My guess is the FCC still owns 16 in this region.

You're probably right there.


Even if that isn't the case, given that CITY is on 17 from HC, it would greatly limit the power that could be used from CF on 16 without interfering with too many people's ability to receive CITY.


What about channels TVO on 24 and CBC on 25, both from CF? And CTS on 42 and CHRO 43 (aren't they both from HC)?

Yes, but you probably couldn't have CITY on 17 from HC and Global on 16 from CF (the towers are likely too far apart to use adjacent channels). Global would have to move to HC (assuming they could use 16 in the first place).

Hi Guys. Just a note to mention that I am now getting the full 14 channel universe consistently here in Barrhaven with my new roof top CM 4221 antenna and CM 7778 pre-amp install.

Another update from Barrhaven...

I finally got around to installing an antenna in the attic of my 2 storey house and am happy to report that I am receiving 12 digital channels (all the local ones I believe - including Global).

My setup includes a folded dipole made out of flexible copper tubing that is designed for channel 6 VHF (about 187 cm long and 15 cm high) aimed at Camp Fortune, with a straight run of coax directly to a TV on the main floor. No preamp, no splitters, etc.

Signal strength is around 90% across the board, except for Global on channel 6.1 that is around 60%. I plan on trying some adjustments in aiming to see if I can improve on that.

I had previously planned on adding the Mclapp4 9.5x9 4 bay bowtie antenna that I built (according to the specs here:http://m4antenna.eastmasonvilleweather.com/Drawings/PDF%20Drawings.html ), but will hold off for now as it seems I wouldn't stand to gain anything - apart from a chance at PBS perhaps, but that seems unlikely with an attic installation.

Hello - I'm hoping for some pre-amp advice.

I have a DB4e that will be mounted on my roof, followed by 40ft of cable to a 3 way splitter, then another 10-20 feet of cable to the 3 TVs.

Here is my tvfool report:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d073ba5cfd8776a

I plan to point the antenna at South Colton for WNPI. I should get HC no problem and also hoping to get CF off the back of the antenna.


I'm choosing between a CM7777 & CM7778. I'm thinking the CM7777 provides too much gain and may be overloaded by the local stations.

Any advice?

Thanks!

regarding the cm7777 preamp I have been using one for about a year near Carling and Bronson with 10km to CF and 14 km to HC.
I have never had any issues with too much signal or preamp problems.
I use good quality exterior antennas on a 2 storey house.
Good luck

nocash you should also put the Antennas Direct CPA19 on your shopping list. With Ottawa going almost alll UHF except 13, this model is becoming attractive, at least in my mind.

Appreciate the responses. Thank you.

I like the PA19 as well, it seems to resist signal overload particularly well. I was originally concerned with pulling in Global and wanted combined inputs....that obviously won't be required in the near future when they move (do we know when yet?).


Is anyone using this pre-amp in Ottawa? Any success getting WNPI with it?

The PA19 covers both UHF and VHF
40-216MHz &400-700MHz

Yep. In the future I imagine i will be unplugging my VHF antenna in the attic and use the 8-bay on the roof for CTV Ottawa. Lots of people will no longer need to care about a dual input preamp. Now i can even consider a metallic roof.

anyone in Munster?
i'm in the SE quadrant - so the highest
i have ~50' unused tower to mount an antenna
wondering what antenna you would recommend (preamp if required)
i would like to get some US stations and not require a rotor if possible
no ATSC tuner yet (PJ), so looking at DVR options, TiVo seems to be at the top

mark

TV Fool link
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d134932640e778e

Firstly, thanks to everyone for the great information provided here.

I'm new to OTA and would like to cancel Rogers in the coming weeks. I live in a detached house and have the option of an indoor antenna or outdoor. I tried a friend's indoor and received about 12 stations clearly. My TV Fool report is here: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d1349e8764bb028

Questions as follows:
1. If sticking to an indoor antenna, what's my best bet?
2. If going to an outdoor antenna, how many more channels will I get? Which is the best antenna for my purposes?

Thanks

I want to share my experiences with a home built OTA antenna. I live in a 2 story aluminum clad house in West Barrhaven near SEAS school. I started playing with this about 6 weeks ago. Today I have 15 high quality digital channels from an attic SBGH setup.


My tvfool at 20 feet is
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d13491120e8c632


First I tried an unamplified uhf/vhf rabbit ear from The Source. Placed in a 2nd floor bedroom, near a window facing Camp Fortune, I was able to pick up about 5 digital channels. I moved this antenna to the attic and the channel count increased to 13 (including CBC, CJOH, CHRO, Global*2, CHCH, CITY, TVO, OMNI1, OMNI2, CTH and 2 French). This is with 10ft of coax and the TV located below the attic hatch. I ran 50 ft of cable to the basement through a cold air return. With the TV now in the basement, I lost all but CJOH. I had a 20 year old 4-port distribution amplifier (Archer brand) that I placed at the end of this 50ft cable, and got all the channels back. Removed a 2nd floor TV cable from the Rogers splitter and attached it to the Archer dist amp and the upstairs bedroom still has the 13 channels (this probably added 40ft of cable). This setup's picture quality was stable for 3 weeks, but I did see heavy pixelation on some channels during heavy rain storms.

After 3 weeks, I built this antenna (without the reflector) and put it in place of the rabbit ear in the attic.

http://www.diytvantennas.com/sbgh.html

It looks just like the photo at the top of this web page

http://lowtek.ca/roo/2011/diy-hdtv-antenn/

I got the coax to twin lead transformer at 'The Source" in Barrhaven $4.95. The wire is 12 gauge used for hanging drop ceiling rails; $10 at home depot (came in a bag, about 50 feet, silver in color).


With this SBGH antenna and the Archer distribution amp removed, I got 8-9 channels in the basement (compared to 1 above). With the Archer amp added back in, I am getting 15 digital channels in the upstairs bedroom (add 2 more French channels to above list). The conclusion I drew from removing the Archer amp is that this SBGH antenna is better at picking up signal than the rabbit ear.

Last weekend, I added a 2nd TV to the Archer and it worked well for about 10 minutes when I either lost most ch or had pixelation on most/all. This occurred on both TV sets. I replaced the Archer amplifier with one that Rogers had left behind ( Antronix MRA1-15) and got all my channels back.

Last nigh at midnight (~16C in middle of hot weekend) I re-scanned and found 21 digital ch. The new were all PBS in 2 groups of 3 (16-1,2,3 WPBS and 18-1,2,3 WNPI). The 18 group was perfect whereas the 16 group had heavy pixelation and were not watchable. In the morning, the 6 PBS ch were gone.

This success with PBX has encouraged me to see what can be done to reliably pull in these American stations. Currently, my SBGH without reflector is pointed at Camp Fortune.


My questions are:

1) About the amplifiers. Clearly, I need some sort of amplifier to overcome the length of the cable run and splitters. What happened to the Archer? What is that Antronix ? Are these appropriate for my setup? What about a preamp? How is that different from what I have? I see lots of postings with Channel Master 7777; would this be too strong for all my local channels?

2) Is anybody in Ottawa reliably getting PBS with an attic antenna? If so, what antenna/amp are they using?

3) Was my midnight reception of PBS a fluke?


Thank you for your help. Everything I know came through reading these forums.

I'm in Nepean (Craig Henry) and still getting 20 channels on the system I wrote about some time back including now pretty reliable WPBS (channels 18-1, 2 & 3) and often-times Fox/CBS (28-1 & 2). (see: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1399813&postcount=873).

I recently replaced the CM4221 with a CM4228 on the sixteen foot wooden pole (a slight improvement in daytime reception of WPBS) and will be replacing the old RG-59 coax and screw-on connectors with new RG-6 and weather-resistant compression connectors. A proper ground rod and static block will go in as well. But overall, for the last six months it's been pretty good and, with Netflix filling out our "real" entertainment, we don't miss Rogers one bit.

Still haven't moved the antenna to a more permanent location but I'm again looking at options, including chimney mount.

if you look at my TV Fool data, the Fortune Tower (10) & HC (79) are only 70 degrees apart
could i point @45 degrees and pick up both on the edge of the pattern?
i was looking at the pattern for a 4228 and it has minor lobes at just about the right angles, altho i am having trouble interpreting the data
i take it the antenna is at the centre of the circles (no distance is given for the circles, just dB loss), but the dB's reduce as it approaches the centre - i thought it would be the other way around?

mark

OK i found how to read the plots

the 4221 might be a better choice
if i'm stuck in the 0-90 quadrant, not much chance of getting any US stations anyway and it has a wider pattern

mark

I have a good front-back location (Greenbank/Hunt Club) for CF and HC, and the US stations are in line with HC. The 4221 did pretty well; I recently replaced it with a 4228 with a view to improving the US stations, at least a bit. (Ref my post at http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1422602&postcount=914 and the link to my earlier post. TV Fool data http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d0b861322fa7877 )

But sometime around the antenna change earlier last week, we noticed problems with CBC Ottawa, (4-1). Whereas it was usually quite solid, now there's often signs of loss of signal -- short audio pauses, video "hesitation" and sometimes (rare) the appearance of a few black blocks.

The symptoms are most apparent when we're using our HD DTA1030 converter in the line from the antenna to a VHS VCR for recording (while we are watching through the VCR to the TV). The HD's signal level meter also shows wide swings in signal strength, consistent with what we experience on the screen.

However, the signal level meter on our Samsung flat-screen TV (when connected to the antenna directly) shows CBC up at 98/100 or more, and steady'

I've compared signals, for all the other channels coming out of CF -- they're all very strong. For example, 6-1 (Gbl) is solid at 100 (max) on both signal level meters, as is 13-1 (CTV), 24-1 (TVO) etc, some of which TV Fool says are much lower power. (CBC at 165 kW versus Global at 3.3 kW, and CTV at 19 kW).

I could appreciate that the HD converter might have a weaker front end, and therefore magnifies any variations due to signal path etc. However, I would expect the same for the other channels, especially the ones close to CBC (real at channel 25). Yet that isn't the case.

It's possible that the HD converter is weak on that one channel, but that would be odd.

Similarly, I thought perhaps the 4228 pattern, with better forward directivity, could be the cause, but again, why not the other channels, including 6-1, which is a relatively weak station, and not in the design range of the antenna?

This led me to wonder if the 4-1 is not as powerful as TV Fool is indicating and perhaps recently reduced power in some significant way.

Has anyone else experienced a change in reception of 4-1 recently, and/or know if CBC's power or signal pattern was altered in the last few weeks?

...short audio pauses, video "hesitation" and sometimes (rare) the appearance of a few black blocks.

You have just described the symptoms of signal overload perfectly.

The problem shows itself most often in the 1030 box because it has the oldest and poorest chip set and therefore is less able to resist overload.

The change of reception and the change of antenna are a little too coincidental for another explanation such as CBC changing its transmitter, but it is worth asking. I don't think anything has changed.

I can't explain why certain channels experience overload when one would expect a different channel(s) to show it first, but that's how it happens for me, too.

I tried an attenuator in the cable without any improvement. However, while doing so I found that the compression connector on the RG-6 quad coax coming into the house was flaky, so I replaced it. (The cable, which came with the connectors installed, was added at the time of the changeover to the 4228, so that might well explain the coincidence.)

I haven't been able to monitor the signal strengths over a longer period, but it appears that the signal drop-outs have either disappeared or are far less. On the 1030 signal meter, the signal still varies up and down in the middle "normal" and upper "good" ranges, but that's okay. I also re-checked some other CF sources such as CBOFT, and they too were varying, although it seemed a lot less.

The varying signal might be because I'm working off the back of the 4228 for CF stations, and while it should be virtually LOS, there are tall trees not too far away that could be causing the apparent instability.

As long as the signal doesn't drop out (into the lower red area on the 1030 signal strength meter) as it was doing earlier I'm happy.

Hi everyone! I just moved to Ottawa from Montreal, living in the squeaky new section of Barrhaven across the Jock River.

I'm by no means an expert at OTA, but in Montreal, with a cheapo outdoor antenna mounted on my balcony, I was able to pull in all the local Canadian digital channels plus WCAX, WPTZ, Plattsburgh PBS, Vermont PBS and all the associated sub-channels.

We've just moved in, so I kludged together a potentially lethal indoor setup with my outdoor antenna and a magazine rack (don't ask). I'm able to pull in some of the local Ottawa and Gatineau stations, but not CJOH nor any U.S. channels. I was hoping that mounting the antenna on my second floor deck would improve reception and at least let me pull in PBS, but my TV Fool profile does not fill me with confidence: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d13491ba0d8470e

Do you think my results would improve sufficiently to make it worth mounting the antenna and stringing coax everywhere? Would a better antenna and/or a pre-amp change anything? Roof-mounting and towers are not an option for me, I should add, and after a big move I've got to minimize expenses for a few months, at least.

Thanks for listening!