If someone in Ottawa is running TSreader it would be nice to get a dump of both OMNI channels' PSIP data to look at.

I went out and bought a CM 4221d thinking that if the Shotgun could pick up these signals I should be able to get them all well with the CM. I roof mounted the 4221 at about the same height as the Shotgun but currently am getting only 4,9, 18 and 20. No sign of chn 7 at all. This weekend I installed a CM pre-amp on the 4221 with no result except that chn 50 analog appeared with a very good signal.

The CM4221 is a UHF only antenna and WWNY (Channel 7) is on VHF so you will need a different antenna to receive it. CBOT-DT and CBOFT-DT (what you call 4 and 9) are actually broadcasting on 25 and 22 for now (CBOFT-DT will revert to 9 in 2011) so they are on UHF.

WWNY is quite a tease for me, 6 nights a week, it is just below my receiver threshold, teasing me, then wham, perfect FOX and CBS at least one or two nights a week. I am using a channel master 4242, pointed directly at Watertown, 32 feet up, 7777 pre-amp, and 75' quad cable feed. I wish there was something more I could do to tweak it a couple of percent for reliable reception. Any suggestions??

Omni 2 only works consistently if I point my second antenna (cheap 4221 clone, 28 feet up, cheap RCA pre-amp, and 75' compscope cable feed) directly at Herberts Corner. It is a battle compared with Omni1 on the same tower (and same power?). Really shouldnt be like this, being only 15 miles away.

Global 6 (analog) is also disappointing and hard to receive unless I point my big 4242 directly at Camp Fortune, very annoying as I am only 20 miles away.

I am so envious of Toronto, Kingston and Montreal.

backpackster, how are you switching/combining the 4242 and 4221? Using a broadband signal combiner will cause reflections resulting in 3.5 t 4 dB of signal loss, which could affect your reception of WWNY. The only other thing I could suggest is to get a cut channel yagi (such as the Wade/Delhi 10Y7S (http://www.wade-antenna.com/Wade/cutchannel.pdf)) and use a single channel signal injector (for channel 7) such as a Channel Master Jointenna.

Like roger said, if you really want WWNY, your best bet is a single channel yagi. The Wade/Delhi 10Y7S has a gain of 10 dBd and Blonder Tongue makes one with a gain of 11dBd. If you really want to go nuts you could get the Wade/Delhi VIP-307SR which is a VHF-Hi antenna with a gain of 13dBd. Could you give us your approximate location since I haven't heard of too many people in the Ottawa area which are even able to get a lock on WWNY period.

As for Omni 2, many people are having a hard time with it since it is so high in the UHF range. The problem could be your "cheap" 4221 clone antenna, or your "cheap" pre-amp, or your "compscope" cable. If your cable is RG-59, that could be the problem. The higher the UHF frequency the more loss you get.

Global CH-6 is also a pain in the $%# for many people. A "small" single channel yagi would probably probably do the trick (5Y6S).

To combine all these antennas I'd recommend a channel combiner from Tin Lee. They can create a custom combiner for you.

Although possible, this solution is complex and expensive. It all depends on how serious you want to get. Also remember that the antennas must be a full wavelength apart from one another.

Mmm.. these {Omni 1/2 DT} do sound troublesome.

The last time I scanned for them, my TV found both of them, but the Myth box didn't like something about their data streams.

I'm hoping to put up another SBGH8.r2 later today/tomorrow, pointed right at Herbert Corners (from Bells Corners).
Well, the Omni's are indeed quite weak. I think 27 is higher power than 66, but neither is an easy catch, amplified or otherwise. The GH8 (no amp) pulls them in, but my tuners really want an amp to boost the weak signal strength for them.

It does not appear to be a case of signal overload from cochannels, but rather they're simply not strong enough to compete with their owner's cableTV service. ;)

For now, I'm leaving them out of the MythTV channel rotation, prefering the (crystal clear) analog versions instead. I may simply wait until 2011 for them to move to final channel assignments and power-levels.

Cheers

With my cheesy yet functional SBGH 10 (sse my gallery), I have had a steady 70 - 90% on OMNI 1 (27.1) & 30 - 45% on OMNI 2 (66.1) for 3 weeks now.

Yeah, well I can get those signal levels from any of the antennas here. But generally, I shoot for 100% on everything. :)

Cheers

Roger1818/Muus: Not sure if the Wade/Delhi 10Y7S would get me anything as technically it seems my 4242 is close to 11db on channel 7.
http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/comparing.html
The 13db of the Wade/Delhi VIP-307SR would be an improvement - however probably a lot of money for a 1.5db!!!

My location is about 3km SE from Innes & 10th line
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3dc0d5ba45af90db

I am not combining the signals just running them separate, ultimately I plan to get a second eyetev or a homerun (dual tuners). When I tried combining the signals all ottawa digital signals still worked, however WWNY and the PBS's decreased. A manual switch even seemed to have some leakage, so for now I manually just swap with a coupler.

As for Omni2, my cheap clone seems to work very well above channel 50, the compscope cable is a good quality sheilded RG6. The RCA pre-amp is crappy and has lots of noise compared to my 7777, but realistically it seems overkill for a station 15 miles away. It just emphasizes Omni2's signal strength issues. This same setup has no problem with all other local digital (and WCFE and WNPI!).

I think mlord nailed it when he said about Omni2
"It does not appear to be a case of signal overload from cochannels, but rather they're simply not strong enough to compete with their owner's cableTV service."

I agree a dedicated wade for Global ch 6 is a good idea, looking at the yearly cost of rogers I would consider it. Depending on the cost of a wade single channel antenna I may just wait for the digital global - if it ever comes.

mlord, you say you prefer to view the analogue versions of Omni instead of the weaker digital signals. What kind of TV are you watching them on? If you have any type of widescreen HDTV the picture quality is night and day. As soon as I could receive Omni 1 digital, I deleted the analogue channel and I wouldn't go back. You don't need 100% signal strength to get a "perfect" digital image. (most TV's need between 40-50% to get a good lock)

Roger1818/Muus: Not sure if the Wade/Delhi 10Y7S would get me anything as technically it seems my 4242 is close to 11db on channel 7.
http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/comparing.html


I don't see the 4242 on the VHF plots. Does it have the same VHF elements as the 3671-B? If so, then you are correct.

mlord, you say you prefer to view the analogue versions of Omni instead of the weaker digital signals..
For now, at least. See, we don't watch live TV here. Instead, we watch recordings that our MythTV PVR captures for us. And the stats from the MythTV box tell the story: almost nothing recorded from either Omni over the past 12 months.

So digital clarity there is not terribly important, given that the analog signals we get are very clear/crisp.

But when we do schedule a recording on the PVR, the hope is that it will succeed 99.9% of the time. With a weak digital signal, there's just not enough margin for variable weather to guarantee that. Couple this with the unreliability typically associated with DTV while the analog originals are still on the air (Eg. CBC-HD seems to always go "off the air" for at least one playoff game each spring, including this year), and it's just too much fuss and potential frustration for insignificant viewing gain.

But that decision really depends upon one's viewing habits, and yours and others will differ from ours here. :)

Cheers

Thanks Roger, what kind of antenna can you suggest for VHF, I figure if the old (25 years) Home Hardware "Shogun" can pick up chn 7 Watertown (not consistantly)any good vhf antenna should do it? I can turn the 4221 around to the north east and pick up the Ottawa HD broadcasts so nothing will be lost. Where can I go to find all the Ottawa stations currently in HD, I'm getting 4, 9 and 20 only?
Thanks
Jack

Roger: The channel master 4242 is antenna G on the antenna comparison chart.

Strange reception tonight. Watertown WWNY-DT is half the signal as normal, however I am getting analog CBS-5 WTVH Syracuse and analog NBC-3 WSTM Syracuse very clear. The Yankees game is on NBC. Unfortunately reception of their digital signal, although broadcast with much more power, appears to be impossible.

Has anyone in Ottawa ever received any digital stations from Syracuse/Utica?

Backpacker: You are incorrectly reading the chart. On the left is dBi and on the right is dBd. Furthermore, that chart is for UHF, not VHF. As there is a large gap between UHF channels and VHF channels, you really can't rely on this chart to extrapolate to channel 7 gain. From a table found @ Solid Signal, it gives a gain of 10 dB for VHF Hi. They don't indicate if this is dBi or dBd but I'm pretty sure it is for dBi. (which gives less than 8 dBd and probably even less since channel 7 is the lowest channel on the VHF-Hi range)

http://www.solidsignal.com/channelmaster_antenna_chart.asp

Roger: The channel master 4242 is antenna G on the antenna comparison chart.

Strange reception tonight. Watertown WWNY-DT is half the signal as normal, however I am getting analog CBS-5 WTVH Syracuse and analog NBC-3 WSTM Syracuse very clear. The Yankees game is on NBC. Unfortunately reception of their digital signal, although broadcast with much more power, appears to be impossible.

Has anyone in Ottawa ever received any digital stations from Syracuse/Utica?
Got it the other day @ 50% for about 1/2 hour.

Yeah, well I can get those signal levels from any of the antennas here. But generally, I shoot for 100% on everything. :)

Cheers
showoff...great setup on your roof...and I'm still upset at myself for missing your antenna build party a couple of weekends ago. next time for sure.

cheers,
rajugsw

uptowntrain: For a list of recommended antennas, see: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=97121

As for a list of stations in the Ottawa area, see: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=95758

The list hasn't been updated for some time so you can pretty much forget about the analogue stations from south of the border since some have already stopped broadcasting and the rest will stop on June 12th. As for the digital channels, Omni 1 on 27.1 and Omni 2 on 66.1 are missing. If you noticed the posts in this thread, many are having problems receiving Omni 2 (66.1) myself included.

last night I did the first scan since installing a CM 7777 on my 4221 and found 14 signals, the most ever.
chn 4 (25)
chn 9 (22)
chn 16 (41) 1 2 3
chn 18 (23) 1 2 3
chn 20 1 2
chn 27 ??
chn 50 (50) 1 2
chn 63 ?? 3

All of these signals are still on this am but 50 is breaking up a little and 66 also. I wonder if the cloudy wet weather is a factor?

This is with a 4221 pointed south towards Watertown, I'm thinking I may need an antenna dedicated to a single vhf chn to get chn 7 Watertown reliably? Anybody got any thoughts on that?
Jack Leonard
Franktown

chn 50 (50) 1 2

WWTI ABC/CW Watetown is on physical channel 21.

I'm thinking I may need an antenna dedicated to a single vhf chn to get chn 7 Watertown reliably?

Probably.