[greeno]

I live on the far west side of Livermore and get all the Sutro stations very well with a CM3023 and CM7777 (UHF/VHF amp). Last week I added a Winegard CC3113 for channel 11.1 (KNTV-DT). I get it, but not as strongly as ABC, CBS or PBS from Sutro. Anyone else have a 3113? Is there a prefered up/down orientation?


My STB is a Samsung sir-t150. For the Sutro stations, the strength is 1 tick above middle and KNTV-DT is 1 tick below middle. How do others get KNTV-DT in this local? (R8dr no need for you to respond). What is the compass direction you point your antenna? Does anyone notice there transmission signal changing depending on what they are broadcasting?


Before the Preakness broadcast last weekend, I was noticing intermittent pixelization. Once the Preakness started this stopped. I could not see any change in the signal strength. I also noticed this last night before the West Wing came on; pixelization before, but during the West Wing, I saw none. I didn't watch the whole show, but over about a 2 minute sampling, I saw no pixelization?



Thanks,

jeff

 

[Mike KE6HDV]

Greeno


I don't believe that there is any up/down orientation that I would worry about. I have the same antenna and pre-amp combination. From my location, Sutro's bearing is 280 degrees, and Loma Prieta is 190 degrees. Most of the Sutro stations I receive between 92-98 in signal strength, and KNTV DT12 is fairly consistent, usually between 82-85 with an occasional drop out or two. I can actually receive KCRA DT35 in Sacramento much better than KNTV DT12. I believe that the problem that plagues KNTV's signal from my location (both digital and analog) is severe multipathing. When viewing their analog signal with my CC3313, the multipath problem is very apparent with all of the ghosting and noise. I'm boxed in a bad area with Pleasanton ridge a mile to my west, and Mission, Monument Peak and Sunol Grade to my south. Too bad that they couldn't move their Transmitter location to Mission Peak, then we would have no problem at all !

 

[R8der]

Mike, I'm shocked you are getting such excellent signal strengths from Sutro that close to the ridge. In regards to KNTV, I watched Leno last night and saw some breakups here and there. All is not perfect with their signal out here, but it's far better than I expected to get before I picked up the CC3113. Mike, thanks for the heads up on this antenna a few months back.


Chris

 

[greeno]

Thanks for the info Mike. For me, I'm pointing to the Dublin grade for Sutro; pretty much 315 deg (dead-on NW). For Loma Preida, I'm pointing about 230 deg (nearly 90 deg south from my UHF CM3023). I was on the phone with Chris around 5pm and we both noticed break-upson KNTV-DT. I kept checking back later (I fell asleep before Leno) during Frazier, etc. and saw no break-ups. We suspecting they're adjusting their broadcasting power as a function of content/time.


I had the KGO truck out on Wens. and they looked at the Sac stations from my house. No NBC, but ABC from Sac looks good. I was mainly interested in NBC from there to hedge my bets against issues with KNTV-DT. They looked at KNTV analog and it was around -50dB compared to -10dB of KGO from Sutro.


Does anyone know how to get in touch with the engineers there? I tried the web, but quickly got bogged down in msnbc.com junk. With what's on the horizon this fall, I'm very excited and a bit worried about p.q from that station.


On a side note, isn't "signal strength" that a particular STB gives, just an arbitrarily scaled number (presumable between 0-100) that is a function of error-correction scheme, etc. Too bad it can't give an absolute dB number of the incoming signal. I say this because when I used R8dr's pre-production Zenith STB, all the Sutro stations were at 2 green bars (red and yellow fully lite). I replace the Zenith with a new Samsung (sirt150) and it showed these at 3 bars (using the lower broadcast graphic) out of 10 using the same antenna setup (Radio Shack DBT mounted on the roof). Changing to the CM 3023 and CM7777, improved the reading to 8 and sometimes 9 bars. On the upper tickmark scale, 8-9 bars shows as 1 tick above middle. KNTV-Dt shows 1 tick below middle.


Best,

jeff