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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RabbitEars, where you can learn all about local, over-the-air TV channels.
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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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