No I wasn't get WVNY 13

A little update on my lakefront situation.

I finally convinced a fellow cottager to take the plunge and get something better than rabbit ears, as I have been trying to do for a while. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get anything anywhere on his property (with a 4221HD - the 4228 wouldn't fit in the car with everything else) until he went down to the lakefront, where he was able to get everything except WVNY (so WCAX, WPTZ, WETK, WFFF). To be clear, all the cottages in the area are in deep forest.

So for the cottagers in my area: yes, there is hope! (even though TVFool hates us)

If you look at my previous posts, you'll see that only WCAX, WPTZ and WETK are stable. WFFF comes in and out, and WVNY can be received if you get creative enough. Recently, though, WFFF and WVNY have disappeared, and I needed a solution.

So I copied my neighbor and found out that all the UHF signals are quite strong and stable on a simple RS VU-90 down by the lake with no trees to interfere. Much better than my cottage roof with trees all around. But my objective, WVNY, was non-existent on the dock. And WVNY has programming we like.

So I now know that the trees really cut down my UHF signals, to the point where I can't even get PSIP data from WFFF. But WVNY at least shows something! Why is there never a one-position-for-everything in OTA?

Any suggestions? All I can think of is raising the mast of the 4228 and hope I at least get stronger signals (visually, it looks like I could clear a couple branches with an extra 5 feet)or to put the VU-90 to use lying on the roof with some wood to keep it upright (roof is slanted) and hope it has more gain on VHF than the 4228, and then use an A/B switch.

I now see why stampeder is so frustrated. I never honestly knew just how much signal I was losing with trees. As much as I like them and the privacy they give, among other things, they are not friendly to us OTA viewers.

Hi,

I have been trying to get proper OTA reception for the late year or so.

I live in La Prairie, close to the highway 132; I have a TV with an ATSC tuner as well as a tuner for my laptop and get the same results for both. I have a directional antenna on my roof with an amplifier.

I get the Montreal ATSC channels very well and the NTSC channel poorly. From the States, I can only get PBS (57.1, 57.2 and 57.3). I have tried pointing it is all directions.

My friend, who lives about 5 km away from me, has just an indoor antenna with no booster and he is able to get NBC, PBS (33.) and CBS, as well as all the other channels I get.

I brought my laptop over to his place the other day and did a scan with his antenna and it found the NBC, PBS and CBS, so it is not my tuner.

The only difference I can see in the locations is that he does not have any trees around his house, but I can not imagine that that could make such a difference.

I have tried a few other antennas and did not get any better reception, I have even made one from the videos on the net with coat hangers and it gets the Montreal channels (ATSC and NTSC) very good but no US channels.

The only antenna I did not try yet is the bay antennas, but would want to know if they can make such a big difference.

Is there anything else that could cause interference, because according to TVFOOL.com, I should be getting all the US channels with a set top box?

Any help or suggestions would be great.

Thanks

Hello tazrock, we need to know the exact details of your antenna and other OTA gear so that we can help you better. :)

Tree foliage does make a big difference. I live in VT and have wintertime line of sight to the lights of Plattsburgh and to the WCFE (57.1, .2 and .3) transmitter sight. Once the leaves drop I receive a signal strength of 70 to 80% with perfect lock. When the leaves come out in the spring, the signal strength drops to 30-40%, which will rarely lock. I have an unobstructed line of sight to Mt. Mansfield and receive the Burlington channels including Vt Public TV at 99%, so the loss of Plattsburgh May through October each year is just a curiosity that I haven't felt the need to rectify.

Bottom line, leaves do attenuate the signal significantly and you need to have a much better antenna/amplifier and/or move the antenna to a location less leafy to get a reliable signal year round.

Hey Tazrock,

You should sell your house and move to a better area... Let's say Les Cedres / St-Lazare as an example...

I realize now that I never specified exactly how much damage the trees were doing to my signal, so here are some numbers that I actually remember:

Rusty & slightly bent RS VU-90, without trees and on dock:

WCAX: 72%
WFFF: 40%
WPTZ: 35%
WETK: 62%

Relatively new CM4228HD on roof, with trees but much higher up:

WCAX: 72%
WFFF: Nothing
WPTZ: 52%
WETK: 62%

So even though the 4228 has much higher gain and is much higher up (by around 30-40ft), the signals are not much better: the only real improvement is WPTZ, but the VU-90 really drops off in gain around that channel anyway, so the comparison is a bit skewed.

Note that my box locks around 25%, and is stable around 30%.

Hi Stampeder,

My antenna is a A-2805 from Lava with an amplifier. It is on a pole on my roof, about 25 feet from the ground. But there are trees that are higher that that around me.

With my laptop, I use an HP ExpressCard TV tuner.

My antenna is a A-2805 from Lava with an amplifierThe first thing I would do is get rid of that Lava antenna - they are becoming well known failures and people are losing their money on them. I hope you can get a refund.

See these links to get information on buying or building a better antenna:

Thanks Stampeder,

I will look into the links.

A few things for you to consider:
• CKTM 13 Trois-Rivières is technically receivable at your location, according to the TV fool propagation models anyway.

I'm in Beloeil and I get CKTM at 40-50 % sometimes with a Delhi 10y13s pointed at Mt.Mansfield.

CKTM is the major problem in my area for getting WVNY.

We will see when they go digital and the drop the power at CKTM.

@intravino

Thanks man, I think that I am in the same boat has you are. I'll just be patient and I'll wait till the switch over to digital gets done before starting playing around with my installation. :(

Would some sort of trap be useful to block the signal from Trois-Rivières?

You wouldn't want a trap as that would prevent you from receiving *anything* on Channel 13.

Like I mentioned before I once was able to get a glimpse of a signal on WVNY ABC when I isolated my YA1713 directly into my tv-tuner without any pre-amplification. When I plugged it back in the CM7777 preamp I was losing the signal. I also think that trees are blocking the majority of the signal since the antenna broadcasting WVNY signal is weak.

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/2712/img0993l.jpg (http://img535.imageshack.us/i/img0993l.jpg/)

My lower antenna 91XG is getting a strong signal on all other US stations broadcasting on the UHF band, even pointing through those trees.

I will try to put a ch13 trap on my 91XG. I read in theses forum that UHF antennas are bad receiving VHF antennas. This will eliminate any residual signal from CKTM on the 91XG. I also bought a variable cable attenuator for my YA1713, from 0 db to 20 db. I will try to reduce the amplification on it.

If that doesn't work, I am going to chop down my neighbor trees. LOL just kidding...

hi Marty 34

did the distance between the XG and the Ya is 3 feet ?
could you lower a bit your XG....possible that it interfere with the YA...
had that problem with my antennas at the cottage....:)

The UHF antenna should be on the top. Try switching their positions if you can.

Sorry marty34, I misunderstood where you wanted to place your trap.
What you said sounds cool.

Marty34, have you tried to flip the fm trap on your amp?

@upchuck247

I never touched the FM trap on the preamp. It is still set to it's factory setting. I will try to do all that was suggested over this week-end.