Yep, its Global in Bancroft then.

The reception continues. Here are some decent pictures from WTEN, Albany, NY and WETM from Elmira, New York, as of yesterday.

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q299/PrinceLH22/100_0157.jpg

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q299/PrinceLH22/100_0155.jpg

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q299/PrinceLH22/100_0152.jpg

The reception continues. Here are some decent pictures from WTEN, Albany, NY and WETM from Elmira, New York, as of yesterday.


Nice catches there Prince! I'd love to log those too but here in Mississauga 18 is used by CHCH and 26 is used by a religious station across the lake so no such luck for me.

Just after 12 Monday morning, I got WKTV Utica for the first time, & WWTI Watertown for the first time.

A little while later, I was surprised to see WWNY Watertown come in too. This is on RF 7, being received on the back side of a 4221 - no reception when antenna facing Watertown 'properly'.

I have read up on tropo enhancement, but I dont understand why one minute I have a solid 100% signal quality/strength (on the meter) and the next it can be zero, with no picture, and this over weeks. As I said, it seems to vary with no pattern. If its not tropo, can local intrerference cause this much variability?Hi Balm,

The reason why you experience tropo issues is due to the way that the signal is received.

Tropo depends on a high pressure system being over your area with a clear sky.

Solar winds plays a part in tropo reception.

The jet stream blows west to east in a perfect world with no high or low pressure systems across the United States.

Solar wind blows East to West due to the fact that the earth revolves around the sun in a clock wise motion.

A high or low pressure system act's like a duct or a pipe and carries signals miles beyond it's normal reception range.

If you understand the theory's of reception, you understand that reception is dependant on three things. As with a beam of light, it works on the theory of Reflection, Refraction and absorption and diffraction.

If the wave misses your antenna and bounces off a object and comes back to earth in a different point than the origional source that would be reflection.

You can have a good signal and something behind your antenna that reflects the signal and all of a sudden have a poor signal, due to the fact that there are multiple signals reaching your antenna at the same time.

Refraction - snells law, says that as light bends, it will look as if it was straight even when it is bent due to the fact that it's speed changes as it is being bent. If you built a tower out in the middle of lake Erie 4000 ft tall and you stood on the shore 40 miles away, you could see the light at the top of the tower, even though the light and the tower is beyond the normal range or view - natural horizon which might only be 26 miles from edge to edge.

The reason for that would be that the light bends around the earth and makes it appear as being closer, even though it isn't.

Diffraction - occurs when there is something between the object and you and the light - signal bends around the object so you can see it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction

As the atmosphere changes, as the earth heats up and cools off at a different rate than the atmosphere, the signals that are bouncing off the atmosphere are bending and contorting at a different rate. That causes your signal to flutter or modulate.

As with a beam of light, sooner or later it stops reflecting off the atmosphere and goes out into space. Due to the fact that all UHF reception is line of sight. Anything beyond line of sight is either 1 or 2 edge or tropo reception.

During the summer months when there is more of a chance of a high pressure system, you have more of a chance of receiving tropo signals.

During the winter months when it is very cold on the ground and the atmosphere is cold, you have less of a chance of tropo reception.

Tropo works best early in the morning between the hours of say 7 - 8 am and 11 am and again in the early evening hours between the hours of 6 - 7 pm and 11 pm.

Once the ground cools off and the temperatures equalize, the only way you get tropo reception is when you get a reflection due to fog or rain scattering the signal and allowing it to bounce off the heavy moisture laden atmosphere.

The same thing can happen in the middle of the day if the rain is light enough to not block the television signals.

From my home in Ajax, with my antenna pointing more or less toward Buffalo.

Tonight, 8/19/09, for the first time ever, I recieved stations from Utica (NBC - WKTV) Which unforunately overwrote WGRZ in my TV which cant handle duplicate PSIPS numbers. I also recieved WYSR which looks to be from Syracuse NY. (Yes, I have pictures !)

Driving directions on Google say 319miles, of course thats driving around the lake, so the distance is consideralby less, but still,in a straight line, its probably a couple hundred miles / 320k from Ajax.

No, not a winner, but interesting none the less.

The Rochester network affiliates and PBS also came in, that's really not that unusual in summer, although I receieved a Rochester Version of TCT/Religious channel for the first time. Their PSIP says RocheRster.

One time last year, I recieved a station out of Cleveland, but never saw that again since. (I think it was CBS affiliate, and from was digital, but not in HD) it didnt stick around long enough for me to take a picture.

Ajax to Syracuse is just over 150 miles strightline. But Utica is just under 200 miles so good pulls for sure.

I had a better night as well pulling in WSYR very strongly. Also pulled in WSYT Syracuse for the first time ever. It was very stong but didn't last too long. Long enough to get a picture of it.

I am pretty sure I was on the verge of getting WSKG Binghamton, NY but could never quite get it to lock. That would have been a record for me.

Checked my gear after last night's storm. Everything looks good from the ground, and reception is incredible right now. ION is booming in at 100% (usually mid 50's). WGRZ is ~ 90%. CFTO however is absent???

hope everyone is safe

Wednesday evening around 10 pm I ran a scan on my CM7000 converter box and it found WXXI and WROC. I'm in south Mississauga (Cawthra and Queensway) and get the expected Toronto and Buffalo stations normally, so I had to google those unfamiliar stations and realized I was picking up 2 from Rochester! Surprising for a homemade Hoverman positioned indoors that doesn't have reflector rods on it yet. Unfortunately they didn't come in strong enough to watch, but the CM7000 knew they were there.

Yeah, we're good here. My area of Mississauga got off lightly with only heavy rain and wind. My weather station recorded a 55 km/h gust. Lightning this time around was not nearly as impressive as the storm that rolled through August 9.

Now that it's daytime I can't even imagine what those in the Martin Grove/Highway 7 area of Vaughan are having to deal with.

Tonight, 8/19/09, for the first time ever, I recieved stations from Utica (NBC - WKTV) Which unforunately overwrote WGRZ in my TV which cant handle duplicate PSIPS numbers. I also recieved WYSR which looks to be from Syracuse NY. (Yes, I have pictures !)

I think it was on the Monday morning of the long weekend (Aug 3), I pulled in WKTV as well (plus a bunch of others). Normally my line up is 15 to 20 channels, but that morning I had 36 or 37.

I have the Centronics ZAT502HD and even though both WGRZ and WKTV are mapped to 2.x, I was able to view both. If I pressed 2 on my remote, I would get WKTV 2.1. Then, I pressed 'up', and it switch to WGRZ 2.1. Press up again and it switched to WKTV 2.2. Up again and it went to WGRZ 2.2. From what I remember there were only 2 subchannels for WKTV.

I also pulled in WXXI, WHAM, WHEC, WUHF and... that's all I can remember.

It was kind of neat but ultimately I was getting just more affiliates of the same networks. I had rescanned and I had all these channels but then when they were no longer available, it was kind of annoying to flip through several channels only to see 'No signal' so I rescanned after things had returned to 'normal'

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone is experiencing signal loss after the big storm especially these three. The Buffalo stations with the exception of NBC is OK.

I'm located near Islington and Rutherford.

Thanks.

The wicked storm that rolled through Mississauga a couple of days back. Lots of lightning etc. Ever since that storm I do not have reception. I have been trying to diagnose the potential issue from the TV Set's and Media Center on back... I connected a TV with an ATSC tuner that was not connected during the storm (not powered on or connected to the cable), there was still no signel. I was wondering if there was a lightning strike on the antenna even though it is grounded, could it have fried something on the antenna itself?

Thoughts or ideas?

Panson

Just the balun, really. Or the pre-amp, if it had one.

Might have melted a balun or something else plastic...? (only from a direct lightning strike, of course)

Unless you have an amp, then it's probably fried or needs resetting.

(lol, mlord posted at same time :p)

Does it have a preamp? If so, they or their power supply can get damaged by electrical storms. Other possibilities are the antenna moving and broken or damaged wiring.

I'm down 1/3 of my channels tonight, hope it gets better when the weather clears, if not, I'm back on my roof :P

Does it have a preamp? If so, they or their power supply can get damaged by electrical storms. Other possibilities are the antenna moving and broken or damaged wiring.
Amp is in the house about 50ft from the antenna, I disconnected it and went direct, still no luck so needs to be the antenna.

panson

I'm down 1/3 of my channels tonight, hope it gets better when the weather clears, if not, I'm back on my roof :P
Same :(

I was hoping for a good DX night so I could watch Doctor Who reruns on WXXI.
Instead.. I get this. :(

um panson just curious....
it wouldn't happen to be a Winegard HDP-269 pre amp would it?