New York, NY - OTA - Page 378

I keep telling people. My aunt is 7 miles from ESB. Never once had trouble with 13.

it is either their area or antenna.

Unless we are just incredibly lucky.

I don't think that's going to fly.

In my opinion, you're not missing much on WLIW. Sometimes I put it on in the morning for the kids, but you can get that on WNET 24 hours on 13.2, and plus WNET is HD, and has some good HD programming.
Are you able to pick up WNJN 50.1 in Jersey?

I tried about 5 different indoors and the RCA outdoor. I am not getting no more antennas. Should have just gotten a moter outdoor antenna but I thought this cheap one would be good enough. I get great reception with it except for channels 11, 13 & 31 on the esb.

I don't understand why not go to your local store or J&R and try an antenna then return it if no good. Or trade in.

Why buy 5 antenna's?

If you buy antennas online or mail order - return policies are much stricter (as in we won't take them back) compared to buying in person. Also, not everyone can get into the city to visit J&R if you are living in the fringe areas like me. Radio Shack is not a option either.

I should also point out that I am talking about rooftop outdoor antennas.

i'd rather get PBS World on 13.2.

sorry, but PBS saying it's a coincidence does not cut it. there's a reason for their signal quality to have gone down. it could be Solar flares, interference from other channels, financial difficulties, disdain, etc, etc.... sure, the problem might not be related to ABC's power boost, but saying it's a "coincidence" makes their engineering staff look like a bunch of hacks, which they certainly arent. there has to be an explanation for their signal problem. PBS should either give it, or shut up about it and pretend all is fine.

i'm glad they put their shows online. i havent missed a single episode of Nova yet.

ps: i'm not shooting the messenger. i'm just disappointed at PBS's response. very lame.

Whoa! Please take it easy.

When I was in contact with 13 a few weeks ago, I was told that at that time the station personnel didn't know what was causing the problem. A problem, by the way, of which they are very much aware. I was further told that the increase in Channel 7's power did not impact 13's signal.

For your edification the word "coincidence" is mine - not uttered by anyone at 13. Nevertheless, it's a perfectly apt word when one considers the situation:

"An accidental and remarkable occurrence of events or ideas at the same time, suggesting but lacking a causal relationship."

Sounds just fine to me!

PBS has there shows online. How is the quality?
Like I said when I can get 13 it is fine (in the high 50s to low 60s should be in the high 70s) but many times it just gets weak or I lose it completely.

[PBS has there shows online. How is the quality?
Like I said when I can get 13 it is fine (in the high 50s to low 60s should be in the high 70s) but many times it just gets weak or I lose it completely.)

Reddice, your signal fluctuation could be your cable, are you using rg6q with digicon connectors it really can make a difference. i had issues with signal fluctation before i used the cable from cable company. it was degrading my signal by half. my ota reception issues are not that unlike yours, i get my ota signal from 1 outdoor uhf antenna (small yagi) on roof of a 2 story house. signals are good, to excellent, surprisingly vhf stations come in. what i don't get is NJ Pbs station, which i would love to get its HD, cos i have buildings right on my path to the esb and nj. so don't feel your the only one with ota issues. I'm not ota guru, expert

I'd also love to get PBS-World on 13.2. Especially if they did like ABC does and have 2 HD channels.

In this case having 2 HD channels would actually make sense.

Well one trip to the city you could get 3 or more antenna's to try.

Over the years I have got 7 or more antenna's to my aunt. I am over 50 miles away. The terk 50 just fit inside my car. Had to turn it diagonal.

Anyway my point is I tried many different antenna's. I even tried a clear vision C2 months ago.

My point is I was not lazy and whined. I did whatever it took. I changed the coax to terk HD cable. That also improved the signal by 5.

After checking the clearvision C2. I am convinced that the Terk 50 is the best antenna for us. Nothing beats it. The C2 tied it though.

So I am done with antennas. But I did much work getting and trying them up to this point.

Antennas are more of an art form then science. It takes patience and much trial and error.

pbs world used to be on 13.3 before it was replaced with V-me. regardless, it is highly unlikely WNET/WLIW will shuffle things around to accomodate OTA viewers that don't receive one or the other station.

13 is just FINE here ~48 miles from the ESB. I can even pick it up at ground level with the YA1713.

[13 is just FINE here ~48 miles from the ESB. I can even pick it up at ground level with the YA1713.
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Ryan, N2RJ

raj did you put ups your winegard ya1713 yet? you know what i don't like too much about the antenna (all winegard antennas) the matchin balun, looks flimpsy specially the 2 small legs inside the balun ? i rather much have wingnuts on connectors, i think winegard purposely does that, other than that peeve, the ya1713 looks like solidly built. ps have you tried pickin up philly stations from your location?

Yes I have put it up on the tower, temporarily mounted though. I have the permanent fixture for the mast which will go up maybe this weekend. 7, 11 and 13 come in just fine. 13 is the weakest but there are no dropouts at all.

When it is aimed to NYC I lose WNJB on channel 8 because the antenna is that sharp. But that is not an issue because I get WNJN 50 just fine. When W36AZ goes digital on channel 35 that will be an additional backup.

The balun box doesn't bother me at all.

I haven't really tried philly but I can receive KYW and WCAU here with no problems if I turn the 4228 stack south. That was just when I was up the tower. I haven't tried properly peaking and aligning it yet. I'll need a low band antenna for WPVI. I might build instead of buy that one and get a separate antenna system for philly. It's too bad that Channel Master discontinued all of their good antennas otherwise I'd get another pair of 4228As for the philly receive system.

What is a balun box? ty

Instead of having the balun (a 300 ohm balanced to 75 ohm unbalanced transformer) hanging off your antenna as a add-on piece, it is integrated into the antenna usually as plastic black box mounted to the boom. You attach the 75 ohm cable directly to the balun box on the antenna.

Channel 13 can shove it. I am back typing this on the computer so I can say more. Not to sound like a grumpy person but yesterday I watched Frontline and at times it would break up a lot for a bit but it was fine. Today it is back at a blank screen. In matter of fact when I put it on channel 13 my TV showed low signal and it deleted it from the channel lineup. This channel is a pathetic mess and I don't even care no more what happens. I broke my last transformer trying to get the channel good by moving the wires and twisting it too much. That was last month.

I am not buying no more stinking antennas for a channel that has craphole reception. I know I am going to hear but I am 45 miles away and I get channel 13 in the 90's. Bull to you. I am only stinking 4 miles and it is the most unreliable channel next to channel 31. No it is not my antenna or cable. My cable is the extra one that I had when I had HD receiver installed which now with the Eastern Arc dish I don't need it so it is being used for the RCA antenna. As I said before all of my other channels 2, 4, 5, 7, even 11 lately has been good 25, 41, 47 and 68 come in great ranging from the 70's to the 90's as with channel 7 and 47.

Reddice, I think you should throw an AVS party at your place one night and invite all of us so we can help all solve your problems once and for all.

Seriously, are there any transmission antennas near you, like radio transmitters, CB antenna's, etc?

Why don't you change that cable that used to be for the dish? That is the only thing that you didn't rule out.

All I can add is there are lots of querks with OTA reception.

I have a CM4228 installed outside and I can get 7.1 (VHF) in the low to mid 90s. the CM4228 is supposed to be a UHF antenna. The only channel I get as well is 5.1 (UHF). All the rest of my UHF channels are not as strong as 7.1. CBS 2.1 is dicey with some dropouts and pixelation. So go figure. I out up a cheap UHF bowtie which is not even mounted as high just to view and record shows on 2.1 which is gets better than the CM4228. The rest of the channels it does not get as well....with one exception...31.1. For some reason if I get 2.1 well I get 31.1 well.

My point is that it is not all that strange or unusual to get one or two channels that are a problem. It may be that you will need different antenna to pull in 13.1.

By the way I can get it with only the CM4228 but in the mid 60's to mid 70's and with a preamp. Sometimes there are dropouts and sometimes it is decent.

Weather plays a roll here too. It may explain the varying reception for you on the weaker channels.

I built 2 homemade antennas which I hope to mount in the comming weeks. One a VHF only anntenna which I will join with the simple UHF bowtie to see if I can pick up the VHF channels the UHF alone can't. The other is an 8 bay like the CM4228 but a different design.

You could look at building a simple VHF antenna to pick up 13.1.

I think location is the problem. It does not matter how close or far away you are. I did rule out the cable and found the transformer to be the fault. With the new transformer channel 7 hit the 90s. Just channel 13 is still a royal pain.

Well guess what? I am NW of you and I can get everything reliably except 5.1 (44). I had to stack two CM4228s and align them exactly to get WNYW reliably. Otherwise I don't even get a lock. Apart from 50.1 WNJN, 31.1 is the strongest signal here, with WCBS 2.1 (33) being a close second.

With my Winegard YA1713 VHF antenna pointed to NYC I get 7, 8, 11, 13 reliably.

I would get much better reception if only I was not on the downside of a hill. Right now my CM4228 is high up on the chimmney and just about peaking over the top of the hill in front of it. That is my problem and I can't do anything about it except to pick my house up and move it higher up the hill....and that ain't going to happen.

That being said....still strange that I get 7.1 and 5.1 great and other stations are so-so or bad. Go figure? That's why I buit two anntennas with spare parts to add them to the mix.

Perhaps this is a good time to recommend a page from Ken Nist's excellent HDTV site. This is a nice illustrated tutorial of how VHF/UHF reception can be disrupted/enhanced by local features.

(I think location is the problem. It does not matter how close or far away you are.)

thxs reddice, its weird because i was contemplating this same idea yesterday


I could not get lock on wnjn ch 51.1 from my antenna location, i have buildings right in the path west to nyc, nj but i was looking around, and i think i can get around the problem, if I move my rig over 10 ft over there is a clearance that i can aim my yagi over the high rises, i think i might be able to rescue wnjn finally!! I"m gonna need to put a tripod on the roof , and move the antenna over from the chimney mount. I let you know how it comes out.

Don't know if I should try a cheap amp. It could make reception worse for the strong channels. Any places where they take them back?

I think channel 13 must have noise and multipath issues a lot so a amp might make it worse.

If it were me I would get an high band 7 - 13 antenna & a pre amp. The channel master cm 7777 has two seperate inputs VHF & UHF so you only get a good clean signal from each antenna. The connect the high band to the VHF & the uhf you now have the the UHF. I did this at my Dad's house & it made a big difference.

You experience is the double whammy of the US digital standard: multipath resulting in lower signal through cancellation and higher noise generated in the Rx by the equalizer. The European and Asians standards are COFDM-based and thus are to a much greater extent immune to multipath.

The advice by David the DTV Ma is good and I would add one more suggestion:insert a 6dB pad between the VHF antenna and the amp, which should be installed as close as possible to the antenna's terminals. The pad may be needed in case the antenna has high mismatch (VSWR) at channel 13 or too high a signal at channel 7. The amp gain should be enough to compensate for the pad but not too high so as to avoid higher noise generation.

So there's some experiments involved, you should be able to get 13 if you get 7.