San Francisco, CA - OTA
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Things have been too quiet here, so maybe we can wake them up.
Today I'll be getting the new ATSC 3.0 capable tuner from Silicondust, the HDHomerun HDHR5-4K. Of course there's no 3.0 broadcasts here in the Bay Area, yet - would have to move to Portland or Phoenix for those. And apparently there's no easy way to decode the new AC-4 sound encoding even where there are 3.0 broadcasts. Early adopters' syndrome.
But I'm interested in the new 4K tuner now in the hope that it will be better at handling multipath on ATSC 1.0 than the existing HDHomeRun Connect Duo that I have (which apparently was designed years ago and uses an older tuner chip that is not so proficient at multipath). The Duo is decidedly inferior at handling multipath vs. the internal tuner in my LG C8 OLED TV. I'm in dynamic multipath hell here on the west side of the East Bay Tri-Valley, with no direct line of sight to anything. There are more edges between me and Sutro than can be counted from the nearby range of hills to the west, and the Diablo range is to the east blocking LOS to Sacramento, with more hills between me and the Fremont transmitters to the southeast. So I'll be reporting on the new tuner's multipath performance for others who may also have difficult multipath reception issues in the hill-bound Bay Area. Of course ATSC 3.0 when it ultimately arrives should really help, because it's intended for mobile reception where dynamic multipath is a huge problem. But that's a ways off in the future.
Soon I'll also be trying out the Televes Dat Boss Mix LR antenna for its multipath rejection abilities as well. Height will be about 30 feet (HOA and WAF precludes getting higher than that, though it might help). Preliminary reports from others with multipath have been encouraging. I've tried many different antennas in the past. We'll see.
As they say, stay tuned.
Today I'll be getting the new ATSC 3.0 capable tuner from Silicondust, the HDHomerun HDHR5-4K. Of course there's no 3.0 broadcasts here in the Bay Area, yet - would have to move to Portland or Phoenix for those. And apparently there's no easy way to decode the new AC-4 sound encoding even where there are 3.0 broadcasts. Early adopters' syndrome.
But I'm interested in the new 4K tuner now in the hope that it will be better at handling multipath on ATSC 1.0 than the existing HDHomeRun Connect Duo that I have (which apparently was designed years ago and uses an older tuner chip that is not so proficient at multipath). The Duo is decidedly inferior at handling multipath vs. the internal tuner in my LG C8 OLED TV. I'm in dynamic multipath hell here on the west side of the East Bay Tri-Valley, with no direct line of sight to anything. There are more edges between me and Sutro than can be counted from the nearby range of hills to the west, and the Diablo range is to the east blocking LOS to Sacramento, with more hills between me and the Fremont transmitters to the southeast. So I'll be reporting on the new tuner's multipath performance for others who may also have difficult multipath reception issues in the hill-bound Bay Area. Of course ATSC 3.0 when it ultimately arrives should really help, because it's intended for mobile reception where dynamic multipath is a huge problem. But that's a ways off in the future.
Soon I'll also be trying out the Televes Dat Boss Mix LR antenna for its multipath rejection abilities as well. Height will be about 30 feet (HOA and WAF precludes getting higher than that, though it might help). Preliminary reports from others with multipath have been encouraging. I've tried many different antennas in the past. We'll see.
As they say, stay tuned.
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I look forward to hearing your experiences with the new HD HomeRun receiver. I've been seriously thinking of ordering one. I'm thinking i should order soon so i'll be ready when ATSC 3.0 arrives here in the Bay Area. So far, I haven't seen anything about any of the stations here preparing for it, although we're one of the markets where we're supposed to have it by the end of the year.
Hi Larry, Yes, I keep reading that the Bay Area is targeted for ATSC 3.0 by the end of the year, but I've found nothing about any concrete steps being taken towards that goal. As there are only a couple of months left in the year, I have to wonder how real that date is. In the interim, I will soon have a good feel for how well the new tuner performs (on ATSC 1.0 stations) under both multipath and weak signal conditions, and I'll let you know here. Les
They have an STA for a different antenna since last July. Is that when your problem started? Here's the filing which includes details on the new antenna.
Chuck
Most likely. I don't check it that often unless there is something on one of the sub channels. Here is my info if it helps:They have an STA for a different antenna since last July. Is that when your problem started? Here's the filing which includes details on the new antenna.
Chuck
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bob
It says KCNZ (KOFY) has a 36 dB noise margin and LOS. It baffles me as to why people are having trouble with this station. That is not a weak signal. That's 30 dB stronger than my best UHF station which I never have trouble with. There must be some really bizarre reception issues in the Bay Area.
Chuck
After only half a day of testing and use, here's my very preliminary thoughts on the new SiliconDust HDHomeRun ATSC 3.0 4k tuner. Of course, there is no ATSC 3.0 in the Bay Area yet, so this addresses only 1.0 performance.
As mentioned, I'm in the east bay Tri-Valley, which is one of the most difficult areas for reception because the nearby hills between Sutro and here create lots of dynamic multipath that is very difficult for antennas and tuners to reject. Anybody in a valley with surrounding hills - wherever they may be - would face similar problems, though.
The best tuner I've found for dealing with this type of rapidly changing, complex multipath is the LG OLED internal ATSC 1.0 tuner. It manages to figure out the primary signal and lock onto that better than anything else. Still, there are times when signals are so unstable that reception is nonexistent or intermittent and unusable.
The HDHomeRun Connect Duo that I tried was significantly inferior to the LG tuner. In fact, the Duo really wasn't acceptable because reception was too unstable and unreliable. It's a much older design.
The brand new 4k tuner is much better than the Duo, and probably close to the LG internal tuner. It's had a couple of firmware updates in the last day since I got it and those seem to have improved its performance as well. It's possible it will get better with more updates. Of course, the 4k should be dramatically better once there is 3.0 transmission available, as that's specifically designed to combat multipath. Also, for those without multipath issues but facing just low signal levels, my sense is that the 4k is excellent at sensitivity to weak signals, maybe the best currently available (low signal levels are not my big problem, so I'm interpolating to arrive at that conclusion from its performance with the weaker Sacto stations, which also have some multipath here).
As mentioned, I'll also be trying out the Televes MIX Dat Boss LR antenna to see how it deals with the multipath situation here. I'm hoping that will be an improvement over the small, 15 element horizontally stacked and phased UHF yagis I'm currently using. Yes, I've tried the long single boom UHF yagis and they did not seem to work as well as the stacked shorter yagis. We'll see how the Televes turns out.
As mentioned, I'm in the east bay Tri-Valley, which is one of the most difficult areas for reception because the nearby hills between Sutro and here create lots of dynamic multipath that is very difficult for antennas and tuners to reject. Anybody in a valley with surrounding hills - wherever they may be - would face similar problems, though.
The best tuner I've found for dealing with this type of rapidly changing, complex multipath is the LG OLED internal ATSC 1.0 tuner. It manages to figure out the primary signal and lock onto that better than anything else. Still, there are times when signals are so unstable that reception is nonexistent or intermittent and unusable.
The HDHomeRun Connect Duo that I tried was significantly inferior to the LG tuner. In fact, the Duo really wasn't acceptable because reception was too unstable and unreliable. It's a much older design.
The brand new 4k tuner is much better than the Duo, and probably close to the LG internal tuner. It's had a couple of firmware updates in the last day since I got it and those seem to have improved its performance as well. It's possible it will get better with more updates. Of course, the 4k should be dramatically better once there is 3.0 transmission available, as that's specifically designed to combat multipath. Also, for those without multipath issues but facing just low signal levels, my sense is that the 4k is excellent at sensitivity to weak signals, maybe the best currently available (low signal levels are not my big problem, so I'm interpolating to arrive at that conclusion from its performance with the weaker Sacto stations, which also have some multipath here).
As mentioned, I'll also be trying out the Televes MIX Dat Boss LR antenna to see how it deals with the multipath situation here. I'm hoping that will be an improvement over the small, 15 element horizontally stacked and phased UHF yagis I'm currently using. Yes, I've tried the long single boom UHF yagis and they did not seem to work as well as the stacked shorter yagis. We'll see how the Televes turns out.
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Interesting to hear some news of the SD ATSC 3.0 tuner. I just upgraded my TV to an LG OLED with ATSC 3.0 tuner, but I'm struggling to justify feeding it with coax from my two antenna feeds as it would require remote-controlled RF switching of moderate complexity.
I think the new TV will remain HDMI and Ethernet only, instead upgrading the network tuners to ATSC 3.0.
I think the new TV will remain HDMI and Ethernet only, instead upgrading the network tuners to ATSC 3.0.
Hi lifespeed. After more time with it, my initial conclusions about the HdHomeRun 4k ATSC 3.0 tuner are being confirmed. It's much better than the HDHR Connect 2 tuner in terms of sensitivity and especially multipath rejection. However, it's still not as good as the built-in tuner in the LG C8 OLED, which has really amazing performance. For example, with the current setup (see below), KNTV Ch 13 RF is quite weak and riddled with multipath, and the 4k tuner cannot make anything out of it. It sees a good signal level overall but it can't discriminate among the many different multipath signals. However, the LG tuner can actually receive a usable image even though the signal strength is reported as around 30% and the signal quality as around 20% (both fluctuating rapidly from multipath).
As mentioned, I've also installed the Televes Dat Boss Mix LR antenna and am testing that out in my difficult multipath situation here in the East Bay Tri-Valley. On UHF the Mix is an excellent performer, extracting more signal and higher quality signal (more multipath rejection) than any other antenna I've tried (long yagis, bow ties, stacked/phased midsize yagis). So for multipath situations on UHF it's a really good choice. That's the good news. The bad news is that on VHF it's mediocre at rejecting multipath (the beam angle is probably fairly large because there appears to be only one driven element, no directors, and a few vertical reflectors and all the elements are spaced close together). For me or someone in a similar multipath situation it would probably make more sense to get the UHF only Televes and use a separate VHF only antenna - but I didn't know that and wanted to give it a try on both bands.
More info to follow later.
As mentioned, I've also installed the Televes Dat Boss Mix LR antenna and am testing that out in my difficult multipath situation here in the East Bay Tri-Valley. On UHF the Mix is an excellent performer, extracting more signal and higher quality signal (more multipath rejection) than any other antenna I've tried (long yagis, bow ties, stacked/phased midsize yagis). So for multipath situations on UHF it's a really good choice. That's the good news. The bad news is that on VHF it's mediocre at rejecting multipath (the beam angle is probably fairly large because there appears to be only one driven element, no directors, and a few vertical reflectors and all the elements are spaced close together). For me or someone in a similar multipath situation it would probably make more sense to get the UHF only Televes and use a separate VHF only antenna - but I didn't know that and wanted to give it a try on both bands.
More info to follow later.
Les, have you tried seeing if the various tuners in the Quatro 4k behave differently? 0 and 1 are hybrid 1.0/3.0 tuner/demods ,while tuners 2 and 3 are 1.0 only. I also have a dev unit and in a very quick test saw the tuner stats reporting different values when tuned to the same channel.
Hi Minakami. In my production unit, I haven't noticed a significant difference in my comparisons so far. They seem to be within 1% of each other (though I have varying levels because of my multipath anyway so it's hard to compare precisely). I can't see any difference in their multipath ability or sensitivity to weak signals.
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For anyone interested in seeing what local noise can do to a VHF signal, check this out. I am running a secondary antenna (RCA ANT705Z with no amplification) on my lower roof at 15 feet off the ground. I had been noticing a phenomenon over the last few months with the RCA that occurs just after sunset that caused my distant High VHF SNRs to fall off the cliff. The attached image is of the Hourly and Daily live bandscan for KNTV (102 miles away). KGO does the exact same thing, but not on my local High-VHF stations (KVIE & KXTV - 40 miles away).
What it turned out to be was my backyard LED landscape lighting. The SNR would fall in the tank when the lights went on and came back when the lights turned off. I can duplicate it anytime day or night when turning the lights on and off, so I know it wasn't a propagation issue. Very interesting what local interference is capable of doing to what is normally a very reliable albeit distant signal.
What it turned out to be was my backyard LED landscape lighting. The SNR would fall in the tank when the lights went on and came back when the lights turned off. I can duplicate it anytime day or night when turning the lights on and off, so I know it wasn't a propagation issue. Very interesting what local interference is capable of doing to what is normally a very reliable albeit distant signal.
Attachments
Wow, those are some really noisy LED lights. Lots of them impact the lower RF spectrum such as AM broadcast, but I haven't seen any that radiate as high as 170 mHz. Maybe you can switch to a different LED bulb that doesn't create such broad spectrum interference. Also, you might check the power supply for the LED bulbs, that might be a source of interference if it's a switching supply.
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No kidding! The lighting doesn't use a switching supply, so I suspect it is broad spectrum bulbs and/or poor noise rejection in the tuner. My Televes Ellipse Mix at 30 feet on the second floor doesn't exhibit any of this. The RCA is hooked up to an older HDHR-US Dual Tuner and the Televes is hooked up to a current HDHR5-4US. Could be that the newer tuner does a better job at noise rejection. Regardless, the level of noise is something I need to sort out.
Would be an interesting experiment to switch the two tuners and see what happens - that would help you isolate the source of the problem. How close to the lower antenna is the nearest LED? Have you tried disconnecting all but one of the LEDs and seeing what happens, and then reconnecting one LED at a time - maybe the noise is coming from one bad bulb that can be replaced. Also, there could be a fault in the wiring to the bulbs that's causing the interference - a portable radio moved along the route of the wire might help find it. What happens to AM radio reception when the LED bulbs are on - that's normally the worst band for interference. Good luck.
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The lower antenna is ~15 feet from a bulb. Switching tuners would be interesting to see which handles the noise better, so I’ll try that first. But I do need to ID and remove the noise source. Pre-DTV, the neighborhood had noise issues on VHF Lo and Hi during dry weather conditions. I tried the AM radio trick on power lines to spot bad PG&E PG&E equipment, ground connections or leaky insulators. That noise was so wide, omni-directional and strong I ended up having to use an air band receiver (108Mhz - 138Mhz AM) with variable RF gain connected to a 4-element 144Mhz yagi. I found it quickly, in 3 locations actually, but the neighbors thought I was nuts. I called PG&E and they were out speedy-quick to fix it. Noise was gone!
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