Washington, DC / Baltimore, MD - HDTV - Page 53  

Thanks for the offer - I ended up at Davis Antenna in Waldorf - the owner there is so helpful - he helped us pick the antenna and talked extensively with us about the install. We ended up with a roof top Winegard antenna - the 9095 - which he said he has successfully installed in our area without the preamp. We have all the mounting gear and cable, so we're going to install today - unfortunately, its absolutely freezing outside - too bad we didn't do this last weekend when it was warmer!

On a related note, I had been looking for the CM 7775 pre-amp, everyone I called in the DC/Balto area had it on back order - one guy told me that since CM was bought out, they were having trouble getting items from them.

I'll report back on our results with this set up from Lusby! :)

No reception from Lusby. We are using the Winegard HD9095P on the roof, and we can get a snowy analog signal, but absolutely no digital signal from any direction (DC, Balto, Salisbury). A sad day, and a waste of $$. (zip 20657)

If you get no signal, would a preamp do anything?
:(

So I just finished my set up yesterday. I have a Sammy hln 43" and a Sammy SIR-t165. I am using the radioshack bowtie and am recieving NBC, ABC and CBS out of baltimore. Does the preamp for the bowtie show better results? I live just south of the Johns Hopkins campus. Is there any way for me to recieve additional channels? I would love to watch todays football game on fox. Anyone else have a similar set up? Thanks.

Don't give up so easily.

Get the pre-amp. You and I are probably equal distant from DC towers (albeit on opposite sides...). Without a pre-amp I get almost no signal from anywhere. With it (a CM 7775) I get both DC and Balt signals.

Keep the faith, fight the good fight. It will be worth it.

You are in a fringe location. Instead of buying the antenna, you should have hired Davis or another pro directly to install it for you. What's your time worth?

A pro uses a site survey with a spectrum analyzer to help properly spec the setup, something no typical homeowner has the resources for. Better to spend a few more bucks and get it installed right the 1st time.

Anyone having issues with 9.1 CBS WUSA-DT ?? (low signal) Got people coming over tongiht for the Titans/Pats game and its been real low all day.

/Decider99

Dale City, VA

Hipix
P4 1.8/1GB RAM Xp sp1
SBlive
USb2.0 > 120 GB

ohstate,
I have no idea where Lusby is and what your circumstances are, but I can tell you this. When I moved a couple of years ago, I used Davis Antenna to move my antenna from my old home to my new. What a disaster! I will never spend any money with them again. I was never satisfied with the install and I don't think the two clowns who showed up to do the install had a clue what they were doing. They charged me over $500 (just in labor) which I had to negotiate down from the $800 they wanted to charge.

Last fall, I was still not getting WBDC-DT, but the Isabel hurricane knocked over my antenna, so I called Fairfax Antenna. It was like night and day compared to Davis. The owner of Fairfax asked me what channels I was having a probelm with and used a spectrum analyzer to find a much better location on the roof. He moved and re-installed the new antenna and WBDC-DT increased 35 points in signal strength according to my receiver. It is rock solid now.

I say all this to say that it is just like Davis Antenna to waste your money and not deliver anything. So, if I were you, I wouldn't rule out getting OTA just because of your experience with them.

While I have no experience with Davis, I can say that Dave from Fairfax Antenna (owner) did a bang up job on my house. $275 flat fee to test, install, run cable, aim, and hang around while the receiver programs the channels into memory to make sure you get every channel. The antenna is much smaller than I expected and I really couldn't be happier. I get all DC and Baltimore channels without any problems. It just works.

This is the amtenna he used and as I said, it is much smaller than I expected when he told me on the phone that we would want to put an antenna on the roof. You can see an installed pic in the link in my sig.

Good luck to all with OTA. I love mine.

E. J.

Has anyone else notice problems with WBAL 11.1 in Baltimore the last several days? I have gotten frame freeze-ups and a continuous double staic line down the center of the screen. This is only happening on WBAL and no other channel so I'm sure it is not the receiver or TV.

OK, I am now firmly convinced that something in the WTTG-DT signal is weird.

Today, watching the Panthers/Rams, my RCA F38310 kept getting a lot of breakups...macroblocking, sound dropout, etc. While this was happening, I fired up MyHD and watched the diagnostics, and the S/N was a steady 22dB, with zero errors. That's not zero uncorrectable, that's zero total, over nearly five minutes. Meanwhile, the picture on the F38310 kept breaking up.

Switching over the the MyHD output, all was fine.

The MDP-100 card that I have isn't that much better than the RCA.

So, who has a contact for WTTG engineering, so I can see what might be up. Thanks.

What are you asking for you HD-9095?

Since its already on the roof, I haven't given up on it yet. I'm going to see if I can borrow a preamp from my friend today to see if that helps. Why don't you pm me so I'll have your information, and if nothing works we can try to work something out re: the HD-9095-P.

EJ - That is the exact antenna I have - I don't know your location - but we are a bit low - and far - from the antennas, so we'll see what happens when we try to add the preamp. I was really hoping to watch the NFL games in HD this weekend (and especially next when we are having people over), so that's part of the reason we tried to get it up ourselves.

Thanks to all for the info and advise - Amy

Has anyone noticed that when WMAR pre-empts a network primetime show for a local broadcast, they do not pre-empt the show on their prmiary (HD) digital channel (2-1)? Friday night was the second time I've seen them do this recently. They pre-empt on their analog channel and their secondary digital channel (2-2), but not 2-1. 2-1 remains the regular network programming, which is usually HD. I think this is pretty cool and is hopefully the future of television.

Amy, I am in Alexandria, about 20 miles from the DC towers, but I still get the Baltimore stations as well without a preamp or rotator. I have no idea how far away those towers are. But I will say that Dave from Fairfax Antenna spent a lot of time on the roof with a signal strength meter trying different locations to get the best spot (out of view of the front street of course ;) ). I think this is where a professional install really helps. I have no doubt I could have set it up and gotten the DC channels myself. But its a huge bonus to get all the others too, and the price is right.

Good luck with your application.

E. J.

Is anyone else not able to get the CBS Football games using an Over the Air Antenna from WUSA (channel 9) this weekend. I thought nothing was working on Saturday night (titans vs. pats) because it was so cold (yes, I know that seems silly but that was my thought).

But to not get anything for the Ind vs. KC game! This is HELL!

Please tell me if you are having success or failure with your antenna getting the CBS games from channel 9, my wife is getting sick of me going up in the attic an re-adjusting my antenna. Thanks.

Sean

____________________________________________________________

9.1 CBS WUSA-DT Low signal ??
Anyone having issues with 9.1 CBS WUSA-DT ?? (low signal) Got people coming over tongiht for the Titans/Pats game and its been real low all day.

/Decider99

Dale City, VA

Hipix
P4 1.8/1GB RAM Xp sp1
SBlive
USb2.0 > 120 GB

I have not tried OTA, but it comes in nicely with DishNet CBS HD!!!!

I got both games last night and both games today in Perfect HD (well, not HD in fox, but WS anyway)... You might check your Ant

Is it possible to get WMPB-DT or WNUV-DT with an indoor antenna? Antennaweb.com says that I am only 2 miles from the WB station and 12.2 from the PBS station. Any of you guys get these using an indoor antenna in Baltimore?

Actually, I've been told by the chief engineer there (who I think is a member of this forum) that this is sometimes by design. There have been several instances where ABC was showing a movie in HD and WMAR-DT showed a local or syndicated event on 2-2 while showing the HD movie on 2-1. He told me that this was by design why they continue with both a 2-1 and a 2-2.

Lusby is only about 40 miles from Salisbury and 50 miles from DC. You either have some serious blockage or somthing not connected correctly as here at the Pax Navy base where I work, with essentially the same view of Salisbury as Lusby, I can measure very strong DT signals from Salisbury. Are you down in a local low spot? I know there are many spots like that in the ranch club for example. You should be able to recieve those stations even without an amplifier. A pre-amp will probably not help however if blockage is the problem.

Did anyone else experience the audio switching (5.1 - 2.0 - 5.1?) with FOX (DC) during the football game yesterday? I'm not sure if this is a local or national problem. I did notice one other member experiencing a similar problem in another city. The second half was such a travesty and so amateurish, I would be ashamed to be associated with such an operation. Then again it is FOX.

Nighthawk,
I work at Pax too. The house is on a creek (not Ranch Estates, other side of Rt 4). Blockage is a concern. We have a one story house, and the house is on a bluff about 30 ft above water level (a good 25 ft. above Hurricane Isabel's crest, which knocked out a tree that would have definitely blocked our signal). We're not the lowest point in the neighborhood, but we do have trees/houses in the general direction that we need to point to pull in DC. The trees are worse headed to Salisbury. We definitely need to move the antenna around a bit more, I think, although its hard to convince my husband to get back up on the roof in this cold weather! Thanks for the info - Amy

Thanks for the heads up, but if I am to try a professional installer, it appears it is either Davis or Action antenna. Fairfax Antenna just told me they don't service my area. I'm guessing that since they didn't even know where Calvert county was, that they only service the very local DC area.

Thanks anyway. I will do without rather than pay Comcast $63/month. Too many bad experiences with them already.

I did not notice the 5.1 on and off. I did notice that many of the shots were not HD. The quality of the broadscast, compared to CBS, was terrible.
I had frequent signal drop out. I live in western Fairfax(Chantilly), I get great reception from the other networks including PBS . Is anyone else having the same issues?. I'm thinking about getting a new antenna for next years skins games. What is a good antenna.? I'm currently using the Radio Shack yagi.
Thanks
Mark Franke
Chantilly, Va

That's because NONE of the shots were in HD - Fox is broadcasting 480p widescreen for these games, not a true HD. Fox doesn't do HD (yet).

FWIW, I didn't notice any 5.1 drops and thought the sound was pretty good (certainly better than the picture).

Sorry
I thought they were doing the broadcasts for the playoffs in HD . They are behind the times . Too bad they have a lock on the skins games. What are they doing for next year. I also thought they were doing 1 game a week in last season in HD.(2003)
Mark Franke

This is a topic of much discussion over in the HD Programming forum - but the bottom line appears to be that they *might* have true HD in time for the 2004 season. They've announced that they're doing it, but the timetable is rather flimsy at this point.

Where is Lusby near?