I have a very tall antenna tower. Off the top of my head I get CTV, Ion, My Network TV, 3 Foxes, Global, New CW, TVO, Chex, NBC, CBS, ABC

With a CM4228 up there with your old VHF antenna you'll do great then! You'll also need a good preamp and then if you want to keep using the same TV you'll need an ATSC tuner. We have dedicated threads on all those topics. :)

that seems like alot? I thought all i need was an ATSC tuner but i looked them up and I cant find anything that just hooks into my tv that is not like a dvd player or soemthign very expensive. There are the computer models but I dont think I want one.

Is your T.V. Insignia 19 inch hdtv tv Model: NS-LCD19? If it is it has a ATSC HD tuner. Try Channel 45 WROC-HD (CBS) it is the strongest HD channel for
were you are.

Tigerdirect sells a DVD recorder with a builtin ATSC tuner. I don't think it was HD as far as output but its an ATSC tuner.

I take it the antenna you have does UHF (13-69) if you are getting MY TV and some foxes. I am guessing you are getting MYTV on 49, ION 51 and fox on 29 and 31.

I didn't realize that some of those stations were UHF. If that's the case and he's already getting UHF stations so well, my advice to put up a CM4228 is not necessary. :)

I agree that just an ATSC tuner is needed if his TV doesn't have one.

yes i am getting those channels. and no it doesnt have a tuner built in.

No problem. Check out the OTA Equipment Forum and you'll see several threads devoted to ATSC tuners that you can add to your present setup:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=130

As soon as I saw Fox and Ion, I knew he was getting those on upper channels.

Would someone in deep fringe be better off with a CM Crossfire 3671 as opposed to the 4228? Channel Master rates the reception range as 100+ miles for the 3671 as opposed to 60 miles for the 4228.

I dont know what is the cheapest option?

tlamothe, range is only one of the issues. There is the ability of an antenna to handle scattered signals at those distances, as well as the beam pattern, raw and net gain, linearity of its gain across the entire UHF band, etc.

The CM4228 is renowned for its deep fringe advantages. Nevertheless, if someone wanted a deep fringe Combo antenna like the Crossfire in order to get VHF and FM Radio too I'd say they'd be happy with it, but I'd still recommend the Delhi 936 or 937 with the UHF Booster kit first.

canadianrage43, you are probably best to keep checking the Ontario OTA Gear thread and the Online OTA Gear thread for ATSC tuner boxes. Occasionally they come up for sale at this site too in the For Sale threads.

You're better off trying Ebay or taking a trip to the U.S. to pick up an ATSC set-top box. But phone first. They're almost as rare to find in the States as they are in Canada. I was in a U.S. city last year, population about 450,000. Phoned every electronics store in the City. Not one of them had an ATSC set top box.

stampeder, thank you for the clarification.

I got the tuner and I get about 12 channels but I dont get global or CTV anymore. They were the two chanels they came in clearest for me before too?

I dont even get CHEX the local channell. It seems like I am only getting american channells

If the tuner doesn't handle NTSC (and it sounds like it doesn't) then you will need to split the antenna into two feeds and feed one into your digital tuner and one into the TV. You'll watch digital through the tuner and the analogs on the tv itself. It makes sense you are only getting American channels as you are probably too far out to get Toronto and there isn't any Canadian digitals around ptbo. You should start seeing Canadian digitals by August 2011 as that is the analog cutoff date in Canada.


Out of curiosity, what channels are you picking up on the tuner?

Out of curiosity, what channels are you picking up on the tuner?
NBC2-1
NBC weather2-2
CBS4-1
ABC7-1
7-2WNGS
7-3WCSN
23-1 CW
29-Fox

I get two of the same channels, 3 43-1-2-3 all PBS I think. Dang thats a pain to have to split it to get CBC, Global and CTV.

That's a pretty good selection of the Buffalo channels. I think the only channel you are missing on the digital side is 49 which broadcasts on channels 34 and I think its pretty tough to get from this side of the border. 43 is indeed the PBS channels (WNED) from Buffalo.

What is your location again? Peterborough I think you said. I wouldn't really worry about not having CTV or Global in HD, as almost all their shows are available via the Buffalo channels. Do you have a rotor for the antenna? If you can get it moving, you might have some luck pulling some digital channels out of Toronto but I don't know if they are strong enough to hit you where you are.

Yeah i will try and move the antenna to see if I can get anything else.

I get cbc now on channel 5.1:)

what is the best direction the antenna should be pointing>?

Towards the broadcast towers. You may need to use a rotator if the broadcast towers of the different stations are in different directions.

Read the following link to find your location and the direction(s) you should be pointing your antenna:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=362703&postcount=8

I have played around and I seem to have lost CBS 4-1 and ABC 7-1, 7-2, 7-3