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2 Posts
Hi -
First post here. Thanks for the great forum and thread.
I need some help solving an OTA riddle.
I'm located on a hill in suburbia, 15 miles S.E. of the Sutro Tower broadcasting site in San Francisco. The top of that tower is >1800'; I am at 630'. There are some trees around, and there is a 1000' hill halfway between the tower and here, but nothing that should greatly attenuate the signals. I reckon it as pretty much line-of-sight conditions.
TVFOOL predicts -27 dBm signals at my house. I should be able to get a signal with a wet noodle, no?
But I get pretty rocky reception on most channels.
So I dragged a spectrum analyzer off the lab bench and hooked it up to my antenna (a Wineguard 7080p 10 feet above the roofline).
UHF signals measure in the range of -60 to -70 dBm. That is maybe 40 dB below expectation (net of antenna gain, cable loss, etc.)
I tried another antenna/feedline in the same location and got consistent results.
I have yet to try moving the antenna site. But is it likely that slightly perturbing the location will change such a deep null in the signals?
If you have any thoughts or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
First post here. Thanks for the great forum and thread.
I need some help solving an OTA riddle.
I'm located on a hill in suburbia, 15 miles S.E. of the Sutro Tower broadcasting site in San Francisco. The top of that tower is >1800'; I am at 630'. There are some trees around, and there is a 1000' hill halfway between the tower and here, but nothing that should greatly attenuate the signals. I reckon it as pretty much line-of-sight conditions.
TVFOOL predicts -27 dBm signals at my house. I should be able to get a signal with a wet noodle, no?
But I get pretty rocky reception on most channels.
So I dragged a spectrum analyzer off the lab bench and hooked it up to my antenna (a Wineguard 7080p 10 feet above the roofline).
UHF signals measure in the range of -60 to -70 dBm. That is maybe 40 dB below expectation (net of antenna gain, cable loss, etc.)
I tried another antenna/feedline in the same location and got consistent results.
I have yet to try moving the antenna site. But is it likely that slightly perturbing the location will change such a deep null in the signals?
If you have any thoughts or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.