How's your reception of ION. I'm in the town of Stouffville, east of you and I get it consistently all year round with nothing more than an attic setup pointed in that direction.

What channel number is that - 51.1? I'll check.

It's on RF23 Virtual channel 51.1

Tried it last night - nothing there. I will change my answers from "I get everything" to "I get almost everything"! :^)

Thanks everybody for the quick responses. I do believe it is most likely weather related. Like I said, I have not had any problems on any of my channels until this past Thursday/Friday night.

Here is my set up:

- I am @ around the Major Mackenzie/Islington area (Vaughan):
- Antenna (DB8), placed in the Attic Aprox 35-40 feet from ground level.
- Antenna feeds 2 TVs - TV1 Panasonic in Master bedroom & TV2 Pioneer KURO in Living Room.
- I ran 16' of RG6 directly from Antenna to TV1 in Master Bedroom (2nd flr) .
- Just before connecting to TV1, the cable is split. I used a channel master 3412 distribution amp splitter.
- From the splitter, cable runs 1' to (TV1bedrom) & from splitter 60' to (TV2 Living room).
- Pointed south East as best as I could (As per TV FOOL) recommendations.

UPDATE: I checked 2-1 & 4-1 last night and this morning. Last night 4-1 was solid again and 2-1 was in/out. This morning both channels were back to normal, signal strength back in the 80's & 90's. :)
Whatever weather/any other anomaly, that occurred theses last few days I hope its gone!

Thanks

Paul

Paulo, I've had the same experience with WIVB. Was rock solid until last week when it disappeared. Was coming in strong this morning here as well, but just disappeared again. I'm in the Yonge/Finch area. Not too concerned since much of its programming seems to appear on CTV, but it's annoying nonetheless.

Thanks Schmerpy, I am glad I wasn't the only one here experiencing this, for a while I thought it was my antenna/cable/splitter that was the problem.
I don't know your set up, but you are about 10-15KM (LOS) closer to those two towers than I am, but as we know there are other factors invoved in good reception.

Thanks for sharing that, BTW was channel 4-1 ok for you today or yesterday? It was solid last night for me and this morning as well, I checked it before I left for the office!!

PS Yes, you are correct... CTV and even CityTV carry a majority of NBC's prime time stuff.

Thanks

Paul

4.1 was solid for me this morning, but disappeared by noon. Last night it was gone. But, I have been fine-tuning my attic antenna position since I've only had it for two weeks or so. 4.1 was never a problem, but now seems to have become the biggest challenge in my channel lineup.

The weird thing is, when it appears, it's a strong signal (stronger than some of my other stations). Then, POOF, goes from 75% strength to 0%.

Exactly Schmerpy.....I get 2-1 & 4-1 in the 80's & 90's % according to my TV meter and its been that way for well over 2 months. Then, all of a sudden, down to low 40's & 30's and that's when I start to loose them. Again, its only been for the last 3-4 days.

I will check tonight again & post back tomorrow.

Paul

I think what you guys are experiencing has mostly to do with the effects of seasonal changes in the magnetic field. You may have been enjoying mild tropo effects during the summer months. You may need to adjust your antenna aim slightly to compensate for the seasonal changes. I have found that I have an ultimate winter aim and an ultimate summer [about -5° offset during summer months]

Hmmm....let me know what you find, Paulo.

I'm getting tired of crawling up into my attic. My reception is great now, except for 4-1.

UPDATE: 4-1 popped back into view tonight (about 9:00 PM now), but is breaking up somewhat.

If you guys are in Kleinburg, you shouldn't even be getting 2.1 except rarely via tropo.

WIVB 4.1 possibly, but only with an outdoor antenna, otherwise only tropo.


This report is for the Kleinburg area using a 30ft tower/antenna:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d81a33f54753518

I'm getting tired of crawling up into my attic.


Thinkin i'd have to agree with OTA_canuck.
To draw an analogy, on my side of the border
the canadian stations CBLT-DT, and CHCH-DT
are barely above the noise floor in my tvfool,
+3 and +8 respectively. There's no way I'd ever get them
two reliably all year 'round, 24/7 if I relied on an antenna in my attic.
With my antenna outside, where it's supposed to be, adding a pre-amp,
and a rotor, I'm able to get them reliably.

with the antenna in the attic ur basically throwing away any noise margin
ya have as predicted in tvfool. i.e. there's no margin for fading.

Hi Paulo,

I used to live at Bloor and Christie and am now 1.5km (almost) due south of your position.

No issues with WGRZ (96%) or WIVB (90%).

Still plenty of signal left here, according to tv fool. CBS has 19.5 NM at my location.

It's booming in this morning again, at about 73% on my television. ABC is the weakest of the four big US networks, at 15.9, but comes in stronger than CBS. According to tv fool, I should get them all with an attic mount.

4-1 has just been wonky lately.

It is cross-lake ducting season again. Temperature layers form across Lake Ontario due to the difference between the water and air temperature. The boundary zones between the temperature layers act like reflectors that channel radio signals. If the transmitter and receiver are both in the same channel then everything is fine for reception. If the transmitter and receiver are on different sides of a boundary then the signal may be directed away from the receiving location. The layers can curve and send the signal upwards to the sky. The layers can also affect different frequencies in different ways.

Cross lake reception is unpredictable and unreliable in the fall and the spring when the largest temperature differences occur. Cable companies tried for decades to build better receive facilities to overcome these problems but were never completely successful. The solution was ultimately to locate the receive site on the other side of Lake Ontario and haul the signals back to the Toronto area by fibre optics.

If you have lots of excess signal at your location then you will experience fewer cross lake problems than a viewer at a site with marginal reception under good conditions, but outages will never be completely eliminated.

Still plenty of signal left here, according to tv fool. CBS has 19.5 NM at my location.

It's booming in this morning again, at about 73% on my television. ABC is the weakest of the four big US networks, at 15.9, but comes in stronger than CBS. According to tv fool, I should get them all with an attic mount.

4-1 has just been wonky lately.
TVFOOL results are merely based on FCC/IC data and ideal reception/antenna conditions for your specific location. I'm sure there are other members who can provide the specific tvfool protocols that are used to produce the tvfool report's reception lists.

TVFOOL absolutely does not calculate results for attic mount. The average outdoor antenna height at 30ft above your specific location and the ground level terrain between your location and the broadcast source is assumed in tvfool reports. I believe the average antenna gain is assumed to be approximately 10db with the antenna aimed directly at the source of the broadcast.

Just to add to GeorgeMx's comments, fog is a curse for DTV reception across the great lakes. In the fall, the lake is still warm and the air is very cool, so fog rising from the lake surface will kill signal strengths and in heavy fog even strong signals can suffer. Dusk and Dawn are the worst times for lake fog conditions.

TVFOOL results are merely based on FCC/IC data and ideal reception/antenna conditions for your specific location. I'm sure there are other members who can provide the specific tvfool protocols that are used to produce the tvfool report's reception lists.

TVFOOL absolutely does not calculate results for attic mount. The average outdoor antenna height at 30ft above your specific location and the ground level terrain between your location and the broadcast source is assumed in tvfool reports. I believe the average antenna gain is assumed to be approximately 10db with the antenna aimed directly at the source of the broadcast.
Don't confuse TVfool with FCC's OET 69 or IC's BPR-10.
True, it doesn't account for building or atttic attenuation, or System Noise Figure -- you have to do that yourself.

It effectively assumes an isotropic antenna (0 dBi) and 0 dB System Noise figure, and no local obstructions. (Longley-Rice does not account for ground-clutter). The height above ground is whatever you specify on the web page.

Ah! yes! I knew someone on here had all the dope on the tvfool base line criteria:p

So if you don't specify an antenna height, does tvfool not assume 30ft antenna height? Other than terrain levels, ERP and LOS distance?