i was looking at the forecasts for tonight/friday, http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html

and was curious to know if on a night like friday (see link above) if it would be possible to pull in digitals from places like Greenbay Wisconsin, or from little towns in northern michigan?

i'll have my rotor goin tonite. actually tonight looks like a good time to aim for syracuse, theres like 6 digital stations over there that i'll try for.

...if it would be possible to pull in digitals from places like Greenbay Wisconsin, or from little towns in northern michigan?Generally it seems that in Tropo and Ducting the more power a station has going in, the more it travels. Having said that, it is simply amazing what people have picked up over the years so I would not give a definite no... :)

whats going on with my reception this afternoon. The signal for WUTV and WNYO sucks.

Why is it that only my strong channels come through in this weather? I never found TV reception a problem via analogue antenna.

if this is whats its like every time it rains, WUTV and WNYO need to up their power or something to make their signal more reliable, because if not, digital has a HUGE weakness that analogue doesn't have.

I know - I'm having reception issues too. However I am using only an indoor antenna. However even when I had my outdoor roof antenna hooked up -I had issues w/ bad weather last fall and winter. The wind is my main issue! The tree in front of my house is the culprit- hindering line of sight. If the tree were to come down would my reception improve? Or is the rain/ bad weather just something you have to deal with sometime's similar to satellite?

thats what i was thinking actually. almost all the signals coming to my antenna are going through trees in my yard. When the leaves/branches are moving in the wind, does that screw up the signal by blocking paths...etc

I believe so. I may ask the city about taking the tree down at my house -it's on their property! Even with my rooftop antenna I believe some of the problem was the trees. I didn't have enought height. Those things are so tall sometimes it's hard to get over them!

whats going on with my reception this afternoon. The signal for WUTV and WNYO sucks.

You should expect signal problems in this weather. Only 49 is breaking up from here. BUT, my IPG on Star Choice was "No Data" this afternoon. Even satellite is affected.

Having said that, it is simply amazing what people have picked up over the years ... :)

http://www.oldtvguides.com/DXPhotos/

This guy’s site is truly amazing... I love it!

its great how I am testing out antenna locaitons right now, because therefore I have my preamped 4228 an an extendable pool cleaning pole, (that can go 15feet up) with 250feet of slack cable, and a nice tripod on wheels that i can move anywhere.

i have a completely open field behind my house, and brinigng my CM4228 out there, and raising it up 15feet, gives me a pretty much clear shot to anywhere between Detroit and Buffalo, pretty much the entire US.

tonight I had the high powered cleveland channels all in 100%

Hi Everyone!
This morning appeared to be a good morning for dxing, Here's what I was getting with attic install, cm4228

Snapshot at October 9 2006 @ 6:30am

Analog Ch 8 - WROC CBS Rocehster, NY (fuzzy)
Analog Ch 10 - WHEC NBC Rochester, NY (clear)
Analog Ch 13 - WHAM ABC Rochester, NY (clear with lines)
Digital Ch 16 - WXXI PBS Rochester, NY (90% - psip 21-1)
Analog Ch 17 - WNED PBS Buffalo, ON (weak)
Analog Ch 19 - CICA TVO Toronto, ON (weak)
Analog Ch 24 - WCNY PBS Syracuse, NY (weak - overtaking Digital 24)
Digital Ch 24 - CBLTF RadioCanada Toronto, ON (25% - Not working)
Digital Ch 28 - WUHF FOX Rochester, NY (60% - psip 31-1)
Analog Ch 31 - WUHF FOX Rochester, NY (Clear)
Digital Ch 32 - WNLO CW Buffalo, NY (25% - Not working)
Analog Ch 35 - WSEE CBS Erie, PA (Clear)
Analog Ch 42 - W42CO TCT Rochester, NY (weak)
Digital Ch 45 - WROC CBS Rochesterm NY (75% - psip 8-1)
Analog Ch 47 - CFMT OMNI Toronto (weak)
Digital Ch 54 - WSTM NBC Rochester, NY (70% - psip 3-1)
Digital Ch 58 - WHEC NBC Rochester, NY (50% - psip 10-1)
Analog Ch 68 - WSYT FOX Syracuse, NY (clear)

That took a while to type up :)
I left out most local stations working normally.

Edit: Oh, and antenna was always aimed same direction between toronto and buffalo.

Wow I should have been looking too.. I have a roof antenna, amp and rotor...
and I'm at Winston Churchill & Britannia too!

Yesterday I setup my Look-dish-married-to-cheesy-ebay-antenna in attic & got only three channels. CFTO, CBC & Intermitant SunTV. today, no CFTO & I am getting bunch of channels from Buffallo ( No PBS though ). Tropo map @ dxinfocenter website shows tropo activity over buffallo area ( I think ), but nothing over Ontario. So while reading the map, do we need to look at tropo activity over transmition point? or reception point?

--Rajiv

The Tropo maps give you an idea of how your local reception will be affected. If it happens that an area far away is connected to your area by a stretch of the same range of tropospheric activity than that's even better! :)

Yesterday I setup my Look-dish-married-to-cheesy-ebay-antenna in attic --Rajiv

Look dishes are useless for OTA aren't they unless just using the Look dish to reflect signal to the antenna?:confused:

Yup, Look dishes are useless for receiving OTA TV, but he's using his as a stand to support his other antenna. I had to reread his post because I thought he was saying that too.

Actually, I am doing better than that. I removed look dish from it's J mount on my roof. removed the boom mounted in the center. This boom actually is hollow & contains calamp downconverter+amp for freq range that look operates on. Then I disassembled my AV-891 antenna & took out plastic enclosure that contains tiny PCB with two aluminium wire rectangles ( I guess they do qualify as diapoles.. right? ) & mounted that on a wooden stick. right now I am trying to figure out by trial & error & lots of use of my FRS radios, correct distance between base of the dish & tip of the wooden stick so that I can maximize my reception. I know, this sounds bit crazy/complicated/insane/whatever, but I have right now reliable signal on bunch of toronto channels. I will post pictures in DYI antenna thread as soon as I can get back up in attic. Still on to-do list is to see if I can add bunch of director elements on the wooden stick to improve reception & directionality.
Still trying to figure out which freq I should use to calculate length/spacing of director elements

--Rajiv

I've found that compared to one month ago, it seems the strength of my reception has dropped about 5% from what it used to be.

i always get annoyed by this and the fact that i feel it could be something within my setup, and then therefore i'm not getting the maximum signal out of my system. So i want to clear this up, and find out if it is normal for reception to dip a bit during this time of the year.

will if find that by as spring comes again, my reception will bump back up about 5% on most channels like it's been the past summer?

thanks, just wanted to clear this up.

All things being equal, the temperature of your antenna shouldn't make much of a difference. Where things get different is with snow or frost buildup, harsh winter weather patterns, the fact that most deciduous trees lose their leaves, and oddities in areas such as yours from the lakes freezing over. Of course the colder weather means almost no tropospheric phenomena too. Generally though there shouldn't be a noticeable difference.

I would agree with what stampeder says. On clear dry days being hot or cold the temp should not make any real differences to signal strength reception.

My guess it’s normal for tv signal strength to fluctuate and 5% is more than acceptable level dure to weather conditions.

What affects the signal reception is heavy moisture in the air that can come a foggy night or heavy rain.

Moisture tends to absorb the signal.

i'm not finding that my signals have just gone down 5% on a certain night.

i kinda had 'normal' signal %'s for each station, once I had my antenna system working for a few months, and I knew what each station should regularely be at.

Now, and changing over the last month, I'm finding all stations that weren't already at 100%, to have gone down 5%. Ie City-HD used to be a solid 45% all the time, jumping to 41% - 48%

now city-dt is usually around 39% going down to 36% and up to about 43%

its the same for most channels. bugs me because i don't know what caused it.