Simonizer you gotta get that antenna up outdoors. This weekend was awesome but in our area outside is the only way you can go for Buffalo can you tripod it or chimney mount it outside?? It's cheaper than a tower. I did a 4221 for a friend on a chimney seems to work ok Fox cuts out sometimes though as its not high enough.

New to this and was wondering how are these results stacking up to other people in the area?

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3dc72357e224b77d

Thanks, thinking of installing the CM4228HD with CM7777 over the weekend, just pointed to Toronto for now, and I'm curious how many HD channels I can expect to pull in.

I'm in Victoria Park area of Kitchener, by Queen St. S. From the 8th floor of my high-rise apartment building, using my indoor Terk HDTVa, I was able to receive the following stations:


6 - Global
9 - CFTO (CTV) -- very fuzzy
11 CHCH
13 - CKCO
18 (Virtual 11-1) - CHCH-DT
28 - TVO
31 - CityTV -- somewhat fuzzy
35 (Virtual 36-1) - CTS-DT
36 - CTS
56 - CBC
61 - French CBC


I'm really aiming to get the Toronto HDTV stations, especially CTV-DT (CFTO) since they would have the Olympics in HD. Given my location and height, do you think it will be possible for me to get the digital broadcasts from Toronto?

Here is my TV Fool profile:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d27eef916cfad06

8 floors up is good, paws, really good. :) If you have a balcony or a big window facing Toronto a more capable antenna would give you great reception of Toronto DTV stations.

8 floors up is good, paws, really good. :) If you have a balcony or a big window facing Toronto a more capable antenna would give you great reception of Toronto DTV stations.
Thanks, stampeder. Yes, I have a large padio door going out onto a balcony. Both face toward Toronto.

Given the list of stations (and the signal strengths) that TV Fool says is in my area, what kind of antenna do you think I should be aiming for? I've been considering building a Gray Hoverman antenna by following the instructions posted here: http://www.casano.com/projects/hoverman/index.html

Any words of wisdom?

You realize that antenna is from the instructions at this site

paws, funny you didn't see this thread: Introduction to the Gray-Hoverman TV Antenna (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=81982)

Our site is the birthplace and the one and only home of the Gray-Hoverman antenna. :)

Southwest end of Kitchener, with a 4228 clone mounted on my roof with a tripod, no amp, eyeballed roughly east:
5.1-clear
6-clear
9.1-clear
10-snowy
11-snowy to clear
11-1-clear
13-clear
17-1-intermittent
17-2-intermittent
17-3-intermittent
19-clear
23-1-clear
25-clear
25-1-clear
28-snowy
31
36
36-1-clear
41
41-1-clear
47-snowy
52
56-snowy
57-snowy
57-1 clear
61
66-1 clear
69 -clear to snowy
anything not commented I can't remember at the moment - I'm not at home.
Most digital channels are fairly consistent, with channel PBS (17) being intermittent.
I'm going to try an amp once the weather gets a little better, and try aiming for best reception.
Any idea if the Gray-Hoverman might get me better results?

@GT40: Those are good results for a roof-top setup here in Kitchener. Are you using a rotator? If so, this could probably help give you some consistency with Buffalo stations.

No rotator. I just droped the antenna on the mast facing east. I thought with an amp and placing it dead middle of TO/Buffalo would give me plenty to look at -maybe even enough to drop my satellite service.
I don't think a rotator would work well using multiple sets, and it's really not that 'wife friendly' LOL. She's already complaining about on the 'monstrosity' on the roof.
I'll see what an amp and some more carefull aiming does.

Those are some really impressive results. I am not too far away from you (around Doon Pioneer Village) and don't get nearly as many channels despite my antenna being about 165ft+ high. Of course, it's a ******** 4-bay clone, it's indoors, and I'm on the wrong side of the building to get a clear view of the east. It seems like my channel scan does recognize signals on a lot of the digital channels you mentioned, so maybe I'll get some of them one day. I can't go up to an 8-bay antenna, unfortunately, since the wife is already annoyed that I put a 4-bay in our kitchen (heh). Just the other day I ordered the KitzTech low noise preamp to use instead of the cheapo ******** one I bought from Canada Computers along with my 4-bay antenna, so hopefully that will help lock in some of the weaker signals. Fingers crossed, and good luck with your setup.

For the record, my current results:
6: snowy
10: snowy (wiped out by ******** preamp)
11: clear
11-1: 85%
13: clear
15-2: 15% max (0% in the antenna's current position)
23-1: 20%-35%
28: snowy
31: almost clear
36: clear
36-1: 65%
41: snowy
47: either snowy or missing
56: snowy
57: snowy
61: clear

Most of the analog channels come in better with an indoor antenna placed in my window (facing SW), so I'm using that for those at the moment.

Weird, ******** seems to be a swear on this forum! :D

There's a very good reason for why that cheapo antenna company is not welcome here:

OTA Clone, Coat Hanger, and Junk Antennas (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=106108)

Oh, I see, I had no idea. Well I would edit my post to take their name out of it, but I don't see an edit button. On the bright side, I paid so little for my antenna they may well have lost money on it! :)

I've since added a 7777 amp, and brought in 17-1, 17-2,17-3 at 40%, and added channels 26-1, and 26-2 at about 30%. Most of the snowy analogue channels are now on the clear side.
FWIW, when I had this same antenna in the attic, I only received 11-1 in digital, and had a whopping total of 10 channels.
I'm sure if you managed to get your antenna on the roof pointing east, you'd be much happier with your results.
I've looked at the dbgh and I may experiment with one in the summer. It's getting might cold, and slippery on the roof ATM.

I received my KitzTech preamp last week and it is somewhat better than the one I had before, but my signal quality is still HIGHLY dependent on weather (or whatever you want to call it) conditions. I can add 9-1 (CFTO) to the list of channels I receive now, but it's frequently too choppy to be useful during prime time (about 25-40% signal strength). For The Daily Show and Colbert Report it's been pretty good though (40-50% signal).

Early Saturday morning (about 5am) I had some lovely tropo effects allowing me to pull in every Buffalo channel, with 23-1 (CW) at 100% and the others around 75%. For a while I also had a few from Rochester, NY with excellent signal quality and stability. A few hours later they were all gone again and CW was back to around 50%. This morning when I checked around 9am I could again pick up 5-1 (CBS) and 7-1 (ABC) from Buffalo, at 75% signal, but normally they both read 0%. Interestingly, 23-1 (CW) didn't seem abnormally strong, at around 60-65% and 9-1 (CTV Toronto) was also pretty much normal - about 35-40% but as low as 25% from time to time.

All in all, I don't really care about getting most of the US stations, other than CW, but I would like to get 5-1 (CBC) which TVFool says I should already have and I would also like have 9-1 (CTV) come in better during prime time so that I don't have to watch CKCO in analog instead. CBC, for whatever reason, is never stable and for some reason (reflection?) I can only receive the signal if I aim my antenna in the exact wrong direction for Toronto - of course that eliminates the other channels I want more. Given that my antenna has to go in my kitchen in order to have any hope of tuning in Toronto or Buffalo, and so I can't use anything bigger than a 4-bay, I doubt I have too many options left to me, though. Would you think attempting to build my own GH antenna instead of using the (they-that-shall-not-be-named) one I have now would improve reception enough to stabilize 9-1?

imposter: The antenna you bought is designed for reception of UHF channels 21-69. Note that CBC (CBLT) Toronto digital is on channel 20. This could explain your difficulty with CBC--which is the strongest digital station currently out of Toronto. You will likely have issues with other stations within reception range that are below channel 21, such as SUN Hamilton (channel 15), and FOX Buffalo (channel 14).

Given your problems with CTV (channel 40), it appears that there's just too much attenuation of signal as it passes through your building. CTV is the second strongest digital station out of Toronto. Note that channel 40 is also in use in the London area, thus you may also be experiencing co-channel interference.

By switching to an "approved" 4 or 8 bay antenna, and ganging two of them together, you might be able to scrounge enough signal for acceptable reception of more Toronto stations.

If you're very committed to OTA reception, you may consider moving to an apartment on the other side of the building. Otherwise, you may have to suffer with analog stations in the area until the digital conversion on August 31, 2011.

Lastly, I don't think a pre-amp is going to do much for you. Your coax run is likely short. I would probably turn the gain down low on the Kitztech, as it's amplification range is up to 1000MHz. Your building likely has cellular (800MHz) and/or other transmitters on the roof that operate below 1000MHz--so the use of the Kitztech could create harmonics through the UHF band that may negatively impact TV reception.

Believe it or not, I was able to pull in CBC and stabilize CTV to a watchable level at almost all times of day by adding a little aluminum foil to my antenna. :cool:

In line with your advice about co-channel intereference, I initially just hoped I might be able to block out analog channel 40 from London by fiddling with the angle and using some foil to try and block part of the signal from that direction or at least reflect a bit more from Toronto. The interference was clearly causing me problems some of the time, because I found there were nights when I had more than 40% signal strength on CFTO (channel 40 from Toronto) and absolutely no picture. So I just covered the back of the reflectors with foil to see what effect that would have, if any. Since I did this on a night when I wasn't getting much signal from London anyway, I couldn't tell what effect it had - but not surprisingly it turned out to be none.

Then, since I had already wasted some big sections of foil, I basically made some tubes that are just slightly longer than the existing bowties and slid them over top. I'm not sure if it's the extra length of just the foil itself, but putting these on immediately brought in CBC no problem. After some fiddling around with it I was able to boost CTV and CBC to about the same level - typically 40% signal or more - and they're almost always watchable now. I still have some more tinkering to do in order to find out whether other foil configurations will work better or not (for example, I briefly had a watchable Sun TV, 15, with some foil on the top-left bowties - but it hurt reception on other channels so I took them off). I'll probably try to post a picture of it once I'm satisfied I can't do any better with just adding foil tubes. It's pretty redneck of me to do this, of course, but as long as it works I don't care! :p

The majority of OTA setups require some level of experimentation. ;)
First you do the "quick and dirty" approach. Then, once you discover a configuration that works, you endeavour to make it "wife friendly" by working on the aesthetics...we've all done it!

lets see i get channals 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 13 28 31 36 56 61 with a loop and rabbit ears off a 3 story facing east with perfect los to east north and south nothing west i get perfect reception on channals 5 6 11 13 28 31 36 61 the rest are watchable most times at about 60 percent picture and little noise it abit fuzzy but not much sometimes the stations look scrambled like the old days of cable permium stations i'm new to this

with all this stations how meny more could i posably get with a new antena and digital box with preamp i'm thinking about putting a antenna on a pole off my balcony stright up past the roof to get 360 degrees los can any one help with some ideas to get more stations

i'm facing west i mean and stations only look scrambled sometimes but late at night thay tend to be better and not scrambled

tunden: I would check with your landlord/building manager prior to erecting any mast and antenna to the exterior of your unit. Ideally, if you're given permission to do so, I'd put a tripod on the roof. This improves the aesthetics, and clears your balcony of equipment.

"Scrambled" analog signal is usually the result of not enough signal making it to the tuner (antenna pointing in wrong direction, not enough gain, etc). Therefore, you would benefit from an external antenna, especially one that clears the roof line of your building.

Toronto stations are at 75 degrees (slightly north of direct east). Hamilton and Buffalo at about 117 degrees (ESE).