melanhead

Sad to say you are basically hooped. There is almost no way you are going to get CTV or Global from either Moncton or Halifax. The long ridgeline along the north shore just kills off the signal from Moncton and unless you live on Peck Meadow Road south of the university, there is no way you are getting HFX signals.

I should note that there are some analog signals around but you were after digital and that is just not likely to work out for you.

You may want to call the CTV Halifax switchboard (902-453-4000) and ask to speak to the Engineering Supervisor. He may be able to tell you when CTV will be transmitting HD to the Valley from their Canning Transmitter. On the CBC and Global side, you are stuck with Analog for the long term.

went into the settings on my remote and for some reason , auto program,and digital channels are both greyed out,so i cant do anything with it i guess. thanks again.

zeuss - i would stick with it. there is probably a setting somewhere in those menus to tell the TV you are using antenna and not cable reception... or you may need to switch to the tuner from another input (HDMI, component, etc).

you seem to be in a decent spot for reception ... what i would be worried about is the bulb replacement budget for that TV!

ok so im thinkin bout picking up a cheap indoor antenna today,which would be the best one to get,i didnt have much luck with the home made antenna,not so good,and it sounds as though if the bulb in the tv should go,might be cheaper to buy another tv set. thanks again,and also i think the tv remote might be working to search other channels,cause when i push the tv button,i can enter other channel numbers,so am i right in assuming,it is doing what it is soppose to? thanks again

melanhead

Sad to say you are basically hooped. There is almost no way you are going to get CTV or Global from either Moncton or Halifax. The long ridgeline along the north shore just kills off the signal from Moncton and unless you live on Peck Meadow Road south of the university, there is no way you are getting HFX signals.

I should note that there are some analog signals around but you were after digital and that is just not likely to work out for you.
Thanks, .... even though it's bad news, it's good news in that I won't waste any time trying :)

Oh well .... maybe someday...

zeuss,
it will be very apparent to you if you successfully get the tv to search for channels, because it should take a while before it finishes. the manual says that after you start the "Auto Program", it may take 20 to 50 minutes to complete the search and will show you a progress bar. sounds like a long search (mine takes just a few minutes), so you need to ensure a half decent antenna setup first.

the manual says first select the antenna input:
WEGA GATE menu | antenna | +

then start autoprogram:
WEGA GATE menu | settings | channel settings | auto-program | start
and then the tv will find both the analog and digital channels available

you can do it zeuss!

so i bought a cheap indoor antenna its an amplified indoor quantum,optimized for digital tv,uhf,vhf,hdtv,i found the auto programming,and it runs through all the channels but i dont see a progress banner,and i have no clue what im doing,although i am watching cbc news newbrunswick right now,i dont think im doing this right,when im running the auto search,i set the cable to off because i dont see anything that says antenna,and i tried to edit the few channels i did find,now when i press the cjhannel up button,it goes ,7,31,85 thats it,so i know im not doing this right,its all greek to me.

7 is your analog CBC New Brunswick out of Moncton. 31 may be analog SRC out of Charlottetown. Have you tried TVfool? You might look into which direction the nearest window to your TV faces. If it's North, try for PEI channel 13. If it's West, try for Moncton channels 27 and 29. If your TV is older, its possible that the ATSC tuner isn't as strong as on newer sets.

Reception update St. John's NL area....

I just replaced a Philips powered pre-amp with a new Channel Master 7777 pre-amp. The CM should give a bit more amplification for NTV (21.1 a bit on the weaker side for me) and a bit less for CBC (8.1 - strong signal) than the Philips unit. The Philips was a $20 surplus unit from Princess Auto and the CM costs about $90.

Basically there is no difference in signal strength between the two pre-amps and if anything, the signal on 21.1 is a touch weaker, but probably within weather variations. I was hoping for better performance from lower noise or better quality pre-amp components, but no noticeable difference at first glance.

So if anyone in the area is looking for a powered pre-amp check out the cheap Philips unit.

The reception here is still solid, with no dropouts or pixilization seen in any of my viewing times. I wish CBC would get HD back (maybe Tuesday next week according to the CBC transition thread, though St. John's was not specifically mentioned!) The local election coverage on NTV HD was a pleasure to watch (!!!) as compared to the SD picture on CBC.....

P.E.H.

Hi guys:

Did anyone else in the St. John's area notice a drop in signal strength for NTV this morning (Sunday, Oct 16)? My picture was breaking up for a while with the level at 61 vs 68 - 70 on my 7000PAL and 71 (17dB S/N) vs 75 - 76 (20 dB S/N) on my SONY. This occurred for a few hours then the next time I checked the strength went up to 71 - 74 (7000PAL) and 76 -77 (22 dB S/N) on the SONY and seems to have stabilized. Apparently NTV lost sound last night for 15 - 20 min during the CTV late news, I do not know if it was a local or feed problem.

Maybe my first impressions of the CM 7777 pre-amp in the previous post were coincidently skewed by some broadcast tweaking on the part of NTV!

P.E.H.

My CBC HNIC feed was really, really finicky last night here in Halifax - at times for no reason the picture disappeared, and it may have been the hour but I swore I saw an image not from that broadcast on screen for a bit. Maybe some tropospheric ducting was going on?

lord h, that would be cool if you could isolate it. maybe you have a big antenna? saw a bit of the hockey, but i haven't seen any disruption at all on any channels and i can't imagine anything distant getting past my small antennas setup for the local channels... most of my tv is late night in bed on ctv and global, but i do surf to avoid commercials. not to brag, but i'm getting perfect reception 100% of the time now on all 3 channels.

No, I've got a puny antenna and couldn't isolate the signal. I'm in a tight spot for reception, sometimes passing traffic causes errors. I say maybe tropo because it seems a transient system passed this way this weekend. Of course I may have no idea what's going on, but it looked like a non-CBC image and there's a channel 39 in Boston if I recall correctly, not sure about channel 21 NTV...

http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html

Has anyone in the Freddy to SJ area noticed that CTV on 9.1 is stronger than it was for Aug and Sept?

I have found that in the last 5 days, the signal strength and quality are FAR better than before and I have made no changes to my equipment in that 5 days.

With all the rain and wind we got, there are fewer leaves in the trees.....

Well, that is a distinct possibility that I never thought of!!!

Should be interesting to see how the winter and then the spring goes then...

Hello all,
I am wondering if it would be possible for me to receive any HD OTA Channels? I live in Digby County, Nova Scotia, any ideas what kind of antenna I should look in/equipment? Thanks.

I recommend that you go to tvfool.com, and enter your address. The tool will then generate a report which indicates which channels you can expect to receive. It's free and easy to use.

hi,just a short update on my ota adventure,i went through 3 different indoor antennas,im now using uhf-vhf-digital rabbits ears,with uhf loop,so far the only channel im getting is cbc new brunswick,so how do i scan for other cbc,or ctv channels without losing the one cbc channel i have now. thanks