Location:
Kerrisdale, Vancouver, near St. Marry's church.

Antenna:
Philps Silver Sensor antenna (only the antenna, not the stand, and no preamp) mounted on a bracket on a third floor deck tilted ~10 degrees up.

Line of sight to Mt. Seymour except some very tall trees and a four floor apartment building (behind and lower than the trees) about 200 meters away.

Tuner:
DVICO FusionHDTV 5 Lite digital tuner with 5th generation LG DTV chipset. Connected to the antenna with a 25ft RG-6 cable.

Observations:
There are definitely hot and cold spots on the deck. The following are reported by the signal checker software that comes with DVICO's tuner when the antenna is in the best hotspot for the CTV station (Ch 33):

CH D33 --> ~60% (~16dB) stable picture and sound, occational freez frame for fractions of a second.

CH D58 --> ~90% (~24dB) solid picture and sound all the time.

When not in the hotspot, the CTV station gets ~20% and no picture and sound whereas the CBC station gets ~55% with occational dropouts.

I also tried the Silver Sensor in doors on its stand. When it is near my east facing windows, and pointed at the direction of Mt. Seymour, the result is the same as that when it is outside but not in a hotspot. When it is not near a window, the signal strength drops to 0 very quickly for both stations.

that's great info - Trees are especially hard on UHF signals so you might want to think about a wider-pattern antenna like a 4 Way Bowtie Reflector. Your results will be up in the 90s for all DT stations from Mt. Seymour, I'm sure.

Yes, an antenna like the CM4221 would help definitely. The problem is that our strata has a policy aganist outdoor antennas. :-( The Silver Sensor is small enough. I mounted it under the roof which covers half of the deck. It is not observable at street level. If I use a larger antenna, I would have to mount it in the attic, which may negate the benefit.

I really wish CTV would apply to Industry Canada to boost their ERP to a more reasonable level. 0.9KW ERP is, well how should I put it, laughable. :-)

Hello I just wanted to add to the DTV-HD OTA discussion for Vancouver.
I work for CBC (transmission dept) I can assure you we are broadcasting on Channel 58 from Mount Seymour (North Van). There isn't that much HD programming just yet. There is at least one hockey game on per week in HD. http://www.cbc.ca/hdtv/schedule/CBC_HD_currentweek.pdf
I did just watch Tor vs. Phx (Jan 14/06) in HD and it looked fantastic.

I was using a 20" Sony LCD monitor a samsung ATSC tuner Box (currently not for sale in Canada (I don't know why) ), and was using a old cheap and nasty UHF loop antenna you know the really old and cheap ones. I live in Vancouver approx. 25kms from Mount seymour. I put my cheap loop outside my place and pointed it to mount seymour. I used the tuner box to peak the signal strength. I was borrowing the equipment but am looking into purchasing a TV with a built-in ATSC tuner.

My boss says he has been getting calls from people receiving our signal from Langley to Nanaimo.
Signal strength is 15,500 watts ERP which is considered quite a bit more in the analog world.

CTV is also broadcasting DTV on Channel 33 from Mount seymour but at much less power and does take a little bit more work to tune them in. They are however broadcasting quite a bit of HD content http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/tvlist/CIVTtvlist.html

Enjoy!
-Jason

It's raining outside. The Silver Sensor is wet. CBC-DT still comes in strong at ~90%. The CTV station at channel 33 is now at ~55% and not watchable. There is no motion picture, only a series of freez frames. :-(

Hello I just wanted to add to the DTV-HD OTA discussion for Vancouver. I work for CBC (transmission dept) I can assure you we are broadcasting on Channel 58 from Mount Seymour (North Van).Hi Jason and welcome - great to have another CBCer here (Marc has been with us for awhile, usually in the CBC-HD thread).

Have a look through the OTA Forum and please be sure to read this thread: http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27994 and of course read through the Vancouver and BC results threads. Many of us have waited a long time for CBC to go digital, and it was great to see it finally happen.

I have tried BB, FS and CC but none of them carry a good selection.

Are there good Canadian sites where we can order from?

Check in the OTA Equipment Dealers, Sources & Installers thread for the info you need:

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23984

With a cheap indoor antenna from the source, I am able to get the following channels:

CTV-DT ~58%
CBC-DT ~55%

No luck of ANY US Channels :( Are these the only 2 Canadian channels we have in Vancouver?

I can't find any place to buy the Silver Sensor in Vancouver or Canada, all the eBay vendors only ship to US. Anybody knows of a dealer or store to get it?

No luck of ANY US Channels :( Are these the only 2 Canadian channels we have in Vancouver?You'll find that info and how to get the U.S. stations by reading through the three BC threads from the beginning - lots of great info in there and in the READ THIS... thread. There is also the OTA Equipment thread too.

thanks, stampeder, I've read through ALL the threads, it seems like I need to get a CM4288 in order to receive the US channels. Since where I am does not allow mounting, I will have to try this antenna indoors!

Nope, indoors will be a waste of your $$$, unfortunately, unless you have a south-facing window you can put it in. If you can't mount a CM4228 outdoors and up high then you won't be getting SeaTac stations, but in the next year or two as the low power translators start coming up in Bellingham you might want to think about an outdoor antenna again.

I can't find any place to buy the Silver Sensor in Vancouver or Canada, all the eBay vendors only ship to US. Anybody knows of a dealer or store to get it?

I bought mine from snapstream.com (the company who makes BeyondTV) as part of a bundle. Amazon.com also has the Silver Sensor by it self. I had it shipped to an address in Pt. Roberts, and went to pick it up my self. You need to pay taxes at the border when you return, but there is no duty and brokerage. :D

I bought a Winegard Square Shooter SS-2000 with built-in pre-amp. It's installed on my deck but set way back in under the roof, so that the "condo police" couldn't see it. :) I am happy to report that the result is positively better than the Silver Sensor.

There are still hotter spot and cooler spots. But the difference is not very great. I have it pointed roughly at the direction of Mt. Seymour. The tuner's signal check reports that CTV-DT is now at ~72%, and CBC-DT is at ~85%. I am surprised that the CBC station is not stronger. But I figure that the Winegard pre-amp may have a equalizer built-in.

Subjectively, the CBC station is solid all the time. But the CTV station has occasional pixalization and sound interruption. (2 or 3 sound interruptions for an hour long program) I would say this is "good enough". :cool:

HP PE4200N 42" plasma (built-in tuner) with Zenith Silver Sensor in ground floor of 10 story condo in Kits area:

CBC-HT ~ 75%

CTV-HT non-existent.

That's all.

Ugh. Oh well, CBC looks awesome.

Snorf, I'm not sure if you're just kidding but CTV Vancouver can't boost their Effective Radiated Power because Industry Canada sets that and the CRTC includes it in their broadcast license. The goal is for the new digital transmission systems to mimic the original analog broadcast contours. With DTV this requires far less power.

Accordingly, here are the equivalent power output levels of the Vancouver DT stations, taking into account antenna height and other factors:

CIVT-DT (CTV) 33.1: about 1 kilowatt
CBUT-DT (CBC) 58.1: about 31 kilowatts
CHAN-DT (Global) 22.1: about 4 kilowatts around September, 2006

When I look at the power levels (ERP's) of the Seattle networks at http://members.shaw.ca/nwbroadcasters/digitaltv.htm I see much higher numbers than the Vancouver stations. It appears the U.S. stations are trying to make it easy for viewers to receive their DT signals without a large external antenna. Industry Canada seems to be restricting the DT coverage area and from reading other posts in this thread it looks like others are having difficulties receiving CTV-DT even in the city of Vancouver. I had planned to get into OTA-HD soon, but these reception problems are quite discouraging. Has there been any discussion with Industry Canada about this issue?

When I look at the power levels (ERP's) of the Seattle networks at http://members.shaw.ca/nwbroadcasters/digitaltv.htmThat's Gord Lansdell's great site, and I keep in touch with him too about our OTA scene.

Regarding your questions about power output, this has been a long time topic here so check out this thread, and especially the posts by GeorgeMX:

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25867

Try tuning to channel 58, maybe 58 didn't remap to 2.1.
Joe.

Hi,

I'm new to OTA HD and OTA in general so here goes.

(FWIW, I'm located in east Vancouver between Joyce Station & 29th Avenue Station in a house.)

I just bought a Silver Sensor today and hooked it up to my Sony Bravia's built-in (ATSC and NTSC, I presume) tuner. The antenna is indoor on a coffee table beside the TV.

After a bit of work positioning the antenna and from remembering all the stuff I read while I was waiting for my antenna, I managed to get a watchable signal on the following:
2.1: CBC HD
8: Global
17: A-Channel
26: CBC French
32: CTV
42: Channel M
58.8: CBC HD

The following were audible with a poor and/or unwatchable signal:
9: ?
10: CityTV
24: some multi-cultural channel


I've got a few questions:

1. What's with the "aliasing" of 2.1 and 58.8? For that matter, what does the channel number really mean?

2. I tried sticking the antenna out the window to no avail. An outdoor antenna would be my last resort. Would the Winegard Sharpshooter improve those three poor and/or unwatchable channels?

3. Channel 8 required me to orient the antenna about 90 degrees from my NE orientation. I don't suppose there's any way to avoid this?

George

George,

10 CKVU-TV Vancouver - CityTV - Transmiter on Saltspring Island

19 (24.1) KBCB-DT & 24 KBC-TV Bellingham - KBCB WorldTelevsion - Transmiter Mt. Constitution on Ocas Island.

CKVU(CityTV) is also near imposible to recieve across the water in Nanaimo. They might as well call themself a Victoria station. I wounder what the history behing the Saltspring Island location is? I hope they re-think thier location for HDTV.

As for the channel numbers, an exaple may show it:

CBC has two transmiters:

CBUT-TV 2 VHF NTSC

CBUT-DT 58 UHF ATSC

The ATSC digital tv system allows of a virtual channel number to be assinged / mapped so that the HDTV channel to the view appear with the same number as the old NTSC channel but with a decimal number to distiguish it for the analog channel.

2 = channel 2 VHF analog TV (NTSC)
2.1 = channel 58 UHF digital TV (ATSC)

a display of 58.1 just means the reciver has not yet recieve or not correctly decoded the comand to relable.

The reason for the number re-labeling was that it was planed that analog would be shut down and the in most cases after the shut-off the digital broadcast would switch the digial braodcast to the main transmiter. In other words build a low powered temporay DTV transmiter and then after analog is shutdown move to the more powerfull origianal transmiter. As channel number often function like a brand the virtual channel label allows the broadcaster to maintain this brand, evern thought in reality the digital program is braodcast on a physicly different channel.

A broadcaster may offer more than one program in their digital channel, thoretically 4-6 standard deffintion digital programs. In the case of CBC these would be labeled 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 ect.