Wouldn't be simpler to buy/rent a cable box with an HDMI out and connect the antenna to the TV?

Thanks to the two friendly replies, and further help from 4D, it appears that there will be little or no success in receiving the PBS repeater from Bellingham (Mt. Constitution). There are apparently 2 barriers in the way,one of which is the hill behind my house, which peaks at 33rd avenue and Blenheim Streets.

This leads to my (probably final) question: "Has anyone in my neighbourhood (Dunbar area) had any success with receiving this station, and has anyone tried receiving it as a bounce off either Grouse Mountain or Mt. Seymour?"

As for the digital cable box, my hope was to gey rid of cable, and just use the antenna and the internet as signal sources.

BTW, it appears that the easiest tuner solution, if I want to keep the NTSC tuner in the tv in use, is to use a USB tuner on a PC or a Mac.

Your TV report would seem to indicate you should be able to pick up that RF 24 channel, since it's got a positive NM value.

I'm in the opposite direction of you and further distance by about 30 km, and my NM for it is about -5 dB and I can pick it up just fine.

I guess the only thing to do is find a decent antenna and try it! 4D saw the TV Fool report, and although he was not optimistic, he did say that a CM 4228 was what he'd recommend. He has them, but only new. I'd hate to go buy one, then return it, as he'd have an "out-of-box" item on his hands, and they can be hard to sell.

I'll look for a used one and try it out, but only when the weather warms up a bit.

From time to time there is a listing in the for sale threads.

I saw in Craigslist , a guy who had a bunch of antenna that he would come over with to try them out. But it would probably be cheaper to just buy the best in the first place. If you get less than the optimum, you'll always be wishing you had spent the extra couple of bucks.
I have been without cable for more than a year and I'm happy, though SWMBO still misses some channels.
laurie in ladner

4D recommended the CM 4228, and when the weather warms up, I'm going to acquire one, and go up on a ladder, and see whether I do get PBS Bellingham.

I plotted a line on the map between my house and Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island, and discovered that there is a rise in the ground which peaks somewhere near 57th and Granville (I used Google Earth). As my altitude is 33 M, and the peak is somewhere around 80 M, I am not overly optimistic.

In the meantime, I really enjoyed the Hockey Night on Saturday, and both NFL games yesterday, in really good HD. The rabbit ears give a signal strength of 75 percent when used indoors, and 90 percent when used outdoors. I have a really good line of sight to Mt. Seymour.

I will look into getting a separate tuner (so I don't have to flip the A/B switch) as soon as I've tried the better antenna.

As my altitude is 33 M, and the peak is somewhere around 80 M, I am not overly optimisticBear in mind that signals refract downwards as they propagate so it is likely that the hill at 57th is not a show-stopper, but of course you would need to get some tests under your belt.

While I'm not optimistic, I will be picking up a CM 4228 today. Will deploy it as soon as weather permits.

Does anyone know if digital UHF signals "bounce"? If I can't pick up Bellingham pointing the antenna at the transmitter tower, I was thinking of pointing it at Grouse or Seymour Mountains, hoping to pick up the signal on a bounce.

I know, from my ham radio days, that FM signals bounce off the mountains, and can be picked up with a Yagi style beam antenna. Used to do this on the 70 cm (440MHz) band, and could "hit" a repeater in Seattle this way.

Actually your in better shape as there is a new encoder / amplifier not sure of the piece but it will give better reception to fringe areas so this is a improvement on the transmission side of KBTC 24.1 remapping to 28.1 28.1 28.3 It may happen at any time over the next few weeks as the equipment is part of a re-fit to return to HD with subs transmissons. I use a 4228 and sadley the only direction I get Bellingham is aiming south but I do get all my locals from a bounce from a building in the direction of south as I aim for Bellingham ( Orcas actually ) so for me the bounce works in the opposite direct than you are hoping for. Play around find your sweet spot / spots and let us know how you do
as with the old Ham days take your time aim re aim little at a time and rescan often :)

Update: I purchased a new CM 4228 HD, and finally found a bit of time to try it out.

I installed it, temporarily, on a 10 foot mast, on top of my sundeck. This put the antenna 20 feet above ground. I pointed it, first of all at Mt. Constitution, (159 degrees true compass), and did a scan. Still got only the 7 local channels. Interestingly, although the antenna was pointing sideways at Mt. Seymour, I got better signal strength readings than I did with the rabbit ears pointing correctly.

Next, I tried pointing the antenna at Grouse Mountain, hoping to pick up a "bounce" from Bellingham. Did a scan, but no success.

When the weather is better, I'll try again, this time mounting the antenna higher off the ground. My mast telescopes to about 18 feet overall, so that will be the next step, followed by going up on the roof.

Not sure if the wet and cloudy weather was the problem, or what. In my first post, I put in the link to my TV Fool report.

Live and learn, I guess, and perhaps I'll have an antenna for sale, but I hope not ;-(

Can you get KVOS (RF 35) or KBCB (RF 19) from Orcas? I know those have much higher power ERPs. Seems lot of people from Vancouver can those at least.

Not a trace of either. I was very disappointed, as I think the CM 4228 HD, while maybe not the world's best OTA antenna, should have brought those channels in.

Perhaps I did something wrong, maybe the balun on the unit is not correct, not sure. Or perhaps the ATSC tuner in my 4 year-old Sharp TV is not very good.

I'm going to try again, and when I do, I'll post.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Also, make sure the wires are not touching each other. I bought an HD-8800 the other day and put it up and saw poor performance than what I expected. Then after looking again and it and checking all the wires, I noticed that the wires (harness wires) going to the balun connection point were just about touching... After spreading them out about a few centimetres, I put it back up in the air and got MUCH improvement.. what a difference.

Yet , it still did not do much better to pick up your Vancouver stations than my home-built DIY M4. (heh). But I'm still farther to Orcas than you are and I can still pick up KBTC (RF 24) with its NM of about -4 dB where I'm at.

I'm wondering if the transmitter is on the south side of Mt Constitution, so that it was designed to broadcast to US audience??

Tinkindling
I am surprized your are not getting Kvos or Kbtc follow be236 advice and double check your antenna as it should be able to get both seriously it would be very hard not to?
Do an aim in the actual direct to bellingham then scan and then a little to the west and re scan.

Thanks both of you for the tips and encouragement.

I did check the antenna just now, and it seems to be absolutely free of any shorts in the wires/rods that connect to the balun.

Am also going to try a different piece of cable, just in case the other one had damage.

Might be a few days, but I will post again. THIS IS NOW A CHALLENGE!!!

I'm trying to add a pre-amplifier to boost my reception of Seattle stations like KING, KIRO, KOMO and KZJO. But the local stations and even the Bellingham repeaters will overload my tuners. My final configuration was to aim my antenna about due south and use a simple bow-tie aimed due east. I then combine the signals using a simple splitter. By itself, I get pretty good reception. I jury rigged an attenuator by adding one or two more splitters before the pre-amp. I can get a weak lock on the Seattle stations.

The big problem seems to be that I lose CHAN-DT when the signal from CHEK-DT is strong. Has anyone else noticed this? Does that make any sense? They are at opposite ends of the UHF spectrum, CHAN 22.1 UHF 519 MHz, CHEK 49.1 681 MHz

Attic mount Antennas Direct CPA-19 pre-amp and Clearstream 4, Hauppauge HVR-2250, TV Fool report (http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3dec12ca92b06f1e)

Wow, you're so far from Seattle and you can pick up those Seattle stations consistently (albeit weak signal) with NMs -12 dB or worse? That's amazing... and your just using a Clearstream 4 and in an attic.. wow!

I have trouble just picking up your Vancouver stations and I'm in the opposite direction with similar NMs. Used HD-8800 and DIY M4.. and on good "tropo" days like the past few days I can pick your RF 22, 20, 26 and 43 with very weak signal... I rarely/never get RF 17 (co interference with local RF 17 here) , 32, and 33 (co channel with local RF 33 ION here).

I do have KT-200 pre-amp, as my coax run is 100+ feet.

Be236 - you will probably have a harder time because the power levels broadcast are alot higher from the Seattle stations then they are the Vancouver stations generally speaking. A moded cm4228hd might be the only way you are going to get those stations (somewhat reliably).

Yup, I realize that. I just dont know why BC broadcasters (Shaw, Rogers) are so "cheap" on electricity to output so low ERPs, compared to US stations. heh...

Or maybe they're just discourage people from getting free TV, and subscribe to cable, instead? (heh)...

Well, I sent back my HD-8800 as it had the same performance as my M4.. so I figured I'll build another M4, turn that into M8, and see my performance hopefully get better....

... or move to a location (as shown in TVfool) to have better NMs. Currently I'm at a place where NMs to BC are about -8 dB... There are some spots around Everett where I can see NMs of +8 dB! :-) And it's only a few kilometres away from where I'm at now.. heh.

Also, I heard even a modded CM4228HD is not much better than HD-8800.. so I might go with Yagi next (91XG, or CM3023, or MXU 59)?