Update:
I picked up and installed a CM4228 on my chimney, boosted by a CM7777 preamp, and feeding an eyeTV/HomerunHD setup on my iMac. My scan found 12 digital stations.

Being located in North Gower, I've pointed the antenna towards the WNPI tower upon the recommendation of the guy I bought the gear from.

The good:
I am receiving PBS (18.3) perfectly. What a picture!!!!
I'm receiving CBC HD (4.1) perfectly.
I'm receiving SRC (9.1) perfectly.

The medium:
I am receiving the WWNY stations (CBS & Fox) reasonably well. Picture is beautiful, but I get a quasi-regular frame freeze / flicker ... maybe once every 10 to 30 seconds. No audio blip, just video.
City is doing the same thing. And City doesn't seem to have a guide.

The bad:
CTV not available in the digital realm yet (I don't have analog reception). I have to review the other threads in this forum to see the ETA.
Can't get ABC. Tried pointing directly in that direction, but no joy.
Can't get NBC.

I also need to dig into the interpretation of signal quality and signal strength. I seem to lose picture on some of the lesser importance stations (OMN, SUN) when the signal strength shows over 80%.

Not sure if there's anything I can do to boost my reception of WWNY. I tried pointing in that direction, but the signal actually went down to the point where I got no picture at all. Which I found odd.

I'll keep tweaking and trying. Any input is welcome!

Cheers!

Being in Belleville, I noticed the signal levels being lower than nomal. It may be an aboration and you may be able to pick up those signals better tomorrow. My average non tropo reception for Watertown, in the Belleville area, 82 miles away, is WWNY, 55%, ABC is 72% and PBS is 65%. Tonight, WWNY was about 42%, ABC was 55% and PBS was 51%. Try again tomorrow and see where it takes you. Your best bet for NBC, from your location, may be Plattsburg, on RF14, from Mt. Mansfield, VT, RF29 from Utica, NY or Syracuse on RF24. I had no signal from Syracuse tonight.

Thx for the info! When you give your percentage, are you referring to signal quality or signal strength?

Probably a dumb question ... :confused:

hi canuck22, I suggest you optimize your aiming if you haven't done so yet.
1- monitor WNYF signal strength under your software while you move the antenna around for maximum strength on WNYF, your hardest to get channel.
2- WNYF/WNPI are 87 degrees from HC. You may need to compromise by moving the antenna away from WNYF in order to get better reception from City/Omni/1/2 from HC. Antennas have low gains at around 90 degrees...
3- Look around you and see if there is anything in the way blocking reception. Sometimes moving the antenna a bit higher can help. Also, you can tilt it up slightly (0-15 degrees) and it can make a difference for the channels facing. You would, on the other hand, make it slightly harder for all the local channels coming off the back... but they make still be OK.

I hope this is good enough to keep you playing with it :)

Unless you wish to play around and get them a few days a year, ABC and NBC are out of reach. You may get ABC once in a while when conditions are very good, but you'd also need to point at it and wait when once in a while conditions are good. This is when a rotor is useful when you wish to play around. Anything worse than -10dB NM under tvfool is usually out of reach for stable reception.

canuck22, there's also an extra option for you, and it's adding a VHF antenna to your setup. WWNY at channel 7 is within reach at NM of 0.2dB. It's the exact same signal than WNYF(CBS, Fox). You'd have to consider whether you'd also be interested in Global/SRC/CTV from CF. They're going to be digital on vhf 6,9,13 post transition comes Sept 1st.

Hm - interesting ideas.

Flavoie, I did some direction optimization when I installed it yesterday. I did the line overlay using the google maps application, selected a few landmarks close by, and then worked with a friend who observed the signal quality metric while I went back and forth. All the time aiming towards WNPI. The right position was pretty obvious.

The strange thing is that my CBC feed, which is coming through perfectly but from the back of the antenna, shows a signal quality of below 80% -- hovering in the mid to high 70's. But my Fox and CBS feeds show a signal quality in the 80's, but still has that video hiccup. CBC has a signal strength of 100% to Fox/CBS' 90's ... could that be the difference?

Given that City experiences the same symptom as the US networks, it would be worth testing moving the antenna towards HC to see if it cleans up the issue.

On your other suggestion, there is a big tree in the direction where I'm facing ... not directly in front, but partly in the way. Harwood - maple I think. I don't have much of an option to go higher, and tilting would not be easy ...

Your "extra option" may be interesting for September. Are you saying that I could add a VHF antenna to not only catch WWNY at channel 7, but also the CF Canadian channels? WWNY seems to be 20 miles further than WNYF ... is the VHF reach further than UHF

I (perhaps naively) thought I could catch the CF Global/SRC/CTV channels with my Channelmaster -- it currently catches CBC at 4.1. I heard that, though not by design, it is able to catch "high VHF" channels.

I'm still pretty green with the UHF/VHF thing. Apologies in advance for the dumb questions! And thanks for the continued support!!

And yes absolutely I'm committed to continue to play with this! :)

Being in Belleville, I noticed the signal levels being lower than nomal. It may be an aboration and you may be able to pick up those signals better tomorrow. My average non tropo reception for Watertown, in the Belleville area, 82 miles away, is WWNY, 55%, ABC is 72% and PBS is 65%. Tonight, WWNY was about 42%, ABC was 55% and PBS was 51%. Try again tomorrow and see where it takes you. Your best bet for NBC, from your location, may be Plattsburg, on RF14, from Mt. Mansfield, VT, RF29 from Utica, NY or Syracuse on RF24. I had no signal from Syracuse tonight.
Thx for the info PrinceLH. Are you saying that, at those signal quality (?) metrics, you get a clean hiccup-free picture? If that's the case, something else is happening in my setup to cause that. Maybe it's the tuner. Though CBC is coming in clean. PBS too, at 90+ signal quality.

canuck22, an extra thing you can check is to attenuate the signal before your tuner by using a 4-way splitter before your tuner. The 7777 preamp does amplify well, but sometimes it's too much if you're feeding to only 1 tuner; that tuner may be overloading. It really depends on the tuner you have, it happened to me only with 1 specific tuner, the Hauppauge 2250. The 4-way splitter trick is easy to do. Using 2 2-way splitters would do the same thing as a single 4-way for attenuation.

Make sure the cm7777 has the FM trap IN (enabled). That's the default.

For VHF, have a look at how well you're getting Global under channel 6 and CTV under channel 13. Your 4228hd should do OK for channels 9 & 13, but not good at all for channel 6. So you need a story for channels 6,9,13 if you care about those 3 stations (Global,SRC,CTV) when they become digital under those channels in september. SRC&CTV may come in well with the 4228 already, so you might only be asking yourself this question for Global.

I'd really like to know if you could get both channel 7 off south while still getting 6,9,13 of the back of a VHF antenna. I'm not well versed in front-t-back ratios of VHF yagi antennas and that sort of thing. I'm hoping somebody can chime in. You're in the special spot of maybe aiming at WWNY, getting it well and getting the locals off the back as extras. Cross your fingers...

canuck22, an extra thing you can check is to attenuate the signal before your tuner by using a 4-way splitter before your tuner. The 7777 preamp does amplify well, but sometimes it's too much if you're feeding to only 1 tuner; that tuner may be overloading. It really depends on the tuner you have, it happened to me only with 1 specific tuner, the Hauppauge 2250. The 4-way splitter trick is easy to do. Using 2 2-way splitters would do the same thing as a single 4-way for attenuation.
I'll definitely try that -- I've got lots of splitters kicking around so I'll try tomorrow night. The HD Homerun that I'm currently feeding has two tuners, so I'll start with adding one splitter inline to see what I have.

I didn't touch the CM7777, so I'm assuming that's set correctly though I'll check. I'm absolutely no expert, but the way the symptom is happening suggests to me that it's not because of a weak signal, so I'm hoping I can tweak my setup.

As for the second antenna, I need to space it out, else I risk alienating in the WAF realm :)

But I'd love to test it out. I can't receive any analogue stations now, so I'll only know what I'm getting once they go digital in Sept. But isn't CBC on channel 4, or am I reading those numbers incorrectly?

Yes you are not reading the full story, there are virtual and real numbers.
That 4.1 is virtual and is actually carried under a UHF channel, not VHF. Time to read the OTA FAQ and knowledge base ?

i read some of it earlier, but time to review! :)

Hi,
Just an update I've installed a Channel Master 4228hd antenna on the roof.
Using my Sony Bravia tv.

I now get these channels in Bourget Ontario:
Digital 4.1-9.1-17.1-20.1-27.1

This early morning 6:00 am,I had pbs 18.1-18.2-18.3 but didn't last.
Is there a way to get these to stay?

I also get analogs 4 not so clear (no global 6) 8 not to clear 9-11 good 13 very good I now also get 14. And 24-30-32-(33-39 barely comes in) 34-40-43-60-65 some of these are the same as some of the digitals.4-9-65-60

I'm very happy with the results. It would be nice if I could also get some of the US channels to come in and stay.

Thanks again for your help.
Mary-jane

Mary-Jane, I have not seen your tvfool results but looking at a typical Bourget scenario you should at least pickup 57.1 full time with your equipment on the roof. Especially since you see 27.1. 18.1 is certainly possible, provided that you have a clear in the direction of the tower. However a good quality ultra low noise antenna mounted pre-amp will be a must for 18.1 and the 4228 should be pointed directly at the tower. Adding a rotator is therefor recommended in this case. You should see 66.1 with your current setup though.

Hi RamKat,

That's what I was thinking trying the antenna in different spots to see if I can pull in more US channels.
At least then I'll know for sure if I should buy a rotor. Maybe I'll try this on the weekend.

Ultra low noise pre-amp i'll check in to that maybe that would help.

I'm not that far from Ottawa.

I only have 1 tv connected.

Tv fool results
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d001b12d2e5b386

Mary-Jane

So, I wouldn't be able to get away with putting it where the satellite dish is :(

I'm renting the place, so I am not sure if I would be able to put an antenna much higher off of the roof - I will check with my land lord.

Crysler, another option might be the attic.
Depends on what the sat dish location is facing. But going in the attic, your own roof is an obstruction but sometimes this means you get less obstruction from the houses around you because you're higher. You be the judge based on the signal directions you want to get...

Maryjane you have 4 main interesting directions you can point your antenna on:
CF, HC, WNPI, WCFE
The big question is can you still get local channels when pointed at wcfe or wnpi ? Maybe...

Mary Jane. 18.1 is actually a bit stronger on your TV fool than the generic tv fool that I entered for Bourget. With your 4228 and a single TV you may be able to get away without a pre-amp. How strong is the signal for 27.1? If you have lots of headroom on 27.1 then 18.1 should be within reach. I expect that you will have to point the antenna directly at the individual towers to pick them up (without the help of tropo that is). Your 18.1 is at least 16 db above the lowest TV Fool level that I have seen anyone on this forum being able to pull 18.1 reliably (I am referring to mlord's heroic efforts - have not seen him for a while) So there is hope!

Hi guys,

Thanks for your patience and help.

My signal strength at the moment for 27.1 is at 55.
4.1 at 67
9.1 at 63
17.1 at 70
20.1 at 55

18.1 at 55-----------5:00 am this morning

No I don't get 57.1 or 66.1 , Maybe the antenna needs to be rotated.

I never did try rotating my antenna much was just so happy to have those channels coming in.

But I will try aiming at the four directions and see what I get then. Hopefully more channels.

Thanks again
Mary-Jane