NY - Buffalo, Southern Tier, Batavia, Rochester, Syracuse

[farlz00]

Apparently everything I thought I knew about antennas (which probably isn't much) has just been thrown into question. I live in Newfane NY, about 10 miles from the lake, pretty good location for reception of Buffalo, GI, and Toronto. I was using an antennacraft u8000 (8 bowtie and a winegard preamp) pointed at T.O. (no rotor) and was getting all T.O. well, CITY 57 was the weakest, but problem free most of the time. WGRZ was my biggest problem, hit or miss most of the time (50-55% signal strength) , but I was willing to sacrafice it for CITY.

As the summer wore on, CITY got weaker and weaker, basically no longer recievable, and the same w/WGRZ. Wanting the best of both worlds, I decided to attempt merging two antennas to improve both. I've read a lot about the drawbacks, but decided to try anyways, purchased a Winegard yagi 9022 for $30 plus shipping. I figured a yagi would improve my signal from T.O. and reject signals from the side and back reasonably well enough to combo the u8000 pointed at Buffalo.

A few days ago, I mounted the yagi on the mast and disconnected the u8000 just to see what my T.O. signals were like. I came back into the house and my jaw hit the floor, not only was I getting CITY stronger than ever before (no problems at all) roughly a 60% signal strength, but WGRZ was coming in at 90% while pointed at T.O. The same is true for all stations, GI, Buff, and TO, extremely strong signals on this supposedly directional antenna.

At this point, I'm gonna give it a few more days, tweak the positioning (I haven't really done that yet, I just pointed it in the general direction of T.O.), and consider selling off the u8000.

Anyone have similar or not similar yagi experience?

[stampeder]

That's a pretty amazing difference in off-axis performance, which is quite odd on a yagi - it is high summer so everything you are seeing could be gone by the autumn...

As for raw gain, I have to wonder if your AntennaCraft reflector model is just not up to snuff compared to a CM4228.

You bought the Winegard PR-9022 so I'll bet a PR-9032 would do even better, but stay with what you've got for sure!

[videobruce]

How long was the orginal antenna up there?
Did you replace any fittings?

[farlz00]

Yes, I am eyeing the winegard 9032, may be $39 well spent. gonna have to wait a while though, my wife is starting to get annoyed. Hopefully will be ok in winter, I have kind of a trade off during the summer, because I have a ton of maple trees in my yard/neighborhood, so hopefully as the leaves fall we should remain fairly stable.

videobruce - it's been up since january, nothing has been replaced on it.

[dsspredator]

Originally Posted by farlz00

Winegard yagi 9022 for $30 plus shipping.

Where can I get one for $30 + shipping?

[farlz00]

Update, decided to finally buy a rotor, was originally not interested because I dvr almost everything I watch and didn't want to have to remember to adjust the positioning. Wow, I wish I had done that sooner, just 1 or two degrees can have such an impact on so many channels, I would never have been able to discover this without the rotor. For example, while pointing my antenna between 295-315 degrees is perfect for all Toronto stations, between 303-309 is the perfect combo for all three, TO, GI, and Buffalo.

Secondly, I have decided to try the winegard 9032 yagi, it performs in much the same way as the 9022, seems to have slightly better gain, but appears to be much better in bad weather.

[videobruce]

Wow, I wish I had done that sooner, just 1 or two degrees can have such an impact on so many channels, I would never have been able to discover this without the rotor.

That comment should be a 'sticky'!
I have been saying this for some time now. I can't believe anyone installing a antenna without a rotor. There are just too many stations, from too many directions in our markets not to do so.

farlz00; I never noticed where you are. You should have NO trouble with any station from Toronto including CITY 53.1

[BuffaloM]

Has anyone in the Buffalo area built one of the GH designs to pick up stations in Toronto and Hamilton? When I made the switch from Analog to Digital I picked up all of the Buffalo stations perfectly (except the religious one I don't watch) with my set top antenna, but lost channel 9 analog (CTV), which should be 40 digital if I'm reading tvfool right. Also, my converter box shows a weak signal on channels 18 and 20. I'd love to pull them in and others, but I'm not sure which gray-hoverman variant is going to work best for an attic mount (there's no way the neighbors would talk to me if I put up a roughly 4x4 foot antenna on top of my house.)

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[DocWu]

I know this is almost a year later, but I have had almost the opposite experience.

I just put up a DB-4 pointed south for the Southern Buffalo stations and a corner-reflector Yagi pointed at Toronto.

I'm in Lockport, not far from Newfane, but higher. The three big Buffalo stations, 2,4,& 7, are all on the same hill and within a few degrees of each other. I hoped the 4-bay was broad enough to also cover Springville and Batavia if they're not too weak. The Grand Island stations are all strong enough to get with a damp noodle, so those don't concern me.

Toronto stations are all either on the CN Tower or a few blocks away, so they are all tightly centered and I figured the Yagi was a good choice to pinpoint them. I'm getting almost everything, some twice between analog and digital and the various alternate transmitters in other towns.

CHCH in Hamilton is strong enough to get in digital and a few other outlyers come in weaker.

I can't tell you the model of the Yagi, except it's an old Radio Shack model I bought in the 70's when CITY was on channel 79 and showed "blue movies" on weekend nights. People down here were going to extreme lengths to get it. The antenna has spent most of the interim in my attic, so it hasn't seen any weather for most of it's life.

I joined the two antennas with a 2-way coupler and exactly the same length pigtails of RG-6. I have a inline 20 dB amplifier just inside the house. Both antennas are at the peak of my roof on a pole mounter off the eaves.

My entire goal was to NOT need a rotor because it's such a pain to tune a DTV signal with a rotor.

Prior to the installation I got only the local stations in DTV. Even 4 and 7 would sometimes fall off the cliff. The only Canadian station I could even detect a digital signal from was CBLT at 5.1 (20). I now get about 5 Canadian DTV channels and a bunch of analogs at various levels. Some are so good, you'd think they were DTV. Some are less clear. I still have some snow on CITY, SUN and CTS, but they're watchable. I'm hoping they improve as things settle out through the next two years.

[majortom]

Let me preface, my goal is opposite most of you. In Buf we tend to look for Canadian Stations. Rather than a Canadian looking for Buf Stations. Anyhow, did a little experimenting the other day. Nothing really scientific, but I noticed that no matter what I did, the cheezy little $50 CECB ($10+tax after $40 coupon) seems to outperform the $1500 - $2000 HDTV.

Example, since being located near metro Buffalo, obviously should have no problem rcv'ng any of the Buffalo Stations, at all which I don't. Using a Winegard AP-8700 that someone gave me, along with both a homemade GH, and a Yagi/corner reflector (which someone else gave me). Swapping antennas in & out between the two receivers at various locations around the house.

The common thread was that the CECB does yield some improvement with the pre-amp in line, in the form of being able to scan/tune a few channels I wouldn't normally see. On the other hand, once having tweaked
antenna location and using the pre-amp, such that the CECB could scan a stable picture on a few extra channels, just swinging the output over to the HDTV set, not once did the HDTV ever scan anything beyond Buffalo.

Thought that was odd.
Are the ATSC tuners in run of the mill HDTV sets just not very good sensitivity and selectivity wise? The other bummer is the HDTV's SW doesn't seem very Tweaker friendly. e.g no way to just manually tune frequencies, least not that I saw yet. Seems to be designed more to be idiot proof, scan ur channels and be done with it

I haven't bothered mounting anything on the roof, just playin around a bit.

Antenna=> alternating between GH and UHF Yagi Corner Reflector
Pre-Amp=> Winegard AP8700
CECB => The Zenith DTT 901 box from K-Mart
HDTV => Samsung 42" LCD (Model:LN40A530)
Bold =>tuned with Antenna/Pre-Amp/CECB only

 2-1 WGRZ-HD	NBC			33
 2-2 WGRZ-US	Sports Prograamming	33
 2-3 WGRZ-RT	looks like old 70's vintage tv movies	33
 4-1 WIVB-HD	CBS			39
 7-1 WKBW-HD	ABC			38
17-1 WNED-HD	PBS			43
17-2 WNED-SD	PBS			43
17-3 WNED-TH	PBS			43
23-1 WNLO-HD	MY TV			32
26-1 WNYB-SD	Religion		26
26-2 WNYB-HD	Religion		26
29-1 WUTV-HD	FOX			14
29-2 WUTV-SD	FOX			14
49-1 WNYO-HD	CW			49
49-2 WNYO-SD	CW			49
					12
35-1 WSEE-DT	CBS Erie, PA		16	uhf yagi/corner reflector outside, groundlevel
35-2 WBEP-DT	CW Erie, PA		16	uhf yagi/corner reflector outside, groundlevel
35-3 WICU-DT    NBC Erie, PA		16	uhf yagi/corner reflector outside, groundlevel
11.1 CHCH	Hamilton, ON		18	GH in Window
 5.1 CBLT	Toronto, ON		20	GH in Window
					22
54.1 ION	Batavia			23	GH in Window
54.2 ION	Batavia			23	GH in Window
54.3 ION	Batavia			23	GH in Window
54.4 ION	Batavia			23	GH in Window
24.1 WJET-DT	ABC Erie, PA		24	uhf yagi/corner reflector outside, groundlevel
					45
54.1 WQLN-HD	PBS ERIE, PA		50	uhf yagi/corner reflector outside, groundlevel
54.2 WQLN-S1	PBS ERIE, PA		50	uhf yagi/corner reflector outside, groundlevel
54.3 WQLN-S2	PBS ERIE, PA		50	uhf yagi/corner reflector outside, groundlevel

[wavest]

After a recent scan, I received 11.1 and 5.1 at my location in erie, pa. I am able to receive 11.1 about every third day for short periods of time depending on conditions. I picked up 5.1 on what must have been a very good day for a total of 2 minutes until the signal was lost. I'm able to get 10,11,13,31 with varying degrees of clarity. On good days, 17.1 and 29.1 from buffalo come in. I'm wondering how the reception of the erie stations are in your locations and trying to determine if a better antenna would give me a consistent signal from the stations that I mentioned above. Thanks!

[stampeder]

Hi wavest, 11.1 is CHCH-DT in Hamilton, Ontario and 5.1 is CBLT-DT (CBC network) from the CN Tower in Toronto. This site lists all Canadian and U.S. border area stations:

http://www.user.dccnet.com/jonleblan...a_TV_Stations/

The FCC's database is more up-to-date on the U.S. info, but doesn't have the latest Canadian info like the site above does.

[JB Antennaman]

ok, so I got bored and started reading this thread to see what you people were up to. It intrigued me to read this post to see where it went because some people are so stubborn that they actually believe the TV fool report and take it as gospel and refuse to listen to reason when they have a problem.

My opinion is always to use the largest antenna you can find and to use the right antenna to do the right job. UHF for UHF and VHF for VHF and a combo antenna where you need both.

In my situation - which is outside of Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, I only had the option of viewing one market, which is the closest which comes out of Johnstown / Altoona PA. At the time of my purchase of a new antenna, we still had analog - with some low power digital coming on line.
On the advice of a uncle of mine who is a RF engineer and repairs microwave transmitters for most of the television stations in the US. I bought a Winegard 8200U antenna and later purchased a Channel Master CM 7777 pre amp.

The Winegard pre amp probably has a lower noise figure on paper, but I wasn't too keen on buying anything made out of plastic and I don't like to buy things twice.

When they shut off the analog, just like street lights, I had the unique opportunity to watch the analog in the eastern half of the US go dark.
I was home with a rotor and the antenna but no pre amp and I actually received signals as far north as Boston Mass WGBH channel 2 and as far west as WRTV - channel 6 in Indianapolis Indiana, as far south as Virginia WHSV channel 3..

The funny thing was my antenna was only 18 feet off the ground, mounted to the side of a utility shed in the backyard and in the shadow of the house for anything to the north.

Both before and after the DTV transition, I was also able to pick up some low power stations out of Erie PA. WJET and WICU and WSEE
Buffalo stations, along with Detroit channel 4 were still coming in pretty good into the afternoon and all you had to do was turn the antenna in the right direction and you could watch 3 or 4 stations on the same analog channel.

Most times when I give advice, all I hear is I don't want to do this and I don't want to do that and when you tell them that they need a antenna rotor, you hear every excuse from soup to nuts - why they don't want one.

Most people are so stuck on putting a antenna up on their roof and pointing it in one direction and then putting a second antenna up on the roof and pointing it in a different direction and maybe even combining the two signals.

Only reason tells us that combining the signals only results in more multipath.

I really like it when someone who refused to listen to reason, but on a whim actually put up a rotor and then admitted - wow I should have done this 10 years ago. Once a person does something simple and improves their reception, they are usually open to more suggestions as to how to improve their reception. Especially if they like to watch OTA television and wants to receive a certain channel that they lost because it was too far away or the antenna was pointed in the wrong direction or they used the wrong antenna.

Usually by following some simple rules of reception, you can get signals that you never thought possible.
In the summertime, I can receive stations such as Youngstown, Cleveland Ohio, Clarksburgh and Wheeling West Virginia and several stations out of mid Ohio. Stations out of Pittsburgh PA - such as WPGH 53 that could not be viewed with the analog UHF and no pre amp now comes in on a almost daily basis.

[ota_canuck]

JB Antennaman,

Do you possibly have something incredibly better to recommend than using tvfool as a reference?

BTW; How's that Punxsutawney Bob doing,.. Did he go back to bed for another six weeks

[70Stang]

I'm new here and had a question. The antenna on the roof of my house was there when we brought it 20 years ago. I get analog CBC,9,CHCH,And Global. Are those channels digital yet? I picked up this antenna at the local Wal-Mart and was wondering if I'll still get these channels only in Digital form. this is the number off the box "Philips TV antenna SDV2940 UHF/HDTV digital


Thank in advance!

PS. I tried a search but the more I read the more confused I got......