Seattle, WA - OTA - Page 8

Mike - in your recent tests with the attenuator were you still using the preamp? And how is your analog UHF ghosting?

Larry

Larry-preamp is always on or it won't pass a signal-i put 28db att. in line and was still able to get 4-1 solid and no others. i tried varying att. etc. UHF 22 analog is real good quality but lots of vertical lines in background that with good signal strength are not noticeable. so I know its a multipath problem its just the solution that eluding me. so i will try to tighten beam width up by stacking 2 ant.. these two ant. will not be amped, i am only ~12 miles los from towers,
and i thought all i had to do was put a loop out the window:-)
thanks Mike

hmmmm, seems odd you get nothing without the preamp at 12 miles. your stacking idea sounds good - what spacing will you use? BTW is it possible your other antennas on that mast are interfering? -Larry

I am going to try a spacing of 40 to 48 " the aiming gets to touchy if you go any wider. i am just going to strap the ant. assembly to the side of the tower up at ~40' aimed at QA and see what happens- I will only be out another $20-so cheap fun?? if this works i can leave the other ant. pointed at 13-1 and have it all- a guy can dream-
with the preamp off those transistors have a high impedance so i am not to surprised-
now the question of the other ant. I was thinking about this, but how to eliminate that as a possibility? do you think if i could orientate the UHF perpendicular to the others vice in-line that would help? Mike

My antenna knowledge is not that good when it comes to multiple arrays. The perpendicular idea may make a difference, maybe not. You might post this whole antenna thing in a separate post to see what the 'experts' have to say.

I've been following a this thread for a while as I tried a while back to pick up the seattle digitals with very mixed/poor results. I'm located about 3 miles east of Everett Mall which puts a large hill between me and the towers. However trying an antenna craft mxu59 (the best of the bunch) a Channel master 4248, and 4228(the worst here), a dat-75 and a radio shack cheapie uhf only model, I was always able to get Komo with only occasional breakups, and Kiro with several breakups.. (every 30 seconds or so) and never gotten King at all. I could however pick up Kong digital just fine and UPN fine, and of course that shopping channel from Bellevue comes in perfect! I could not get kcts or Fox at all, not even a peep.
I have tried going up as high as 40' (boy was that scary!) and it seems to make little difference over 25'. I guess I'm wondering if you guys think there is any hope for my reception. Of course I have LOS issues, but I also believe I'm fighting some multi path.
Any Ideas why I can get (sorta) Komo and Kiro, but no King? And someone mentioned that Komo was outputting the least power of the 3?
I wouldn't be going through all this If Comcast would come through but I'm tired of waiting, and am going to try local reception again.
I do have a 2nd dat75 antenna that I could try horizontal stacking with, but I would need a lot better way to get it up high (because of the weight) than my current setup? Any tower suggestions??
I know I'm fighting an uphill battle here (no pun intended) but am looking for any suggestions.
Thanks Rick

I once used metal to fight multipath as well but it was the reverse of what simmike did. I used the Jensen amplified low profile indoor UHF/VHF (TV-910?) and got most stations but some dropped more often than others (King seems to be the norm?) I then stuck it on a window pane facing in the general direction of the towers, got better reception but interference was still there, seemed to be worse late afternoon early evening. When I closed the aluminum blind BEHIND it, multipath was solved. I guess it eliminated all the reflected signals. I could have lived with that but did not like all the cable running, so I tried the SS. Amazingly, without any amplification it picked up better signal and did not have multipath problem at all. I guess my problem was signals coming from behind. It would not help if the inteference was coming from the front. BTW, I am not remotely qualified to talk about hardware but I once owned a CAT-TV ready VCR which refused to tune to channel 5, no matter how hard I whacked at it. And I also know a guy who used to own a car that did not shift onto third.

What are the symptoms of multi-path?

On monday my HDTV reception on CBS and NBC was flawless. Good picture and sound. On Tuesday I turned to ABC and was plagued by bad problems. The worst was the sound would go out of sync with the picture and break up with static. The picture would occasionally cause problems, but the sound was the most bothersome. I haven't got a good antenna just yet, so it is most likely reception problems. It was almost as if the sound was coming from one direction and the picture from another. I have a clear view of the TV towers on Queen Anne hill. The ones on Capitol hill don't give me any trouble.

I tried putting my antenna in the back of a large box covered in aluminum foil and directing this box specifically at the towers. Didn't see to help much.

I have the Zenith silver sensor antenna on order.

I had trouble with my SIR-T150 and KOMO sound until I upgraded the firmware to 2.0 (beta, I believe). This is not available at the Samsung site so I don't know what the story is. But it did curre my audio problems. The sound being out of sync is another class of problem. This seems to happen on lots of brands and lots of stations on occasion. The KOMO engineer suggested changing channels and then changing back and that seems to work. He thinks it is a design problem whereby audio synch can be lost without the receiver knowing there is a problem. What is your receiver?

post your nearest intersection and I will check you LOS & hills - maybe 40' is not enough!

Larry

Actually I'm using a MyHD PCI card. I think most of the problem is the cheapo antenna, an old UHF loop. Every other channel comes in pretty good. Komo 4 is the only one giving me trouble. Fortunately today, the audio problems are just static breaking up, not sync problems. I was also starting to get worried about the decoder card, but why would the other channels work OK, even in HD format?

KOMO news also has a problem with the HDTV resolution bouncing between HD and regular definition for certain shots. I heard someone else complaining about Monday night football doing the same thing.

I believe the symptoms of multi-path is one minute you get 90% signal (as whatever indicated by each manufacturer) and 0% the next, and it keeps doing that. When you have picture but not sound or out of synch it is a different problem. Early on, and now but it seems to have improved or I have got used to it, I had problems with digital audio drop-outs. Picture was perfect, analog audio was perfect, just digital audio. STB tech said it was the stations and the stations said otherwise. My solution? Crank the analog audio a bit higher so when digital audio drops I wouldn't have to lose the dialogue. You may have multi-path problem but that does not seem to be the culprit for what you described above. In your earlier post, you said you closed the blind in front of the antenna and pick better signals? It seemed like you get better reflected signals but have problem with the towers' direction. When I closed the blind in front of the antenna, I got nothing, and that seemed logical to me. Have fun, trial and error is one way to learn, sometimes expensive.

Hi everyone,

I've been quiet on here until finishing my attic installation of the 4228. It works Great! I did buy the SS and didn't have any better results that what I was having before.

I took apart the 4228 and re-assembled it in my attic, and was able to pick up all the channels very clearly. I snaked a coax cable down into my room where the HDTV is, and everything is working beautifully.

Larry and others, I can't thank you enough for all your help. I could not have done this without you, and you solved a lot of my problems by answering my questions in advance of me doing the work.

Thanks again for everything. I'm happily enjoying all the Seattle HD programming.

-Mike

I know WB and Fox are sharing the WB tower on Capitol Hill. I just watched Smallville on WB and I didn't like the HD feed. They are doing just like PBS, channel 9, compressing the HDTV signal too much. This causes visible pixelization when the camera pans quickly. CBS, NBC and ABC all have the higher HDTV feed.

My question is: if Fox does start broadcasting HDTV, will the WB antenna in Seattle broadcast this on the sub-channel? I have a hard time getting the legitimate Fox signal KCPQ13, which comes from Tacoma.

By the way, out of curiosity, is WB broadcasting on a sub-channel of the Fox antenna in Tacoma? I assume they have an arrangement to broadcast each others feed digitally.

Yes, WB is on 13-2

another successful 4228 installation - I think I will start buying CM stock. You are about the fifth person to try it recently and have great results with it - glad to hear about your success!

Larry

The UHF loop is very non-directional so you are probably getting strong reflections of KOMO - you can try the "tinfoil shielding" trick that others have mentioned. Hang a 2' piece near the loop and start moving it around the circumference to see if it will block one or more relfections.

The business about HD/SD on the news is not a "problem". Much of the location shots are in SD because they don't have enough HD mobile cameras yet. Same thing at sporting events - many sideline cameras are SD (maybe they don't want to risk an expensive HD camera being hit by the ball?).

KTWB and KCPQ are both owned by Tribune and they will most likely always broadcast the same programming & bandwidth from both towers. So it should not matter which one you tune in.

I'm hoping that when Fox goes HD next fall this will end this practice!

Well I certainly wouldn't mind full-bandwidth HD from both locations!

I'm not sure which you mean. If you mean Fox HD on 13-1 and WB HD on 22-1 with no 13-2 and 22-2, then I agree with you.

If you mean Fox HD on 13-1 and 22-2 with WB HD on 13-2 and 22-1, then I don't agree. There isn't enough bandwidth available to carry HD on two subchannels without serious compression artifacts.

Well, I hope they both stay. I get 13's digital channel, but not 22's digital, 'cept via 13.2. They're doing the dual broadcast for a reason. Best reception for the most viewers. Neither of their tower locations works for tne entire Puget Sound region.

FTY: The Fox (13/18) tower is near Bremerton, not Tacoma. Both Fox and WB's affils broadcast from the same studio/master control facilities in Seattle.

I understand that, but the problem is that by shoehorning in two HD streams, the picture quality is most likely really going to suffer. I think that the long term solution will have to be stations broadcasting at full power and improvements in receivers.

Congrats Mike. That proved how much I know. It still bugs me whether such installation is "overkill". Probably not since nothing else worked.

I agree. Even though I don't like the extra compression of HDTV with this sharing arrangement, I like the fact I can recieve the Tacoma over-the-air station because it is coming from Seattle.

It kind of bothers me that these broadcasters are splitting up their digital space. I don't think that was the intention when they were granted the UHF channel for HDTV. I just have a horrible feeling unscrupulous operators will split their digital feed to 4 or more sub channels and we'll get the same trashy sewing channel and stuff nobody ever watches, instead of full HDTV.

Can't let this good thread die... Anyone South of Everett get 35 KVOS-DT? If yes, what is your config? Thanks.

Good threads never die, they just fade away...
KVOS? My antenna is pointed the wrong direction so I get nothing. I tried my old RS bowtie from my living room and barely get a blip of signal once in a while.

Hello All -- an update here, along with a question about antenna mounting...

I have taken the plunge and ordered a Dish HD box that includes an OTA tuner. Now am I preparing to order the Channel Master 4228 (I live in NE Everett, near Lake Stevens).

My question is: what "mast" or mounting pole/device should I order along with the CM 4228?

I spoke to a guy at Pringle Electronics and he said a 18 gauge mast would be just fine, but he didn't give me a model number. He wants $85 for the 4228 so I am going to get it on the web for $50.

I plan on mounting it on my roof. It is slanted and has no chimney. Any advice you could give would be appreciated.

actually, Radio Shack is a good place for the mounting hardware. they have the adjustable roofmounts and poles(masts) to go as high as you need. But a simple 10' mast with mounting hardware and guywire, should be ~35$. good luck. Mike