QC - South Shore, Eastern Townships, Northern NY and VT

[vl_quasar]

I live in Brossard, near Dix-30 and can get a good number of channels using a DIY DB4:

SRC
CBC
CBS
NBC
FOX
PBS
whatever channel 57 is

all in digital of course. Using an Autumnwave USB tuner. Now, I can't get all channels at once, but if I rotate it around, I get them all.

Antenna is sitting in a spare beroom looking out a window. I am thinking of going all out now and get a Channel Master 4228 and 75 feet RG6.

I know a couple places in Montreal and Laval, but does anyone have a source on the South Shore?

[stampeder]

vl_quasar, look in here for Quebec OTA gear suppliers:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=51078

[vl_quasar]

Thank you!

[stef1]

In Valleyfield no problem to receive Mt.Mansfield TV stations
3.1
5.1
22.1
33.1
44.1
57.1
and sub-channels but no Montreal DT channels.I have a CM4228 and rotor (20 feet).Would a pre-amp CM7777 help.

[gadzooks40]

I feel defeated after exhausting every option to receive digital reception. I've written some of my story a few months ago and things haven't improved at all.

I live in Dunham, Quebec (lots of hills and valleys). I've had a multi directional rooftop antenna for over 30 years and have always captured the main US networks (except ABC 22).

Last winter I purchased a digital converter box, plugged it in and discovered I could only receive WCFE at 99% and WETK at 20%. After months of researching I decided to purchase a channel master 4228 antenna to help me get the US channels. Today I had the installer at my house for 2 hours and in the end nothing worked. So here I am.....$500 dollars gone with nothing to show for it. All these promises that they keep telling us on tv about getting more channels by just purchasing a digital converter box is bull.

Oh yeah, the satellite option is iffy too. The installer went around the house and said that I would have to dig a 4 ft hole, fill it with cement and a 6 foot metal pole on a remote part of my property in order to get Star Choice and no promises about a stable reception. That would cost around $40 per month plus installation.

So here I am dreading February 17th with all my heart. No more tv. Yes, CTV and Global are still coming in for now, but the US stations are really such a vital part of my life. So, now I have to listen to the radio....in 2009 we are taking a huge step backwards. I CANNOT believe this is happening. Everything was fine before. Can someone please tell me why they can't add some transmitters at the same location where they are broadcasting WCFE PBS? This would fix the mess for many of us. I just am completely out of ideas at this point.

[stampeder]

stef1, until the stations move to Mt. Royal you are stuck in a signal shadow area for the Montreal digital OTA stations.

[stampeder]

gadzooks40, I feel the way you do some days because I have huge trees on my property that mess up the Seattle signals. I can't get out a chainsaw or I'd be in big trouble! When I was a Bell satellite subscriber I had to find the one and only spot amidst the trees that I could put up a tall galvanized pole with my dishes up top to see the satellite.

As far as your own situation, unfortunately the U.S. stations don't think of the Eastern Townships as being important to their business models.

Don't worry about your CM4228 sitting doing nothing - if you want to sell it and it is an original model you will definitely find buyers. Also I don't know how you feel about building your own antenna but there are some amazing improvements happening to the Gray-Hoverman antenna these days that have boosted its capabilities way beyond any commercial antenna. Just a thought.

You should get a medal or something for all your efforts!

[tvlurker]

All these promises that they keep telling us on tv about getting more channels by just purchasing a digital converter box is bull.

I would be frustrated if I was in your position, too.

Unfortunately, "they" weren't talking to you. "They" are the US government that sold UHF spectrum to make some money, and spent some of that money subsidizing American OTAers' purchase of converter boxes.

Unfortunately, Canadian viewers of American stations are not part of the audience for that message.

Which is not to say that there aren't Americans on the other side of the border that will have problems getting digital signals that they used to get in analog, it's just that they may have some standing to complain about it to the FCC.

And looking at it another way -- Dunham was lucky to have had access to American commercial TV in Dunham for 54 years -- up here in Ottawa, it's almost impossible to get any American commercial TV over the air, and it's just barely possible, with a lot of effort, to get PBS.

On the other hand, we do have 15 local OTA channels. It doesn't really matter, though, since there's nothing much to watch.

[intravino]

I purchased a 10y13s and cm7777 pre-amp for trying to get WVNY-DT here in Beloeil.

$ 200 bucks later, I am still having big problems getting it. I had it the last 2 weeks at 30-50 % with a constant lock but since Monday it is back to the old situation. I get only at night when SRC from Trois-Rivieres is lower power.

Now I have 2 solutions:

1) leave it like this until 2011 and see if SRC Trois-Rivières affects less my WVNY-DT signal.

2) Buy an other 10y13a ($ 100 plus hardware) and stack beside my original 10y13s to block SRC 3-rivières.

I know your frustration Gadzooks40, that is OTA, you can win big or lose even bigger.

I used to live in the Villeray neighborhood of Montreal. No American OTA there besides WCFE and ABC 22 (1 megawatts) because of Mont-Royal blocking everything.

My two cents,

Intravino

[gadzooks40]

Yup..Stampeder....it's a real bummer. I'm finding it hard to accept. I always follow the local news and weather in Plattsburg, NY because I love their radars and news team. Knowing that I will never see them again after all 4 decades hits hard.

Can anyone tell me what is taking them so long to develop a satellite receiver with local networks? Also, I have Sirius satellite radio and it would be so convenient to receive television reception the same way. With Sirius I can put every radio in my house on channel 89.1 and listen to the Howard Stern show. It's such an easy system. I'd love to set it on NBC and then get it on every tv. Also, why are all the satellites in the southern sky? Everything needs to face South and that is crazy.

TVlurker...it's too bad that Ottawa gets a bum deal with OTA. I wrote a letter to WCAX and this is the response I got today.

Thanks for your note.

The problem you are having is the result, I believe, of several factors relating to the location of Dunham in relation to Mt. Mansfield. Dunham is more or less directly north of the Mt. Mansfield transmitter site, which is on the sourthern peak of the mountain (called "The Nose"). Mt. Mansfield is actually a ridge almost a mile long, running north and south. The actual high point of the mountain is the northern peak, called The Chin. The Chin creates a shadow to the north in the signals of all the stations operating from The Nose -- Dunham, or portions of it, is in that shadow.

In our case, this was not a problem for you because we are on channel 3 in analog. Channel 3 is a low VHF channel that handles terrain obstructions particularly well, which is why it was chosen fifty years ago because Vermont (as opposed to Quebec from the border to the Laurentians) is almost entirely mountainous terrain.

You are also receiving NBC and Fox in analog from Terry Mountain in New York, which is almost straight across Lake Champlain from Burlington. WCFE, the Plattsburgh, NY PBS station also operates from a New York mountaintop. Although those stations cannot put a signal into the areas of Vermont east of the Green Mountain, the geometry of the terrain and their transmitter locations is such that they put a good analog signal into your area of Quebec.

WCAX is being required to shift to a UHF frequency as part of the transition to digital. Low VHF channels (2 to 6) just won't work in digital for some fairly complex technical reasons. High VHF (7 to 13) were not possible because of the Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa stations which operate in analog in that band, and will continue to operate on their analog channels until the Canadian transition in August of 2011. One of the Mt. Mansfield stations, the ABC affiliate, is broadcasting on high VHF, channel 13, but with a severely directional signal which protects a station in Sherbrooke. It will not be able to be received in portions of Vermont to the northeast of Mt. Mansfield.

We anticipate that about 15% of our US audience will not longer be able to receive us over the air as a result of the shift to UHF, which does not perform well in mountainous terrain. A much smaller percentage of the Canadian audience, you among them, I am afraid, will also not be able to receive us. The Montreal metropolitan area lies to the west of the shadow, so it will not be affected. In fact, the digital signal performs far better in the flat terrain of the St. Lawrence valley than we had anticipated and it appears it is being picked up as far as twenty miles north of Montreal -- people who couldn't receive us in analog are getting us in digital.

The NBC and Fox affiliates are moving from Terry Mountain to Mt. Mansfield for digital, which is why you are not receiving their digtial signals. From their perspective in makes great sense for them to do so -- they will be able serve US viewers east of Mt. Mansfield and the Green Mountains that they can't possible reach from Terry Mountain, while still reaching the Montreal area. In the end, though, the obligation of a US station is to serve the largest possible US audience.

I'm sorry that the situation is what it is, but there is nothing we can do to change it. It took years of work to get to this point, including difficult negotiations with the Canadian government about frequencies and power so that we would not interfere with stations as far away as Ottawa and Quebec City, but Ottawa most of all.

I wish I could offer more encouragement, but I am afraid I cannot.

Peter Martin
President
WCAX-TV

So, I'm thankful that he answered me, and I don't blame the local stations, but the government is another story. However, now I really feel like I don't matter.

Stampeder...can you tell me more about this Gray Hoverman antenna you mentioned? Is this something you are thinking about getting?

As for my CM 4228....I will try to sell it on EBay. It's brand new and thank god I kept the original box. The darn thing cost me 50 bucks in brokerage fees alone.

[stampeder]

Here's your starting point: What is a Gray-Hoverman Antenna?

When you're ready to sell your CM4228 please advertise it here first at this site in the Items For Sale forum.

[intravino]

Hello Guys,

I saw during the CFCF color bars this past morning that Ch 13 analog CKTM-TV was off. I saw that on my CM4221. I woke up at 3:00 am and 5:00 am to check the supposed CFCF shutdown.

So now the theory about CKTM-TV interfering with my WVNY-DT reception is out the door I think.

I am confused now.

At both time with my 10y13s pointing at Mt.Manfield and cm4221 pointing at the Mont-Royal: I got nothing but pure snow on the TV.

Normally, I get with the 4221, a picture with color and sound for CKTM-TV.

So I'm sure that it was off-air. Ch 2 CBFT-TV analog was off-air this morning at the same time.

So back to zero.

Intravino

[bucyluca]

I am from Montreal, but have a weekend home in upstate NY, between Plattsburgh and Malone.
I had a Terk outdoor directional antenna in my attic with a small inline amplifier, which worked ok, but I went ahead and bought a DB8 antenna.
I have a DB8 antenna in my attic pointing for the NY/VT stations with a channel Master 7777 amp. The analog signals are very week, I barely make out the picture, but I get their respectable digital channels pretty good (WCAX-DT, WPTZ-DT, WVNY-DT, WETK-DT and WCFE-DT, (WCAX-DT was not working on Sunday, maybe weather ) Fox44, WFFF or WFFF-DT cannot get anything at all.

Since I have the terk antenna sitting around in my attic , I aimed it to the Montreal signals and used a combiner. Signals from Montreal, CFTM ,on my TV's channel 7 comes in very strong (9 on 10). . Global station on my TV's ch. 11 is also good (8 on 10). CBC is very week (3 on 10)miss hocket Night in Canada , assuming because of Mt- Royal's shadow, and CTV also week (5 on 10). Plus got some other french stations, didn't pay too much attention to them.
Coming spring, will put the DB8 outdoors with a rotor.

My questions:

1- Will combining 2 different antennas , pointing at 2 different points a good idea?
2- How should I best use the CH-7777 amp. on both antennas?
3- I have 2 TV's using a splitter. Where is best to install my CH-7777 amp.? Closer to my main TV or before the splitter?

Thanks and have a good one.

PS: Saw show, Late Night with Conan O'Brian in HD on my sony HD Tv, and i can say is WOW! What a picture!!!!

[tvlurker]

Signals from Montreal, CFTM ,on my TV's channel 7 comes in very strong (9 on 10).

That's CHLT Sherbrooke from Mount Orford you're getting on Channel 7. The programming is the same as on Channel 10.

Global station on my TV's ch. 11 is also good

Again, this is Global channel 11 from Mount Orford, not Mount Royal.

CBC is very week (3 on 10)miss hocket Night in Canada , assuming because of Mt- Royal's shadow, and CTV also week (5 on 10).

If you don't get 2,6,10,12 well in analog, either you're not pointing at Mount Royal, or you have a mountain in the way. CBC analog is from Mount Royal -- it's only the digital stations (2.1 on 19, 6.1 on 20, 35.1 on 42, and soon 17.1 on 27) that are east of the Mount Royal.

Mount Royal should only be in the way of the digital stations if you're west of Chateaugay, or behind a mountain south of there. However, the digital stations are at low power right now, so you're unlikely to get them at all with an antenna in the attic.
And if you can barely get full power analog VHF with the current setup, you probably won't get the digitals on UHF at all.

Post your TVFool.com results. Ignore the Canadian digital stations (they're based on misleading data in the FCC database) -- we could gauge your reception by what shows up for analog 2,6,10,12,17,29,35,46,62 from Montreal and 7,9,11,24,30 from Sherbrooke.

[tvlurker]

Gadzooks40, thanks for posting that detailed response from WCAX.

One of the Mt. Mansfield stations, the ABC affiliate, is broadcasting on high VHF, channel 13, but with a severely directional signal which protects a station in Sherbrooke.

I just wanted to point out though, that WVNY is protecting channel 13 in Trois Rivieres, not Sherbrooke. I believe Mr. Martin has confused it with WPTZ channel 5.1/5.2 on UHF 14, which is protecting a channel 14 allocation, not an actual station, in Sherbrooke. (This affects him directly, as WCAX and WPTZ share what must be a somewhat complicated antenna system, as channel 14 is directional and WCAX is not.)