Jeneral I don't no the signal level without preamp.The preamp is required with UHF signals as cabling and splitting really reduces thus frequencies.I have 4 tuners connected to my main antenna.WGRZ is the hardest to get as they have a lower tower.A few times a month I will see a few drop-outs on wgrz.Aim your antenna for wgrz at the times when drop -outs are occurring.WNYO-dt comes in occationally and they have applied to move transmitter to WUTV site and increase power.IF approved this will give them a better signal.The other Buffalo signals are always perfect fo me.

Which one would you recommend? THE 9032 or CM4228?
I'm in Markham and would like to get the Buffalo and Toronto stations.
With a cheap RCA amplified indoor antenna I was able to get CBC,CTV, WIVB,OMNI, FOX and CITY. Of course I had to keep turning it to get all the stations. I would like to have an antenna that doesn't require a rotor.

PS. I just enabled PM and email replies. It was turned off earlier

I have the 9032 in Unionville, its on a rotor with i rarely ever move.
I get everything with rarely a drop out.
Our Markham location allows us to shoot right to the CN tower, and then over the lake to Buffalo, receiving all stations without moving or repointing.
Could this be the greatest HDTV location in Canada? - very possibly.

(bypassing preamp), on my Samsung SIR-T151, I was getting 4-5 bars on WGRZ-DT and 5-6 bars on WKBW-DT. The cable run was ~75ft (I'm planning to trim it a bit). Is this about what I can expect from this antenna?

Jeneral I have the same tuner.

With no pre-amp and 120 ft of RG6 using cheapo $23.99 US UHF antenna.

WGRZ 4 bars
WIVB 4-5 bars
CBLT 9 bars (with antenna facing wrong direction)
WKBW 5 bars
CFTO 8 bars
WNLO 9 bars
CBLFT 8 bars
WUTV 9 bars
WNED 9 bars
CITY 0
CKXT 8 bars

stampeder with the long cable run did you also see the signal strength go down on the info display ?

Yes, but I should also mention that CIVT-DT is broadcasting at a very low power level so even with perfect aim and a CM4228 I only get half way on the signal meter of the LG LST-4200A, so that shows you how miserable CTV is being about covering this area! Going from the short cable length to the 100 foot one dropped the signal meter down to about 25%, which was too low for a lock.

I have the 9032 in Unionville, its on a rotor with i rarely ever move.
I get everything with rarely a drop out.
Our Markham location allows us to shoot right to the CN tower, and then over the lake to Buffalo, receiving all stations without moving or repointing.
Could this be the greatest HDTV location in Canada? - very possibly.A perfect location for your unmoved yagi, but in years to come your rotor will pay for itself as Canadian stations to the east and west of you come up in digital.

Okay, back to Channel Master 422X discussion in this thread.

...I was understanding that the actual antenna part of the 4228 are the bowties. The wire screen behind gives it the directionality and prevents multipathing??? Corrections please!!! If that is so, and I assume that the screen was the part that got bent, it shouldn't effect the sensitivity of the antenna, should it?Jeneral and Jbracing24, the mesh portion of the CM4228 is the reflector portion of what is known as an 8-bay bowtie reflector design. Yes, the bowties are the receiving elements where the incoming photons do their thing at the micro-electron-volt level, but the reflector mesh is sized and shaped optimally to take some of the photons passing by the bowties and bounce them back to them. This is why reflector antennas are so great for deep and fringe areas where scatter tends to happen more. A yagi just cannot compete in those conditions.

If my bowties have been bent or misshaped I just use a pair of linemans pliers to gently bend them back. If my antenna reflector mesh has been significantly bent, I lay it down on my table saw top (which is absolutely flat) and get out some needle-nose pliers and a rubber mallet. I use the pliers for the sharp kinks or bends, being careful to not use too much force. If there are generally larger curves in the reflector I do not bend it back by hand because that can result in other weird curves, so I take the rubber mallet and work the whole reflector into flatness with no scratches or marred mesh coating.

So, in a nutshell, keep everything as straight as possible and the results will improve. Personally I wish I had a set of factory measurement specifications for the CM422X so that I could properly set the bowtie tip distances and angles. If anyone has that information please post it here. Even if you don't, we can post the sizes of our own here and compare.

I went on his roof and used a dss mount to install a 4221. He is located around 18th(Major Mac) and just west of woodbine.

He did the wiring :rolleyes:, I could clearly see the cn tower on his roof and damm it looks close.

I pointed the antenna east of the Cn tower a good 25' east and damm got all Toronto at 10 out of 10 on the Samsung 451.

Could only get two Buffalo 23-1 & 23-3 at 7 bars and Pbs at 5 to 6. I knew his cable length was not that long maybe 40' the most and the south view was pretty clear. So I was wondering what's the problem.

No matter how I swing the antenna east no other Buffalo stations was coming in. :confused:

I set it up for max on Cbs and Pbs and left it there said try a pre amp. Came inside his family room and damm he did use a RG6 cable but he stripped the wires with a utility knife, and there was hardly and gound shield on the connectors with those cheap gold plated screw on from home depot. :mad:

I pushed and wiggle the cable in the connector at the receiver and boom Pbs went to 8 bars and cbs at 10 and then all the other was there at 8 bars with Nbc at 6 bars.

He had also another crappy connection outside on his ground block and I told him pass by my house and borrow my stripper(not a dancing woman) and the crimper and do all the connections properly.

This should give him 10 on all the Buffalo excpet Nbc should be a steady 8 to 10.

So guys dont use any cheapo screw on connector from home depot. As stampeder said make sure the connections are good.

The part of my antenna that was bent was the left side, if looking at it from the front. The unit was flattened and twisted inwards, towards the other tube. When it ships, the sideview of the antenna is raised from the screen. When I received mine, half of the antenna was flattened. I had someone hold down the sucker while I lifted and twisted the tube that holds the bowties away from the screen. I tried my best to get them all straight, but it is not perfect.

The initial cable I used before adding the preamp was complete and store bought. I actually picked up a DSS installtion kit for $5 at the Dixie/Matheson stores and used the 75ft cable included (it has a 17AWG ground wire running along the length). All my ends are Snap 'n Seal compression plugs and I used a proper coax stripper.

In the next few days, I'm going to get my neighbour to help me aim it again. I'm gonna try to separate the two halves of antenna and aim each at a time to see if one side of the antenna is defective. I've also pulled back all the cable I don't need and I'll trim it as recommended by most posters (~10-15 ft). Next time I'm up on the roof, I'll take some pictures.

jeneral is the antenna still bent can you post a picture of it or email it o me so I can see.

You should be able to get a stronger signal than that with a 4228. Hope you can figure it out.

To think about it I think the one at my panrents does not look as flat as it can be but it does not seem to affect the signal.

I am going to my parents so I will try and remember the camera to take some pictures.

We've talked here about the Channel Master 4228 UHF antenna's unintentional design quirk that gives it good qualities as a VHF-High band antenna (channels 7-13), but a couple of days ago I ran a cable from the bypass loop on my LG LST-4200a ATSC tuner to the 75ohm antenna input on my Sony receiver (effectively making a direct link to it from the CM4228 antenna on the roof).

The quantity and quality of FM radio stations from the Lower Mainland, the Island, and Washington State is excellent, even though the antenna is pointed at 350 degrees to Mount Seymour for the Vancouver OTA stations!

This FM reception shouldn't be a suprise because the FM radio band is just below VHF-High, so its now evident to me that the CM4228 is a great FM radio antenna too! :) Too bad KPLU-FM 88.5 Tacoma is still too scratchy... http://www.kplu.org. Maybe I'll try turning the CM4228 to 165 degrees to see if that helps.

So guys dont use any cheapo screw on connector from home depot. As stampeder said make sure the connections are good.

Yaamon, other than replacing everything between the Antenna and the settop, how else would you know it is bad cabling or connections ? Is there a way of testing it with an ohmn meter or something like that ?

I suppose I can just dangle a wire down and hook it up outside the house to see if it helps.........

Michael that is a very good question.

Iam not sure but maybe you could use a multi meter short one end of the cable and then test for resistance.

I know when I looked on the connector at the receiver the ground was 85% stripped away on one connector.

If the cable that you used already came with the ends most likely the connectors are on properly.

It's those guys that don't have a proper cable stripper and crimper that has to be carefull.

Is there a way of testing it with an ohmn meter or something like that ?Disconnect both ends of the cable to be tested. Make sure your ohmmeter (usually a multimeter) has fresh batteries because impedance can only be measured with a current applied, so a long length of RG-6 will put quite a load on a meter's weak old batteries. Another important thing is to short circuit the core wire to the outer sheathing for a moment first to remove any static potential before touching the test leads to it. Test the core wire first, log your reading, and then check your outer sheathing/connector. If there are problems they are almost always with the crimping of the end connectors. You can look up expected cable loss tables on the web to see how yours is doing in comparison, so you'll need to know pretty accurately how long the cable run is. Of course there's a bit of a problem, and that is how to test the two ends when one is up on the roof and the other is inside! ;) Maybe you could short circuit the cable at one end, measure it at the other, and divide the impedance reading by two.

Dangle a new cable seems easier.......I just have to take the tuner and a little flat screen outside and see what happens.

I have a compression type RG-6 crimping tool (The best I have seen and used). The connector ends are like a buck each at Home Depot, so I shouldn'
t worry about the connectors, right ? This is very similar to the professional installers with the blue plastic ends on the connectors.

I dunno, Yaamon knows my situation. I mean right now I am not getting ANY US channels due to topography, so bad cabling can't be the only culprit. Maybe it is just another deadend but I want to be sure, which unfortunately means another trip to the roof :(

I dunno, Yaamon knows my situation. I mean right now I am not getting ANY US channels due to topography, so bad cabling can't be the only culprit. Maybe it is just another deadend but I want to be sure, which unfortunately means another trip to the roof :(It seems hard to understand that there would be a dead zone for Buffalo signals somewhere in the GTA, given the signal levels people get all around you. That makes me hopeful that its an equipment problem, but ya never know. Good luck my friend.

Michael if you have those heavy duty compression fitting and used the stripper to strip the wire correctly then the conenction should be ok.

Your low Buffalo signals I think is due to your low elevation.

Hey,

I know that there are supposivly really great results with the CM 4221/4228 as an FM antenna. Has anyone ever tried it for the AM band? Will it work?

Keyword: 'wavelength'

Unless it is designed for AM, it won't any better than an equivalent length of plain wire (maybe worse).

True, but the CM isnt made for FM and supposivly works extremly well because of a design flaw...

Try it out, plunk your current wire into the F-connector of your Favourite Home Theater AMP and see what happens :).

I'm sure from there you can decide whether or not its better than just a plain wire.