Hi,

I'm interested if anyone has had luck with reception in Centretown? My apartment window faces south west (line of sight obstructed by small trees), with a 4-story limestone building to the north west. I've tried rabbit ears, a couple different indoor antennas from The Source, and built one of those 8-bay coat hanger antennas. The home-made antenna works much better than all the others, but reception is pretty bad, only CBC (ch 4) is watchable. The problem is with ghosting and diagonal lines. I can improve the image by rotating the antenna for ch 13, 43, and 60 but they're on the verge of being watchable.

Wondering if there is anything else I should try? The Channel Master 4221HD is essentially the same thing I have going, except it has a reflector.

Thanks

Hi, you'll only get ghosting and diagonal lines on analogue TV signals. Do you have an ATSC tuner for getting the DTV stations?

I am assuming you are using a couple of baluns with the splitter combiner. If so, see what effect it does when you swap the phases of the one of the baluns i.e reverse the wires of the balun where it connects to the 4 bay bow tie

I swapped the balun and everything looks 100% better... almost crystal clear in some cases... however I lost PBS stations... Why would that be?

I changed the phase on one of the balun's and everything is crystal clear but no pbs... I switch it again and PBS is in but everything else is snowy?

Why?

I changed the phase on one of the balun's and everything is crystal clear but no pbs... I switch it again and PBS is in but everything else is snowy?

Why?

If the antenna isn't pointing directly at the station, there will be phase distiortion between the two side by side antennas. This is why 8 bay antennas are so much more directional than 4 bay antennas. If the distortion is more than 90 degrees (or less than -90 degrees) out of phase, reversing one of the baluns will fix the problem for that station, but will make things worse for the other stations.

Further discussion of this can be found in the thread Ganging Antennas: Effects on Reception Patterns (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=95148).

This is why 8 bay antennas are so much more directional than 4 bay antennas.[/URL].

Would this be the same if I vertically stack the antenna's?

Would this be the same if I vertically stack the antenna's?
Horizontally it would then be the same as a 4 bay, but vertically it would be even more directional, though that tends to not be as much of a problem.

I'm new to this site and to the OTA antennae approach to TV reception.
I've been looking for an alternative to pricey Satellite Television and been doing some investigation to line up an antennae that might do the job for me...
I'd pretty much decided that the Winegart MS2000 was worth a try especially with the 360 degree coverage that would eliminate pointing to sources and the Winegard seems to be highly recommended in the States...
Then I reviewed the recommendations on this site and I came away thinking the Delhi 935,6,7 was the best bet for my area... and I like the Made in Canada part...
I have a new Sony Bravia HDTV at the working end of things...
Am I missing something in my evaluation like mixing up the technologies Winegard vs Delhi somehow?
Will a rotor be required to get the best reception for a range of stations using the Delhi in the Ottawa area?
And from my wife.... can we receive CNN in the Ottawa area by OTA?
Thanks for the help
Regards
Doug

CNN stands for Cable News Network. So, no.

I live in the centretown area and use a DB8 (pointed South) and a GH8 (pointed North through a brick building) to get all of the analog and digital channels broadcast from HC and CF.

I am planning on getting a couple of low noise amplifiers as currently, the HC analog channels tend to come in the clear while the CF analog channels are fuzzy, which is simply due to the signal passing through the brick (I know as I previously had the DB8 set in a north facing window and was able to get most of the CF analog channels very clearly). Unfortunately, I do not have an outside facing position that does not involve passing through the brick wall, otherwise, I would use it to improve my reception.

With the low noise amplifiers, I am hoping that will improve the signals so all channels come in very clearly with no dropouts or fuzziness.

My db8 is also pointing south but at ground level (5 ft up) for testing . I have all the hd channels except 66 , the northern ones from Camp forutne just blast thru the back of the db8 - except cbc last nigh was flipflopping on and off.:confused:

I have 2 antennas. a db-8 and a 91xg , I'm testing them on old patio furniture in the back yard- looks like a scene from alien the space jockey , but my question------

I have 1 chimmney to mount them on , should I mount the antennas seperatley with a rotor on the 91xg? opposite ends of the chimmney , the db-8 ridgid

or should I mount them both 91xg and db8 on a single mast with the rotor and a thrust bearing ?
I'm going to have to somehow combine input from both antennas but thats later.

suggestions ? have others done this ?
thanks

some eyecandy Proposed Configuration ie the " neighbour killer "

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v493/twister55/antenna/antennaplanv1b.jpg

I live in the centretown area and use a DB8 (pointed South) and a GH8 (pointed North through a brick building) to get all of the analog and digital channels broadcast from HC and CF.

Do you get any of the PBS stations?
What do you use to combine your antenna's?

I have tried to set up a few of my friends in Centretown with antennas, but I can honestly say that it is one of the worst, most multipathed parts of the city for both HC and CF signals. The problem is that it is in a bit of a valley compared to south, and there are giant highrises that block the north, and worse - highrises with lots of mirror windows that scatter the signals completely out of phase (multipath).

In my experience, the best remedy for severe multipath is directional gain. Would I recommend to not go out and buy a pre-amp because of this? No - I think a pre-amp is still a good thing to have and will make a difference for channel 14 and up. And you would need to find that "perfect spot" in the apartment or on the balcony where the phase distortion is the least severe. So WHERE you put the antenna can be as important or more important than WHICH antenna you have - even a few feet can make a difference. If you have 50 feet of cable running to the antenna then you want the preamp for sure, even for strong signals, but only for the purpose of negating the effect of phase distorted ingress along the length of the coax.

GeoStar, thanks for making the diagram - just to clarify, what are the directions in degrees that each antenna is facing? cheers :)

from the top down view

I assumed that HC was going to be a bit to the left of center , the db-8 will capture that local anyway , as it will capture the more northern camp fortune from behind like it's doing at 5 ft altitude in my backyard test area . ( area 51 my wife calls it)

The offset will be plus a few degrees so that all the lobes on the 91xg clear HC , at least in my theory .... about 30 degrees locked with cotter pins in the mast from straight on ...

HC 170 degress
CF 310
PBS 150

so 170-150 = 20 + 10 degrees for lobe interference ? = 30 degree top offset ( yaw ) ( bottom right of the pic below)

I will use pbs 23 as the target and assume the rest will fall in line , as it does now
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v493/twister55/antenna/antennaplanv1f.jpg

Just a question about combining..

is it better to have two lines one from each antenna going to an a/b switch and select antennas ( is there a digital switch for that?) or can two dissimilar antennas as a db-8 and a 91xg be signal conjoined.

The advantage would be a strong signal on a single wire for a weak station on the tv tuner.

found this about vhf antennas

Thought I'd leave you in the dark about the proper wavelengths, not a chance. As this antenna is designed for channels 2-13, the proper cable length for each antenna lead in to that Winegard CC-7870 coupler is equal lengths plus or minus 1/8", measured at odd multiples of a quarter wavelength for the proper length.

What is the wavelength of a uhf antenna such as the db-8 and 91xg ?

GeoStar, your questions are answered in the OTA FAQ Post #16. :)

Do you get any of the PBS stations?
What do you use to combine your antenna's?

Unfortunately, I don't get any of the PBS stations. Occasionally, I am able to get some analog stations from out of town such as 8 and 10 but not usually (I believe those are repeaters from Pembroke).

At the moment, I simply use a dollar store splitter to combine the signals from the two antennas but am looking at either using a better splitter, a Winegard CC-7870 TV Antenna Coupler (after reading the splitters thread) or ideally running two separate lines (one for each antenna with the signals combined after being pre-amped). I plan on using 1-2 KitzTech coax powered pre-amps to ensure good signal strength as I currently have two splitters and over 100 feet of cable (75 ft to one antenna (DB8) and roughly 120 ft to the other (the GH8)).

Occasionally, I am able to get some analog stations from out of town such as 8 and 10 but not usually (I believe those are repeaters from Pembroke).


8 is CJOH from Cornwall. Not sure where your 10 is from. The nearest analog 10s are Montreal and North Bay.

Pembroke has 5, 11, 17, 23, 29, 47, which are the same as Ottawa 43, 9, 39 hawkesbury, 30, 24, 13.

8 is CJOH from Cornwall. Not sure where your 10 is from. The nearest analog 10s are Montreal and North Bay.

Pembroke has 5, 11, 17, 23, 29, 47, which are the same as Ottawa 43, 9, 39 hawkesbury, 30, 24, 13.
I just checked and unfortunately, all I received on 10 was audio but the last time I received video, it seemed to be a copy of CJOH on 13.

Listening to the audio, I noticed that it was simply an overlay of two FM radio stations, one being 97.9 FM.