I have not been getting CTV all day today, and most of yesterday. Glad to hear its not me.

Guess I will just wait it out for that channel. One thing good about CTV, is they have actual show information for the current show, and upcoming shows for the next few hours. Very cool.

Unfortunately CFRN-DT went off the air before I could get around to doing the "angle-up" thing.

I find the whole idea that they need to go off the for a few days air kind of bizarre since none of the other networks are doing this.

I have to agree that this CTV "off the air" thing is a little strange. For me it means I can't completely test my install until later this week.

I have been able to aim my 8 bay bowtie U8000 so I am getting the following channels/strengths from west to east on my arc of 37 degrees, currently using a little 19 inch Samsung as my tester. As the antenna is pretty light, I picked up an 8 foot piece of aluminum tube at Princess Auto to use as mast on my chimney.

CITY (CKEM-DT) - 9 to 10 bars
OMNI (CJEO-DT) - 4 to 5 bars
CBC (CBXT-DT) - 7 to 8 bars
CTS (CKES-DT) - 4 bars stable
Global (CITV-DT) - 3 bars, picture coming and going

I suspect that with my current install I would have lose Omni to tune CTV and Global reliably. Since I am pushing the abilities of the antenna to get VHF, with all my channels being 1edge or 2edge, I think I can live with that.

out here west of Stony Plain. Only two bars but the picture is holding ok.

CTV is still down.

Ah, they both are VHF-HI, channels 12.1 and 13.1. I was confused by the "Virtual channel" allocation of Global to 42. Evidentially I will need an antenna that is better at VHF-HI, since I'm all the way in St Albert and the MANT940 is not enough at this range in VHF-HI.

Now that 12.1 is back, I figured it was time to do some testing.

(Signal Strength, Signal Quality, Symbol Quality)
88%, 70%, 100%

Which is just fine!

I haven't changed my antenna pitch (as discussed in this post (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1304792&postcount=512)), and both 12.1 and 13.1 are coming in just fine for me right now.

I'll post updates if things change again with my reception of 12.1.

Mine seems to be stable now as well, go figure!

Early this morning when Mike FM reported CBXFT was up, I was not receiving it and was still getting Global analog, with no CTV. Must have been some tweaking going on.

This morning - 8 AM, no CBXFT and still no CTV.

This afternoon - 1:30, now have CBXFT, but still no CTV.

Same result with all 3 ATSC tuners available to me. Looks like I will have to tweak my antenna for CTV and give up Omni. If that works, I can live with 6 channels for free in a "rural" area where cable TV will never reach.

Global analogue in Edmonton has been down for quite some time now, how were where you picking it up from?

Red Deer perhaps?

As far as I know, channel 13 analog in Edmonton has been decommissioned.
CITV-1 in Red Deer at channel 10 (analog) is a huge mother of a rebroad. 325,000 watt ERP.
I've got the front lobby HDTV at my work hooked up to a roof antenna and it scanned all 7 Edmonton DT channels this morning. Just checked and they're all still there.

Aaaahhhh, yes - it was channel 10.

That's quite something considering my antenna is pointing approximately 33 degrees magnetic and TV Fool shows 10 from Red Deer as 147 degrees magnetic from my location.

Kewl.

Yeah, on a good night you can pick up 10 and 22 analog from Red Deer in Edmonton.
Used to work on that tx. It's a tube type NEC from '89. The blowers are very loud; prolonged work constituted wearing earplugs.

Well, that didn't last for long. My SageTV setup reported a series of errors when attempting to record shows from 12.1 from last night (when I setup the new channel) until now.

I guess its time to start messing with the antenna, and if that fails get a new antenna that is better at VHF-Hi. According to this (http://www.ctv.ca/pdf/digital/edmonton-ctv.pdf) and this (http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d9e749922b28a70) I should have no problem receiving 12.1 with a roof-mounted antenna.

Hey folks,

I'm from Sherwood Park, AB; closest landmark is Salisbury Composite High School about 400m away from my house. My TVFool results:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d8387c19bc6dadf

Interestingly, if you filter the current digital channels I should be getting, there are three: CBXT-DT (42.1), CKEM-DT (17.1), and CITV-DT (47.1). I picked up a Nexxtech amplified UHF/VHF/FM receiver yesterday for $38 after tax, and am fairly pleased with the results after some fiddling. When the gain is near max, I get the best results, as follows (all digital channels of course) - I'll put the channel the way my TV shows it, as well as the approximate strength as indicated by the signal meter on my TV (TCP42U1):

3-1 CFRN (45-50%) - didn't come in properly yesterday @ 45% on cloudy day, came in today which is sunny
5-1 CBXT-DT (80-100%) - CBC HD, I'm like a mile from the transmission site
11-1 CBXFT-D (90%) - French, don't care :)
13-1 CITV-HD (55-60%) - Global HD, works perfectly
17-1 CKEM-DT (75-80%) - CityTV, no problems
30-1 CTS-HD (90-95%) - CTS
56-1 CJEO-DT (60-65%) - OMNI

All of these work except maybe CFRN, seems the threshold to get a steady picture is around 47%.

Well I'm getting a couple extra bars of signal after swapping out my RCA for the CM. The CM is bigger and uglier but it looks like it might be doing a bit better of a job. I used to get 4 and 5 bars on CFRN Global now it is 6 and 7. Will continue to monitor and see how it goes.

Well, I think I've done all the fiddling I'm going to do for now, so here are my results - 6 out of 7 Edmonton digital channels received at distances ranging from 34 to 45 miles to their towers, over hill and over dale.

The antenna is an AntennaCraft U8000, mounted on an 8 foot piece of aluminum tube I bought at Princess Auto trying to trade off mast height versus weight aloft, attached to my cinder block chimney with a Channel Master 9067 mounting kit, approximately 20 feet above ground level. Approximately 35 feet of RG6 runs to a Panasonic DMR-EZ37V DVD/VHS recorder which reports signal strength in percent.

3-1 CTV - Nothing
5-1 CBC - 81
11-1 CBXFT-D - 77
13-1 CITV-HD - 79
17-1 CKEM-DT - 94
30-1 CTS-DT - 81
56-1 CJEO-DT - 81

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d3e47c4af6545ec

I might post some pictures in the next couple of days to get opinions on the current mounting location versus the only other logical spot I can see. I am assuming that since 12 and 13 VHF are on the same tower, at the same height, and at the same ERP, that the reason I am not getting CTV (3-1 virtual, 12 VHF) is due to pushing the ability of the antenna to receive VHF or the height of my antenna versus the surrounding landscape.

I'll see if 12 shows up over the winter when the trees lose their leaves around here. I'm not sure if it's worth a bunch more effort to get one more channel, but I might be able to scavenge a tripod, rotor and antenna, so who knows...

I just don't get why CFRN seems to be harder to get that Global when they are on the same damn transmitter. Now that I have gone to the CM 2020, it actually has a bar more signal strength over Global wheras before with the RCA it often had two less!

Hi all,

I have read the FAQ and although I found a ton of useful information, I was unable to find specifically what I am looking for. This seemed to be the most appropriate place to put this, so hear me out :)

My first post (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?p=1313272#post1313272) indicated that for reception I get the following:
3-1 CFRN (45-50%) - didn't come in properly yesterday @ 45% on cloudy day, came in today which is sunny
5-1 CBXT-DT (80-100%) - CBC HD, I'm like a mile from the transmission site
11-1 CBXFT-D (90%) - French, don't care
13-1 CITV-HD (55-60%) - Global HD, works perfectly
17-1 CKEM-DT (75-80%) - CityTV, no problems
30-1 CTS-HD (90-95%) - CTS
56-1 CJEO-DT (60-65%) - OMNI
As you can see my signal strength as measured by my TV is just acceptable for most channels. I have a Nexxtech (model 1508937B) antenna with an amplifier to boost the signal (see attached picture for the antenna setup to get as good a signal as possible).

Anyways I spent about $38 (including tax) for this antenna, and it works fairly well, except CFRN and CITV-HD are both borderline. If I could buy the "best" small indoor antenna - seemingly the Zenith Silver Sensor - from Amazon for only a little more money, do you think it would perform much better? I know it's difficult to really say, but if I can get the above levels with an [amplified] antenna from the source, would you expect that I could get better levels with a passive one? (From what I can tell the ZSS variants are passive).

Thanks and please see attached image for the antenna I have. Keep in mind that my TVfool link is here (http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d8387c19bc6dadf) (kinda cool that I get way more channels than predicted) and I have to have an indoor antenna that is on the first level, approximately 5 feet above ground level outside.

I guess what I'm asking is that, in relatively the same physical location, will a "highest recommended" indoor antenna significantly outperform a run-of-the-mill one? Thanks in advance!

Image (awkwardly large for img tags): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21008135/P1010813.JPG

Having a Terk HDTVA myself I would have to say yes it would perform better. Where you get them from have a really good return policy so if you don't like the performance you can always bring it back. HDTVA is amplified and is a SS clone. There is a thread to learn more about them here (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=40741&page=22).