Two Hoverman's should get what you want, but you would have to use Jed's Wide Band Hoverman design to get the higher frequency stations from Toronto...or just wait for the transition that's supposed to occur next yearI've looked extensively for "Jed's Wide Band Hoverman", but I'm not coming up with any successful search results. Could you be so kind and point me in the direction of this design.

Thanks!

Links to all the GH models are in here:

Introduction to the Gray-Hoverman TV Antenna (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=81982)

You could not find a better DIY antenna for what he recommended. :)

Hackzaw,

Are you in Waterdown or Dundas? The TVFool report you posted was for a location in Dundas so that would be significantly different than Waterdown. If you are in one of the higher areas of Waterdown you will have a distinct advantage over anyone in Dundas valley.

I have been experiencing quite a few days where I will lose certain channels. It seems that it is always the same ones for me here on Hamilton mountain.

CBLT, WUTV(x2), WGRZ(x3), CTS, and WNYO(x2) are the culprits. When one goes, all the others follow.

Nothing there for most of this past weekend with the weather we had, all were back agian and strong last night.

Anybody else in the Hamilton mountain area experience this?

Yes. All due to reverse tropo- just bad atmospheric conditions.

Some ways to overcome this- stacking antennas, better cabling, joiners/splitters, etc.

As goforit said, "bad atmospheric conditions" . Plus the past 2 weekends have been pretty bad in this area with the recent rise in temps causing the snow to melt and this created heavy/low overcast and foggy conditions.

I guess I've been pretty lucky overall with my attic setup. I didnt lose any channels during the last two weeks but I did get a few skips here and there. I am still not getting WUTV and ION but the rest are very strong.

Hackzaw,

Are you in Waterdown or Dundas? The TVFool report you posted was for a location in Dundas so that would be significantly different than Waterdown. If you are in one of the higher areas of Waterdown you will have a distinct advantage over anyone in Dundas valley.

I'm physically in Waterdown despite my mailing address and postal code being a Dundas address. I'm quite close to Clappison's Corners (obviously on the escarpment rather than the valley).

I would think my tvfool results are accurate for my location, because I put in my postal code, and from that you can locate the street I'm on.

hackzaw, use the Search This Thread tool to the upper right beside Thread Tools and put in Waterdown as your search term so you can see how others have done in your area. ;) You could try that with Dundas or with other terms too.

decarius: You should consider a UVSJ splitter (unless you already have) > your troubles with FOX 29 (RF 14.1) might be due to CKCO (13.0) and CHCH (11.0) causing trouble. Filtering these VHF signals might boost 14.1.

I was just talking about a UVSJ in my setup with Hackzaw. I will try that today actually. Where did you put the UVSJ in your setup? Before or after the Preamp? I assume it would make more sense before. If you put it before the preamp, would it be right before the splitter (combining the my two antennas) or do I need two UVSJs one for each of my antennas?

For my location, I put the UVSJ after the drop amp. But, I think you could try different placements and see what happens.

Is it possible that channel 19.1 CKXT-DT-2 (Sun TV) is interferring with the reception of my other digital signals, to the point of blocking them completely?
Just this past Sunday (Jan 24), I lost signal on all my main digital channels (2.1, 4.1, 5.1, 7.1, 11.1, 26.1, 66.1).
When I rescanned, I got about 24 analog channels, but only one digital channel - 19.1.
I looked the station up and found a Wikipedia entry for it, and it appears they have a transmitter in Hamilton and a translator in London.
I just found it rather odd that I was getting excellent reception on all those channels on Saturday night, then wake up Sunday morning to find they've all gone "no signal".

What would happen if you bypassed the 7777? It was pretty wet out on the weekend, could you have gotten some water damage that affected the pre-amp?

Not sure what the true RF is for that channel, but it shouldn't have taken out the RF from all those other digitals as that is a pretty wide band of frequencies:
2.1 - RF33
4.1 - RF39
5.1 - RF20
11.1 - RF18
26.1 - RF26
66.1 - RF66

RF 18 to 66.

That channel is most likely close to you and is powerful enough to be picked up regardless if a pre-amp is there or not...possible?

Hey Marbles.
I did try unplugging the power to the CM7777, and then I actually lost 19.1 too.
Didn't try to rescan all channels with the CM7777 unplugged though. I don't imagine I would get any digital signal lock if I did.
I'm located about 10 minutes west of Brantford, so Hamilton (11.1) would be my closest broadcast location.
The analogs come in pretty clear.
It wouldn't be the TV's internal ATSC tuner would it?

It wouldn't be the TV's internal ATSC tuner would it?

I'm not going to rule it out, as anything is possible, but I wouldn't think so unless some freak incident occurred. I'm still thinking it's the pre-amp for some reason, or one of your cables or connections are waterlogged, just because of how you described that you lost the channels on Saturday/Sunday...when it was raining pretty good out.

If you could get 11.1 without the pre-amp, I would concentrate on that channel and use it to troubleshoot your issue. Point the antenna at that channel, and verify that you can get it without the pre-amp (unless you've done that).

Thanks Marbles.
I think you're probably on the right track with the pre-amp being the issue.

Ham.Clan,

There were some extremely negative tropo effects over the weekend in some of our local areas, but they seem to have passed on now. So, if your still at a loss of all those channels, I would suggest checking the CM7777 power supply to see if it has died.

Note: When you unplugged your power supply, you are shutting down the power going to the mast preamp and the preamp may not pass anything at all down the cable to your TV. To effectively test without a preamp, you must run your downlead cable straight through to the antenna.

Thanks ota_canuck.
I'll play around with the things that I'm able to safely access, and leave the tower climbing to those more agile and lighter than myself.

Ham Clan:

If you are west of Brantford, you should try aiming your antenna south and see if you can pick up Erie PA- maybe start with 50.1 (which is 54.1 WQLN).