I ordered the Delhi 4BT-1483 and will be here Monday :)

i bought a channel master 4221 and i get all the detroit channels including 38 and 2 toledo channels without a pre-amp.most of the detroit channels are in the high 80's and the 2 toledo channels are 13 which is at 68% and pbs which is at 60%.

my question is should i be able to get the other 3 toledo channels with a pre-amp or am i waisting my time and money.would also love to get channel 31 out of ann arbour too.it came in one sunday for 3 hours and had some interesting programs on it like bulldog fightingon sunday nights

i use my express-vu hd reciever to get these digital channels.as for the comment of being locked out of the local channels durn bad weather is not true.u need to go to menu 8 than 2 for the guide and scroll down to the local channels to watch them durn bad weather.

i live in windsor about 4 miles away from both the tunnel and bridge.any one can tell me if the pre-amp will get me more channels would be a great help thanks.heres all the channels i get right now and there signal strenght beside them without a pre-amp.

channel 2 detroit -77%
channel 4 detroit 77%
cannel 7 detroit 83%
channel 13 toledo 67%
channel 20 detroit 92%
channel 30 toledo 60%
channel 38 detroit 75%
channel 50 99%
channel 56 detroit 82%
channel 62 detroit 82%.

this is at 530 pm and when the sun goes down the detroit signs goes stronger.that with pointing my attenna at toledo and not at detroit.

Spoonky,

I'm in the Puce area and using a uhf / vhf combo mounted about 20 -25 ft on my roof. Using a rotor and a uhf amplifier I only add Toledo channel 11 and Ann Arbor PBS to your list. I have yet to get any additional HD broadcast but don't experiment much. I bought my UHF amp from Lighthouse Antenna in Windsor as Stampeder mentioned he also said the 4228 is overkill, he mentioned the 4221 for our area. I think he charged $60 for the amp.

Spoonky do you pick up any Windsor stations at all?

i get channel 60 the a channel pretty clear but channel 9 cbc comes inalittle distorted.as i have my attenna pointed towards toledo and not towards detroit.i am only using a ufh channel master 4221 antenna.i get all the detroit stations except 31 wichis the ion station from anne arbor.i get 2 toledo stations most of the time channel 13 and channel 30.some times channel 11 and 24 come in depending on the wind current.i suggest u aim your antenna towards toledo cause the detroit channels are strong enough that u don't have to aim towards detoit.i think i need the 8 bow uhf antenna to keep the other 2 toledo channels locked in.and maybe i mite get that tricky station from toledo too channel 36.u see channel 36 is the fox station and if detroit is not sold out for football toledo still shows a game usually green bay.

all windsor stations are not digital and they have no plan to go to digital at all.i hears that by the fall we will get digital ctv out of leammington as they got approval to broadcast from there from the crtc.golbal a bust thou cause its in sarnia and too far away.

I don't have it installed yet but was curious about the Windsor stations. Thanks again.

On a suggestion, I'm reposting my question that I had placed in the "Newcomers Forum"; if any mod's would like to kill that thread to clean it up the link to the original question is here:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?p=562869


Hey everyone, I'm a hockey guy over in the states, close to Detroit, and now that I've been upgrading my systems to HD (a Plasma, and a LCD) along with getting hooked back up with DirecTV with their promise of something like 150 HD channels (My current digital cable has something like 3 actual digital channels) I don't want to lose my CBC channel 9 for Hockey Night in Canada. I've talked to DirecTV and they've said something about not being able to pick up the Canadian channel for rebroadcast. So I did the next thing, I called the best buy in Windsor and talk to one of the guys in the TV / Home Theater department, and he said that CBC is broadcasting in HD OTA; granted I never told him that I was in the states and not right there in Windsor. So off to Google I ventured, but now I'm worried; I haven't been able to find anything that backs up this guys word that CBC is doing OTA broadcasting in Windsor yet. So I called best buy a few days later and talked to someone else. They too said that I would be able to pick up CBC with a HD OTA antenna; which once again I didn't tell him I'm state side. I figure, I'm really just trying to find out if there really is a tower doing HD OTA of CBC and where is it so that I can get a approx. distance from it to me so that I can pick out a good Delhi or ChannelMaster antenna rated for the right distance, and point it somewhere more accurately than just "Toward Canada"

Thank you for reading my life story LOL

~RSA

I seriously doubt you would be able to pickup CBC HD's OTA from the CN Tower in Toronto, all the way to Detroit.
When I lived in Downtown Toronto on the 27th Floor, I could pickup WWJ-62, as well as WUAB 43 Cleveland.
However, the major factor would be co-channel interference from WMYD-20 (My20 in Detroit), since CBLT-DT is also on channel 20.
You will be stuck with the SD version CBET 9 from Windsor, since HD is only available to Windsorites via Cable or Satellite.

See http://www.cbc.ca/hdtv/ for info on what channels CBC HD are available and where.

Stations available in your area:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Detroit_TV

magnet - Thanks for clearing that up. As I use Google Earth to see my exact distance from the CN Tower I'd say that trying to pull an HD OTA signal 351.19 Km even given perfect radio condition and no external radio noise would be just about -5% LOL

Now I've already read that really there isn't much of a difference from Analog and Digital antenna's; is that true?

Reason for asking is that I'm only about 58 Km from what I think is the Essex broadcast towers (42º29'16.09"N 83º24'25.60"W) and I'm wondering would the same antenna that would pick up the Analog signal, maybe pickup a digital signal sometime in the future?

Thanks!

~RSA

RSA: There is absolutely no difference between an analog and digital antenna (any such claims are marketing ploys). However, since most digital stations are currently broadcasting on UHF (channels 14-69) and some analog stations are on VHF (channels 2-13), so some people call UHF antennas digital antennas, but after the analog shutdown, many digital stations will move to VHF (see DTV Tentative Channel Designations (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf)) so many people will be unhappy with their "digital" antenna after that. You can either get a combo VHF/UHF antenna or join separate VHF and UHF antennas together with a band separator/combiner.

So for CBET 9 you will need a VHF antenna, but you will also need one for WJBK after the analog shutdown in 2009. As for receiving CBET digitally, the CRTC has announced that the Canadian analog shutdown is scheduled for 2011, so it will have to start broadcasting digitally before then. When that will happen is anyone's guess, but I would be very surprised if it goes on air in less than 2 years. They have been tentatively allocated channel 35 but will likely revert to 9 in 2011. It is possible that they will wait until 2011 and do a flash cutover from analog to digital on channel 9, but I personally think this is unlikely (see August 31st 2011: Deadline for DTV and HDTV in Canada (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=63969) for more discussion on this).

roger1818 - So I should be pretty good with a Delhi VU-934SR (Rated for Suburban to Fringe & covering VHF/UHF/FM), right?

Thanks to stampeder for the awesome OTA Antenna Decision chart.:cool:

~RSA

RSA, you're very welcome! :)

If you're looking at the Delhi 934 you might consider the 935 or 936 because you live in an area that might net you some really interesting summertime viewing during hot weather (see the DXing/Tropo thread for explanation). On the other hand the 934 will definitely suit your needs and you'll be buying the best of that combo breed in a slightly smaller form factor.

One other thing: if you check through the thread about Ontario OTA vendors you'll find posts by a shop owner named Denny, who is also from Michigan and can probably give you further advice about your area.

*Correction*

The Lat and Long I gave before about the towers in Essex.....well lets just say that was way off. It's actually about 7 houses away from where I'm trying to pickup the signal.

The coords that I meant to give yesterday was:

42 03' 23.86"N 83 00' 06.77"W

Which I see isn't the CBET Tower now anyway. Don't know what the towers at those cords are used for then.

~RSA......really not sure what happened with the previous coords.

We'll probably stick with the 934 just because its already almost 3 meters in length, and with DirecTV installed, we really only plan on using the Delhi for Channel 9 SD at this point, channel X when they go digital.:rolleyes:
Plus its a pretty big size jump from the 934 to the 935 its almost a meter longer just between the two.

If two things where different I'd probably go with the 935 or hell even the 937:
A) This was my house that I'm getting hooked up; its actually my grandparents house, so I know they're not going to be fooling around DXing new signals. LOL

B) If they didn't have the DirecTV already handling 95% of their channels.

.....wish I had the kind of extra cash to say "....use your judgment, just remember I want Channel 9 for Hockey, and the 'coolest' picture we get get on these TV's"

~RSA

Don't forget that you will probably get a much better picture using an antenna to get the local digital channels than you will with DirecTV.

with the channel master 8 bowtie attenna i get channel
4
7
11
13
20
30
36
38
50
56
62
all digitally with my attenna pionted towarda toledo all the time.

ocassional i get channel
2
24
31
44
6 out of lansing.

most of the time its 21 digital channels and on a good nite its up to 31 digital channels,now if cbc can get off the pot and turn on there digital signal in windsor i be all set. wish channel 2 in detroit would boast there sinal and channel 24 in toledo too than i be a happy camper.

Hi all, great forum btw, lots of info.

Totally new to OTA HDTV have a new Panasonic 52" tv, tryin to feed it some HD content to see what it'll do.

Just did some measuring, have a 32' tubular tower, (in need of some work at the mast mount, but definately repairable) and I live near Petrolia, Ont. few miles from Sarnia, bout 140 kilo's from London (west)

Looking for recommendations on HD antenna, rotors, amps etc. I've been looking on Ebay, have lots of these "DB8" 8 bay antennas, but am looking to find a good setup to start with. Only thing worse than going through the motions once is to have to climb that tower twice.. lol. This isn't the only source of TV, but would be nice to have a good selection of HD content available.

Only have one HD tv at the moment, but would love to feed another smaller tv some content as well as my Sony receiver a good FM signal. Want to do it right. Suggestions?

Is anyone able to pick up Toronto's CTV HD in Windsor, Ontario. I don't want to bother trying if this is near impossible. My wife wants to watch the music awards and the analog reception on channel 42 is pretty bad.

THere is absolutely no way you would ever get CFTO-DT Toronto from where you are. Don't even bother trying.

The only way you'll get CTV-HD in Windsor is on Rogers or Evu.