I'm in North Vancouver just below the number one HWY. I can see grouse, but trees block Seymour (not sure if that matters). I have a pretty good south view.

I've just cancelled my Satellite and hoping to pickup some HD channels. I bought a small Terk brand antenna to see what I would get, I was able to pickup channel 35 from bellingham I believe facing the Antenna south.

I'm not really interested in an indoor antenna as I don't have a good place to put it, what is going to be my best bet? I most likely won't be able to go very high over roof level, and I have a metal roof.

applecran, a metal roof could cause multipath interference so you may need to experiment with your antenna placement - likely you'd want it up and forward (towards Mt. Seymour) from that metal roof.

If you aim an antenna like a CM4221HD towards Mt. Seymour you'll get the Canadian DTV stations, although there is a chance that the trees could be a problem.

If you get a clean lock on the Vancouver stations you'd want to turn the antenna southwards in small increments and rescan each time, repeating as necessary to see if you can find an azimuth "sweet spot" at which all the Vancouver stations stay locked while the Bellingham stations come in properly too.

I am located 4km west of the towerrs and In spite of clear LOS, I have a similar behaviour with my 4228 reception.

If I point my antenna directly at Seymour, CBC 2.1 is not received. If I change direction 20 degrees to the south, 2.1 appears. Move a further 20 degrees and 22-1 drops. In short, trying to maintain Canadian broadcast reception while searching for FOX in the south is problematic.

BTW, a rotor is not a viable option in my case. Perhaps hacking the 4228HD is the answer?

I found this Terk product on Amazon for $38. This is of course off the US Amazon site.

The only stations I want in HD are Sportsnet Pacific and CBC for hockey night in Canada. TSN would also be nice. Basically I want HD hockey without paying any monthly fee. Can I achieve this on less than $40 or I am just dreaming? It's either this or paying Shaw $40+ a month for stations I don't watch only so I can watch hockey in HD.

TSN and Sportsnet are service provider channels, they don't broadcast over the air, so no chance of getting them with an antenna.

CBC does broadcast over the air in HD in Vancouver, so if you are in Vancouver proper or one of the near suburbs your chances are quite good, depending on terrain between you and Mt Seymour.

If you can get these channels on satellite, must they not be in the air?

No, on satellite they are encrypted. You need to pay to receive them, you need a satellite receiver to decrypt them and you need a satellite dish pointed at the satellite (this is called Direct to Home (DTH) Satellite, available from Bell TV (perhaps Telus) and Shaw Direct in your area).

They are not available OTA.

Hey I live on the 19th floor of a highrise condo downtown facing Southwest close to False Creek, I am trying to get any digital channels I can using my Bravia KDL-46V2500 and a Jensen/Thomson TV911 amplified antenna. I've tried the antenna in various configs, various locations but I can't get any digital channels. I have also tried using a basic FM antenna (pretty much dipole wires) just in case the Jensen was defective but only get some snowy analogue channels (no digitals). Any recommendations? What should I be able to get from my location?

Any recommendations? What should I be able to get from my location?

A colleague of mine lives in Yaletown and can't get anything over the air, digital or analogue. He's envious of my digital reception from my 11th floor apartment on Burnaby Mountain.

...laura

If you have any buildings that may give you a bounce reflected surface you may get lucky and get some signal maybe even a lock on a signal try aiming at some nothing to loose as that how I am getting all my OTA a antenna facing southish and I get CBC CTV and BCTV hd's

I'm in a house in Cambie Village. About 3 months ago I made a 4-bay bowtie antenna out of coat hangers and installed it in my attic, pointed towards Mt. Seymour. I got perfect reception on the local digital channels (CBUT-DT 2.1, CHAN-DT 8.1, CIVT-DT 32.1). I also got excellent reception on some analog channels (CHAN 8, CIVI 17, CBUF 26, CIVT 32, CHNM 42). However, the analog CBUT was very snowy.

Now the reception on CBUT-DT, which originally was fine, seems to have deteriorated. The past few evenings the picture was freezing and pixellating several times per minute. It was so annoying that I had to switch to Shaw cable. Yet when I tried it this this morning, CBUT-DT seemed to be coming in fine off the antenna, except for a couple of minor hiccups spaced several minutes apart.

I was wondering if this problem could be weather-related. The last few evenings of course have been very windy and rainy. This morning it's calm and it's not raining. But if it's weather-related, then how come it only affects CBUT-DT? All the other channels I get OTA seem to be completely unaffected. It doesn't make sense to me if they are all broadcasting from Seymour and the CBC signal is the strongest. Can anyone throw any light on this? I'm a newbie.

I was wondering if this problem could be weather-related. The last few evenings of course have been very windy and rainy. This morning it's calm and it's not raining. But if it's weather-related, then how come it only affects CBUT-DT? All the other channels I get OTA seem to be completely unaffected. It doesn't make sense to me if they are all broadcasting from Seymour and the CBC signal is the strongest. Can anyone throw any light on this? I'm a newbie.

Welcome CambieGuy.

Your issue is something a few others have reported on over the last few days as well, and weather conditions have been a prime suspect. Additionally CBC seems for most (but not all) people to come in with lower intensity at the best of times.

A few thoughts:

1) Did you check whether Global or CTV was also lower during this time? They would still come in as clear as before as long as they were above the threshold to lock in the signal.
2) CBC actually broadcasts at an unusually high frequency (58.1) and remaps to 2.1 and some antenna designs may not be best for that. CTV is at 32.1 and Global is at 22.1 (remaps to 8.1).
3) Attics can have a lot of problematic metal items in them (metal hardware such as sheet metal flashing, electrical boxes, aluminum siding, etc.)
4) If mounting on your roof is not an option, and your antenna does not have a rear reflector, you might benefit from making one. Also, if you have a window towards Mount Seymour in your attic, lining up your antenna close to it may help.

All in all, it appears that you should have an excellent experience. I estimated your address and it seems that you have line of sight to the Seymour antenna farm 10 miles North East of you.

You may wish to try an improved design of your bowtie antenna. Here is one that gets a fair bit of attention around these forums: http://www.frontiernet.net/~mclapp/Antennas/diagrams.html

Good luck!

I'm on Broadway and Granville - my apartment is within a courtyard so I don't have a Window that faces the city. Since I probably won't be able to setup a proper antenna for now, will an 'indoor' receiver work ok? I really only want to get CBC.

I'm on Broadway and Granville - my apartment is within a courtyard so I don't have a Window that faces the city. Since I probably won't be able to setup a proper antenna for now, will an 'indoor' receiver work ok? I really only want to get CBC.
Hi Ronse,
All you can do is try. The fact that you are quite close to the antenna farm (about 10 miles) is a plus, but it is very difficult to tell what signals get into your apartment except by trial and error. An indoor antenna may work but it is really hit-and-miss.

Do you have an antenna to work with? If not, you may just want to put together the elements of a bow tie (which is fairly small), go to an anologue channel, and then point your antenna in different directions from various places within your apartment. Close to windows may still work if you get a reflective bounce, say, from a wall or building on the far side of your courtyard. If you get a fairly good analogue signal at some point, note the position and angle of your antenna and try scanning digital from there. You may luck out.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks for your reply, keithr386. Shortly after I posted my message I added a reflector to my antenna, in the form of a 16" x 18" aluminum foil oven liner, mounted 3 or 4 inches behind the bowties. That made a huge difference. Now I get solid CBUT-DT reception most of the time.

Unfortunately not quite all the time. Yesterday around suppertime it was bad. But it soon improved and remained excellent all evening, except for a period of about 10 minutes around 8:30 p.m. Today the TV has been tuned to CBUT-DT for several hours and there hasn't been a single blip.

My next step will be to make the reflector bigger. Right now, it barely reaches the third bowtie. If that still doesn't give me solid, reliable CBUT-DT reception all the time then I may purchase the Channel Master 4220 or 4221.

By the way, Cambie Guy, are you able to pull in KVOS from Bellingham as well?

Keith R

Dunno, I've never tried. I assumed that if I was having trouble getting a clear signal from Mt. Seymour, then anything farther away would be a lost cause. But when I go up into the attic and modify the reflector, I'll point the antenna southwards and see what happens.

Yeah, it will be a challenge for sure, but I thought I would ask. :) The fact that the elevation south of you is higher than the Cambie area does not help either, but it may be fun to try.

I am not sure if you are aware of the TV Fool web site, but I used it to generate this page which shows the directions for each antenna from your approximate area. This can help you point your antenna more precisely.

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3dc2014df9ab4204

Thanks. According to the TV Fool site, I would need at least a 50-foot antenna to get LOS to the KVOS transmitter on Orcas Island. How did they collect data on the precise elevation, latitude and longitude of every street corner in North America. Was it part of the Google streetview project?

Thanks. According to the TV Fool site, I would need at least a 50-foot antenna to get LOS to the KVOS transmitter on Orcas Island. How did they collect data on the precise elevation, latitude and longitude of every street corner in North America. Was it part of the Google streetview project?
Line of site is not absolutely essential, but the fact that you are in the attic rather than the rood may doom the effort. Also, KVOS, while digital, is not HD, so if I were in your shoes, I would try my current antenna here or there just for fun, but I would not see it as worthwhile to put in too much $$$ or time. Focusing on a solid lock with CBC and CTV would be my priority (with the Canucks being on CBC, and much of the olympics being on CTV).

Also, I am not sure how they (TV Fool) collect the data (it preceded the Google Street View project) but they seem to do a pretty good job of it. I do not know if you tried this already, but in the list of stations on the TV Fool site, you can click on any station to get a sense of the obstacles in your way. You will also notice that the signal path is not necessarily linear. Although line of site is ultimately best, there is still a spectrum that falls below that that line. So in your case, even though LoS is not achieved until 50 feet, you may still get enough signal at, say, 30 feet to get a lock.

Sorry, I have been a bit long winded here, but this stuff can become addictive, and getting that elusive lock can be quite satisfying. :)