fooit, how did you mange to fit the antenna through your trap door. :)I drilled out the rivets breaking the antenna into two L-shaped pieces, brought it up and reassembled it in the attic replacing the drilled out rivets with #10 screws. Total time to drill out and reassemble is 30 min at most. If somebody interested, I can post the exact BIN numbers of screws I used from Home Depot.

Definately at 30m you have a good 6db of signal loss, this greatly affects the Buffalo reception. I would recommend that you use the preamp and then from there in your basement split the antenna signal as many ways as you need.

You do not need to use a dist amp. The gain the 7777 has is more than enough to feed 8 tv's.
Ah, but I already have this 1 to 8 powered splitter with no or very small signal loss, I can use 1-to-2 (3dB loss) or 1-to-3 (3 and 7dB loss) crappy splitters I have left from Rogers but rather use the 1-to-8 powered.

Currently I have my 7775 split to feed 5 atsc tuners and still I can split more without any signal loss.

With the preamp connected try and point the antenna towards 170-160' and see how it affects the Buffalo stations.

I also have a Dish811 but mine does not reboot, byt then again my signal is strong. Maybe with the preamp it will be fine.

In general, I am impressed what I was able to get with CM4228 in the attic.
Thanks a lot for your input and for your help getting the gear.
I will try that and post results here.

By the way, I worked in the attic the other night when it was 16'C degrees outside and it was very pleasant in the attic, I'd say about 18-20 degrees.

fooit no problem glad to be able to offer help.

You are lucky that your attic what that cool, I thought it would have been much hotter from the heat build up during the day. What time did you go up late at night after 10pm? You must have great ventilation in your attic.

Once you connect your preamp if you intend to drive 8 other tv try it with and then without your 8 way dist amp and see what give a better picture and signal strength.

From 11pm to 1am - yep, I was surprised myself that it was that cool.

I'll be moving into an almost-new condo August 7th....
[...deletia...]You meant a CM4221, right? :)Sorry about that, you're right. The 4-bay bowties monstrosity as per http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/cm4221.html . Since the CM4228 is 8 bays, something told me that the 4-bay model should be 4224. And no, I am not kidding, it is going INDOORS, due to condo regulations forbidding antennas on the balcony.

Thanks for your suggestions, Tom! Any thoughts on the right antenna / installers that could set it up?

I have a 4221 and found that it has better reception mounting it side ways. does anyone know why? also i loss buff station at sunrise and sunset. can anyone tell me why? thanks for the help.

Thanks for your suggestions, Tom! Any thoughts on the right antenna / installers that could set it up?
Seal, apparently, the ota vender & supplier fourms were moved to shopping, i've never seen it since.
There also used to be a thread called OTA tips & tricks, seems to have disappeared.

I have a 4221 and found that it has better reception mounting it side ways. does anyone know why? also i loss buff station at sunrise and sunset. can anyone tell me why? thanks for the help.
That doesn't surprize me very much, but i doubt it will be reliable. You may be picking up more reflections with the sideways antenna. I suspect the antenna isn't high enough.

The lake effect has been discussed to death. read a lot in the existing toronto or gta threads.. What most of us fail to recognise is that its only because of the lake that we get any reception of buffalo stations without Extreme deep fringe measures in the first place.

the ota vender & supplier fourms were moved to shopping, i've never seen it since.
There also used to be a thread called OTA tips & tricks, seems to have disappeared
Tom.F.1
Maybe you've accidently done something in your Profile or Subscribed Threads (under Quick Links) that have them hidden.
Here is the Equipment & Vendors Forum:
OTA Equipment & Vendors (http://digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=130)

I think the old Tips & Tricks is now part of the OTA Masts, Mounts, Towers, Hardware, Aiming (http://digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=29559) thread, which is inside of the Equipment & Vendors forum.

I wonder if you're the only member that can't see that forum?

I've just installed 2 CM4221's in my attic. One is pointed at Buffalo, the other towards the CN Tower (They're about 8 feet apart).

All the Buffalo channels come in at about 80-90%, except WGRZ-DT (Finicky, but usually 60-90%), and WNYB [27]: 50-70% (dim picture quality, currently left channel audio only. Analog signal [26] is much better). All the Toronto signals are of course 100%. (Signal strength is approximate, as shown on my Samsung t451 tuner).

I had to compromise a bit to get very good analog signals for TVO, Global, Omni 1. CHCH, CITS still too weak, and OMNI 2 has a ghosting problem no matter what I do.

It's very good for now, but I'll see what happens with 5" of snow and ice on the roof. I could still combine the CM4221's (a la 4228), and use my Zenith Silver Sensor for the CN Tower signals (seriously!), or build a homemade version of the CM4220 (2-bay model).

___________________________________________________________
Toshiba CN27G95 ('98 model, SD only); 2 CM4221; Samsung SIR-t451.

leglamp, great job of combining two 4221 with excellent results.

Even better when you consider it's a attic install. ;)

Everyone,
On the weekend I finally hooked up a 4228 antenna to a chimney mount - I used the Google Earth trick and pointed it directly towards Grand Island. I have pretty good results ... I get all of the Buffalo stations perfectly (Fox, CW, NBC, MyTV, ABC, CBS). However, the Toronto stations CBC, CTV and Sun work but not great and I do not get CityTV at all.

From reading through this thread, pointing the antenna a little away from Buffalo and closer to the CN Tower sounds like it could fix the problem. What size increments should I try?

Could the problem be something other the directional? ie. overloading?

thanks,
Bart

PS - thanks to everyone on this OTA forum - I learned a great deal just reading through this forum and it definitely helped the project be successful

bmac.to being co close to the Cn tower I would imagine you would get all the Toronto stations from your location.

What is your signal strength for Fox and Nbc ? Move your antenna towards the Cn tower around 1/4" on the pole and check signal strength for Fox that it does not drop too much.

By the way is the view towards the cn tower blocked by much taller buildings?

Because you are close to the Cn tower you can adjust to have a much lower signal strength than the Buffalo stations and you should not encounter any real dropouts.

Good luck.

Hi,
I'm new to this forum, I just recently purchased an HDTV with a built in ATSC tuner, now I'm trying to figure out what antenna I should buy in order to pick up the most free HD channels. I live at the York Mills/DVP area, is there anyone in the same approximate location who can suggest a good antenna to purchase? Thanks

Welcome here, HDFreek, and I've merged your post into the appropriate thread for your area, which is full of all the info you need. Before you read through this thread please click on these links and read right through them before posting again:

Thanks Yaamon.
I got up there last night and had to rotate the antenna probably 25 degrees (a lot more than I expected) in order to get CityTV. Before the rotation, I had signal strengths on Fox around 85 and around 30 for CityTV. After the rotation, Fox is around 58 and CityTV is in the low 50's. I felt this was a good compromise. However, I lost the channels CW and MyTV in doing so (not a huge issue for me).

These tests were done running a 100' coax line into the front door. I have to finish the install by running the coax through a grounding block and then into the house - I expect the overall lenght to drop to around 75' in doing so. When does a signal booster start to become important? How much boost would you recommend?

Thanks.

bmac.to currently at 100' you have quite a bit of signal loss.

If you add a preamp the signal strength that you have will increase greatly. Fox should jump into the mid to high 70 and maybe low 80's. City would also increase into the low 70's.

Still at a reduced 75' there is signal loss still. Any low power preamp is the best solution like Winegard AP4700 or Channel master 7778 will work.

The Winegard has 19db gain and the channel master 23db.

Good luck.

Thanks Yaamon.

Here is the full list of the channels I receive and their strengths (ignoring the duplicate SD channels). The final hookup includes 100' of coax and a ground block - nothing else in the path. After looking at the channels I receive and their strengths, would a preamp help/hurt? Currently I receive all of the channels so I am leaning towards not adding anything.

Thanks.

Channel Strength SNR Description
2-1 34 36 NBC
2-2 34 36 NBC-Weather
4-1 72 64 CBS
5-1 83 65 CBC
7-1 60 52 ABC
7-2 60 52 ABC-Retro
9-1 76 56 CTV
23-1 83 60 CW
25-1 52 36 CBC-Fr
29-1 91 70 FOX
43-1 80 67 PBS
43-3 80 67 PBS-Kids
49-1 42 35 MyTV
57-1 43 36 City
66-3 59 51 Sun

Hi All,

Wanted to share my excellent results on a new setup. I live near Bloor and Dundas West. My house faces south and my view is partially obstructed by a tree. I had a CM 4221 mounted on my roof. My results are as follows:

Channel SNR Strength
2-1 31.29 95
4-1 28.24 87
5-1 27.26 81
7-1 31.11 94
9-1 26.50 81
23-1 30.08 94
29-1 30.45 93
43-1 30.59 94
49-1 28.24 86
57-1 28.07 85
66-1 25.25 77

I have a preamp and hooked up to a Toshiba 42HL67 using its internal tuner. The only problem is that a couple of times, I have lost NBC (2-1) for a few minutes at a time (strength drops down as low as 12). Not sure if this is the broadcaster or me.

Now if only I can figure out how to get the onscreen guide working on my Toshiba! I've looked for a thread on here about getting that working, but can't seem to find anything. Anyone have information to point me to?

Thanks.

Tony

Hi Tony excellent results. ;) Who did the install? :D

Dont worry you have good signal from Nbc it is normal once in awhile for a channel to drop due to weather conditions or some tyoe of rf interference in the area when someone broadcasting?

I have encountered that before.