Boston, MA - OTA - Page 336

The UHF trop has been good the last 2-3 days. The police scanner is sounding like I moved the antenna 25 miles north.

Hi guys i leave 42 miles from the boston area and i've been getting good reception from boston chan for a long time, but for the last couple days i lost most of the chan,i know the weather has been a litle rough, anybody has had the same black outs?

I've been having the same issue - I'm in the Attleboro/Pawtucket area and reception of WMFP 62 is pretty weak for the past few days.

Everything is fine for me execpt 48 and 50. But I have a different antenna connection then before (put a DTVPal DVR between the antenna and TV) so it may be something with that.

alg2468; i can't get that one at all, same goes for WJAR-dt that use to be strong even with indoors antenna, here in Fall River, most of the Chan 45 miles away were coming very well all summer and sudden most of all gone!

If the reception has deteriorated lately, it could be the weather. But imagine what will happen in the FCC has their way and decides to condense or eliminate OTA DTV!

Thanks guys but i solved my Problem it was not moved antenna,but it was the matching transformer and plug that got water inside the Protection rubber and corroded the inside of the matching transformer,it was not easy to detect cause it only was 4 months old this crap of matching transformers that Radio Shack supplies with the antennas they sell, what a piece of crap.
made me go up and down a few time thinking that the antenna moved when there was a litle bit windy one of this days.noe got all chan back.good that i'm a handy man and do everything myself but for someone that has to pay a tech, it's a drag.

because of economic collapse?

I doubt it will ever happen in our lifetime. Do you realize how much money each of the broadcast stations spent to go from analog to digital? It wasn't cheap! The TV stations have too much money invested to basically tell people you must get either satellite or cable to see our programming.

I remember the how much was spent at my last TV station prior to retiring when we converted that plant to digital. It was expensive in both time and money, especially when one of the IOTs went south!

It will never happen, i agree with you it doesn't make sense after so much money spent by the local stations,unless the dam providers pay big money for the locals stations to quit locally and only transmit for the provider to distribute their signal what doesn't make sense, providers don't want give much money to feed the locals stations to their distribution system now, so how they can pay big bucks don't believe it ,will never happen not here in USA nor nowhere

I hope that the FCC never eliminates OTA HDTV for the reasons stated here and also the fact that consumers already spent a lot of money on converters, antennas, and related upgrades. And it would be foolish for the FCC to try to condense the TV band for broadband and also implement white spaces to make reception difficult.

Hi, I just moved to the southern border of Bellingham MA and am trying to go the noncable route to save some bucks. Right now, I have the Youtube Coat Hanger Antenna with the refletive backing on the spare bedroom floor pointed towards the providence stations. This is the only way I can get channel WJAR 10 (and WHDH 7 for some reason). I also pull in WLWC 28 but not WLNE 6. Eventually I want to get an antenna on the roof with a preamp and rotor.

h***ttp://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3da3626c4232fffb This is my tvfool report. There are so many trees around but I would like to pick up as many channels as possible, especially 1 from each network. The most important channels for me in order are 64, 12, 10, 6, 2, 38, 56, 28, 25, 4, 5, 7, 68 but anything else would be awesome. (Had to put the stars so it would post)

I was looking at the CM4228 antenna but it seems like it was discontinued in favor of the 4228HD that I read some bad reviews for. If anyone could recommend me the best antenna for my area along with the best preamp and rotor, I'd greatly appreciate it. I understand the basics about antennas but don't know how to detect multipath or anything like that. I just know that higher is better and it seems a lot harder to point it right with digital than it was with analog. This doesn't seem like too busy of a forum but please help. I also want durability because of these New England winters. I don't want the rotor to freeze and break or the antenna to blow over in the wind.

With a rooftop antenna, and your location, you may not need a pre-amp.
I'm glad to see my stations (64, 12) on the top of your list. I don't know enough about the different antenna models to give you input on them. I am interested to see how your reception of our stations ends up.
Of all the stations you listed, we're the only two on VHF High Band.
(64 uses D12 and 12 uses D13). Everyone else is UHF. I know we have OTA viewers in Bellingham, so it shouldn't be too much of a stretch for you to receive it there.

Yeah, you're roughly about 20 miles from the Rehoboth towers, it shouldn't be too much difficulty.

I have as cheap as an antenna you can get (RCA ANT121) and every day is basically luck of the draw with the Boston stations for me, and I only live 30 miles from the Needham towers. I also live about 3 miles from the Rehoboth towers, and even the Providence stations aren't guaranteed on this antenna (6 and 10 are generally found off the bat, 64 comes in more times than not, and 12 is just a crapshoot. I can't seem to pick off anything else (28, 36, etc) off those towers.

I had to go out of my way to pick up a CBS station OTA this past Sunday. I basically stacked up books on top of books on top of books on top of books in the corner of my room to get some type of signal from WBZ.

I heard the Terk HDTVa is a popular model for those who prefer OTA indoors, so I may look into one of those. They're at a rip off price of $70 at Best Buy, but it looks like Ebay offers them for $20.

Unfortunately, the digital TV transmissions don't fail gracefully like the analog transmissions did. Analog also made it easier (in my book) to detect and resolve multipath issues because it let you see the ghosts. This allowed people in fringe areas to get watchable terrestrial TV with less than ideal circumstances.

With digital you get the lock or you don't, which can be frustrating when you're trying to troubleshoot problems. I'm not even sure if there's a visible sign of "jitter" caused by multipath propagation. A broadcast engineer might be able to set us straight on that one.

Both antennas you mentioned appear to be UHF, which won't do you much good on the high VHF channels -- unless there's some fortunate resonance there or if the signal is particularly strong. This is an instance where the logical channel numbers cause people real confusion -- where Channel 64 is actually channel 12 -- but the receiver still displays it as 64.

You might want an antenna model that gives you UHF and high VHF coverage in a single package. These are usually some combination of dipole or log periodic for VHF and Yagi for UHF like the Channel Master 2016.

I don't use a rotor so I don't know how to advise you on that. I don't use any amps either. Though I may need to if I ever want to get Providence reliably

Good luck.

Thanks. Right now with my DIY coat hanger antenna (4 sets of bowties) pointed towards the Providence stations about 2-4 ft off the floor, I can reliably get 2, 7, 10, 12, 27, 28(surprisingly), and 64. I'm iffy on 4 and 5 even if I face it the other way towards Needham. For the life of me, I cannot pull in 6, 25, 36, 38, 44, 56, or 68, or any of the other ones I missed in there. I lived in RI up until recently and love seeing the coffee cup salute each morning I just can't seem to get anything consistent from inside. Eventually I will get something on the roof but keep hearing how bad the new CM 4228HD is. I may get the XG91. Even though 64 and 12 are both VHF, my DIY UHF antenna is fine with them so I see no reason why a rooftop antenna would be a problem, especially with a rotor.

The people that used to live here have a broken antenna on the roof and there is a living room outlet that has coax coming through it and an empty rotor cable hole. I know nothing about getting a nice clean hookup in so I'll probably get a professional. I just don't want someone to hook up a crap antenna so I wanted to get my own.

I am not suprised by 28. WLWC-DT on UHF 22 is a flame thrower to the north-west of the tower in Freetown. When Analog was still around, WWLP analog on 22, would get unintentional "interference" from WLWC on people's TV reception in the Berkshires! WLWC-DT is at pretty close to 350kW with a pattern aimed north-west.

WLNE doesn't suprise me, due to the height and antenna pattern. WPRI/WNAC and WJAR are both higher than WLNE.

The fact you get WHDH and not get the Candleabra guys (56/25) or the guys on the other tower (2,4,5,44) I find a little unusual and wonder if you have a situation with multipath there. Based on your reception, I definatley would think a pre-amp will make things worse than better, especially if you use a good directional antenna.

You either have too much signal (signal overload) or are dealing with a bad multipath issue there. I work with two people who live in different areas in Attleboro (one is in South Attleboro, the other I am not sure of), the guy in S Attleboro went from a pre-amplified slicker than sh-t antenna to a pair of rabbit ears, and reception from Rehoboth became perfect for everyone. Quite honestly, Boston reception in Attleboro isn't that tough either, if you want to pull in the Boston stations. And FYI, 28 isn't in the Rehoboth farm, it's in Freetown.

Thanks for the correction about 28, that one floated off my mind.

Anyhow, I live about 3 miles from the Rehoboth towers. If you know where Oakhill Ave is in Attleboro, well, I live near there.

How could I find out if I am experiencing signal overload? FYI, when I was watching the Sunday Night Football game on WJAR (since WHDH decided not to come in), I was getting a steady 97 out of 99/100 signal strength. I rarely watch ABC for programming outside of Newscenter5 on WCVB, so I haven't really toyed around much with WLNE, but 6/10 come in as solid as a rock here.

64 will usually come in for me without a problem, as long as I don't put the antenna in a super awkward spot (like on top of my cuckoo clock, which is the highest point in my room ). Of the big 4 networks for Providence, 12 is the most difficult one to pull in.

What would you mean by a bad multipath issue? Educate me on this one, thanks.

One thing about my room is that I have no northward-facing window to stick my antenna near. So out of desperation, I've stuck my antenna in the northermost and highest part of my room to no avail. I tried out my antenna in my parents' room, which does have a north-facing window, and I was able to get a pretty good signal from WFXT and WLVI. Otherwise, that's pretty much it.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm 2.4 miles from the WPRI/WNAC tower, and 3.1ish miles from the other 2 towers in the area. Don't know if that makes a significant difference...

Quick question about Channel 4 WBZ. Is it still broadcasting OTA?
I'm not receiving any signal at all in southern NH.

My best OTA out of Boston, very strong signal in Manchester

sonic, you are so close to those towers that you could conceivably get better reception if you add inline pad/attenuator, 3db or 6db maybe.

Dr. E. Id, try "rescanning" to find WBZ again?
if that doesn't work, you might consider having your TV professionally defenestrated.

You can't go wrong going down to Youdoit Electronics in Needham and checking out their selection of antennas. The have educated staff and all of the items.

May not be cheapest but when you add shipping to an internet order; you are the same price.

I'm in Milford NH and WBZ (RF 30) comes in fine. I do have problems with: WGBH, WLVI WSBK and WBPX. All the other Boston stations come in fine, as well as the two VHF NH stations WMUR and WENH.

I am going to answer this is in mixed order. The distance you are from the transmitter makes a huge difference. We transmit 30kW on WPRI/WNAC, so your signal strength from us should be , oh , "blow the doors off" level.
Same with WJAR/WLNE and WSBE. WJAR/WLNE/WSBE are putting out 1000kW (WJAR), 350kW (WLNE), and 50kW (WSBE). Again, "blow the doors off" level.

You said you are facing north? Which direction is it from your window/room to the towers? (The towers are on Pine Street & Homestead Ave)
Do you have to "look through" your building towards the towers in Rehoboth?

Because the signal is so strong there, if you have a very close nearby building, the signal could be easily reflecting off of it into your antenna (multi-path, an abbreviated term for multiple signal paths into one antenna location). Any object can cause it. Trees, water towers, etc.

As far as Boston reception, you should get everything there with a passive antenna as well. I highly doubt you'd need a pre-amp to receive the "big guys" from Boston (2,4,5,7,25,44,56). I can get most (2,4,5,25) here in Riverside, several miles south and several feet lower than you, without a pre-amp. In fact with Rehoboth being so close to you, a pre-amp of any kind is just going to kill any decent reception for you.

Well, to clarify, I've been trying to point my antenna north to get as good as a signal from Boston as I can. Even when I point it north, the Providence stations still tag along.

Also, sorry for not clearing that up. From my house, the Rehoboth towers are off to my south and east. I'll get a few pictures up.

For multipath, there are no large buildings en route to the Rehoboth towers - just a bunch of neighborhoods and a good amount of trees. However, the only area with a significant amount of trees next to my house is on the western portion of the house.

Here is a picture from the WPRI/WNAC tower, and my neighborhood is the area circled in black. As you can see, borderline red/white on the color code.



Here is the WJAR tower in comparison. Again, borderline red/white on the reception color code.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Where can I find someone to actually do a roof install in my area(Bellingham)? I don't mind buying the antenna myself but I don't know who to trust. I already have a preamp. If we hook it up and it ends up being a detriment, can I just disconnect the part near the tv or would the whole thing have to come off?

Has anyone else noticed 50-2 is having problems with their image placement? The image appears to be shifted down, which reveals the normally hidden crawling white pixel stuff at the top (are they still encoding the closed captioning in line 21?).

Re: WBZ OTA.
I'm getting WHDH 7-1, wcvb 5-1, wgbh 2.1, wzmy 50-1, wsbk 38-1 a few more but
no WBZ.
I have a PC DVR using Snapstream software and a DVico HD card with a PVR-150 card.
Antenna Specialist DB8 with a preamp on a rotor.
I've tried tweaking the position of the antenna while I scan but zippo no WBZ

Never mind, I got it now.

I've gotta say, though, what if I buy UHF antenna? Would it not tap into the nearby Rehoboth towers, so I wouldn't get any kind of overload from them?

Just a thought.