Orlando, FL - OTA - Page 57

ok..thanks...I'm not sure Radio Shack is going to charge be $5 for the parts.

ha! found it!

http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/dipole.html

If I remember correctly, I had to buy like 50 -100' of the 300 ohm wire, so it cost a little more. If you are near melbourne, I'll give you a few feet for free! I still have the excess.

check your pm.

thanks for the offer. Did you end up getting rid of it for the Y5-7-13?

yeah, I replaced the folded dipole with the y5-7-13. we use the folded dipole outdoors at work now. I needed a little more gain for attic use.

Yep, I do have the 7777, so I guess I'll scratch off the combiner. Thanks for saving me the return hassle.

I may just go for the Y5-7-13 for 27.94 shipped.


UPDATE: 01072009
I got the Y5-7-13, connected it to the 7777 combiner (needed to open the 7777 up and flip one of the switches in it) and now Channel 2 (11) comes in clear as a whistle. Thanks all, I'm set for Super Bowl.

I used to make those as a kid. The guy at the local TV Repair shop showed me how to make them one day when I was looking for an FM antenna. They work very well for FM, and used to come with a lot of FM receivers. Of course back in the day, inputs were 300 ohms that made them even better without balun loss.

Never tried on on TV channels, but somewhere like Orlando with a single VHF, it would be prefect if you lived in east Orange county, maybe farther!
You could even take an old FM antenna if you have one that came with a set, and cut it shorter for CH11. Works out easy, if you have one, just shorten it by half, since most were tuned for 100MHz, and Ch11 is a hair away from exactly 200 MHz.

An old pair of plain rabbit ears shortened to 29" will work also. That's what I'm using in New Smyrna Beach. (35 miles from transmitter, with a Silver Sensor for UHF, balun and amp).

yes, simple dipole, work great. Used them all my life for one thing or another. I read back about a year in this thread before I posted, and knew people in Brevard were using inside antennas, interesting yours works in New Smyrna.

I lived in Orlando from 1960 till 73, then always visited friends and family there over the years, so I know the area well. Learned how to surf at 2nd St South in Cocoa Beach. Spent many a week and weekend in New Smyrna. It's gotten a lot more crowded but I still love your town.

Technically I am in the Orlando DMA because I live in Marion County, but it's hard to get any farther away from Bithlo and still be in the DMA if you look up Orange Springs on the map. Or look right at the very North West corner of the Ocala National Forest, then right 1 mile west across the Oklawaha. Another way to find where I live is find the Oklawaha River running us the west side of the north part of the forest. It turns east across the north side of the forest. That turn, I am a mile west of the corner out of the forest approximately.

Obviously once you find me, you see why I mainly point at Gainesville stations. But I do use WESH for my NBC. I have a YA-1713 up 20ft and it's about 80%. Some days and nights it's great, some nights I have to go to satellite to watch WESH in SD, since I don't have HD on my sat. My set locks in the 30 to 35 range, and when WESH isn't skipping in the steady signal here is 40%. I am waiting to see if I can use the new 9.1 out of Gainesville, but I doubt it will ever be any good as my UHF antenna even with it's back to 39.1 WFTV DT, locks now and again. I have a second YA-1713. I am waiting for WFTV 9.0 (analog) to go silent, to determine if I keep pointing at WESH or can use the new WNBW 9.1 in Gainesville (actually in a town called Newberry 10 miles west of Gainesville). Who knows, maybe the stacked yagis will have enough gain to override the mapping of 39.1 to 9.1.

I am really upset that they allowed WNBW to map 9 to 9.1 with a 9.1 mapped so close. That totally negates co-channel spacing rules. But one has to remember it's Washington DC.....

If any DXer's are curious. I see 35.1 WLOF firist when the skip starts, then 9.1 WFTV (hence my worries about the co-channel mapping). After that it really takes some skip to see the other stuff at Bithlo.

Analog wise I only see CW18 but see it all the time but it's in deep snow but syncs my NTSC tuner.

Back 12 years ago I had a large V/U up on a 50 foot tower, and Orlando/Bithlo UHF wasn't watchable then. Orange Springs is only 40 ft ASL, with 60 and 80 feet hills around us.

My first post on AVS so bear with me. I live in conway about 2 miles north of the airport and airplanes fly directly over my house at about 1500-2000 ft. altitude on their final approach on a constant basis. I am using an analog TV and a digital converter and rabbit ears for an antenna. I get 90% of the stations in crystal clear. The problem I am having is that every time an airplane flies over head i get break up and pixelation on about 4 or 5 stations for about 4 or 5 seconds. I have tried just about every indoor antenna you can buy and about 3 or 4 different digital converters and I can not seem to get rid of this problem. I don't want to go with an outdoor antenna unless I absolutely have to. My apologies if this is in the wrong forum but i am wondering if anyone who lives in my general area or near other airports has this problem. I want to go HDTV soon but i am thinking i will still have this problem. Any help is appreciated.

What antenna did you buy/return? I don't think that Channel Master 4221 (4-bay antenna) will be the solution to your problem, even though it can pick up to a range of 45 miles away. I wish I could live near the airport to experience this, but I don't know of any antennas that can withstand dropouts when the airplane passes by over your house.

Update: Okay, as far as I've done a search in Google (first page), I'd like to mention (although I don't want to jump into conclusions) that airplanes act just like buildings, I mean, a building that movies across the sky (a "moving multipath," if you'd like to call it).

I had the same issues with aircraft with highly directional antennas and different tuners. The breakup only occurred for about a second, though. My solution - switch to cable.

I am close to Patrick AFB and have a lot of air traffic over our house. I have an older Radio Shack 21 element antenna in the attic and have no problems with any interference on any of the Orlando stations. It is a master system I installed, with feeds all over the house.

Well I have no desire to switch to cable. It seems the problem is with the tuner. I tried a magnavox, RCA, and Insignia/Zenith DTV converters and i had the same problem with multipath break up in all of them. On Tuesday I went out a purchased a DTVPAL and guess what? No more problems with break up using the same indoor RCA rabbit ears. I have had it for 3 days and have not had one drop out. And if u know OIA a plane passes overhead about every 2 minutes. So it seems some tuners are better dealing with multipath interference than others. This is good news for me as I ordered the DTVPAL DVR which has the same tuner (well it is even suppose to be more enhanced).

Wow, I would not have guessed the tuner would be that much different, but then as you say, you tried a lot before one worked. I wonder if it's less sensitive and missing the multipath? (yes an airplane is like a moving building giving that typical 5 seconds of drop out or pixelization).

I can't remember where I read it but a guy in England had the same problem. He stacked a pair of 91XG's side by side. (someone though pricey makes a stacking kit anyone can erect. But you have a $400 antenna in the end).

It all depends where a person is relative to the TV towers. Then where the flight path of the aircraft is relative to that, just like any multipath. If the flight path is between you and the tower, that is worse case. Even the most directive antenna will still the mulitpath. But lets say it's behind you, then the better the front to back ratio of antenna will help. Stacking identical antennas pointed the same direction almost always increases front to back, so it would help if the flight path were to the rear. Then of course as it approaches 90 degrees to either side, then a long boom or stacked helps again, but it might take tuning the distance between the antennas. Then that only works over a few channels. As you move the antennas closer together you broaden the main lobe, but reduce the side lobes. It's gets to be a crazy trial and error event and expensive.

Glad the situation worked out! :@)

Started a second post so it would seen.

Has WFTV Ch9 Analog reduced power? It's not nearly as strong up here in northern Marion Country (Ocala area) as it has been for years.

There is that new 9.1 just west of Gainesville, and I wonder if I am getting interference from it? Not that it matters as WFTV 9.0 will be gone in less than 60 days. Mainly just curious, and that would mean I might actually receive WNBW 9.1 once WFTV analog goes off the air (as long as my tuner doesn't lock to 39.1, which I see up here off and on all day. Not good enough to lock but it shows on the meter). The fact that WNBW used 9.1 for their alias to their real 9.1 is insane.

I have a feeling all I will be able to do is watch WESH which is 40 out 100 (barely locking a picture) to me but with a lot of 5 second drops, I figured also were aircraft. Then there are days I can't lock it all. But it's there 80% of the time.

Actually the planes fly directly over my house at about 1500ft altitude. The towers are to the northeast of me at about 70 degrees. I think the newer tuners are getting better at rejecting multipath. Maybe it's the time of year, not as humid as it is in the summer.

You must live south of Orlando Int ? Guessing based if the towers are NE of you.

I am guessing and correct me, then the take or and landing is a north south path into Orlando Int ?

If that is the case, and as you said you are on an indoor, you have them coming and going causing multipath. One of the ways was worse as you said the drop outs only lasted 5 seconds at most. Most likely, but always guessing at stuff like that, when the plane was north of you the multipath should be stronger than south of you. But that is hard to tell unless someone is outside and you are watching the break up.

Humidity has nothing to do with airplane skip as I call it. Commercial passenger jets are just a huge reflector in the sky.

When I lived in High Springs FL, I had a friend in Ocala (about 50 miles apart). Both of us are ham radio operators. We used to talk to each other through a repeater on 146MHz, which was easy since the repeater was up 600 ft. But at the same time we had yagi's pointed at each other on 224MHz (right above ch13 TV). By the time the flights out of Orlando were between us, they were at 15 to 20 K feet. We could talk to each other on 224MHz off the aircraft. The skip would last about 15 to 20 seconds. I would call him at 15 and 45 seconds after the minute and he called me on the minute and 30 seconds after. I was amazing that about every 2 minutes we made contact, which is about the take off and landing rate for Orlando Int. We then used the repeater to tell each other how well we hear each other. Often it was so strong we could talk for 15 seconds on 224MHz. We also tried it on 445MHz, but it didn't work as well for some reason.

Airplane skip is pretty interesting to hams, pain the pita watching TV!

Glad you solved it.

I received my DTVpal DVR yesterday (December 24th). Using an amplified 'Stealth' antenna in my garage attic in Celebration, the DTVpal tuner is dramatically superior to that of my old Zenith HDV420. Overhead aircraft banking from/to OIA no longer appear to interrupt my viewing. Given my good experience with the DTVpal DVR, I wouldn't abandon using it at your location without trying a directional antenna (unamplified or amplified if necessary).

not really a fair comparison because celebration isn't really in the flight path of the runways and it is a fair distance from mco. I never had this issue with our house there with a ss2000 in the attic. However I get it all the time with our house on the beach because it is directly in the path of a main runway and the planes are much lower.

MCO aircraft is indeed some distance, but I should have added that Celebration is approximately 6 miles from the Kissimmee airport. At times the sky gets busy. TV reception problems I've had for years appear to have been eliminated by the tuners in the DTVPal DVR.

good point. those planes are much smaller, though. small planes and private jets don't cause breakups for me, but the delta jets and the big military transports due.

antenna design could also greatly influence multipath issues. the antenna I had there supposedly had a pretty narrow "window". maybe that was why I never saw multipath issues with it.

As i said in my first post, I'm in conway just a couple miles north of the airport. The jets are all big jets with their landing gear down on final to runway 18L and 18R (180 degrees, directly south). The new DTVPAL DVR tuner is more sensitive and i get break up issues again. I ordered a Winegaurd SS-3000 so i'll see how that works. I need a high gan highly directional antenna.

I would think there would be a lot of homes in my area having the same problem but all i see is homes with sat dishes.

that antenna seems like it is designed to capture signals in all directions. it may be worse.

I'd suggest the ss1000 instead.

I bought it becuase it says it is designed to reject multipath http://winegard.com/offair/ss-3000.htm and it is indoor. We shall see.

My old Terk (5' long dipole?) never worked very well so I thought I would give the homemade antenna a try. I found everything I needed in my garage (and wife's closet) and had it in the attic in about an hour. I now get every digital channel at 100% power without having to move the antenna - I didn't even have to search for a sweet-spot location I just screwed it to the most convenient rafter. I live in Lake Mary 32746. Thanks for the idea!

"it ain't the best looking thing in the world..."

you got that right!

glad it works for you. However you are pretty close to the towers (20 miles), so pretty anything metal that doesn't have the name "terk" on it should work.

I know this is a bit off topic... but as HDTV experts in here... can someone recommend to me a company or service that is skilled at performing a calibration on a Sony KD-34XBR960N? I've used the service codes and delved some into the service menu... but I'm having a convergence issue at the left 1/3 and right 1/3 of the screen especially in the upper quadrant, where convergence is noticably off. The service codes only seem to be able to correct vertical convergence issues... but I'm having horizontal convergence issues. I'd appreciate any responses.

I know exactly what your describing as I have ISF calibrated many of those displays. The horizontal convergence is adjusted by moving the magnets on the surface of the picture tube.

in all honesty, a new 37" lcd will probably cost less than a full calibration. sad but true...