[TowerTalk] Passive VHF Satellite relay Antenna Scheme

[David Jordan]

Hi Folks,

Does anyone remember the old days of two to three TV channel reception? 

Does anyone remember when the local town geek who would go up to the top 
of the mountain and install two VHF antennas, one high gain antenna 
pointed toward the big city where the TV transmitter towers were located 
and one low gain antenna pointed downward toward the small town in the 
valley?  He just connected the two antennas with twin lead.  No power 
amplifiers (no electricity up there).  This was popular back in the 
days...did it work?

Our repeater club is thinking about trying a similar approach to expand 
the coverage area of our repeater. We've got some great locations for 
placing a passive satellite receiver relay set-up based on this concept 
described above. We've got a few ridges around us that block our primary 
repeater antenna signals.

The question is does this approach really work? 

If yes, is there any magic to the length of coax which connects the two 
antennas?

73,
dave
wa3gin