Seattle, WA - OTA - Page 7

Wait a minute. You have line of sight, are close to the towers. Your perhaps only problem is multipath. Why not give the SS a try? I and many have great success with it. Who knows, you may save a trip to the attic.

What do you mean "SS"?

SS = Silver Sensor.

http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/silver.html

You can buy the Silver Sensor at Sears for about $30 and return it if it does not help.

My friend had a $80 digital Radio Shack amplified antenna that I tried last week to see if an indoor antenna would work. It wasn't the one with the bows...it looks like two Grey plastic tubes, one on top of the other. It had a signal strength of about 3 ticks if I was even lucky to get it facing the right way. I had that one and the CM 3010 at the same time and was testing them both. Also, Best Buy was selling a funky "long capsule" shaped digital amplified antenna. I bought it as well. The results were the same as the Radio Shack one. The 3010 was the best of the three. That SS antenna looks a lot like the same shape as the 3010. Are there differences I'm not aware of?

At this point I've already made a trip to Everett. I've got the CM4228 at my place. I'm going to at least try it out inside the condo before hiking it up to the attic. I'm not thrilled about the attic install, but if it does the job and I can get all the local channels I'll be satisfied. I had gone through a lot of discussion with Larry about this and his recommendation was to go with the 4228.

Thoughts?

-Mike

When I saw the picture of the 3010 I thought it was directional (since it looks like the SS) and so it was hard to explain why you get 4 but not 5 or 7. The SS is directional so it would help coping with multipaths. Reception? I live in Lynnwood and get KBTC-DT from Tacoma without a glitch. Hope you get your digital signal by whatever means.

What's the cost of the SS? Can you buy it locally? If so I could pick one up and give it a try before I do the attic install.

---Sorry, I just looked up and realized that it was mentioned that you could buy it at Sears...any other places?

-Mike

Reception conditions vary GREATLY by location. Any experiences at my house do not apply to your house except by coincidence.

From what I have read here, it sounds like multipath is your main issue. Again, multipath is unique to each and every reception location. Your results within your condo may vary significantly from those in your attic. UHF reception can vary greatly by moving an antenna a few feet in any direction.

I would test the CM antenna as you have planned, but realize that it may get better or worse reception in the attic. The main benefit of the attic location is height to better overcome direct or partial blockage of line-of-site.

Some folks have had luck with adding a variable attenuator, which lowers the power level of all signals at the same time, but may drop the power level of reflected (multipath) signals below the threshold of the receiver while leaving the direct signals high enough to be detected successfully. Again, YMMV.

Good luck. I hope you find a sweet spot for your antenna and can stop tweaking and start watching and enjoying HDTV.

FYI, At my location the Silver Sensor did not work, I suspect because I need more elevation to overcome a small hill between me and the Seattle towers. A $20 UHF yagi from Radio Shack did work for me (mounted 5 feet above my chimney).

Thanks for the input Dave.

I'll let you all know what happens later this week when I do my testing. If I need to take the 4228 up to the attic, I'll test it first before building a permanent mount.

I think I will still check Sears at 148th in Redmond and try out the SS. If for some lucky reason it works, it could still save me a substantial amount of money and time.

-Mike

I believe CC carries them too.

If you can't find one, I have one you could try. I would be willing to drop it off when I go to Bellevue later today. I'll send you a PM.

Thanks Dave...

That is very nice of you to offer. I'm actually working in Fremont. I was going to try and swing by Sears either late tonight or tomorrow and see if they have one. I'll let you know.

-Mike

I'm a believer in the Silver Sensor. I just moved and figured that I'd need to put an antenna outside to get everything. However, the Silver Sensor is sitting on top of a speaker in my family room and I get all the major channels (except KCTS) solidly. Seeing how I will be getting KCTS through Comcast shortly, I can live with that.

Mike - I agree with Dave's post. If the 4228 is no better then try an adjustable attenuator. Since the 4228 has high gain you can afford to cut the signal quite a bit (and reflections as well) to find that magic level of signal vs noise. I've never seen a gain plot of the SS so it is hard to compare directly. Many people have used it successfully but it is impossible to tell how it does with multipath situations.

Larry

speaking of multipath, this must be my problem. i.e. 4-1 is solid all the time,5-1,7-1,11-1,9-1,25-1, no signal, I get 22-0 almost perfect except for the vertical bands in the back ground, but no 22-1. sometimes 7-1 and 9-1 will "lock-in" with a signal strength equal to 4-1, but it drops right out.
my sirt165 shows 9-10 bars on 4-1,just a little over half way up scale, what is everyone else seeing for signal strength?
so to much signal is a bad thing?
my CM 4248 ant. is rotatable but this does not help. any idea's???
thanks Mike C.

Hey guys -- sorry for jumping in so late here, but I have a couple of questions.

I live up in Everett (closer to Lake Stevens) and have a HD ready TV. I currently have Dish network w/ no HD content, and I have no box to receive OTA programming.

My questions are 1) can I even receive HD signals in my area OTA; and 2) is there any business in the area that is competent enough to help me out w/ getting HD material?

As you know, Comcast has HB0 (and I think Showtime) in HD and claims to be adding more content soon. However, I'm having problems facing the fact that I'll have to lose my PVR.

Any advice on getting me up and going toward getting HD content would be very, very much appreciated!

Ron

As far as I know 22-1 and 22-2 are WB and FOX, the equivalent of 13-2 and 13-1, only transmitted from different towers. There is no 22-0. And if 22-0 is WB-DT there should not be any vertical bands in the background. I would go to CC pick up a different receiver and a SS to see if they make any difference. If you feel guilty about returning then you can always come back and buy a plasma from them once you get solid HD. The SS is very directional, and its gain is much higher than all (10's) other indoor amplified antennas that I have tested plus the useless Terk TV-55. It may cost you a few trips to CC but somehow I think you owe it to yourself to try it out.

Hi Ron
It sounds like you have the same situation I do. I live in Everett in the silver firs area. I have dish too and did not want to give up my PVR either until the new HD PVR 921 comes out and drops down to a 400 dollar price point. I decided to give the OTA (over the air) thing a try and I'm glad I did. Here's the steps I took.
1. Determined what direction i had to point an antenna at and was it cleared. This tread has good links and very helpful people to tell you what your chances of getting a good signal.
2. Bought a new OTA tuner (Samsung t151) on e-bay for 225 dollars
3. Purchased a channel master 4221 and hardware on the Internet for about 35 dollars.
4. climbed up on my roof and locked in my location.
5. hooked it up in my home theater.
6. The rest is history. I have less than 300 dollars into the package and a couple scary moments on my roof.

I get all the locals and PBS too. In total I get 7 or 8 channels that can carry HD. I get more stations that the friend I have who has comcast. Dish is going to have to add alot more content before I spend my cash on their package. I may go back to comcast if they charge for their PVR service like they are talking about.
Ask the Que man for you chance of success with your address and give it a try. I could not be happier. Monday night football was so clean.. Good luck Mike

Thanks Big Dawg. That helps a bunch. I'll look into things and see how far I can get. But this sounds promising -- all except the rumor about fees for the PVR. That sucks!!

post your nearest intersection or address and I will do an LOS profile for you to see if there are any hills in the way.

Larry

Mike - I would go to rat shack and buy an adjustable attenuator. Sounds like you have plenty of signal (and perhaps plenty of reflections as well). The 4248 is quite directional horizontally but you might be picking up things vertically. The attentuator will decrease all signals and hopefully the reflections will fall below the detection level of the receiver. If that doesn't work see if you can borrow another brand/model receiver to see if that matters.

Larry

Ron - your location has a clear path to the QA and CH towers. Bearing to QA hill is 202 degrees (22 deg w of due south). You are almost 30 miles out so get a good antenna like CM4228 or CM4248. If you have a lot of trees use the 4228 and mount it as high up as you can.

Larry

Larry - I put 26db of attenuation in line and basically the same results, ch-4-1 only lost 3 signal strength bars and locked in as always, so I guess strength is not my problem, I must not have LOS to QA or CH and only getting multipath signals. the ant. 4248 is up at 53' thats as high as it will go. well an least Monday night football will be HD:-) its funny i get that home shopping network 50-1 from bellevue just as good as 4-1 but no 5,7,9,11, or 22,
hummmmm maybe a blimp and 500' of RG-11.
pretty pricey setup for a couple of HD channels.
anyone with an 800mhz spectrum anyalyser ?????
thanks Mike C.

Mike - very strange. 4, 5 & 7 towers are very close to each other on QA hill and at 53 feet you have LOS to all. Most people either get all 3 or none. There is a difference in power levels but as I recall 5 & 7 are higher power than 4. So there is someting else going on. I don't suppose you want to climb back up there and add a precision tilter. Some people get better results by tilting the antenna a few degrees. The other thing would be to pay a pro to evaluate the signals coming in. If you have plenty of signal at the 5 & 7 frequencies then it must be multipath that's killing it. But that also seems unlikely given your location and antenna height. hmmmmm...

Larry

Mike, have you looked at analog signals from KONG (UHF channel 16 from Queen Anne Hill) and KTWB (UHF channel 22 from Capitol Hill) using your same ooutdoor antenna?

The amount of ghosting you see on these analog channels should give some idea of how much multipath issue you might have.

Dave, i get KONG 16-1 great and 22 analog really good except those many ghosts in the background, but they are hard to detect. but no 22-1, 5-1,7-1,9-1,11-1 I am not done trying to solve this, thanks for the interest and any idea's?? Mike

KONG 16-1 is on the same tower as KING 5-1, except that KONG is lower power (at least last I heard). This leads me to think that attenuation might still be the answer. As you might expect, it is difficult, if not impossible, to properly evaluate your reception situation from here. Do you have any neighbors that are successful with more HD channels than you? What is different between your installation and theirs? Keep in mind that with UHF, a few feet can make a significant difference in reception.

Your difficulty and frustration make me feel lucky to live where I do and to have easy DTV reception from Queen Anne, Capitol Hill and Gold Mountain.

I'm afraid my ideas are all used up unless new data becomes available.

Dave-I have a CM 4248 on my tower at 53' rotatable with CM 7777preamp, OK i don't need preamp but I can't get to ant. so I have to live with the current arrangement. I think my next move is to stack 2 RS UHF only ant. with out any amp. and just put that up at ~40 feet just to see if more selectivity will help.
I am still trying to locate a spectrum analyzer for the definitive answer.
Mike

Here is an interesting tidbit. I have a full view of all the towers in Seattle, probably five miles from my Wallingford apartment. Temporarily I am using an old round UHF antenna. Generally I have been getting between 50 and 70% antenna strength, according to the PCI MyHD decoder card. This is good enough and works. But when I close my metal blinds that face the towers, my reception strength on all of these channels goes to 90 or even 100%, even though the antenna is inside behind the blinds. Kind of strange, right.

So if you are close to the towers, maybe putting your antenna directly on the sightline might be an overpowering signal.

The round UHF antenna is temporary, as I have a directional UHF antenna which is cheap and highly rated on-order right now.

sounds right to me-closing those metal blinds will cut of a path for "mutipath" signals thereby cleaning up and strengthening the signal to your receiver.
wish i could put up big metal Shields:-)
I am going to try horizontally stacking 2 RS UHF ant. this should be a good test. however I could only find 1 ant. in the local stores, 1-2 MORE weeks. well it will give be time to build the phasing harness.
Mike

Very interesting indeed. Obviously multipath effects are even more bizarre than one might imagine. When you close the blinds you are cutting out one path and that allows another (reflected) path to take over. Since you are so close to the towers almost any path will do. But you don't want too many strong ones or your receiver will give up on locking in.


This is exactly why people use attenuators when they are close in or have a high-gain antenna.