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MB/SK - Winnipeg, Brandon, Regina, Saskatoon, Prairies - OTA

482K views 1K replies 193 participants last post by  winnipeg305 
#1 ·
This thread is for OTA general discussion and results in Prairie and Northern Canada.

This includes Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut.
 
#956 ·
no I am not geting them now :-(

I got them for at least 4 hours straight on Friday night. When I went to bed at 2AM I was still getting them. The next night... nothing :-( I still have the data for those channels programmed into my guide on the TV now from the time I rescanned on friday so I can quickly tune to them now and try them out. You can bet I'll be checking every day now especially at night.

There must have been some crazy atmospheric thing going on. With a better antenna is a possible to get WDAZ and preferably Prarie Public Television permanantly in Winnipeg?

The thing that's crazy is I don't even live in South Winnipeg, I live in North Winnipeg. As far north in Winnipeg as you can get really (in the garden park area of the city, 1 street north from Leila).

I had a look at the transmitter location on wikipedia for WDAZ and found it on Google Earth. Then I used that Ruler tool to draw a straight line from the transmitter to my house... it was a whopping 211km from WDAZ's transmitter to my house. HOLY COW!!! This antenna is only rated for someething like 50km.
 
#957 ·
winnipeg305: Yeah it's a nice litte antenna. I have/had very little experiece hooking up outdoor antennas before. When I moved into my house, the previous owners had Bell Expressvu and still had the old dish hooked up and a Coax line running into the house. One of the main reasons I got the ANT-751 was because it's a simple matter of just pulling the dish off the mount, bolting the antenna to the existing satellite pole mount and I was able to use the existing RG6 cable running into the house.
 
#958 ·
Getting back to my earlier post about loosing VHF channels lately, I thought that maybe my buried cable had gone bad, but that turned out not to be the case. I have since discovered that the interference that was mucking up my VHF reception turned out to be caused by the battery charger for my eBike (which I bought recently). That charger must be giving off a lot of radiation. When I unplug the charger, my VHF reception is 100%...as soon as I plug it back in, my VHF reception drops down to 25% and becomes unwatchable. As a work around, I wrapped the charger in aluminum sheet metal to sort of shield it. My VHF channels strength now only drop down to 75% (instead of 25%) when the charger is plugged in, and that seems to be acceptable as the picture no longer freezes or pixelates when my bike is charging.
 
#959 ·
Nice inversion this morning (southern MB). Logging 23 channels, and 3 are PPTV (PBS) transmitters with their sub channels. Also NBC, ABC, and CBS and their sub channels as well.
Just using an SBGH at about 16' with no reflectors or pre-amp.
 
#961 ·
I'm close to Morris in an area with lots of trees..

Is there a local vender for those RCA antennae? I've seen RCA preamps at Princess Auto...
(RCA-ANT 751)
 
#965 ·
Hey there davidb. I'm on the 2300 block of Portage Ave with a patio facing south and west, on the fourth floor. I have the RCA-ANT 751 mounted on a mast facing slightly south west. I'm guessing it's at about 40-45 feet. I'm continuing to get KNRR intermittently. I'm thinking that the cloud cover is what does it. No reception at all (so far) when it`s clear. This morning it was coming in perfectly at 40 % reception (lots of clouds this am). The antenna has a preamp. I bought the antenna at Princess Auto at Portage and Westwood.
 
#966 ·
OK, thanks for the info. I'm in North Kildonan and after nearly 2 years, I have still not even had a sniff of KNRR...even with a big antenna and separate preamp and the antenna mounted 10' above my garage roof. I guess if you can only get it intermittently at your location and altitude, I suppose I can stop kidding myself and accept that I am limited to the local stations. I'm OK with it, but I somehow always hoped that I might pull in a US channel or two.
 
#967 ·
I had an email conversation a while ago with the Chief Engineer for KNRR and here is his reply regarding reception in Wpg.

" Actually, we do cover Winnipeg, but the beam angles from the tower make it nearly impossible to receive it on the ground. I have had conversations with people north of Winnipeg that receive us just fine and quite a number of them in the southern areas. In the city itself though, it is nearly impossible without a very tall antenna"

Do note, there is no cost benefit to them to realign the antenna for better Wpg reception.
 
#968 ·
Hello All,

I just recently moved to Churchbridge, Saskatchewan. I'm trying to determine if there are any OTA TV stations being broadcasted that I would receive in my area and therefore if it's worthwhile purchasing a digital antenna.

If you know yourself or could point me in the right direction, that'd be great.

Cheers.
 
#973 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by bjom77 View Post
I used TVfool (great resource). It listed 5 stations I could receive in Churchbridge, however, when I selected "digital only" they all disappeared. Granted that all OTA broadcasts are now digital, what does this mean?

Thanks.

Try increasing TVFool antenna height.
Also click on "Pending". The database is not properly updated.
 
#975 ·
Guess you'll have to move down to the deep dark south, I have been watching the CBS local news in the mornings pretty much every day lately. Breaking up this evening though... but so is 13... maybe my preamp isn't working again..
 
#976 ·
I just transferred to the UofM and live just south of the campus. I set up my Terk HDTVa yesterday and had trouble receiving anything but once I put my antenna outside I was able to get CTV, City, CBC, HopeTV, Global, and French CBC.

I'm thinking about buying a longer coax cable to move the antenna away from the TV (right now it's on top of it) or maybe buying a window coax cable. Can someone suggest a good place to buy from?
 
#977 ·
My side of town! (used to live across Pembina from U of M back in my good old University days). Maybe not sure what a window coax cable referrs to, but Future Shop is close by north of Bishop bridge. Three's also Giant Tiger at Pembina & Markham/South Park that might have some TV *.stuff.
 
#978 ·
Just tested a CM4221hd for the first time. I'm in the south of Winnipeg. I have about 60% signal on all local channels but CBWT and CBFWT are pixelated, with choppy audio that fades in and out. This occurs even though the signal strength is the same as other channels (CKND, CKY-TV, CITYTV, etc.) . How do I go about figuring out what is causing this problem?
 
#980 ·
VHF-HI reception issues, got any ideas?

Having some trouble getting good signal from all the fairly strong stations, mainly the issue getting both 7 and 13. UHF isn't an really an issue, they're strong enough to get with a simple piece of wire. Here's my tvfool link -> tvfool


The main problem is limited indoor antenna location and to get LOS for 7 or 13 I'd need a 25+ roof mast so that's not going to happen. So far I've made three antennas, a simple VHF dipole, 23.5" VHF loop (QICT) and a 2 bay bowtie (9.5 x 9). The loop appears to get the best signal with the bowtie a close second but neither pull in both 7 and 13 given the same position/orientation. I'm I stuck with one channel or the other or might there be some solution for this?
 
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