Washington, DC / Baltimore, MD - HDTV - Page 55  

Anyone that can receive Wgal out of PA might want to check channel 47-0 Wpmt Fox. They have just went full power and have widescreen programming. Jeff

Thought I would put in a good word for Fairfax Antenna here, after the positive experience I had with the company this week. The roof on my building was replaced, so my satellite dish was moved and had to be reaimed. I called on Tuesday, was told they could come the next day. Gave me a 2 hour window, and during it, they called to say they were going to be a half hour late, which I thought was pretty good.

I also had a Channel Master Stealthtenna attached to the dish mount, which had been getting fairly decent reception before it was moved. I explained this to the installer Matt, also saying that I'd like to get as many channels as possible, but in particular WTTG 5.1, since I have ALWAYS had problems picking it up here.

Matt was up on the roof for maybe a half hour. After he was done, 5.1 was my STRONGEST channel, and I was getting most others. That included 30.1 and 57.1 which I've never seen a sign of before (now I can keep up on all that foreign news I've been missing ;-) But most impressively, I was receiving 20.1, which I always thought was a lost cause, with a fairly decent signal strength. It happened to be Wednesday, so that night I was watching Enterprise in HD for the first time (okay, it was a little soft, but vastly better than the SD version).

BTW, I'm at 14th & T NW, and the antenna is on top of a 3 story building, with a much taller building next door which is between me and most of the DC transmitters.

I was very happy with all of this (no more dropouts at crucial moments on 24!). Thanks Fairfax Antenna.

Thanks (both of you) for the update... must have had something between me and there that night! Things do seem fine. When it warms up a tad, I need to get that 4228 in the attic to test if more height helps... :)

Thats a good praise for them. I hear good things about them on this forum every once in awhile it seems. Also I can imagine the pain you went through with the dropouts in 24!!!

Looks fine to me. What specifically were you looking for?

is any one getting 5.1 sound while watching the Pats/Colts game in HDTV now???

I'm getting it, but it doesn't appear as dramatic as last week.

yep, 5.1 working
WMAR DT working fine too

Hello there.

I am finally getting ready to ditch my silver sensor set up on my dining room table and install a real antenna in my attic.

I'm looking at the CM 4228, which seems to be a good choice and isn't too big. My question, though, is really about pre-amps. I have read several people using something from Radio Shack, or possibly the CM Titan series (7775? 7777? 7778?), but wasn't sure of the difference. All I need to do is get the HD OTA signals (I am in South Riding, VA about 25 miles due West from DC). I am getting decent reception with the Silver Sensor, but have to deal with dropouts (frequency depends on what channel I'm watching), and the wife wants the antenna out of sight, so I'm attic-bound. I have tried both the silver sensor and a radio shack double bowtie there and didn't get much improvement over my current setup, so I'm looking at the 4228 and a preamp.

Anyway, if anyone can provide me with a little insight into the pre-amps (FM trap? UHF only etc), that would be great. It appears the 7775 or 7777 are the ones I most hear about on here, but wanted to check.

Thanks for your time,

Rob

Some recommend the 7777, since it can pre-amp both UHF & VHF, but since all HDTV stations are UHF in DC area ~ I have the 7775, which blocks VHF signals. It is probably a toss-up, but I'd prefer that my HDTV decoder box only receive DTV UHF signals. Some think that DTV/UHF channel assignments will eventually be converted to old VHF channels, so the 7777 buys you some insurance. I think you'll need a new pre-amp when that happens. :-) Tom

Yeah, I found out i had my new reciever set up wrong, but when it was right, it really wasnt as dramatic as prior weeks games...thanks

well fox 5 became unwatchable.
At first it seemed to have a digital hiccup every 3 seconds, thus being very annoying to watch.
Then I lost the signal.
At first I thought it was the glitchy OTA tuner in my 921, but I rebooted & still got no Fox football. I guess I will have to suffer through the game watching it on the SD locals on Dish in 4*3!

Rob, The cm 4221 is a great antenna and small. Smaller than the the eight bay but almost as good. I have used rs (30db) and cm preamps and now use the cm 7775. In my opinion the most expensive radioshack preamp worked just as good. Try the rs first and if it doesn't work for you return it. JEff

Robert A.

Sorry you lost FOX. I had a nice stable picture with DD5.1 the whole game.

Just wanted to let you know I've been reading your posts on the 921. Thanks for taking the time to let us know what your experiences are.

Glad to contribute!
To give eveyone a review of what I plan next:

First, Dish needs to hurry up with the OTA bug fix!!

In the next 2 weeks I am going to take what I have learned & use a dependable & knowledgable local guy to fix my antenna mess.
I am going to replace the CM crossfire vhf\\uhf antenna (8.6dB gain)(previous bad advice from prev. installer) with a Winegard HD9095P. It has one of the highest antenna gains out there (~15dB gain). It will almost double my current gain. It should really help. As reference, the CM 4228 has 12dB gain. Also the Winegard coax connection has a small built in circuit board to minimize dB loss at antenna\\coax connection. I already have a descent CM 7775 UHF preamp. The irony is that I started out with a CM 4228 antenna but listened to the bad advice of first installer.

We are going to replace the thin walled roof pole with a thicker one & add better chimney supports.

We are going to ADD a CM remote control ROTOR! This will be a must with my Winchester location and the Winegard's polar patterns of being directional for best gain. I should be able to hopefully get better DC & probably Baltimore DTV including the elusive WB. I can also get a Front Royal PBS & Harrisonburg, VA ABC easily. I am also hoping I can get that UPN in PA that is broadcasting full power.

The additions of the pole changes & rotor should add 3-5 ft of height that will help with some hill issues.

I will definitely report back (probably in Feb.!!) with the results!!

Jeff & Tom,

Thanks for the input. I will do a little more research and then get back to this thread with the results. I'm shooting to have this all installed by the Superbowl (of course).

Rob

You should most definitely notice a difference. A directional Yagi is what I use, a Channel Master 4248, with a 7775 Pre-Amp and Rotor, and I'm getting good results 30 miles up the road.

Don't hold your breath for WB. I get it now out of Baltimore, but can't get a lick of it out of DC. The analog signal repeater in Hagerstown is on the same channel that the digital signal out of Washington is on, combine that with a WV PBS station on 50 and I run into nothing but problems with WB. I get it out of Baltimore, but I barely get it, sometimes it's watchable, sometimes it not.

UPN 15 out of Lancaster comes in good for me though. Unfortunately they're not HD yet, just digital, but even their SD digital picture is better than my Adelphia SD picture. Someone here mentioned that they were told by UPN 15 that they hoped to have their MPEG encoders set up and in place to do HD by this year.

I'm now wishing my house wasn't on the downslope of hill with a huge house sitting high above me to the east. A couple more feet may help me a little more, but I'm definitely pleased with what I have so far.

Be sure to check in with 2150.com again though and double check your station listing. I used -10 for a Magnetic Declination.

I noticed that prev. discussion. I know of at least 2 people here in Winchester that get WBDC just fine.

I had posted that info. The station guy anticipating getting the encoder by the end of 2003. I quess you will know when Enterprise comes in HD!

This is my same problem. The guy I know up the hill gets WB.

Is this what we are?? It does change the heading by about 4 degrees!!!

I have had problems with Fox in the past. I wasn't paying much attention yesterday )(other than to notice how far superior CBS-HD was on the Pats/colts game to Fox Wide 480p for the Eagles/panthers). At some point my wife commented on the clicks coming from the right surround - wasn't really like crowd noise but I didn't look whether receiver was in 5.1 or 2.0; nor do I remember whether it was Fox or CBS.

The following is quoted from a Station manager in the SE Virginia thread (they seem to get the station techical staff involved in their local threads) This discussion seems to explain why in the past I have not been able to hear the announcers over the crowd noise on WTTG on some games. I speculate they were being fed 5.1 from Fox and broadcasting 2.0 instead of switching, so we were missing the center channel where the announcers would dominate. Just posting in case this is really the case so we can monitor and maybe get our stations to switch properly.

"What is happening when you hear background/music/sound efx and no announcers is the feed is coming down in Dolby 5.1 and we are still in Dolby 2.0 mode. Last week I was out of town and it was set for 8:30pm, I beleive (see earlier post) to automatically switch, we lost the first few minutes of the game. I don't beleive it was into the second quarter however. Yesterday afternoon the switch was made at 3:00pm. CBS is switching into 5.1 at different times for each game. On the first weekend they did not switch to 5.1 until 10 seconds before kickoff. CBS is not giving me a set time, so I am trying to automate it just before game time. We will have somebody at the station on Super Bowl weekend, so this should not be a problem then.


Dolby 2.0
Lt = Lf, Center, LS........AES Pair 1, channel 1
Rt = Rf, Center, RS.......AES Pair 1, channel 2

Dolby 5.1
Lf.................................AES Pair 1, channel 1
Rf................................AES Pair 1, channel 2
Center.........................AES Pair 2, channel 1
LFE...............................AES Pair 2, channel 2
Ls.................................AES Pair 3. channel 1
Rs.................................AES Pair 3, channel 2


So you see when in 2.0 mode I am only passing Lf and Rf when being fed 5.1"

Ok more detail questions.
Did you set the rotor to true south or magnetic south???

Are the headings listed on the above site true headings or compass headings???

Thus, I am correct that if you set rotor to magnetic south, then you need to -10 declination to compensate IF the 2150.com headings are assuming magnetic headings???

I was trying to check this out, and can't get anything out of 2150.com except a graphic of what looks like lightning or something... ?!

The way the magnetic differences are applied is: Take True, and apply the Variation (technically, it's not Declination, that's a Celestial navigation term :) ), and you get the Magnetic heading. Virginia is about 10W Variation, which is added to True to get Mag. So, that -10 number is correct for going from Mag (compass) to True North.

Hope that helps!

Just wanted to point out as I hadn't seen it mentioned here:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040108/85448_1.html

Looks like DC isn't on the list of O&O markets so we won't be getting Fox and CBS HD via D*. Baltimore is on the list, lucky devils.

--Mike

Actually, our CBS isn't O&O but I saw a more complete list on another site that indicated that our Fox was O&O.

I thought Baltimore still won't get it because they are considered to close to D.C.

Thanks.
The actual web site is: http://www.2150.com/broadcast/

Cyclone has it linked on page 1

Check the site. It asks for long & lat of your location. Gives a linkto find precise numbers. It then has a place for variation. After search it gives all stations & headings from your stated location.
Still my question is:
Do I setup the rotor to magnetic south or true south??
SO when I punch in say 118deg, am I correctly pointed.
From what you say above. The list should be MAGNETIC headings??
I should set rotor up initially with magnetic SOUTH??

I live in Winchester, VA. Technically I am in the DC DMA. However I do qualify for the Baltimore O & O DMA area as well.
Thus, I get CBS-HD from Dish NOW!! This has been VERY helpful through the playoffs considering I now have a screwed up OTA 921!

I pointed mine Magnetic South, but after getting it up, it was off by 10 degrees. Unfortunately I had to use my father in law's bucket truck to put up the antenna to begin with, and can't get it back out here any time soon. I have to take my error into account when using the rotor.

In the end, I use the headings from 2150 as just basic guidelines, and will test headings that revolve around their numbers, finding what suits me best.