comment about selectivity, that becomes more critical in highly congested areas with a LOT of nearby signals or when you live in an area where multiple stations are broadcasting / over-lapping on the same channel.
Increased selectivity gives the tuner more ability to reject strong signals that are not on that specific frequency or to "lock" onto the signal that is strongest if two are coming in on the same frequency. The tuner can literally "select" the best / strongest signal coming into it and reject the others.
While i'm not attempting to belittle the importance of good selectivity, the original posters description seems as if they are experiencing problems with getting ANY type of signal to receive due to their distance from the stations, being down in a valley and the extremely hilly terrain. While multipath might be a problem due to all of the signal bounce from the tall buildings in "metropolis" and the nearby rolling hills, i think that they would experience more of a problem in terms of trying to receive / lock onto the incoming signals rather than having problems with rejecting / having to select amongst them due to an overabundance or problems with front end overload.
As such, i would stick with a highly sensitive tuner and try to get some type of antenna up as high as possible. If you they had to make a long run of coax to mount the antenna at a remote location ( even WAY up in a tree, etc...), i would recommend the use of quad shield RG-6 to minimize loss. This cable can be purchased at Radio Shack and is not hard to work with in terms of routing, flexibility or making connections. Sean
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As to Celtic66's comment about selectivity, that becomes more critical in highly congested areas with a LOT of nearby signals or when you live in an area where multiple stations are broadcasting / over-lapping on the same channel.
Increased selectivity gives the tuner more ability to reject strong signals that are not on that specific frequency or to "lock" onto the signal that is strongest if two are coming in on the same frequency. The tuner can literally "select" the best / strongest signal coming into it and reject the others.
While i'm not attempting to belittle the importance of good selectivity, the original posters description seems as if they are experiencing problems with getting ANY type of signal to receive due to their distance from the stations, being down in a valley and the extremely hilly terrain. While multipath might be a problem due to all of the signal bounce from the tall buildings in "metropolis" and the nearby rolling hills, i think that they would experience more of a problem in terms of trying to receive / lock onto the incoming signals rather than having problems with rejecting / having to select amongst them due to an overabundance or problems with front end overload.
As such, i would stick with a highly sensitive tuner and try to get some type of antenna up as high as possible. If you they had to make a long run of coax to mount the antenna at a remote location ( even WAY up in a tree, etc...), i would recommend the use of quad shield RG-6 to minimize loss. This cable can be purchased at Radio Shack and is not hard to work with in terms of routing, flexibility or making connections. Sean
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