Hi Bunk,

Where are you in Oakville? I get away with 1 4221HD attic mount but I use a CM7777 preamp to help out. The only signal I am not getting now is ION but I don't expect that to come in fall/winter anymore.

Try 1 antenna as it might simplify the process. I aimed more towards Buffalo as TO is strong especially since cutover. If you're hesitant in investing in a beefy preamp try getting a distribution amp from Home Depot or The Source and see if that helps out before investing more money on the CM7777 or 7778 or similar products.

I would love 2 antennas to try and get Rochester but I figure simplicity is the better option. Plus the wife would kill me if I had to go back in the attic and juggle things all over again.

Hi parity123.

Thanks for your help.

We're close to Trafalgar & Glenashton.

I'm at or near 100 on some TO signals, so I'm not sure what a pre-amp will do. I thought I read in the forums that it will distort or screw up those signals. But then again I don't know much...and am learning as I go.

I'm also not sure if I should find a slightly longer pole to put the antennas on. That would mean finding a 12' pole. I have a 10' pole now.

Also, I'm not sure if the apartments around Marlborough Crt are potentially blocking signal. They are 1-2km away. I think that Buffalo is on a direct line between the two bigger ones. But who knows??

The weird thing is that some Buffalo stations comes in OK other not at all. Not even a slight signal. Nothing.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I'll do some reading about pre-amps.

Hello Everyone.

I'm new to the forum and I've been doing a ton of reading over the past couple of weeks. I've finally come to the point where I am going to purchase a new Television and OTA antenna. I've read a countless number of posts and am hoping for some assistance. I live in Oakville, and my house faces North East. Here are the TV Fool results:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3dec12b991d8856c

I plan on purchasing the Samsung Samsung 46" 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV

http://www.***********/en-CA/product/samsung-samsung-46-1080p-120hz-led-hdtv-un46d6000-un46d6000sfxzc/10166047.aspx?path=0eccb79454aa001fdafdfbae5653cc88en02

That said, I'm having a hard time deciding on what set up to get. I really don't want to have a 14' by 10' Channel Master 3671 on the roof, however I'm hoping to get quite a few channels. Here is a photo of the house.

http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/4326/newhouse.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/607/newhouse.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

Based on the information I've provided, do any of the members have recommendations for me? There will be 2 televisions in the house. I'd like to buy the antenna locally and I'm okay spending $250 - $450 for the antenna, cable, amplifier, and rotator (if it's necessary). I'm just having a really hard time with all the information on this site. I'd like to buy all the stuff at once and spend a Saturday afternoon installing it. Any advice is greatly appreciated and I hope I haven't broken any forum rules.

Thank you,

Dave

I managed to scale the side of the house this morning (wow, the weather is really nice today, wonder if that's affecting my reception...) and install my new Stealth Hawk.

I had a GH6 up on the side of the house under the eaves, but it only picked up Buffalo stations due to the direction it was pointed. The 'Hawk has now replaced the GH6. I've got an Antennas Direct PA-18 preamp up there and about 40 feet of RG6, grounding block, no splitters, going to a Samsung DTB-H260F. The 'Hawk has that multi-directional capability that matches my reception potential almost perfectly.

I checked my reception around noon today, checked signal strength on the Samsung (1 to 10). The only serious disappointment was WGRZ, otherwise, this is great!

WGRZ = 1 (no signal lock)
WIBV = 6 to 7
CBC = 8
WKBW = 5
CFTO = 6 to 7
CHCH = 5
WNED = 7
TVO = 8
WNLO = 7
CBLFT = 9
Fox29 = 4
CITS = 2 (unstable)
Global = 3
Omni1 = 3
City = 1-2 (unstable)
Omni2 = 1-2 (unstable)

We don't watch the Omni stations much, nor the French CBC station. Sometimes we watch old sitcoms on CITS (Gilligan's Island, Beverly Hillbillies, &cetera) so that one's nice to catch.

Galoot, try by-passing the PA-18 and post your results.

Hi Dave,
2 atnennas stacked on a chimney mount usually works good in Oakville. Normally we reccommend the 4221Hd antennas, but recently available is the new DB4E witch is slightly better. A distribution amp will help with sending signal to 2 tv's. You want your cable run to the amp as short as possible.
Go see the folkss at Save & Replay in mississauga, they should be able to help you decide what to get.

Galoot,

How high is the antenna? If it's under the eaves, it's not going to be very efficient. The SH doesn't like being close to anything. The SH is a very low gain antenna , so the preamp was a good choice for amplification, but with only 40ft of downlead cable and some very strong local signals, you may have some signal overload happening. Try adding another 50ft cable between the preamp and the amp power supply or go to the source an buy a 6db dc-pass attenuator for the downlead cable between the preamp and the amp power supply to dumb down the signal load..

Just installed this setup at my sister's place. Terk fdtv2a up against eastward window. Feeding 2 tvs via a splitter. Total 50ft of RG6u.

2-1-2 weak/unwatchable
4-1 weak/unwatchable
5-1 s100 q100
7-1 weak/unwatchable
9-1 s100 q86
11-1 s100 q74
17-1-3 s70 q70
19-1 s100 q100
23-1 s100 q100
25-1 s100 q100
26-1-4 s100 q?? (couldnt recall)
36-1 s100 q100
41-1 s100 q100
47-1 s100 q100
57-1 s100 q100
69-1 s74 q53

How high is the antenna? If it's under the eaves, it's not going to be very efficient. The SH doesn't like being close to anything.

Well, this particular Hawk doesn't have much choice. It's up under the eaves. We don't have a chimney to mount an antenna upon, and any plan that involves any kind of potential roof leaks will have me living in the proverbial Van Down By The River. Short of a tower (which also ain't gonna happen, she says) the Hawk is where it is.

Anyways, I stuck an extra length of RG6 in the circuit and it made no difference at all. Maybe on Saturday I will take the preamp out of the loop to see what that does, but I figure I'm getting pretty good reception right now. Yes, could be better, but this will do for the winter.

Darrell

Is the attic an option? I just installed a DB4e at my dad's place in Acton. Worked out well. But we will be mounting it above the roof line in the spring.

We started with no pre-amp and pulled in all the Toronto stations and a few Buffalo stations with 100ft of coax. Once I added the PA-18, many channels decreased in quality to the point of even pixelating. Installing a CM7777 yielded positive results compared to the PA-18. Hence my request to pull that pre-amp out and see how you do.

Chris

I am getting CFTO CityTV and FOX clearly as well as Cool TV in total all 27 channels are coming very nice without any issues.
micpoets - Not sure if you are checking this forum any longer but I am in your neighborhood... Appleby and Upper Middle and wouldn't mind picking your brain on your setup as I'd love to get your channel selection. PM if you get a chance.

I finally got my CM 4221HD antenna on the roof. Previously I had it in the attic with a 7777 preamp. Both times the antenna was pointed at Buffalo. I have now also added a splitter after the antenna and the amplifier is removed. I'm in Burlington in the Appleby and Upper Middle area. There has been a slight loss in signal strength (no preamp plus the added splitter), but I'm now picking up a couple more channels from TO off of the side.

My TV only gives a bar for signal strength with Bad, Normal or Good for a scale. Here's my results.

2-1 WGRZ Norm
4-1 WIVB Good-
5-1 CBLT Norm+
7-1 WKBW Good-
9-1 CFTO Norm
11-1 CHCH Norm+
13-1 CKCO Norm-
17-1 WNED Good-
19-1 TVO Norm
23-1 WNLO Norm+
29-1 WUTV Norm+
41-1 CIII Norm
47-1 WNYO Norm+
49-1 WNYO Norm+
57-1 WNYO Norm
67-1 CKXT Norm-

An update to my posts of October & November.

Last weekend when it was unseasonably warm, I went up onto the roof to do some more testing.

In the antenna forum there were a number of suggestions about how to properly set-up two similar antennas stacked. So I moved the two 4221HDs closer together until the distance between the bowties were equal. ie. distance between lower bowtie on top antenna and top bowtie on bottom antenna were the same distance as the bowties on a single 4221HD. The result was a stronger signal.

I pointed both antennas towards Buffalo and signal was improved considerably. Still no pickup of WGRZ or FOX. :confused: I'm at a loss why I can't pick those two up.

But CBS, ABC, PBS, are stronger now. CoolTV and MyTV which were unviewable are strong now.

Here is the new listing: Our new TV only has a measure of weak, normal, good (normal ~50% of the scale, good ~75% of scale)

Before After
5-1 CBC Good Good
9-1 CTFO 0 Good
11-1 CHCH 0 Weak
19-1 TVO Good Good
25-1 CBLFT Good Good
41-1 CIII Good Good
47-1 OMNI-1 Good Normal
57-1 CITY Good Good
66-1 CKXT 0 0
69-1 OMNI-2 Good 0

2-1 WGRZ 0 0
4-1 WIVB Good Good
7-1 WKBW Good Good
17-1 WNED Normal Good
17-2 WNED 0 Good
17-3 WNED 0 Good
23-1 WNLO Normal Good
29-1 WUTV 0 0
49-1 MyTV 0 Good
49-2 CoolTV 0 Good

In addition, I get CFTO really well. Until now, we never received CFTO.

So while I was getting CFTO, I also saw we could get CHCH. BUt lost CITY and OMNI at the same time.

So I decided to turn bottom antenna a bit towards Toronto (15-30deg). We got back CITY and OMNI but lost CHCH.

I'm still trying to figure out why I can't get FOX and WGRZ. In the spring I'll have to adjust the antennas a bit to see if I can find a spot to get CHCH and not lose CITY.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks again for everyone's help.

bunk3m,

I am glad you are making progress. Well done.

2 and 29 are not the strongest where we are.

Hi filper.

Thanks again for your help and encouragement. I didn't realize that it would be such an iterative process. The engineer in me has a hard time doing this "by trial and error" rather than "by design". :D

Today I installed a CM3412 drop amp. The 11db increase in signal has helped quite a bit.

With the new drop amp we get WGRZ 2-1 & 2-2 on one TV but it fades in/out a bit and mostly unusable on a second set; FOX 29-1 and 29-2 about 75% signal and no pixelation on two TVs.

We also started to get 26-1,26-2,26-3 & 26-4. We now have about 24-26 channels.

So I'm nearly there. I'll have to do some work to figure out what to do to get a bit more signal so WGRZ is solid and how to get CHCH 11-1. I suspect this will involve a bit more antenna tweaking when it gets warmer.

More later....

So chch has moved to vhf post transition. That is why I have lost it.

I thought one of the main goals of the digital transition was to move stations out of the VHF band to free it up for other servicesÉ

g33k

urbang33k, CHCH has applied--and was recently approved--for a move to channel 15 UHF. This was in response to the overwhelming complaints regarding loss of the VHF signal.

Expect to receive CHCH on channel 15 any time now....

In terms of the digital transition and VHF, there was no mandate to clear VHF stations. Rather, the mandate was to free up the 700MHz band (channels 52-69) for auction to other services.

Ah I see. I must have misinterpreted something I read last year about the digital transition.

I gotta make a new antenna now anyways.

As I am new to this forum, I am not to familiar with the technical terminology.
I have searched the forum, but have not found a similar situation:
In a valley, 80 ft below the crest. The crest is aprox 200 ft from my house.What type of cable will I require?
I am interested in building my own Gray Hoverman (tired of cable bills)
What would I require in terms of amplifiers etc?
Is it even possible to get reception at all? The crest provides a pretty clear view towards the Toronto (about 60k) and about 100k to Buffalo. Anything west nw is obstructed by large trees.
If someone could answer these questions, or can steer me towards the right post, I would appreciate it!



http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d0b8628a08da4fe

I'm in oakville not far from oakville place and recently lost channel 2 and 4. All of my other Buffalo stations still come in fine. Anyone else have any issues or signal loss recently from those two?