autofreak: is your antenna mounted outdoors or inside your attic? My FOX signal strength is at 2 bars (20%) but it looks good most of the time. I lost the signal for a day or so but it started working again last night. I don't have any problems with PBS - it has been stable since I put the antenna into my attic.

I recently moved my antenna to the front (southern end) of the attic and the signal strength for NBC, ABC and Fox have increased by one bar. They no longer suffering from the pixelation problem I had before.

Yaamon - thanks for the tips.

Hi folks, looking for some advice

New to this whole world and just moved into a house that had an existing antenna tower set up with a rotor. Not sure of the models etc of the equipment but when I plugged it into my TV and moved the rotor to a sticker they had labeled with "3" I got a number of Toronto based stations. Mostly analog with the exception of CBC 5.1 and only it along with the A-Channel and CBC (5) come in clear. The rest are fuzzy.

Anyone have any experience or suggestions on how I can improve reception from my location?? I'm at the top of Hwy 48 on the southern tip of Lake Simcoe just south of Sibbald's Point Provincial Park. We don't have access to cable and I'm not sure I want to go the satellite route.

Your input or feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks!

ME

meng329, I think you may be too far to get anything other than CBC (5.1) and possibly CTV (9.1). Both are on the same tower, however CBC has more power than CTV.

From your location, all the HD channels are in the same direction.

Have a look at the cable

- make sure it's RG6 instead of RG59
- how long is the cable run?

I'll have to check the cable but I'm pretty sure it's fairly old. The run is about 50' to the tv I'd say but that's a guess.

Is there other hardware I could add that would improve the signal?

Thanks,

ME

meng329 - I'm pretty new to this stuff as well so I can't offer too much advice. There are others here who are much more knowledgeable and will probably respond within a day or two. While you wait for their response, try to find out what antenna is being used. If you're not sure, take a picture and post it here. What model TV is it connected to?

meng329, you are around 45 miles N. of Toronto and have a lot of high ground between you and the CN Tower. The Bloomington Side road is around 200' higher (around 1000') than your elevation which is under 800'.

meng329 Iam afraid that from your location the Buffalo stations are a no go.:(

Maybe with good cables(RG6) and a preamp you should be able to get sd and a few hd from Toronto.

Had a customer that lives In Keswick that tried a 4228 last spring and a 7775 preamp on top of his roof, he did manage to get most of the Toronto HD stations if I remember but nothing from Buffalo.

You should be able to easily get Ckvr from Barrie.

Unfortuantly, CKVR will not be broadcasting -DT anytime soon, as they are in an ownership limbo as CTV Globemedia tries to purchase CHUM...

I was wondering if the OTA pro's out there could give me some advice on my setup. There are some obvious problems with it, but I was curious to know if there are other things I haven't thought about.

Here goes! My setup:

1. CM4221 in the attic, mounted to a joist near the highest point in my roof. The highest part of the CM4221 is about 8 feet above the floor of the attic. Yup I know I should be mounting on the roof, but I have no choice... wife factor + near impossible roof design.

2. 35 feet of RG59 leading from the CM4221 to an RF "port" in the wall on the second floor. The port was built into the house from the builder.

3. 50 feet of RG6 leading from the RF "port" in the wall on the second floor to the basement

4. A female-female connector (is this the right terminology? It just connects two of my RG6's together)

5. Another 50 feet of RG6 leading from the basement where the connector is to an RF "port" in the family room

6. 7 feet of RG59 leading from the port in the family room to the TV's ATSC tuner

***

Just writing it out makes it seem like I have a lot of signal loss. Any advice? I know the obvious steps are to replace the RG59 with RG6, but what about an amplifier? Would that help given all the "ports"?

Thanks in advance!

strife350z,
yes you have lots of loss.
If your rf ports are multiple-outlets and have splitters behind them then you have even more. If it is a simple connector it is not much to worry about. It's not like your going to rewire your house.

UHF range is 470 to 806 Mhz

Coax Cable Signal (Attenuation) Loss per 100ft
Loss at |RG-59 | RG-6 | RG-11
1MHz |0.4dB |0.2dB |0.2dB
10MHz |1.4dB |0.6dB |0.4dB
50MHz |3.3dB |1.4dB |1.0dB
100MHz |4.9dB |2.0dB |1.6dB
200MHz |7.3dB |2.8dB |2.3dB
400MHz |11.2dB | 4.3dB |3.5dB
700MHz |16.9dB | 5.6dB |4.7dB
900MHz |20.1dB |6.0dB |5.4dB
1000MHZ |21.5dB| 6.1dB| 5.6dB

a pre-amp will help. check the OTA Signal Amplifiers, Preamplifiers, Distribution Amplifiers (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=42426) thread for info

good luck

strife350z, I agree that a preamp is a necessity in your case, and also make sure to yank out those RG59 sections and replace them with new RG6. As you can see in the numbers 99gecko posted, RG59 is a signal killer over such long distances. If you only do the preamp you're wasting a lot of time and effort without changing that RG59 cable too.

Thanks for your comments guys... really appreciated! will post my results once my setup is corrected.

Anybody knows about reception quality in that area? More precise location:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=10+Silver+Linden+Dr,+Richmond+Hill,+ON&ie=UTF8&z=15&om=1&iwloc=addr

My concern is: a lot of high-rise buildings along Yonge (Royal Orchard, North York, all the way toward downtown). Had anyone have an experience getting OTA signal in that area?

Thanks in advance.

Welcome pascarel,
If you have not had an opportunity to read through this thread, please do so. There are some others from Richmond Hill who have posted. As well, be sure to read through stampeder’s OTA Forum Knowledge Base & FAQ (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=41102), if you have not done so already.

I believe you are in the area just north of the new York Region Municpal Building/Courthouse. Is this correct?? That area has decent elevation. To get Buffalo stations your antenna will actually have to point more towards the Bayview & Steeles direction. If you use an antenna with decent sidelobe gain (ie CM4221), the CN Tower might come in okay from that orientation. With the CM4228 you might need a rotor.

I don't know about reception issues due to the downtown and North York buildings. From the 407, the CN tower does "seem to hide" behind them as you travel the Bathurst to Bayview corridor. Many of them were built after the CN tower was. However the CN Tower is tall for a reason - so that there is less prob from downtown buildings and for further propogation. You are quite far from the Royal Orchard condos in Thornhill, they shouldn't be a problem, especially since they are lower elevation.

As a reference, my wife's cousin actually lives in the older subdivision just W of Younge /N of Hwy 7 (almost due W of the Chapters/theatre etc), which I think is near you. His next door neighbour has an old UHF/VHF combo on a short tower, and gets analogue reception fine from CN tower and Buffalo - no idea about digital signals however. I can’t remember if he has a rotor/pre-amp.

I would be more concerned about what your immediate neighbourhood has in terms of blocking your signal. If you are in house, are you opposed to putting an outdoor antenna on the roof? If in an apartment, do you have southern exposure and how many floors up are you?

If you have a built in ATSC tuner in your TV already, it might be worth your effort to "borrow" a cheap antenna from circuitcity/thesource (they have a great return policy ;) ), and give your tuner a test run. If that works, a proper outdoor antenna should really cook!

99gecko, thanks for the reply. The location you have mentioned is correct. I just bought a house and moving there in two months. I was thinking of cancelling Rogers and trying OTA but it seems it might not work. I was there today and noticed that there are two condos (High Tech & Red Maple) just between my new place and the CN tower. As for Buffalo: most likely it also will be blocked by 3-storey towns (located ~200m away). Mine is just a 2-storey.

Anyway thanks.

:p Friends,

I'm at Bathurst and Bloomington Side Road. On Yaamon's advice, I'll be picking upa CM 4221 to mount in my attic. I know the attic isn't the best place but that's where it has to be.

Have run about 70' of cable from the attic directly to my family room tv.

Is there anyone near my area that has successfully received OTA HDTV? I at least want to know I have a chance before going out to pick up a STB from the states.

salc75 - I'm located at Woodbine & Major Mac (about 20 minutes South/East of you) and I have a CM 4221 currently installed in my attic as well. I get all the channels that are available in our area (look back a few pages in this thread to see the list of channels) except the following:

MyTV
CBS

The signal strength on NBC / Fox are pretty low (2 out of 10 bars) but watchable most of the time. Once the weather is better I will mount it on the roof (hoping to get CBS and increased signal strength).

Hi,
Newbie here, I know the attic installation isn't the best for the reception ,but the roof mount is too big a project for me. my house is facing south around 9th line /14th in markham. Just want to know if I could mount a cm4228/cm4221 in front of my house with the dish wall mount mast. I need to get the the cn tower and buffulo HD signal. Is this set up better than the mount in the attic? Do I need a rotor the capture those canadian and us HD signal?

Thanks in advance.

Vincent