Orlando, FL - OTA - Page 67

You "might" improve things with a lot work but more than likely you will find a lot of places worse. I would leave things alone. I can't see how that antenna would be hurt just laying on the rafters as it's so light.

If it works, don't fix it.

And thanks for the list of reception on your other post. I actually thought the 7694P would give you all signals in the mid to high 90's. Probably because it's in the attic. And it's possible you are not pointing directly at Bithlo, but again I would not mess with it if it's working.

One of the reasons I and many others herald the 769xP series antennas is they are just old Winegard designs long ago proven with the low band elements removed. There for a while when Solid Signal was dumping some of the old 2 thru 69 models of the antennas, you could actually buy the old ones cheaper than the 7-51 models. If you had the room or mast to hold the bigger elements. Myself I would not have saved $10 , as I would rather not have those big elements and not use them.

Here in Vero, WKMG is presently at about 50%, and WFTV is more like 65%. Unfortunately, WKMG is still susceptible to periodic momentary drop outs. I accidently pinched and shorted the coax from the antenna for North UHF (WKMG) last night, while messing with the mast. I got up early this morning and was able to get it fixed without too much trouble, but haven't done a very good job of repointing yet. WKMG data says it's one of those odd circular polarized signals, but all my antennas are horizontal only. I'm hoping that little detail doesn't end up meaning I never will get a truly solid signal from them. I don't want to have to rely on WPEC 12(13) for CBS. Even the present signal is livable though, but not what I was hoping for. I did have WBCC both last night and this morning, but still no WDSC.

Sounds like both of us live in a nether land. Mine is NBC. WESH is too far away unless I get some light skip. And for a couple years that was all I could get. Analog they did come in fine here but they moved 30 some miles away from me closer to you.

Then Gainesville put on a NBC, WNBW, only 37 miles from me. Problem solved, nope. They are channel 9, same RF as WFTV analog, and throw a null at WFTV, which is also me, so the ERP in my direction is about 860 watts. It doesn't even take skip for WFTV to wipe it out.

Then WTLV fixed their antenna, 61 miles away, at 25 KW. That was a lot more reliable than WESH, but still some days when the noise was high it disappeared, normally when I wanted it the most.

If the noise is high enough to bother WTLV it also bothers WNBW. So some days there is no NBC.

Then at night it's almost hilarious. Normally from 6 to 8 pm the noise goes down and I can watch WNBW. Then the skip picks up where WFTV wipes it out. I go outside and turn the stack to WTLV, which then depending on skip might get wiped out by WTVT out of Tampa. But if the skip gets just a little stronger I can turn to WESH. Normally this works good, but there are a lot of times the skip is strong enough I loose both WNBW and WTLV, but it's not strong enough for solid viewing on WESH.

So as Billy used to say "I feel your pain".

I see a number of comments about the status of WKMG's DTV channel change. Here is an update. On April 22nd WKMG change from its pre-transition DTV channel 58 to the Post-transition DTV channel 26. This operation began on an auxilary antenna that is owned by WDSC and WBCC. Once that was completed the channel 58 antenna was removed from the tower. On thursday April 23rd the new channel 26 was installed on the tower and connected to the transmission line. On Friday April 24th the Gin Pole was removed from the tower. On Sunday morning at 130am, during intial testing, problems with the transmission line were discovered that prohibited operation on channel 26. During this testing all station on the tower were turned off.

On Tuesday April 28th the needed parts were installed in the transmission line and then the line was tested again starting at 130am on wed morning this time with perfect results. At 3am on Wed morning WKMG began broadcasting on the new antenna at 50% power. This was increased to 60% later that day. WKMG will continue this level of operation until next week at which time final tuning of the remaining parts of the transmitter will be complete. One additional feature of the new antenna is that is has a vertical componet in addition to the normal horizontal componet. This may explain way some are getting a better signal level. Hope this is of interest.

Nice to see one of the CEs participating.

Line is 7 3/16 for WKMG

Thanks for participating in the forum. Great to hear the status first hand.

It was all of interest and very much appreciated. Thank you for coming to the forum and posting in detail. This kind of participation stops our speculation and rumors dead, lets us know and the lurkers what to expect.

I am guessing here, but the remaining power increase will be about 2.2 db, which probably in the real world will clear some minor drop outs. But pretty much those that don't see it now won't see it with just 2.2 db more.

Thanks again for the detailed facts and welcome to the forum.

Sounds like I have it way better than you there. I'm right smack in between Orlando and West Palm. In Vero, ABC is not a problem, there is a local WPBF CH-25 (dt16) (LOS) and WFTV CH-9 (dt39) is also very dependable here.

There are many PBS options. WMFE, WBCC and WDSC are fairly solid at night and morning, and daytime too if it's not dry as hell like it is now. There is a local repeater for WXEL PBS (West Palm) on dt44 that is a very strong signal at all hours.

CBS is either WPEC CH-12 (West Palm) on dt13, or our familiar WKMG. Until the dt58 to dt26 switch, both were just about equally dependable, which is to say, not very dependable at all, but now dt26 is respectable, and judging by the post above (if it's still at %60 power), I have hopes it will approach the dependability of WFTV.

I don't know if I could receive WESH here if I tried, but that antenna goes into a UHF input on my amp, so dt11 is rejected. I don't panic because after June 12, WPTV CH-5 (presently dt55) will switch to dt12 and much improved performance and I should get a good NBC at that time. (WPEC will also boos power post transition so I'll probably have two good CBS also.

FOX is another thing though, my WOFL CH-35 (dt22) is not so great, I need good skip to have a solid signal. I'm afraid post transition will not improve it enough to become solid either. There is a West Palm WFLX CH-29 (dt28) that is reasonably strong, and should improve a little after 6/12, problem is, the signal from it does not decode very well in my LSS-3200a, so I don't get to watch it in HD very often. I have a Microgem' dtv converter that decodes it with ease, but of course, is not HD. I think my antenna is the problem. I'm about convinced that my antenna is the source of the problem, but it may be due to interference from nearby analog stations. Again, I won't be doing much to try and fix that problem until after 6/12 since it may end up fixing itself.

I also get WTVX ch34 (LOS) solid. WKCF, WRDQ and WRBW are fairly dependable. There are a few more stations that come in from very good to not so good, but I don't watch them so I don't know much about them.

Thanks for the detail. Sounds like there is still hope of getting a solid WKMG after all.

You don't use Black and White as alias do you? (making a joke :@).

I looked at Vero Beach on TVFool, which is close enough and you are 7 to 8 miles closer to Orlando towers than I am. We almost point right at each other pointing at Bithlo.

So you are just within range of the towers. Plus it's a LOT flatter between you and the towers than I am. If you look at the details on the coverage maps, there is a town about 8 miles south of me called Fort Mc Coy. Some of the Orlando stations just touch it, where none of them touch me.

Now the Jacksonville VHFs just touch my house and I do see them from time to time with WTLV on RF13 there a lot of the time. But even besides NBC I talked about above, Tampa has 4 VHFs and Jax 3. And just to make it lovely all 3 of the Jax VHFs are duplicates (co-channel) in Tampa. Tampa has 500 meter towers and Jax is all 300 meter towers. The Tampa farm is about 115 miles and Jax is about 61 miles. I have a very narrow advantage db wise on the Jax stations. In other words doesn't take much Tampa skip to knock them out. I can't put the back of the beams at Tampa, then I am too far off Jax. If I put the back of the beam on Tampa, then I have a 17 degree error pointing at Jax. Which should not lower me more than 2 to 3 db, but it's enough not to lock Jax at all.

I need to move... lol. fat chance. too much work...

Just a quick reception report here regarding WKMG.

I've got a temporary setup here in the Davenport/Haines City area - crappy old NTSC CRT TV's with a converter box and a set-top antenna.

Since last year, we'd always gotten a semi-reliable signal on the channel 58 version of WKMG, and while up north, I've followed this thread with interest.

Down here this weekend, I re-scanned the converter box and successfully now receive the new channel 26 version of WKMG. It reads as 6-1 and 6-2 as it's supposed to, and guide data seems to be there.

The signal strength seems to read at between 50 and 70 percent, fluctuating as we move about the house. Last evening we watched GHOST WHISPERER, and the video remained solid with a few occasional audio dropouts. I saw no pixelization.

With this crappy indoor antenna, I don't get WESH very well at all. It's mostly not there. In fact, on analog, I seem to pick up the Tampa NBC better than the Orlando. Both are snowy, but the Tampa channel 8 is a little better. I've gotten the digital version of 8 once upon a time, but not reliably with this antenna. Same with WESH on 11.

WFTV comes in fairly reliably with some pixelization as we move about the house.

I have no problems at all with CW18 or FOX35, and the channel 27 seems to come in just fine.

The PBS on 3 is in and out - same as the one on 24. With antenna placement they seem to be steady.

My hope is that once down here fulltime, I'll stick a better antenna in the attic and hope to do better with the NBC channel(s).

Harry

I'm not complaining too much, things pretty much break my way here. Like you say, it is flat as a pancake, and I only have a few issues with frequency overlap. Most of that should go away in 6 weeks. I was trying to think of some way to improve the backside rejection you need, but nothing easy comes to mind. A while back, I made one of those 16 bay collinear arrays (like 2 CM 4228's together), the only reason I bring it up is they turned out to be *extremely* directional. Maybe directional enough to reject something 20 degrees off backside. Sounds like in the end though, you'd need two arrays, on two amps, with two feeds. That's actually how I'm set up now (but I'm not using collinears anymore), and it is a pain, but that's where I'm at.

I'm still really bugged about my FOX 29 (dt28) antenna. Even though I said I wouldn't, I got up there this morning and turned my dual 10 element yagi into a single. I got the idea that maybe the two were producing odd side lobes (that I was interpreting as reflections), and producing wild multipathing (just guessing, I was out of ideas). But after all that, the problem was unchanged. I still get zero pointed directly at the transmitter, and have two signals about 20 degrees to each side. I pointed to the slightly stronger reflection' and gave up. Since the performance seemed unchanged, I'm going to leave it as just one yagi, since it saves about 2 pounds on the mast (which is maxed out). Maybe there is some building or something that just happens to block that particular signal, and I really am on a reflection, but I get the feeling it's more complex than that.

Believe it or not, I get Jax stations sometimes on skip, as well as Miami. That's the advantage of being on the coast, everything's on a line. Crazy enough, even Tampa comes in sometimes, and that's about 90 deg. to the side! Of course, none of those stations could be considered watchable'. Even though the signal is good when skip is right, it rarely happens, and never for very long.

I was gone all week so no ability to experiment until last night...

Did a "Clear program information & To Do List" before I went to bed last night. I woke-up this morning to good 6-1 and 6-2 guide data. The season passes are another story. I can program to record a single show, and it will show up in the To Do List, but if I create a season pass from the guide data, it shows "No Upcoming Episodes." Hmmm....

It is fun to read about your long range reception experiments. I have read of others trying to find the right combination of antennas, amps and aiming direction. They reported the same results using a horizontal array with a 10% gain in signal strength but a narrow tolerance for high gain so pointing became critical. It appears you are very close to the curvature of the earth to receive the Orlando market. Can you raise your mast any higher? Have you experimented with antenna tilt angle?

Harry, you must be closer to Davenport than Haines City. I played with TVFool and it you put in Davenport the Orlando stations show up on top (stronger) and if you put in Haines City the Tampa stations come in stronger.

Hence you saying the Orlando stations are better and if you don't want a rotor I would say just an attic antenna at Orlando would work. But I would put a BIG ONE in the attic, as you are out on the edge. Plus at 8 to 10 feet the average attic antenna height you are not LOS to anything much. Go up to 12 feet you are LOS to Orlando from the Davenport plot. If you could swing it a big antenna on a short mast (15 ft) would yeild a lot more signal than 8 to 10 feet in the attic. Though a big attic antenna should over come the loss based on your rabbit ear experience.

Where you live a modest antenna up 15 ft (20 to 30 would be better) give you Orlando all the time and Tampa probably mostly but solid at night. You are within the contour of both cities.

If you don't want a rotor and never an outside antenna, you could after buying one and placing it in the attic, see what Orlando does. Then turn it around at Tampa for a few days and see what you see. It could be if money is not an issue and not really that much, you would for the price of a rotor and mast put a second antenna in the attic (10 ft away from the other one), pointed at Tampa. Then bring in 2 coaxes with a switch. Radio Shack even makes a remote controlled A/B switch.

It would be a sweet setup. Granted during prime time they all show the same, but outside those 3 hours you would have a lot of choices.

Of you have a huge attic a 7698P would be great, but that is 168 inch boom, LONG.... The 7696P would be the smallest antenna I would recommend at 110 inches of boom. As even with an outdoor antenna you are on the out skirts of both cities. And take it from me, it can be frustrating to spend money and still have drop outs, etc. Always go as big as you can on the antenna.

If WOPX is granted a move to Bithlo, you would also be prime candidate for a really good low noise preamp. The CM7777 is the best buy for the money. Judging from my experience even with WOPX still where it is an amp would still not overload as pointed at Orlando it would be 10 or more db down, and pointing at Tampa it should not even be an issue.

How solid is WOPX for you on rabbit ears?

Which way did you stack the 4228s? Vertical or Horizontal?

I thought about putting my YA1713s side by side in a horz stack, but that put a lot of load on a mast. Then I though put up 3 tower sections, which would hold that. But then I might as well buy a 7698P. But what would have more F/B? I doubt you can tell without trying it.

====

On your UHFs, I had two 4221As stacked. Had them to the screens overlapped giving 8 vertical bays. But I actually saw less signal. Maybe because I was going into an amp, but I more suspect odd lobes, the loss of combining, mostly odd lobes. 4221A's stack much better side by side, hence the 4228.

If I can find a way to combine the 4221As horz, either in or out of phase (because of where my 2 worse mulitpath channels exist), I may never need to turn them. I can't see any UHF unless there is some skip except some nights WJXT 42RF 4.1Virtual but it's something that happens once a week now on a single 4221A at 20 ft.

I have a 50 ft tower but I am trying to perfect what I want up there before doing it.

I could mount the 4221A on the side and not turn, as they side mount very well. Then turn a stacked pair of YA1713s. But it seems if I am going to all that trouble, to add a rotor, pay someone to go up the tower, I could just put a huge 7698P up there on a rotor. I could still use my other antennas, pointed at Gainesville as its pretty close. Then I would need an AB switch.

Just tossing around ideas.

===

I would leave the second UHF down also. If you cant see a station on a single yagi, the second won't help. Been there, learned that. It will take out some dropouts if it's multipath if you stack them side by side.

Have you tried moving the mast a few feet either way? You might find if it's a mulitpath there is a hot spot where they add in phase?

We're just slightly west of Davenport, and just slightly north of Haines City, just off of route 27.


I'd love a big antenna on a rotor. It's what I have up north at the current permanent home. But down here it's a new development with lots of by-laws, etc., and I'd like to not be rocking the boat right off. That's why I thought of starting with an attic antenna. The attic antenna could be a good 12-15 feet up, with our high ceiling.


I'm getting WOPX pretty well on the rabbit ears. When do they run Tampa Rays Baseball? I haven't found any games on there yet, but it looks like they're one of the ION stations that have upgraded to 16:9 broadcasting.

Harry

The Rays are no longer on OTA tv with the exception of when they are on Fox's Saturday Regional Game of the Week. All of their games are on either Sun Sports or FSN Florida.

That does give you a slight but important advantage on indoor and attic antennas, as you have noted on a previous post. If you moved about 10 miles south or west, you would probably get Tampa on rabbit ears but not as well as you receive Orlando now. You are so close to half way between the towers, but you don't have to go as high up to get LOS on Orlando, even though most of the Tampa towers are nearly as high.



With what I wrote above beam Orlando from the attic. Rabbit ears are one of the best test antennas in the world. If you can see a station on rabbit ears, but it breaks up (not total drop outs) you will always see it better on a bigger antenna. Even a lot of drop outs on rabbit ears get steady on a big antenna.

The only time the rabbit ear test fails, is if the house or structure was built with foil backed insulation in the walls. That chops down a LOT of RF. I built a poor man's screen room when I fixed Two way radios and Pagers at my house by lining the walls and ceiling with that foil backed insulation board. (A screen room is a test room where you block outside radio signals).

But the oddest thing, I experimented by moving just a few miles closer to 27 then away and the difference in reception at 12 ft is day and night. So without knowing your exact location, and judging from your reception experience you are in one of those spots that favors Orlando.

Plugging in your actual location to TVFool.com would help a lot. Then you can save the image or just copy the URL they provide and post it here. Your actual street address won't show.


WOPX then may or may not be a problem running an amp. All you can do is try. Don't buy anything but an amp with a lot of headroom for overload. The ones at the stores locally unless you find a CM7777 are a waste of money and will overload from WOPX. Best to go online and buy a CM7777.

A lot of people have had to go satellite to watch the Rays. I don't know what they block out or not, because I don't watch sports except NASCAR. But Sun Sports is on DirecTV in the Orlando DMA. But you live in the Tampa DMA, so I don't know.

You might want to wonder over to the Tampa HD thread and see who gets the Rays on what over there.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1&goto=newpost

Another hint that works but doesn't work on HD service from DirecTV is since you have 2 real addresses you can use either one for your location, but then would have to do your own install on the second location. Leave both dishes set up and carry the receiver when you transit or buy extra receiver if you can find what you want to watch in either location. Dish and now DirecTV to my knowledge use spot beams which means it would not work unless you put in your real location (no signal). Someone that knows more can clarify this. It's no secret to DirecTV people do this. Look at all the truckers with dishes they hang when they park at night. All of them get their home location locals. I could be wrong but the HD part maybe moot as far as Sun Sports goes, I don't think they are even talking HD yet on their network.

You could still get HD service on Direct, but you would also need to have an SD receiver I think so you would be on Ku service for SD so it would work in both of your locations. Something to investigate if it's important and the money is worth it.

Here's a link to a photobucket image of my present antennas. Well, not quite. The dual 10 element yagi (UHF 28) is now a single (mounted directly on the PVC centerpole). The 5 element beam (VHF 12) is pointed directly at the West Palm antenna farm, and the wideband UHF pointing north is aimed to Bithlo. I am Over The Horizon for all the Bithlo towers, as well as West Palm (where the towers are actually south of Lake Worth). I can't raise my tower any higher, The top antenna is at 37'. The stress on the tower is at its limit, as well as at the limit of my strength to take the tower up and down. The top antenna is on some no name 75 ohm input drop amp alone, but the other two share a single CM 0265 with dual 300 ohm UHF and VHF inputs. I have experimented a little with vertical plane changes, but never saw any differences. I think they are fairly level. I've been through so many different antennas it's comical. Some I wish I had back, but this setup is fairly successful. The quest never ends though.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...msey/array.jpg

I've done it both ways. The vertical stack seemed to be more directional than the side by side, but I may just be imagining it. Besides, the setup of the two designs(other than having 16 bowties) were very different. Here's an image of my first collinear, and it actually turned out to be my best. It's a series-parallel-series-parallel phasing design, so it ends up being 300 ohm. 16 bays made for a really clean signal, but the darn thing was just too darn heavy!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../collinear.jpg


I would love a fifty footer!, and I sure know where that's coming from!
I would like to go with something like a 7698p on a rotor myself, seems like a way to go (but I do hate waiting on roters). I could hoist the 7698, but not the rotor though. I'm stuck with antennas and amps.


I can't lengthen or move the mast anymore. The guy angles would get too steep (and I can't move them out any more), and the leverage puts too much stress on the mast (it folded once on one of those collinears) if I lengthen it.

I just happened to notice this morning that WXEL 42 (dt27) comes in on my tuned dt28 10 element yagi even better than FOX dt28 does. Even being about one third less power, and 6 megacycles off, it's better than that darn FOX signal. I don't actually need WXEL 42 though, since then have a nearby repeater (W31DC-D) which gives great reception.

Much better now. Guide data had not caught up with the SPs.

I have more experience with antenna on ham radio bands than TV. This is fun playing with TV antenna (when they work). I never had any luck with long boom yagis on UHF. Maybe 6 wave lengths. Same with VHF. However, over all I have had better luck with collinear on UHF, but they are so hard to hold together when they get big as you found. Or they are too heavy to turn.




I would go ahead with the 7698P up on the tower but no one will climb it. I am so out of shape and not climbing belt, it's out of the question for me. Tower companies want a fortune to climb a 50 ft tower. Like 10 dollar a foot.

It's not worth paying that much to climb a tower.


I am at 30 ft now on a 50 ft push up pole. Using the fatter parts for strength. It's house bracket at 11 ft so really it's too high for no guy wires.


It is strange, it must have to do with how good an antenna is used at the transmit site. I can pick up some Jax and Orlando UHF in light skip but some never.

I wrote WKMG last night, asking if they were at full power on dt26. They already got back to me, and this is what they said

We are not at full power, but close enough.

I interpret that as meaning don't expect much more!'. Now I notice that WFTV is way down. In fact, last night it was a black screen where occasionally some NBC CH-3 (virtual) would show up. That's very unusual, WFTV has been a very dependable signal.


I use ARRL data almost exclusively when fabricating stuff. I did once have an A1 (novice) license, but the hardware was always more fun to me than actually operating a station, I never renewed. As far as yagi vs collinear (performance alone), hummm, that's a tough one. I think you're right, a really big collinear will outperform a multiband yagi, but it's not a slam dunk. And I do like the fact that a collinear can work the backside equally well (which is handy for my location) if you leave off the reflector.

It's pretty beat up now, I might be able to save it. A friend gave me some parts and I put together a 4 bay for 432 MHz. It had a reflector that were two dipoles for each bay. Driven element and two directors. It was potent. I compared it to a 10 element yagi and the collinear won. It was vertical because every one back then in Gainesville did ATV vertical. I never did try it on transmit as I didn't have a camera much less a transmitter. I ordered a mast head amp that was also a down converter to ch3 and feed a little 13 inch B&W TV.

The main reason I built the system wasn't to watch other guys I know smiling at me as talking back to them on 2 meters, which was fun. But mainly to watch a weather station a ham at IFAS at the U of Florida had built. The built their own ram cards and the whole thing back in 1984 before that stuff was available off the shelf. They captured the GOES satellite and held 5 minute interval images from the bird. Nothing new these days with digital radar and the such, but back then, they built it all and wrote the software. It was really cool for the era. He ran 1K Peak TPO, the max allowed. He had about 10 db gain vertical that was huge. Gave him about 10KW ERP. But the center of radiation was only about 60 ft in a part of town where the elevation was about 20 to 40 ft below most of town. So it took a good receive antenna to see him past about 5 miles. More than about 15 it was hopeless to receive. I was at 10 miles and it was a challenge.

It is something of a wonder why no one has built a TV antenna like that with directors. It does narrow the bandwidth, granted. I don't know if you could do a whisker director so it would broadband?

If WKMG is at 60%, the other 40 will only take pixelization out of people that already can see it. Stop the occasional drop out or shorten it. 2 db is not enough for someone that doesn't see it to then get a steady picture. Maybe someone that almost gets it will get a picture that breaks up a lot with 2 db.

My university was full of a bunch of unimaginative slugs. Nothing like that would have ever happened at the University of Mississippi. I could have (and should have) gone to UF. Back then, all you needed for admission to a Florida University was a degree or diploma from a Florida school! Biggest mistake I ever made.


I've considered it, but couldn't decide on what length to make the directors. I would have needed it to be broadband, because I wanted to cover the whole UHF band. In the end, I just stuck on a reflector.


There was wild skip last night from Miami area. When I went to bed, I had 3 channel 6's (our own WKMG, a thing called UNIVERS, and an NBC), a WFOR (on 4) came in, WOFL 35 was knocked aside by some ION 35, and FOX showed up on channel 7. WLTV (23) was there and some other Spanish stations that I don't remember anymore. My channel list got so scrambled, I had to rescan this morning, and when I did, WJXT (4) Jacksonville showed up to confuse things even more.

When I disassembled the last collinear I made, I saved the two highest performing 4 bay sections, just in case'. I'm considering pulling down the 10 element ch28 yagi, and sticking one of those two up there for comparison. That particular design is phased almost exactly like your 4221's, but the construction details are quite a bit different. A while back, I built a driven element and reflector for WESH (dt11), to add to my northward UHF antenna. I'm going to add that too as an experiment to see if I have a chance with WESH. FCC map says I should pull it in, but I'm doubtful. I'll have to drop a temporary coax to an amp that will pass both UHF and VHF through a single input, but if it works, I'll rearrange my present amp setup to accomplish the same thing. If it doesn't, the added elements will disappear, and I'll pretend it never happened.

I am an old fart, lol. I was out of school for 10 years when they put up the ATV station. The thing I hated about U of F was because they took everyone back then, then had their killer courses. Once you got past them as a sophomore it was ok if you liked to have upper level classes taught by know it all grad students. After it was over, my advise was borrow, rob, steal the money and go to a smaller school. I never felt I got an education at U of FL, just they wanted to see if I could tolerate the place.



I go back to building yagi's before computers. We used to make the directors 5% shorter and hope for the best, then it was such a pain to change their length (many on HF back then), we would change the spacing which seemed to effect things more.

I have no idea if 5% would work with a whisker antenna but it's worth a try. It's too bad all the good books on antenna are out of print. I even had some back in the day, like the ARRL Antenna books. I would not eat for a week to buy the new one. Now I don't even know if I still have them in the junk out in the shed. Weird how life changes things.




The trouble I have with WESH at 81 miles is I just loose signal in fades. What causes the fades, I am not sure, but probably atmospheric bending.

If you can see the UHF from Bithlo, WESH should make the trip. Up here I am 99% sure my problem is not co-channel now that WINK is off channel 11. I don't have a RF meter to be sure but I don't think it's electrical noise just no signal. Odd enough TVFool says I can receive WESH better at 10 ft than 50.

I am not sure why. I did try it before I knew about TV setting up the 1713 on a tripod to test and did pull in WESH. Put it up a 20 ft pole at the time and it wasn't any better. So it maynot be a glitch in Andy's programming. There may be a bending factor, but still it doesn't make sense.

I am waiting for after June 12th, WFTV's blow torch on RF9 will finally go silent. After that our local NBC says they will file to go omni. Right now I live between them so I am in the null for the local, WNBW. The null lowers my signal on paper from 4.9 KW to about 700 to 800, depending of you read their engineering report (the chief emailed it to me) or the FCC data.

Either way it will give me at least 7 maybe 9 db more signal. That should keep it locked with WFTV gone also. Then again WTLV NBC from Jax is there almost all of the time. But it has little break ups in pic and sound. But they are turning it up 3db in June, so that may give me better NBC.

Time will tell.

Maybe Ole Miss wasn't so bad after all, it was definitely a small school environment, (10K enrolled) but that made it a small school' with all that goes with that too.


I have the ARRL handbook, and the ARRL data book. Back when I really needed the data book, it was outrageously expensive for back then, so I never bought one. Found one in a thrift store way back, so now I have it. It's not as good as the antenna book (for antennas), but does cover the subject fairly well.


Yeah, I've seen the FCC plot for WESH, and it definitely looks like I should be able to get it. Problem is, My VHF ch12 antenna is pointed almost directly away from WESH, and I would expect some backside performance for VHF ch11. Thing is, I've never seen *any* evidence of WESH, even when skip is good. And as you know, when skip is good, you could pick it up on a coat hanger. I am going to try though. I didn't do it last night (too much wind), and there's something on PBS I want to watch tonight, I don't want to risk ending up with my antenna on the ground so I'm putting off that little experiment a few days. Waiting on pins and needles for 6-12. I have high hopes. CBS and NBC in West Palm should improve then and put an end to my NBC-less ness.

n00b here

I'm in Melbourne, FL and I've got a Brighthouse HD-DVR with RoadRunner internet.

I find I'm really only watching select shows, and was thinking perhaps I could get rid of Brighthouse and do a free alternative.

Someone mentioned HDTV over the air with an antenna.

Can someone please point me in the direction of a n00b FAQ for Central Florida? (Melbourne, FL 32935)

Thanks,

Eric

I have a 1 story house, an HD Projector (Panasonic AE900u), and a laptop with HMDI (Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q701)