all digital signals are broadcasted with less power because they dont need as much power as analogue ones.the reception you experienced the other nite was probably because of the weather,as any southerly flow from the u.s. will cause an increase in signal strength,im in oshawa,1 mile north of the lake,and i usually get 8 stations with an indoor antenna.when the weather cooperates,it increases to 13-15 stations,with a increase in signal strength as well.im waiting for summer as well,to fine tune my reception.hope this helps.

Hello breeya and welcome here - please read through this thread to get a ton of information about your questions. bigcam406 is absolutely right about weather effects than can cause sudden differences.

I wonder if these Cdn stations are ramping up their dtv schedule to put an early end to their analog broadcasting. I wonder because they are desperately looking for ways to save on broadcast costs. The CRTC only says they must stop analog before August 2011, but it doesn't say they must continue providing analog broadcasts until 2011.

I use rabbit ears in Port Hope (90 min east TO). I get ch 23 and sometimes ch4 and 7 but the other night I had 17 channels. Just hoping that I might get that many regularly if the signal increases.
Thanks for any help.
The Buffalo digital stations are already running at full power. From Port Hope, your best bets are to...

put your antenna in front of a SW-facing window
try a log periodic UHF antenna like the Silver Sensor, or one of its clones
if all else fails, try an outdoor antenna, if it's allowed where you live

Outdoor antenna will be your best bet, always.
But you may also receive a boost come summertime through natural weather effects.

I hate to breach this topic again, but I was looking at the Canadian 2011 post-transition channel allotments and planned output power, and wonder if people in the Toronto region might start losing reception of the US networks once we transition.. Assuming this site (remotecentral.com) is accurate, it looks like Omni 2 is going to full 1000kW at 1000' elevation, and 5 other stations are going to approx. 100kW each in the 1500'-1700' range. If that's the case, there's opportunity for a LOT of IMD in our preamps, meaning we could all be losing our low-power US network reception, especially if the direction of the nearby CN Tower and distant Buffalo transmitters are very closely aligned such that a directional antenna wouldn't be able to reject the stronger stations.

By contrast, today the strongest local station we have is 38kW (CBC) and the next-strongest are <20kW.

The saving grace might be that most of the post-2011 local networks with high power will be at channel 40 and above whereas the weak Buffalo networks are below 40. The exception is CBC/CBCF, which will be at 20/25 (100kW each). But perhaps a carefully selected filter for channels 40+ would help minimize IMD distortion in the amps. Any thoughts?

Tc. preamp overload will not increase when the toronto digitals go to full power because the current strong analog signals will be gone.A preamp does not care what it amplifies.Some of the toronto analogs are over 1MW now.

Hmm.. right you are.. It seems that the received 'dBm' readings in tvfool don't exactly correlate with the max ERP of the transmitters. CBC Toronto analog is 100kW but CIII-41 is a whopping 1475kW! And it seems most of the other analog transmitters are >100kW as well. I guess this means things should only get better as the analog transmitters get shut off!

It seems that the received 'dBm' readings in tvfool don't exactly correlate with the max ERP of the transmitters. CBC Toronto analog is 100kW but CIII-41 is a whopping 1475kW!

They do. By the time the signal gets to you out in Markham all the way from the CN Tower, a 100kW signal on low VHF channel 5 will be more powerful than the 1.5MW on channel 41. In fact, that's why the UHF full power analog stations need so much power, and even then, they can't match the coverage of channel 5 with 100kW.

This is all because the lower the frequency, the less it gets attenuated in free space.

Good point. There's still one thing I'm confused about though. Tvfool lists different power levels than I've seen elsewhere. Here are two examples:

CFTO-TV digital channel 40 in Toronto
Tvfool says it's 550kW
Remotecentral says it's 17.4kW

CBLFT digital channel 20 in Toronto
Tvfool says it's 75kW
Remotecentral says it's 38kW

The dBm numbers in the tvfool plots seem to line up with their output power levels, and these are listed as 'maximum ERP'. Can anyone explain the discrepancy in the numbers on these two sites?

I believe TV Fool has the maximum output level that the stations are allowed to broadcast at currently listed where as Remotecentral has the actual output that the stations are currently broadcasting at listed.

Wouldn't that make their Noise margin numbers (for Canadian stations) relatively useless then?

It could help explain though why we don't see preamp overload symptoms, since tvfool might be using data that makes local channels look a lot more powerful than they really are!

The dBm numbers in the tvfool plots seem to line up with their output power levels, and these are listed as 'maximum ERP'. Can anyone explain the discrepancy in the numbers on these two sites?

TVFool gets its Canadian data from the FCC database, which contains a curious combination of correct data, stale data, and data related to maximum powers to be used for cross border protection.

The correct values for Canadian stations are generally to be found in the Industry Canada Spectrum Maangement broadcasting database, which is where stampeder gets his list from.

Note that FCC database is generally correct for Canadian post-transition allocations, but of course there is no guarantee that broadcasters will actually implement transmitters with exactly the same powers that the plan allows for.

I did a recent check with TV Fool and it shows two new channels for Toronto: YES TV 21 (no virtual #) and HDTV 30 HDTV (no virtual #). I don't think these channels are broadcating now, but might be soon.

TV Fool shows power output for HDTV at 5.000 kW, YES TV 9.000 kW.

Does anyone know anything about these channels, ie programming content, air date, future power output?

They were channel applications that were denied, last I heard.

They were channel applications that were denied, last I heard.

That is correct.

TVFool uses the FCC database, and the FCC database has incorporated the contents of the Industry Canada/FCC Leeter of Understanding, which is based on the IC post-transition plan, which includes all stations licensed by the CRTC in July 2008, as well as any pending applications at that time.

They were channel applications that were denied, last I heard.
Here is an article on it being denied

http://www.channelcanada.com/Article2160.html

and here is the CRTC ruling on it

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2008/db2008-75.htm
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2008/db2008-76.htm

Last two links come up blank. Same goes from the site.

Talk about protecting CATV MSO's. :rolleyes:
And those useless 'holly roller' stations are allowed with no local programming. :mad:

CRTC site is down right now, I think.
It's a shame they were denied though. More channels is better for me. ;D
Hopefully they'll reapply with promises of more local programming or something.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2008/db2008-75.htm

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2008/db2008-76.htm