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ON - Vaughan/Richmond Hill/Markham/North of 407 - OTA

749K views 2K replies 438 participants last post by  Humbar 
#1 ·
OTA Results for the Richmond Hill, Newmarket, Markham, and surrounding area north of Highway 407. This is an open discussion forum, but keep your posts on topic.
 
#2 ·
A report From Markham/ Unionville

IM up and running in Unionville.
I bought a new Wineguard PR-9032 - but its still in the box!!!!
I figured I'd hook to the Omni-directionalantenna in the attic for kicks and giggles. I just got a Samsung 351 off ebay and holy crap im getting a bunch of channels with out even tryin..

Report:
32-1,2,3 (NBC) SOLID
34-1 - WB - Not even close
38-1,2 (ABC) - gotta rotate antenna
39-1,2,3. (CBS) - in and out - kinda crappy
43-1,2,3 (PBS) - SOLID
14-1,2,3, 29-1 (FOX) - Rotate - not bad
53-1 (CITY57) - SOLID
15-1 (Toronto1) - SOLID
32-1 (UPN Broadcasting CBS) - SOLID

Total channel count, 18

Anyone gues what I can expect when the Wineguard goes up? - Or should I sell it?
What channels am I missing? - Like CTV? CBC? when will these be online?
 
#3 ·
Stouffville

I know I've posted my reception capability at my location before, but someone further back in the thread was specifically asking about East of TO.
I'm in the Stouffville area. This area is great for reception of OTA DTV. Using an attic mounted UHF antenna, with a pre-amp separate from the antenna, I can receive everything and consistently stable, with the exception of WNYO-DT, that just makes my Samsung 151 blink. They are all incredibly reliable, day or night. During the summer in humid weather I had some minor issues with a few stations for very short periods of time. I know a lot of people have trouble with NBC-33 but at my location its great at a solid 8 bars 99.9 percent of the time. I also get WXXI-DT on most days in June and July, and the other Rochesters are rare, but I have received them from time to time, since they are all at low power. I do not get 15-1, only an analog religious station, but 66-1 comes in fine, and the newly testing CBC channels are both at 9 bars.
 
#5 ·
Uxbridge OTA?

First off, I'd just like to say that this is a great site with lots of info. I've had lots of questions setting up my HT and many have been answered by doing lots of reading here.....and if the answers weren't here, I've followed referrals to sites like avsforum and remotecentral.

My next project is to get an HD source for my HT. Before I upgrade my SAT equipment, is OTA possible in Uxbridge? Uxbridge is in a shallow valley on the Oakridges Morraine north of Oshawa. I don't have line of sight to the CN Tower or Rochester. I hear people in Stouffville are having good success but they are in a great spot!

I didn't live up here before the days of cable and SAT so I don't know how successful people were in receiving analog VHF/UHF OTA back then. The local SAT/antenna guy wasn't much help. Has anyone tried it here?
 
#7 ·
I live just east of Uxbridge. I have a 25 foot mast with an average size VHF/UHF/FM antenna (20+ years old). The UHF portion is about 2 feet long. Receiver is a Samsung T451. I only get CBC channel 20 at about 50% strength.

I just picked up a Channel Master 4228 8-bay antenna and some new RG6 cabling.

I may increase antenna mast by 10 feet.
 
#8 ·
Schomberg/Bolton/Nobleton ON

With BEV's new receiver coming out, I am interested in adding OTA. Anyone doing it in the Schomberg, Nobleton area? Located at Highway 9 about 20minutes north of TO.

Also, due to distance I imagine I am going to need to go with a good quality antenna. Am looking to mount it on my roof or side wall. Any suggestions from those who leave further north?

Any advice would be great!

Thanks.
 
#9 ·
re: Schomberg/Bolton/Nobleton ON

ilyo said:
With BEV's new receiver coming out, I am interested in adding OTA.
See the ATSC Tuners thread for some :( info about the new BEV 9200 receiver's OTA performance:
http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24831

If you're a BEV customer with a 6100 receiver or switching to the new 9200 receiver and you don't want to buy other gear then yes, you will be able to get OTA signals. The performance will be satisfactory and fine for your needs if the DBS programming is your prime requirement, but if you really want to get the most from OTA then take this advice, or at least the antenna part:
ilyo said:
Anyone doing it in the Schomberg, Nobleton area? Located at Highway 9 about 20minutes north of TO.
My prescription for your area is a dedicated ATSC tuner like an LG or a Samsung fed from a Channel Master 4228 8-bay UHF antenna. If the CN Tower is basically at the same azimuth as Buffalo from where you are you will not need to mount it on a rotator, but when more and more Canadian stations go DTV you'll be glad you put it on a rotator right from the start. In your case its possible you might also need a preamp to really bring in the Buffalo stations but that's not a given. Check the GTA OTA thread for the listings from Stouffville, Markham, and other areas northwards of Toronto and you should get some good info.
 
#10 ·
Markham ON

Tom I did not realize that the Sanyo also has a ATSC tuner thought Sony was the only mfg that brought tv's into Canada with the ATSC.

Iam looking this weekend to hook up my CM4228 on my roof but did not want to go more than a foot taller than the peak of my house.

What I did as a tempoary setup was buy a Radio Shack 15 -1880 indoor antenna and can get locally from my house in the bedroom which faces north, through several walls and the roof. I will return it this weekend once I setup the CM4228.

From this location I can get locally CBLT, CFTO, CBLFT, CITY all clear and at the office on Woodbine just north of Hwy 7 on ground floor also CKXT.

From Buffalo CBS and WNLO comes in with PBS. Pbs signal drifts now and then. At night after 12pm I can get WKBW (abc) but gone in the morning sun. :(

Yesterday I scan again and there was 2 Fox WUTV both HD and SD and after the Nascar race it was gone :((

I a little puzzled why with your CM4228 you don't pull in City strong and steady compared the the little crap indoor that Iam currently using ?

I am hoping once I install my antenna on the roof I will be able to pull all Buffalo and Toronto HD stations in.
 
#11 ·
Aiming Tip for CM4228s in eastern GTA areas

Yaamon said:
I a little puzzled why with your CM4228 you don't pull in City strong and steady compared the the little crap indoor that Iam currently using ?
I'm glad you asked him that because I was going to reply to that. :D

If Tom could levitate directly above his CM4228 and see its reception pattern he would see this:

http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/cm4228az.gif

Now, here's the problem that is probably happening. If you look at the minor lobes to the sides and rear its possible that one or more of the stations is falling into one of the low signal areas and not into a strong lobe. So, here's where aiming the antenna gets kind of funny - believe it or not he might need to aim his CM4228 to the EAST of Buffalo a shade in order to get a best-of-both-worlds signal with the CN Tower now on a good lobe. Also bear in mind that most of the Buffalo broadcast towers are indeed quite a bit east of Buffalo.

Tom mentioned he's not using a preamp, so if aiming doesn't solve this issue then a low gain preamp will. I would expect 100% on all channels with one, but just be careful about not getting too powerful a preamp in these circumstances.

I hope this helps come up with a solution.
 
#12 ·
Markham -- Bayview & Steeles

My TV has 2 internal ATSC/NTSC tuners so I've connected my CM4228 (on a chimney mount) to one of my inputs, scanned and picked up the following Buffalo channels:
WGRZ - 2-1 NBC HD 1080i
WIVB - 4-1 CBS HD 1080i
WNLO - 4-3 UPN SD
WKBW - 7-1 ABC HD 720p
WIVB - 23-1 CBS HD 1080i
WNLO - 23-3 UPN SD
WUTV - 29-1 FOX HD 720p
WUTV - 29-2 FOX SD
WUTV - 29-3 FOX SD
WNED - 43-1 PBS HD 1080i (24 x 7 HD)
WNED - 43-2 PBS SD
WNED - 43-3 PBS Bright SD

These come in on a 75 to 80% basis, but are subject to drop-out -- specially WGRZ, and WUTV. The signal levels appear OK approx 85% of the time. (The set only has a bar that shows GOOD - NORMAL & BAD. Most of the time it is between NORMAL & top of BAD. When it goes BAD, it begins to pixellate and drops out.

The Toronto channels all come in at the top of NORMAL to mid-GOOD.
I get:
CBLT - 5-1 HD 1080i
CFTO - 9-1 HD 1080i
CBLFT - 25-1 HD 1080i
CITY - 53-1 HD 1080i
CKXT - 66-1 HD 1080i

Would anybody know what effect an amp would have on the Buffalo channels?

Would there be overload on the Toronto channels? What would that look like?

I tried the 2nd tuner on my basic cable, and was able to pick up a pile of digital channels (all SD), but no HD.

I'm keeping my basic cable for the specialty channels. This way I get to watch the networks and the other stuff that isn't available in HD.
 
#13 ·
Re: Markham -- Bayview & Steeles

intrac said:
Would anybody know what effect an amp would have on the Buffalo channels? Would there be overload on the Toronto channels? What would that look like?
If the preamp is in the low power range it should be fine for Buffalo, as long as the main lobe of the CM4228's aperture is away from Toronto. Almost all mention of preamps from GTA folks is about not needing one.

About tuner overload, I've done that with my brand new LG LST-4200A tuner but realized my mistake within a few seconds and yanked the preamp's power plug. The LG is fine but when it was being overdriven on digital the screen image was quite snowy. I had forgotten that I'd left my antenna pointed directly at Mt. Seymour in North Vancouver where CTV-DT broadcasts from. Not good, because I have a Winegard AP8275 preamp on my CM4228 so the gain is about as high as you can buy (its a deep fringe setup for getting SeaTac signals) but the distance is only about 10 km away! Thankfully CTV-DT's ERP is about the same as a flashlight. Sure enough in the LG's manual it says to always connect a new antenna with an inline attenuator just in case of overload, but did I do that? Noooooooooo.... :rolleyes::D
 
#14 ·
stampeder said:
If the preamp is in the low power range it should be fine for Buffalo, as long as the main lobe of the CM4228's aperture is away from Toronto. Almost all mention of preamps from GTA folks is about not needing one.

About tuner overload, I've done that with my brand new LG LST-4200A tuner but realized my mistake within a few seconds and yanked the preamp's power plug. The LG is fine but when it was being overdriven on digital the screen image was quite snowy. I had forgotten that I'd left my antenna pointed directly at Mt. Seymour in North Vancouver where CTV-DT broadcasts from. Not good, because I have a Winegard AP8275 preamp on my CM4228 so the gain is about as high as you can buy (its a deep fringe setup for getting SeaTac signals) but the distance is only about 10 km away! Thankfully CTV-DT's ERP is about the same as a flashlight. Sure enough in the LG's manual it says to always connect a new antenna with an inline attenuator just in case of overload, but did I do that? Noooooooooo.... :rolleyes::D
My antenna faces 150 degrees to aim towards WNLO/GGRZ, with a null lobe (30 degrees) towards the CN Tower -- so I hope that an amp will not affect me much.
 
#15 ·
Ready123 said:
The original poster was in Oakville... so the above Toronto situation may not be relevant as CN Tower & Buffalo will be more aligned than they are in Oakville, where they are around 80 degrees apart!!
Where I am in N. Toronto (Markham), Buffalo & Toronto are separated by about 30 degrees. So I aim for S.E Buffalo with my CM4228, and get Toronto on a null in the antenna, which gives me plenty of gain, while most of the gain is aimed towards the more distant towers S.E. of Buffalo. The beamwidth of the antenna is sufficient to allow for almost uniform gain for the Grand Island and S.E. stations.
 
#16 ·
Richmond Hill, Yonge and 16th Avenue

Receiver: Hughes E86 Platinum HD

Antenna: Terk TV44 Amplified Clip-on antenna

Location: Richmond Hill, Yonge and 16th Avenue area


OTA Channels:

5-1 CBLT-DT 58%
9 analog
9-1 CFTO-DT 100%
19 analog
25 analog
25-1 CBLT-D (French Dolby Digital 5.1) 37%
40-3 CFTO-DT 100%
41 analog
47 analog
53-1 CITYHD 58%
57 analog
66-1 CKXT-DT (I think this is Toronto 1) 24% no video or audio
69 analog

Obviously, with this antenna, there is limited adjustment; I rotated it around the rim of the satellite dish a bit to try and peak CITYHD, but then I lost 66-1. I had this antenna kicking around in the basement for over a year after I picked it up for less than 20 bucks on eBay. It's doing the job for now, in fact it allows me to receive VHF/UHF channels as advertised, but I receive none of the Buffalo channels. My next step will be to mount something like the Wade SL-4BT on a separate mast and aim it south towards CN tower and Buffalo.
 
#17 ·
You should consider the Channel Master the similar antenna but with a reflector and from my experience the 4221 is a excellent antenna for the size.

It's able to pull in almost the same gain/signal as the much larger 4228 from Markham area.

From where you are located will pull in all the Buffalo stations except WB49 and the Toronto ones.
 
#19 ·
bete_noir said:
Thanks for the info. I mentioned the Wade SL-4BT because a previous poster in this thread recommended it.

By the way, it's great to have a place where we can discuss Canadian signal reception and other issues....

:D
And that, my friend, is exactly why we're here! :D Regarding the Wade SL-4BT you might want to consider the reflector version of it: the 4BT-1483. Anyways we can discuss it in the Outdoor Antennas thread as you need because we're not really supposed to discuss things much in this Reports thread. ;)
 
#20 ·
Bearing & Distance from Markham

From my location -- Bayview North of Steeles CM4228 - chimney mount, Winegard AP-4700 pre-amp

WGRZ-DT 149 degrees 86 mi
WIVB-DT 154 degrees 88 mi
WKBW-DT 154 degrees 90 mi
WNED-DT 156 degrees 59 mi
WNYO-DT 146 degrees 85 mi
WNLO-DT 156 degrees 59 mi
WUTV-DT 156 degrees 59 mi
CBLT-DT 178 degrees 12 mi
CFTO-DT 178 degrees 12 mi
CITY-DT 178 degrees 12 mi
CKXT-DT 178 degrees 12 mi
 
#21 ·
Problems with NBC Buffalo in Richmond Hill - preamp needed?

Hi, I installed my outdoor antenna (Terk 32, a clone of Winegard 4 bowtie) two weeks ago on the second floor balcony and connected it with 75ft RG6 cable to my SIR-T351 tuner. I have a good signal on all channels except NBC Buffalo. I can get ABC with no problems althoug it has a weaker transmitter
and is located close to NBC.
It jumps from 0 to 3 bars and sometimes I could see picture for several seconds. I was pretty good a week ago but now signal is very unstable.
Does anybody else experience problems with NBC? Is this because my antenna
is just 4 bowtie and is not high enough? Will preamplifier help in this case?
Thanks very much. ( I live notrh of Toronto in Richmond Hill)
 
#23 ·
gg22 said:
Does anybody else experience problems with NBC? Is this because my antenna is just 4 bowtie and is not high enough? Will preamplifier help in this case?
People in Markham and Unionville are doing great with Buffalo reception so you should also be fine in Richmond Hill. Are you actually using all 75 feet of that RG-6 cable? The less cable the better. I would measure where to cut it to its shortest possible length to reach the receiver and then add an extra foot for flex, then crimp it there with proper crimping tools.

Your Terk 32 actually might be a Winegard PR-4400 since Terk and Winegard seem to be in some sort of commercial deal these days. If so, its a good antenna and it seems to be working fine for you since only one distant station doesn't come in well. I would try the cable shortening and crimping first, and if that doesn't help then I would try a medium power preamp. If that is not sufficient, it may be time to change to an 8-bay bowtie reflector like a Channel Master 4228.
 
#24 ·
If you view is clear and you are pointing towards Nbc then a preamp might help.

To be honest you should be able to pull in Nbc stronger than that.

Even though Nbc went to 480Kwatts it seems to have made a difference for a month or so, but like I noticed recently the signal is not as strong as it was a month ago.

I think Nbc may have reduced the coverage towards us recently. Maybe someone can send the tech department a email to confirm.

From the Avs board another board got a previous reply from Nbc and they said even though they had a increase in power they limited the signal being broadcasted north because there was a Toronto HDTV repeater to be installed and operational in Barrie summer of 2006 using the same frequency.

We dont need another repeater in Barrie and trust me the local residents north is surely not interested in HDTV.

Because of the elevation in Markham north of Hwy 7 Nbc comes in at 94 to 98% at my parents on there Sony 42A10
 
#25 ·
Just tried it with shorter cable 15' - still no luck with WGRZ. The same with CBS - can only get it on 23-1 and not on 4-1. When it was warm I was able to pull it with indoor Silver Sensor. I also live on a hill
so I don't know if raising the antenna on the roof will help. (currently it's
on the second floor balcony).
Is there any place in Toronto where I can buy pre-amp and return it if it does not help?
Thanks everybody for help.
 
#26 ·
Woodbridge ON (Weston/Rutherford) very initial results

Hi guys..lime many people if it wasnt for this forum I wouldnt have got into OTA.

So I want to report back my findings.

Anyways, I am located in Woodbridge (Weston/Rutherford).

I got a Samsung T160 from ebay, hooked it right now to old set of dusty rabbit antenna (and thats at the back of the house - north) and I'm getting 3 Toronto digital stations; CBC English & French and CTV! Not bad.

Next I will read about antennas, I would like to pick up buffalo stations, it will have to be an attic install.

Thanks!
 
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