Hartford, CT - OTA - Page 6

Hey all. JD here from Trumbull, CT...

I just installed a monster antenna (Channelmaster Crossfire model 3671) with a CM rotor on top of my 2 story house expecting to pull down all sorts of great digital and HD television. I have a Hughes E86 DirecTV receiver for HD decoding.

Before I picked up this new antenna I had been using an indoor rabbit ears thing and would occasionally get decent signal from WTNH-DT (ABC in New Haven)... or at least decent signal strength. The receiver's signal meter would bounce back and forth between 70% and 90%, but the picture was continually freezing and breaking up into squares and big green blobs, with the audio dropping out... totally unwatchable, but good enough to let me see what I was missing.

So my wife and I talked it over at length... then I went out and dropped big bucks on this antenna anyway.

Well, the sad truth is that while the signal strength from WTNH is now between 90% and 100% (still bouncing around though), the thing is still unwatchable for the same reasons. In other words, I'm no better off than I was with the $15 rabbit ears!

I had also expected, I think not unreasonably, to get near perfect signal from WCTX-DT (UPN, also in New Haven) as well as acceptable signal from WTXX-DT (WB in Waterbury), WVIT-DT (NBC in New Britain) and from the NY stations (CBS, NBC and ABC DT). I get nothing. Nada. Zip.

Very disappointing. Is there something wrong or are my expectations that far out of whack?

One possibility I'm considering is that the antenna is not mounted high enough. The installer attached it to the chimney of my single story family room addition. The chimney is pretty tall, but even mounted to a pole 3' or 4' above that (~25' above the ground), I'm not sure the antenna itself is actually clearing the roof peak of the main house. I know lots of people have antennas mounted in their attics... so I'm wondering if would this make that much of a difference? Would we go from no useable signal to a good/excellent signal just by raising the antenna another 5' or so? I wouldn't think so. And in any case, the house only blocks the "line of sight" to New Haven. The lines of sight to Hartford, New Britain and New York are not blocked by anything other than the local horizon and scattered trees. But I expect this is all fairly typical, otherwise everyone in this part of Fairfield County would be mounting their antennas on 200' towers!

Another thought... could it be that my Hughes E86 decoder is somehow defective? Could that cause these OTA problems? It works fine with the satellite dish...

Any ithoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

JD

JD,
There have been many reports of the E86 overheating and only losing OTA reception. Check out some of the threads in the HDTV hardware forum.
Jim

JD,

I am not familiar with that CM antenna, but I have a CM 4228 (8 bow) in Milford and pulling in WCBS, WTNH, WCTX, WLIW, CPTV and a few others that I dont even care about (pax, spanish, etc...)

The difference here in addition to antenna, is I have a CM 7777 amp. Now that is what took me over the edge!! I initially did not have this and only pulled in WTNH, I added the amp, and viola!! This eliminated any loss I was having with my near 100 foot cable run of RG6 form receiver to antenna.

Just some tips to help out, good luck!!

Scottte

JD,

I forgot to mention I do get FOX from NYC but that stinks anyway as things are just shown in widescreen, not HD.

Also, my reception seemed to get more stable with my new Hughes HTL HD receiver as opposed to my RCA DTC 100.

Scottte

Because of the terrain in CT, a pre-amp (CM 7777) is highly recommended. I get nothing without it, now I get WFSB, WTNH, WWLP, WTXX and PBS out of springfield (I live in Avon). It's worth teh $70 investment.

Such,

Have your heard anything from WTIC recently?

I just sent an email to WVIT to see if the 15th is still a feasible date. Still no word on WFSB power upgrade and 5.1 output or the WEDH live date.


Ralph

JD - I have a similar mounting situation to yours. I also have a Hughes E-86. I agree with scottte's comment about needing a preamp.

Here is something about the E-86 that I have learned. I often get breakups when switching between DirecTV HD and OTA HD eventhough I am geeting a good signal on the signal strength meter. I have solved this by switching first to either a DirecTv analog or OTA analog signal. It seems the the E-86 often gets confused when switching channels.

There are many threads on the AVS forum about the Hughes E-86 heat problems. Many people have solved this by having a fan blow on the top left rear of the E-86 (hottest spot). There are even plans on one of the threads here about how to make this a permanent installation.

I hope this helps.


Pete

It seems that WFSB has been teasing us lately. They had increased power slightly for a couple of days but now seem to be back down in the mud. I wish they would get thier act together. I mean how long is this going to take?

JD - I forgot to mention that with my E-86, I can get a watchable picture down to about 40 on the signal strength meter.


Pete

Check out this thread for some interesting news on WTIC-DT. It seems like some channel information is appearing on various STBs.

Ralph

Such, Do you have any links to the installation manual for the
CM 7777? I have a CM 4228 8bay and can get WFSB,WWLP,and
WGBY that's it. I would love to pull in more channels and I was wondering about the specifics of installation and the difficulty factor.

If getting to the antenna is not difficult, it is pretty easy. An in-line preamp near the antenna and the amp near the receiver. Plug the amp power cord into the wall.

Yep that's it, one piece goes up on the antenna, the other down by your STB - you can't have any splitters in between as they can't pass the AC to the in-line section that goes up by the antenna. It has settings inside for VHF/UHF combo, or you can use the available seperate UHF & VHF inputs as I do. Really simple to install, though you do have to get up to the antenna to install that one piece.

Thanks for the replies I will give it a try.

Craig, most of the other DT channels in our area are on VHF, and you will need a VHF antenna in addition to your 4228 to get them, specifically WTNH-DT and WTXX-Dt, both of which should be available in Western Mass. You might try a Jerrold VIP-305 to add to your 4228 to make an all-channel antenna

cgorra,

Thanks for the heads up.

I sent an email to WVIT's engineer Dave Bondanza Wednesday to ask about the status of their DT transition, Here's the response:

-----------------
getting real close. Weather is holding us up on finishing the tower re-enforcement. We changed the 5th guy wire yesterday, only one more left!! The antenna will be taken off the truck Monday (again barring weather). I'm still shooting for this month.

Dave
-----------------

does that mean that all of the other CT DT stations will be coming along shortly therafter?? Also, is this a full power set up or temp low power set up?


scottte

WTIC-DT is scheduled to go live by month's end. Not sure if it means anything but their DT channel information is starting to pop up on DirecTV boxes. I haven't heard a word on PBS.

Not sure if WVIT-DT is a full power situation or not. Here's Dave Bondanza's email address: David.Bondanza@nbc.com

Ralph

Good news for Cablevision customers in Fairfield County. Earlier this week Cablevision added the "missing" HD channels available elsewhere in the tri-state area. The CT lineup is now as follows, CBS (NY), FOX (NY), PBS (NJ), MSG, FSNY, HBO and Showtime. MSG and FSNY are Cablevision owned sports channels with NY/NJ ice hockey, basketball and baseball.

Customers in New Jersey have just started getting Starz, Cinemax, TMC and InHD. Official launch for those channels is Monday. I am not sure when we will get them in CT.

Not sure when NBC and ABC will be available but Cablevision does seem to be improving. A PVR would be nice.

AreBee,

I am confused as you at first say David is with WVIT but then refer to WTIC and the fact that the channel is showing up on STB's (mine included!) which is the WTIC channel, but then his email is @nbc.com so that obviously points to WVIT!!!

Which channel are we talking about here going live any day now??? Is it WVIT channel 30 or WTIC channel 61??? Thanks for the info!!

Scottte

I just got Cox HD installed at the house. There are 6 channels (Disc HD, ESPN HD, INHD 1 &2, HBO HD, and SHO HD) but no local channels. They say they are working local channels. They hook up via component video, but may allow DVI early next year.

HD looks great. I would love more content and am thinking about an antenna.

Scott

I was talking about the two channels separately in response to scotte's post regarding CT stations. I meant everything I said, I just garbled it a little. Sorry for the confusion.

The email is in regards to WVIT-DT and they are shooting for the end of the month.

The channel information on DirecTV STBs is in regards to WTIC-DT. From what I last heard they are shooting for this month as well.


Ralph

I heard from WTIC today and they are talking about going live early next year at reduced power and height.

That is just great. I am so sick of these CT stations screwing us all. I wonder if I will be able to pick up WTIC with reduced power. I am like 10 miles from WFSB transmitter and can't get them reliably most of the time and I have big outdoor antenna on a rotor. What a sorry state of digital TV in CT. I mean markets which are smaller than CT have almost all of their digital signals up. For example Raleigh-Durham, NC has all major networks running and on top of it they have the best CBS affiliate WRAL which even does their local news in HD. I think it is about time for FCC to start giving out fines to stations in CT for not doing digital.

This is really becoming pathetic, when can the FCC start issuing fines for stations not meeting deadlines??? I mean what is different from WTNH and all the others?? I mean WTNH has been HD for many years now!!!

Frustrated,

scottte

has anyone else noticed the channel shifting on WTNH-DT lately? I turned on my 6000 and it went to 10-2. no picture,then it listed 10-3,10-4,10-5 and so on. all no pic. had to go in menu and do a little troubleshooting and finally got an extraordinary picture on 8-2. Comcast in NewHaven has provided WVITDT from a fiberoptic link right from west hartford. that and INHD1+2 are about the only positive things to say about Comcast New Haven. THEY ARE IN NEW HAVEN AND CANT BANG OUT A DEAL WITH WTNH????? I dont care cuz I get it OTA. Why oh why cant Comcast find a way to bring WFSB-DT to us here in New Haven?? it is a fact that there is no chance in hell were gonna get a reliable OTA signal. This should all be a lot easier and fun!

The channel shifting that you mention with the Dish 6000 receiver has also happened on WFSB-DT, which I previously got by punching in "033-1" on the remote. After doing a "Scan for Local Digitals" in the menu, WFSB-DT became channels "003-1"and "003-2".

It seems that the channels are re-mapping from their new digital channel numbers back to their old analog numbers followed by a hyphen and a sub-channel number.

The CEO of Dish Network announced on last week's "Charlie Chat" that the Hartford/New Haven local channels will be upconverted to satellite and be spot-beamed down to Dish Network subscribers in the area beginning on December 18th for an additional $5.99 a month. All the major CT stations were included in the graphic that they showed on the program.

These channels would be presented in standard digital as high definition would require too much bandwith.