i tend to rescan every few nights, or whenever the sky gets very clear and the air is warm (indicating potentially good conditions for tropo to bring in distant channels).

Any good DXing tonight? I wasn't around last night to catch the good finds...

Digitalrocks,

Based on your current location in East Windsor, what are you pulling in constantly vs. sometimes vs. tropo only (I know you said it before, but I cant find it).

Pretty much all Detroit & Toledo. The one that is difficult to get is WUPW from Toledo for me.... I get a few Clevelands at night lately, which will probably be gone in winter I assume. All these other channels i've posted lately are scarce and only pop up during tropo. I'll post my entire channel lineup and thier strengths sometime, its late and i'm out.

I know he's selling the hbu-33 model I have for $110 he quoted me at a month ago, but i got it off kajiji for $85... some guy had a ton of them selling them out of his house, great buy for that price. The hbu44 i am not sure, i think lighthouse has them for $150 or so, maybe a bit less. My channels are posted a few pages back in this thread, you'll see them.

Pretty much all Detroit & Toledo. The ones that are difficult to get are WUPW from Toledo for me.... I get a few Clevelands at night lately, which will probably be gone in winter I assume. All these other channels i've posted lately are scarce and only pop up during tropo. I'll post my entire channel lineup and thier strengths sometime, its late and i'm out.
I know they are, I just couldn't find them. I assume you are pointed to the SW and have the antenna outside?

Unfortuantly, I am on the 3rd floor of a 4 floor building (which prevents me from using a good pipe to prop up the antenna) and I am situated on the NE side of the building. Obviously it is not ideal. Toledo would be the super choice for me although just getting ION and/or Flint would be satisfactory for me at this time.

On a different topic which I am sure will result in a negative answer (although I will ask it anyways), while I am sure there has been zero initative by CTV to convert //A\\ to ATSC format (I would assume that //A\\ Barrie - which in truth serves Toronto - would go live before Windsor would), has there been any word from CBC? I would think that there would perhaps be an economic insentive in the form that advertisers can no longer reach OTA viewers in Detroit who rely soley on ATSC broadcasts for TV channels and they no longer have an NTSC feed setup.

A reminder that due to the Rules of the Forum the discussion of retail pricing and availability of OTA Gear in Ontario goes in this thread:

OTA: Ontario Parts, Sales, Service, Installers (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=23984)

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the CBC currently has no money to convert any more stations to digital. Many *large* centers like Quebec City, Winnipeg and Halifax (all over 300,000) don't even have digital transmitters for their CBC affiliates. Sure, windsor would be a logical choice, because its CBC station (CBET) serves 5 million more people in Detroit and Toledo...

no news so far on when/if CHWI-TV-60 will convert to digital and move to 25...

i'm surprised you're picking up the cleveland stations during the night fairly consistently all the way in forest glade. that's over 100 miles o.o

Hello, I've new today to the forum and am looking for some advice on signal strength of CDN stations broadcasting in the Windsor area. We've moved to Ann Arbor -- so I'm about 60 km almost due west from Windsor -- and currently get very fuzzy reception of CBC 9 analogue with a rather dilapidated looking rotor-mounted roof-top antenna that we inherited from the people we bought our house from.

I'm wondering if I invest in a better antenna if I'll get a) better reception and b) any more Canadian stations in? CTV and TVO would be nice.

Thanks for the help!

Hi DTA2, the first thing to do is run your TVFool report - see Post #10 in the OTA FAQ for step-by-step instructions and then post your results here so that we can analyze your situation. :)

Yeah its more then likely due to WILX from Lansing... it was one of the stations coming in pretty good last night for me. Canadian analogs are a much bigger concern based on my observations over the past year. Strong local analogs on 16,22,9 and even tropo channels comming in (eg:CFPL 10), are the main cause of American digitals on 8,10,15,17,21,23 suffering from adj analog interference. 15, 21 and 23 seem to be the worst affected.

I rarely see WILX-DT as CFPL 10 is a very strong station and appears very often. If all Canadian stations went digital this likely be eliminated. You can see this phenomenon as good signal well above the weak/pixellation/dropout point on your tuner but the digital(s) still pixellate (SNR problems). Even last night on WEWS 15 I had signal up to the 8/10 range and still I had moderate glitches. Some nights are better but lately it's just been getting worse and worse.

Die already local analogs, die!

CTV and TVO would be nice.Getting CBET 9 and CICO 32 (Tvo) from Ann Arbor shouldn't be all that difficult. Some SE Michigan members here have gotten good results in and around your location. Getting CTV on 42 from Sarnia/Oil Springs might be much more difficult though. It's probably close to 80 miles away from Ann Arbor. You also have many high powered local digitals on adjacent channels that may cause further degradation as well.

Hi stampeder, thanks very much for the welcome and the starting tips. I've poked around on the sites you've suggested.

Here's the tvfool results:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3db67107bf962da9

I've compared them with those on the FCC website, antennapoint and the sjm website and the data is all very similar. What tvfool thinks we can receive, and what we actually currently receive is quite close. There are some in the green that we can't pull in right now, but others in the red that we can, which gives me hope that with antenna tweaking, I'll be able to get more.

It looks like CTV is a no-go as one thing I realized going through all this great information is that SWO CTV comes out of London.

In any case, I'm starting to get my hopes up that if I upgrade the rusty single-bay antenna on the roof, I'll at least be able to get CBC in OK, it looks like TVO (of which I can see coloured pixels through a snowstorm now) may work, and maybe even the A Channel and Global would be possible if the weather conditions were right.

Anyhow, I'd very much appreciate other opinions on the situation, and if anybody thinks a different antenna may help, some guidance on what I should be looking out for.

Thanks, DTA2

DT2,
You actually have a great location for OTA, wow. You don't have alot of line of sight, but you are right in the middle of several markets! Anything within 50 miles is easily obtainable with a descent roof top antenna, either a combo UHF/VHF like I have or even a 4 or 8 bay bowtie.

A combo antenna is usually better for VHF as it has both types of antennas, but it is more directional then a UHF bowtie antenna. But looking at your tvfool, you're pretty much 40 miles from almost any transmitter so you'll have to point the antenna regardless to pickup alot of those stations. I'd recommend a combo antenna myself but I'm no expert maybe someone else here has a different opinion. Antennacraft and Channelmaster make descent combo's.

You should have no problem picking up Detroit, Flint, Lansing, Toledo... I'm envious of your possible channels you could pickup, mind you i'm speaking of the american digital signals.

As for the Canadian analog signals, I don't think CBET should be an issue, but how clear it will come in will depend on the type of antenna and amp you use. At 42 miles it is definately obtainable, even if the signal is pretty low. Are there any hills around you? There must be as you don't have LOS with all detroit locals which i'm a bit suprised.

DT2, definitely you will want one of the Antenna Chart recommendations for getting Canadian stations, or if you have the time to head up to Ithaca, Michigan you can see what Denny's Antenna has to suit your needs.

@DT2

Actually, CTV is out of Oil Springs on rf 42 810kW ERP + 300m HAAT. London is the A channel (Like CHWI). Oil Springs is like 40 miles closer to Windsor.

Read ya l8r,
Al

CKCO-TV-3 broadcasts from southeast of Sarnia, near Oil Springs. It's BARELY recievable to me here in downtown windsor, and i have my antenna pointed RIGHT at it.... perhaps it's all those office towers in downtown detroit screwing up the signal....

CBET-TV will be easily watchable in ann arbor with the right equipment, even after it switches to digital.

CICO-TV-32 (TVO) and CIII-TV-22 (Global) will probably be unviewable. I can barely get CIII-TV as it is, and CICO suffers from severe adjacent-channel interference from WPXD-DT (31) and W33BY-CA (33), so its picture ranges from average to bad.

CIII-TV-22 broadcasts from only 100 meters (300 feet) up on their tower between Point Pelee and Leamington, and as such, has strong interference from the ruthven ridge. it doesn't help that it's also directional to cover leamington and chatham only, so despite being at 1.5 MW, hardly any signal leaks over towards Windsor and Detroit.

CHWI-TV-60 (A Windsor) currently only broadcasts at a pathetic 5.8 kW from the Victoria Park Place apartment tower in downtown Windsor, and has very little signal beyond M-39 (Southfield Freeway).

Since CTV/A and Global are already rebroadcasters of largely american programming (which you can get from detroit at a far higher quality), don't worry if you can't pull them in... you won't be missing anything. :p

One thing you'll notice by 2011 is that CBEFT (currently on 54) will broadcast on 35 at a full megawatt of digital power. That blowtorch will be BOOMING into southeast michigan, though how many michiganders will actually tune in to french-language programming is up in the air. :P

From what i recall, there are some hills around the Ann Arbor area, about the same as around the London/Woodstock area.. nothing dramatic, but enough to lower signals from LOS to 1Edge even within 50 miles.

You should be able to pick up the Toledo locals (at least, WTOL 11, WTVG 13, and WNWO 49), Lansing Locals (WILX 10, WLNS 36 and WSYM 47), and the full detroit spectrum (possibly without WADL 39, which broadcasts from Mt. Clemens). You might even be lucky and snag WJRT 12 from Flint. I doubt you'll get WNEM (22) and WSMH (16) due to co-channel interference from the windsor stations.. but they may be sufficiently weak at that distance to allow...

Thank you very much for all that additional information. ringtailed fox, your information was really helpful. We're about 20 mi from M39, so I guess CHWI is out the question.

Yes, Ann Arbor has several hills around it so this makes me wonder whether increasing antenna height may be of assistance. Or is that a losing battle? I suppose if the hill is 200 ft high, even if I jack up the antenna another unrealistic 100 ft, it's not going to make any difference.

stampeder, thanks for the tip on the antenna store. I might try something a little closer though ;). Ithaca's about a 160 km drive. Or one benefit about moving to the States is that I now have access to all those cheap online stores without having to worry about cross-border shipping!

Thanks much.

Around 7-9 pm i saw some mild tropo out here in windsor. Was picking up WUPW again, weak but fairly solid signal. I then spun the rotor around to Cleveland and had the usual visitors - WKYC 3-1 & WEWS 5-1.

Then for the hell of it i punched in 8 on my tv and what would ya know.... picked up WJW 8-1 Fox for the first time! Couldn't believe it.... its signal is super weak here at my location, and usually i can't pick it up due to some channel interference from CBET on 9...

Does anyone think a stronger amp would help? I'm using an antennacraft amp that is thier 10G201, gets about 16 db gain. I was thinking about picking up a 10G212 which does up to 30db. Nice thing about it is that it has the adjustable gain, so i figured if the full 30db was too much i could dial it down when signals are stronger if it overloads any of them. And in the winter months crank it up to help fringe signals? Maybe a better antenna would do more...

Phil you seem to be getting better reception now with your new setup by switching from a combo antenna like I have (mind you yours is a bit bigger and has more gain I think) over to the CM4228. Beginning to think maybe I need a bowtie setup rather then a combo with only a few VHF signals around, and people seem to still be picking up VHF fairly descent on the 4228's, especially when double stacking them.

I get a pretty good signal on most of my channels, at least 70% but then it will keep dropping out. I tried using a distributor amp because it's about a 100 foot run but that doesn't seem to help. Any suggestions?

mikekakuk, are all your digital stations dropping out like that at the same time, or only just certain ones?

Also have a look through this thread for your area and you'll get a sense of what you likely should be getting if all is working properly. Use the Search This Thread tool to the upper right beside Thread Tools and put in "lasalle" as your search term, and you'll see a few results already posted from where you live so you can compare. Try other search terms too. :)