BC - Delta, Richmond, Surrey, White Rock - OTA

[TedS]

Has anyone in North Surrey been successful in HDTV reception? If so, did you have to use an external antenna or was there any success using an indoor antenna?

Ted

[stampeder]

Originally Posted by mexman

Any idea what reception I'll get?

Mexman, with a good antenna about 2 meters above your roofline aimed at about 350 degrees you will get CBC and CTV just great. For the U.S. stations it all depends on your gear. If you look through the B.C. threads here you'll see how people have done it in South Surry and Aldergrove, so I can tell you that a tower, rotor, and maybe a stacked CM4228 pair might be necessary.

[stampeder]

Originally Posted by TedS

Has anyone in North Surrey been successful in HDTV reception?

Ted, do mean CBC and CTV from Vancouver, or are you also asking about the U.S. stations too?

For the locals it all depends if you have a line of sight to the Mt. Seymour antenna farm from where you are (I mean signal-wise, not necessarily visual). An indoor antenna might be possible from North Surrey, but an outdoor antenna will definitely work if there is not a mountain in the way.

For the U.S. stations just read through the B.C. threads for the examples from South Surrey and Aldergrove and you'll see that they are a possibility with a tower, rotor, stacked CM4228 antennas, and maybe some other gear.

[stampeder]

Originally Posted by slim

...I came across an old TV booster...The booster is an Antenna DX ETM-201, 12~16db gain with 5~8db noise figure.

Ouch ouch ouch! What a brutal noise figure! I think that amp would be better as a door-stop in a hamster cage. If you ran a CM4228 into it you'd be very unhappy compared to a Winegard or a Channel Master preamp.

Here are the specs for the DX ETM-201 amp from a web site:

Frequency 40 ~ 890MHz
Gain 12 ~ 16dB
Maximum Output Level 95dBµV (7 channels)
Noise Figure 5.0 ~ 8.0dB
V.S.W.R.1.0 ~ 3.0dB
Input/Output Impedance 75 ohm
Ambient Temperature -20 ~ +50°C
Power Requirements AC127/220V (3.5W)
Dimensions 33(H) x 120(W) x 74(L)mm
Weight 0.3kg

[TedS]

Stampeder,

I think you might have answered my question. WAF (wife acceptance factor), NAF (neighbor AF) and just plain laziness may limit me putting up an external antenna.

I just received my DVico Fusion5 Gold+ HDTV card for my MCE system. I will see if I can pick up CBC & CTV using an internal antenna. Give me a couple of days.

Ted

[DaveyJ]

With Olympics spurring me on I finally mounted my new antenna:

LOCATION: north - central tsawwassen, 3 blks due west of the shopping center.

ANTENNA: Channel Master CM-4228 - purchased from Solid Signal for around $50 US - brought it across border with no duty (nice customs agent!). I have it mounted on an 25 foot flagpole I bolted to the side of the house with angle bracket. Rotator mounted to very top of flagpole, CM4228 mounted on 8 foot pole on rotor ... so the CM4228 is about 35' off the ground.

AMPLIFIER: None - running RG-6 low loss straight to my tuner

TUNER: Panasonic TU-HDS20B purchased two used from Ebay for $20 doesn't have a signal strength meter and adding channels is a pain but the price was right !

RECEPTION:
CBC HD 2.1 - Perfect ! no dropouts - gorgeous
CIVT-HD 32.1 - Perfect ! no dropouts - gorgeous
KBCT 24.1 - from Bellingham perfect - although not in HD

...NEXT Step is to add my mast-mounted pre-amplifier and see if Seattle stations come in.

[stampeder]

DaveyJ, I hope its all still standing after today's winds! Geez, I finally cleared my back yard from that last wind storm and now its full of deadfall again!!!

I think you'll do fine for some/most of the SeaTac stations, and once you've got a preamp on it be careful not to let it overload your tuner on the Mt. Seymour stations.

[DaveyJ]

Thanks for the encouragement, Stampeder! Survived the windstorm no problem, however I noticed dropouts (signal lock loss) on CTV's signal frequently during the storm. CBC was always locked and clear. Will hook up my pre-amp thurs night hopefully. It's one from the Shack that has adjustable gain and an FM trap. Bought it about 8 years ago. Is there a risk of damaging by panasonic tuner if I overload it's input ?

[stampeder]

Originally Posted by DaveyJ

Is there a risk of damaging by panasonic tuner if I overload it's input ?

Overload can literally fry a tuner, and especially the older ones. Sometimes it happens suddenly, sometimes it takes a few months or over a year. My advice would be to first test in all directions with just the antenna, no preamp. If some or all of the Canadian stations are barrelling in with big power you will probably have overload problems with the preamp so you'll need to tread carefully. Go to The Source and get a 6db inline attenuator (it looks like a simple coax coupler but a bit longer):

http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/Pr...roduct=1501258

...but before you use it the first time, test for SeaTac signals with the preamp but without the attenuator. Don't rotate away from SeaTac. Then install the attenuator and run the same test to see if you still get SeaTac signal. If not, your antenna/preamp is doing all it can to provide those signals and the attenuator is throttling the signal too low. This means that you'll have to take your chances without an attenuator in order to get those U.S. stations, but you'll also have to be extremely careful not to aim directly at any Canadian stations (Victoria, Saltspring Island, and Mt. Seymour).

With a CM4228 on a rotor you should be able to get a great signal just as the edge of its reception pattern touches the Canadian station. Stop. Don't go further or you could face an overload. Hopefully if it turns out that you still get the SeaTac stations with that preamp and attenuator on, you should be doing fine for protecting your tuner in all directions.

Let us know how it goes.

[tomcollins]

My status in winter:

1. South Surrey, Redwood park area.

2. ATI HDTV Wonder and their wonderful antenna. (we returned our big screen to FS and are waiting for the tech to play catch up to the hype a bit. -- at our price point the quality wasn't quite what I expected for the price).

3. CBC and CTV (ie Local CTVT-DT and CBUT-DT) both come in clearly though depending on the day I sometimes have to fiddle with the 'antenna' or I get momentary dropouts (frozen picture).
Also pick up the multicultural station from Bellingham (19 KBCB-DT) always ok so far.

The ATI antenna is currently sitting in our den (near the computer) and though it's on a 15ft cable that doesn't give much room to move it around. And I'm not about to start lugging the computer around the house. Most reliable reception comes from stacking several boxes atop a bar stool with the antenna on top (swimbo loves that )

Now to wait and see what the leaves do... spring is coming and I see a trip to the roof in my future.

[TedS]

tomcollins,

Glad to see that you got the ATI HDTV AIW card working on your PC with their antenna. I am doing the same thing with my Fusion HDTV card + MCE system -- but don't have an antenna yet. You have given my great hope - I am actually closer to Mt.Seymour and on a higher elevation, so I believe I should be able to duplicate your results w/o putting up an external antenna.

How big is the ATI antenna? Do you know the manufacturer if I wanted to buy the equivalent? Is your den on the ground floor -- does it matter where it is in the room/house?

Ted

[tomcollins]

Our den is ground floor (in a 'rancher') and it's on the south side of the house so the signal is making it past the big cedar trees in the north yard and through all the walls of the house before reaching the antenna.

The antenna itself is about a foot on a side (triangular).
See a pic here.

There are no markings on the antenna. I had assumed that it was custom built for ATI.

I get pretty good signal for CTV if I sit right in front of the computer and rest the antenna on my left shoulder pointing north-north-west. But as mentioned, a makeshift tower that brings it up to about 6 feet is ideal. So yeah, playing around with the location in the room makes a difference.

I'm certainly going to have to do something else (tripping over cables and walking past an ugly stack of boxes won't fly forever). Once the leaves come out then I'll see what's what and think about moving it around to a more permanent location (ie. turfing it if I get no reception or getting a better antenna if things look promising).

[stampeder]

ATI's antenna is a clone of the Zenith Silver Sensor. You can get them online at many sites. Frankly I don't recommend them outside of very close range because you guys need to remember what happens in a month or two: all those naked, empty deciduous trees all over Surrey suddenly get LEAVES, the dreaded killer of UHF signals!

I recommend a 4-bay reflector like a Wade 4BT-1483, Winegard PR-4400, or CM4221. You will get rock solid signal from Mt. Seymour come rain or shine, leaves or not.

[TedS]

LOCATION: North Surrey - Fleetwood, clear view of the north shore mountains

ANTENNA: RCA Amplified Indoor Antenna (UHF loop) model CANT501 - bought from Future Shop just to try out my system. Currently just located about 0.5m above my family room floor.

AMPLIFIER: It says there is an amplifier in the antenna, but I'm not sure what that means.

TUNER: DVico Fusion5 Gold+ HDTV card for my MCE system

RECEPTION:
CBC HD 2.1 - 80-85% ~22.0dB, no dropouts
CIVT-HD 32.1 - ~70% 19.0dB, still images that refresh every 5-10secs
KBCT 24.1 - Nothing, other than acknowledgement that something is there

NEXT STEPS:
- Better position the antenna and play with the gain settings - frankly I'm amazed that by doing almost nothing and investing 1 hour playing with positioning got me so far
- Get MCE to recognize the system - currently the Fusion card is killing my nVidia decoder. After this critical error, then I'll see if I can adjust the registry to allow adding the channels to my guide and do DVR recordings of the hockey game (tho I can already do this on my Shaw 6412).

Ted

[TedS]

Stampeder,

Thanks for the recommendation on the antennas -- I Googled all your recommendations and none of them seem to be indoor antennas. Do you have recommendations for UHF antennas for CBC and CTV - I'm not much interested in Seattle stations.

I believe I'm like 95% of the consumers out there (though I have a EE background), I simply don't want to invest in the effort of an external antenna, esp. considering I'm already getting HDTV through cable via my Shaw 6412 in my home theater room. With minimal time/$/infrastructure investment, I want to get HDTV on my MCE media server for my family room - I already have all the cable channels being supplied via my old Shaw Digital box for the MCE system.

BTW, I don't have any deciduous trees in my view of the mountains, just walls of my house.

Ted