Lancaster PA - OTA (over the antenna)

[rrrrrroger]

I didn't see this covered anywhere, so I decided to start it myself. Here's a brief list of the channels I can get in my home in Southern Lancaster County:

ANALOG
VHF: 2, 5 (sometimes), 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13
UHF: 15, 17, 21, 27, 29, 33, 35, 43, 45, 48, 49, 51, 57, 61, 65, 69

DIGITAL
8, 15, 43, 49 - (with sub-channels but nothing worth watching)

Digital has proved itself to be very difficult to recieve... I get analog from long-distance cities like Baltimore or Philadelphia, but neither of those cities is "visible" to my digital tuner.

[afiggatt]

See the Harrisburg-Lancaster DMA thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=121763.

But if you need help with long range OTA reception, post your zip code and a description of your current setup to the Reception hardware forum so we can help with antenna recommendations and possible tweaks.

[rrrrrroger]

The Harrisburg thread is basically worthless for those of us living in Lancaster.

Harrisburg is 40 miles distant from my home, thus it has a completely different "television region" than what we have in Lancaster. For example, those of us living in Lancaster can receive stations from Baltimore, Philly, and Wilmington Delaware. None of those are listed in the Harrisburg thread. -------- Vice-versa, it appears Harrisburg gets stations from Altoona/Lewistown(?) which are naturally too far away (150-200 miles) to be seen by Lancaster residents.

It is better to split the threads to serve the vastly different needs of these two regions.

[KML-224]

The "How Far Is It" distance calculator at indo.com places Lancaster 35 miles from Harrisburg and 62 miles from Philadelphia (assuming you drew a straight line). Hope that helps!

[rrrrrroger]

We do get Harrisburg channels (barely), but oftentimes I find the Philadelphia stations to be more valuable (bigger city; better programming) and also clearer to receive. Often I will watch the strong channel 17 in Philly rather than try to tune-in the weak 21 or 27 in Harrisburg.

The Philadelphia "antenna tree" is located on a hill on the west side of the city, and is about 50 miles distant from my house.

[afiggatt]

Originally Posted by rrrrrroger

The Harrisburg thread is basically worthless for those of us living in Lancaster.
...
It is better to split the threads to serve the vastly different needs of these
two regions.

Ok, if you think a separate thread for Lancaster would be helpful, then the moderators might go with it. But the (over the antenna) should be dropped from the thread title as wrong (OTA = Over The Air) and redundant. I think Lancaster is in the Harrisburg DMA but is in the boundary zone between Harrisburg & Philly. Sounds like you have obstructions, probably the hills, in the direction of Harrisburg from your location.

However, I suggest you go back and edit the first post to provide station call letters. Channel 2 is not a very useful description. Channel 5 could be WTTG Fox 5 in DC, but could be ahnother station given how far north of DC you are. You should check the Philadelphia - OTA and Baltimore-Washington threads for station info.

If you want help with your antenna setup, please post your zip code, what antenna model and ATSC tuner you are using. What is the picrture quality of the analog UHF channels for the Philly and Baltimore stations? Clean or moderatly noisy? WJZ-DT CBS 13 (38), WBFF-DT 45 (46), and WNUV-DT 54 (40) in Baltimore all pump out strong digital signals. If you get the analog signal from them, you should be able to get the digital signal.

[KML-224]

Channel 2 would be WMAR-TV (ABC) in Baltimore. As for me, I can't help with Lancaster much, since the furthest into Pennsylvania I've been is Philadelphia, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Reading (via Allentown).

[rrrrrroger]

Originally Posted by afiggatt

Ok, if you think a separate thread for Lancaster would be helpful, then the moderators might go with it. But the (over the antenna) should be dropped from the thread title as wrong (OTA = Over The Air) and redundant.

Not redundant for those who don't know what OTA means.

I think Lancaster is in the Harrisburg DMA but is in the boundary zone between Harrisburg & Philly.

Biggest mistake Nielsen ever made. Harrisburg and Lancaster used to be separate markets, but then Nielsen merged them, and it doesn't really work. As I pointed-out earlier, Harrisburg see stations that Lancaster can not, and vice-versa Lancaster sees stations that Harrisburg can not.

And thus the Harrisburg thread is worthless to me.

They are discussing channels in Lewistown/Altoona(?) that I have absolutely no hope of ever getting. Vice-versa, the spreadhseet in post #1 is missing stations like 6 or 17 or 11 that Lancaster residents watch every day.