ON - Hamilton, Stoney Creek, Brantford, Haldimand

Thanks for the feedback gents. I would have thought seeing that CHCJ is relatively close both distance and directionally to CHCH which is 110% rock solid that I wouldn't have any issues with CHCJ. Could be I have a null in my antenna reception pattern, or some other anomaly causing this. I doubt my changing the PCB baluns on the DB4e's external 300/75 ohms type is the cuplrit (as they helped with most other channels). I will also not re-aim to get CHCJ better at the expense of Buffalo. Maybe adding a dipole to catch CKCO consistently may be an option for reliable CTV coverage. My CM7777 is the old style with seperate VHF/UHF inputs. If I can get my new (Kijiji buy) RCA TVPRAMP12E (see post #4406 in the Signal Amp/Preamp Thread) working I can try out the overload theory.
Cheers....

gbswiercz said:

Thanks for the feedback gents. I would have thought seeing that CHCJ is relatively close both distance and directionally to CHCH which is 110% rock solid that I wouldn't have any issues with CHCJ. Could be I have a null in my antenna reception pattern, or some other anomaly causing this. I doubt my changing the PCB baluns on the DB4e's external 300/75 ohms type is the cuplrit (as they helped with most other channels). I will also not re-aim to get CHCJ better at the expense of Buffalo. Maybe adding a dipole to catch CKCO consistently may be an option for reliable CTV coverage. My CM7777 is the old style with seperate VHF/UHF inputs. If I can get my new (Kijiji buy) RCA TVPRAMP12E (see post #4406 in the Signal Amp/Preamp Thread) working I can try out the overload theory.
Cheers....

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if you buy the newpre-amp buythr cn7778 instead because it will not overload from strong signals like the cm7777 does.i ,live less than a mile away grom the chch tower and use the cn7778 pre-amp and get no overload at all but when we tried the cm7777 more than half my stations would disappear becaus of overload.have fun chears

heans said:

if you buy the newpre-amp buythr cn7778 instead because it will not overload from strong signals like the cm7777 does.i ,live less than a mile away grom the chch tower and use the cn7778 pre-amp and get no overload at all but when we tried the cm7777 more than half my stations would disappear becaus of overload.have fun chears

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Thanks Heans.
This may be an overload issue judging by your comments.
I used to use an AD PA-18 (though I'm not sure about it's overload tolerance comapred to either CM preamp) before getting the CM7777, and found it just didn't have the gain I needed for Buffalo. Not sure if the CM7778 would do the job, though it is within a few dB of the CM7777 on UHF. I did pick a CM 7778 up a few years back, but used it on my brothers setup down in St Kitts, where it works well.
The Kijiji seller I bought the RCA TVPRAMP12E has others and will work with me to get a working example. I will use this to expermiment with.
Regards...GS
ps - I found some posts regarding the AD-PA-18, and apparentl it's not very good from the standpoint of overload.

Update....I swapped out the CM7777 for a now working RCA TVPRAMP12E. CHCJ (35) is still "spotty" at best. Since the pre amp change I am now getting 13 (CKCO) consistently, eliminating my need to make a dipole for this channel.Both channels are CTV, so I'm glad to have one consistently. With my stack pointed at Buffalo, I used a phone app to see where CHCJ is realtive to my array. It is right in a dense cluster of trees, off to the side of my antennas. Maybe there's a deep null in my reception pattern for the array in that direction.

Fox 29?

Is anyone having problems receiving Fox 29 out of Buffalo broadcast on 32? It seems to have been missing in action over the last several days. The other Buffalo channels are coming in fine. Initially I thought it might have been the weather but it's never been gone this long before?

fgt said:

Fox 29?

Is anyone having problems receiving Fox 29 out of Buffalo broadcast on 32? It seems to have been missing in action over the last several days. The other Buffalo channels are coming in fine. Initially I thought it might have been the weather but it's never been gone this long before?

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Coming in OK on the hill overlooking the Brantford railway station, on the beat up 25 year old antenna.

Sony TV shows SNR 23.50 +/-, and 50% +/- signal strength.

Even comes in OK on two PVRs.

29 Fox is solid in Mississauga!

Shooot! Ok, thanks guys. I will have to do some monkeying around once the holidays are over and see if I can figure out what the problem is. Not sure why I would be missing just that one channel.

Gentlemen, I need some help with regard to replacing a Samsung TV. Has anyone had any experience with the
TCL brand of TV's being sold at the local big box store? I was wondering if anyone can tell me how the tuner sensitivity compares to some other brands. Does it have a signal meter and can OTA channels be added manually or do you need to do a rescan whenever I move the rotor? I have had experience with Samsung, LG and Insignia brands. The best suited to OTA was the LG in my opinion. Easy to add channels manually, good channel reception and easy to navigate. Having read through the manual for the 3 series of the TCL, I wasn't able to determine if it will be suitable or just a frustration for OTA. It sounds like it's more geared toward streaming. Any thoughts are appreciated.

I would look at new Sony or LG units with ATSC 3.0 NextGen tuners.

LG is the best for OTA.
They allow you to go up and down the RF channel with signal and quality strength meters.
You can manually add or delete the rf channel.
Also unlike many other brands it also just reports whatever the channel is.
For instance I get two 5.1’s from different rf channels. Other TVs may decide to call one of them by its rf number if 5.1 is already used.
Also if you have a rotor and turn the antenna and another station takes over it just resorts to that one with proper call letters.
TCL for instance there is only auto scan, so if you have a rotor you will need to do a full scan every time you turn it.
I have OLED LG C9 and an older LG tv…. Both work great. Though neither have astc 3.0.
I believe the newest ones have it though.
One more nice thing is that on the C9 there is a signal icon that shows signal strength in the info box as you change stations. Very nice indeed.

Brightonian, thanks for your suggestions. I agree, for OTA LG seems to be the best. Having done some further reading, I have found numerous reviews of the TCL stating they couldn't receive the same number of channels as on their old TV. To me this indicates the tuner is not all that great. I'll need to keep shopping to see what I can find with preference given to the LG lineup.

I have a 2018 Samsung and it surpasses my previous sets, including LGs; the key being the tuner that is more sensitive to distant stations while also being able to handle the overload of close-by flamethrowers. I also like the remote, small and easy to use, but you can't add/delete channels manually, I just do another scan. Apple TV works seamlessly with it, and you get a bunch (50 or so) digi net channels (Samsung Plus). If I was buying today, I would get a Samsung again, but with the 3.0 tuner.

I like both the LG's UI, and the Samsung tuner perf as well.
The LG is definitely convenient for a dx'er for the reasons already mentioned.
the Samsung's tuner is nice for the reasons mentioned.
The LG diagnostics is lacking. LG just has a basic bar graph and relative signal quality,
while the Samsung displays the snr in dB.
A guy can't have everything I guess.

Put up the Stellar Labs deep fringe VHF - 30-2476 today. Main objective is to get WBBZ RF 7. It did come in earlier but nothing now. I understand atmospheric conditions might be a factor in not getting it; I’m getting 31 Fox Rochester. Interesting, that compared to a simple dipole, the signal barely went up. 15 db (or high 14s) is usually a lock, the dipole is consistently just under 12 dbs for RF 7 on the Samsung, the SL brings it up to about 12.3. You’d think it would be higher since the dipole is rated at 2.5 dbs while the SL is at least 7 dbs. But then again maybe it doesn’t matter when the transmitted signal is very weak to begin with.

Yeah keep an eye on it for a few days / nights.
On this side of the border, at my location, when aiming for the CN Tower it is not possible to receive RF8 CFTO all the time with the yagi. Even though with RF7 on the backside of the yagi, RF7 comes in fine.
It was better IMO when CFTO was on RF9.
I haven't aimed the yagi in the direction of the CN tower in about 6 to 8 weeks.
But if Memory serves me right, VHF dx was always better at night than during the day.
Maybe I will play around with it again with the SL aimed at the CN tower.

What the heck is going on?!!! Getting the bills game has been a pita. WIVB very flakey. Go to CFTO and not bad then flakey too. CKCO to the rescue? Went flakey too. Geeez! Now back to WIVB and seems stable…, for now.

go4it said:

What the heck is going on?!!! Getting the bills game has been a pita. WIVB very flakey. Go to CFTO and not bad then flakey too. CKCO to the rescue? Went flakey too. Geeez! Now back to WIVB and seems stable…, for now.

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A lot of weird stuff went on this afternoon. Too many channels that had decent reception 24 hours ago, suddenly disappeared. I don't remember it being this bad in the last 35 years of using OTA at my location.
Yet, some towers did an excellent job of transmission, today.

I've been getting huge tropo events, possibly you have been getting co channel interference and with the repacks it probably is worse then it has ever been.

Well, I'm glad to hear that I am not the only one that was running into reception issues. As Go4it posted, stations that are usually rock solid are in and out and other stations that are usually difficult to lock on to are coming in without even pointing my antenna. I thought for sure my rotor was frozen, but likely only the weird tropo that everyone is experiencing.