As I said one of my first posts, I could kick myself when I set up
my first HDTV card because if I had done it a year earlier,I would not have missed "Surface" as I cannot get WGRZ analog at all.

Right now a 4-bay bowtie attached to my tower at roof level, connected to about 25' of 1/2" CATV hardline. That connects to a preamp in the basement, then a run of RG6 to the TV. No rotor at the moment. At some point a preamp will go at the antenna and I'll replace the feedline with just RG6 (the CATV line is questionable).

So, no Erie stations except for a VHF analog, and no Toronto ones. Erie might be tough from my location due to a hill directly behind me and between Erie and I.

A friend across town is using an old antenna with a rotor and has essentially the same results - WGRZ being problematic.

Chuck

Hello all,

Just received a DB8 antenna for Christmas. I am a newbie to the OTA stuff and would like feedback from someone living in or around Hamilton (ideally below the escarpment).

What sort of HD reception do you get for CBS, NBC and ABC?

I do not yet have an HD tuner but did some testing on standard analog with good results for Fox. All the Toronto and Hamilton stuff is loud and clear (no surprise there). In short I'm not sure what I will get for South Buffalo as I don't know of a suitable South Buffalo analog channel to compare with on UHF.

I am in North York so cant comment on reception in Hamilton. However, to determine if you will get Buffalo HD stations, try tuning in WNED channel 17, channel 23 and Fox on 29. If you get these UHF analog stations clearly with no snow, then you will have a good chance at receiving their HD counterparts. However, pointing the DB8 at either Toronto or Buffalo may be problematic unless you have a rotor. Perhaps, the optimum approach is to point the antenna at south Buffalo and then receive Toronto off one of the antenna side lobes. In my location in Toronto, the only Buffalo station I receive reliably is the CW, channel 23. I used to get WNED but for the past few months, the signal has been weaker. Good luck.

Hey lostinUHF;

I live in St. Catharines, I'm not exactly your next door neighbour, but here are the Buffalo & Toronto signal stregnths I'm getting:

WGRZ 78%, WIVB 86%, WKBW 87%, WNGS 87%, WCSN 87% WNLO 81% WNYB 89%
WUTV 84% WNED 87% WNYO 83%

CBLT 92%, CFTO 85%, CBLFT 85%, CITY 56% (not reliable-so say 0%) CKXT 78%


Right now the weather is overcast, but it could be raining, snowing or sunny and these numbers never change for me.

I have a 16 year old outdoor antenna that is 40 feet off the ground (tower and mast) with a pre amp and indoor amp (with FM trap) I do have a rotor; it's the channel master remote control unit.

Because my TV doesn't have a built in tuner, I am using an expressvu HD receiver (model 6100) that's how I get my HD locals.

I do live below the escarpment, so I don't get any stations from Erie. Rochester stations are border-line at only 49%, so they don't come in.

I hope this information is helpful to you any anyone else out there new to the amazing world of free HDTV!

Thanks to both NFASTRO and Keaster2000!

I did some testing in one of the bedrooms of my two storey home and received 17, 23 and 29.

It seems that I am in a good place to receive both Canadian and US channels without needing to move my antenna around much at all. In fact I do not believe I need a rotor based on some early testing.

It looks as though the distances are a bit far to receive the south buffalo stations that I wanted. However I am yet to get up on the roof so who knows maybe that is enough to pull in South Buffalo.

I live in Burlington (Burloak & New) and I just set up a DB8 in my attic. I couldn't lock onto both Buffalo and Toronto so I disassambled the antenna and pointed one side at Toronto and another one to Buffalo, which works out to about a 90 degree angle. I couldn't get NBC, FOX and CBC initially so I added some cheap Phillips amp from Walmart. It's rated 12dB, 50-900MHz but I am only seeing a 5-10% improvement on most channels. My RG6 is about 70 ft long so I am probably losing about 3-4 dB on it.

So far I am getting a decent signal (50-75%) from Buffalo area (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CW, WB, FOX), Toronto stations (CTV, SUN TV and CITY TV) are around 50%. I am having problems with CBC. The signal is weak, <45% and it keeps dropping. My Sharp Aquos needs at least 40% for a steady picture but the CBC signal strength is hovering around 30% right now. This is rather unexpected as I was getting a clear lock on CBC and Buffalo stations when I had my DB8 in the living room and pointing almost directly to Buffalo. I'll try a better amp one of these days. I am also debating if I should get a second DB8 (or maybe DB4) and point one to Toronto and second one to Buffalo. However, I'm not sure if it's possible to join them without using a switch.

Hey Boranin

Sounds like you have gained quite a lot as far as channels go. As you likely already know you are losing 40 to 50% of your signal to the attic installation. Better to put it on the roof.

That aside there are antenna joiners that you can buy to avoid a rotor. I too thought of doing the same thing if necessary. I am further around the lake than you are and may not need to use two antennas but more testing will tell the tale.

There may however be a problem with two antennas and getting signals out of phase. I need to do more research on this one yet. Two multi-directional antenna's might cause more problems with out of phase while two very directional antennas may be better. But I am no expert on this yet.

Another amplifier may not help much at all. Is your amp a preamplifier?

Daniel,

Looks like WKBW added another sub channel on 7-3.. time to get that chart updated again :-)

Also, quickly for the Ottawa chart, OMNI 1/2 got extensions until the end of July to go live...

Hey guys,

Was searching around on my ATI HDTV Wonder and found that 35-1 Crossroads TV is up and running. I don't know if there just testing or up for good.

After reading queztal's posting from January 7th I went to check out CITS 36 (35) for myself. They were braodcasting a coocking show this morning in HD. From St. Catharines their signal stregnth is at about 90-93%

My antenna points more westerly for their digital signal--almost the same direction as CHCH-TV 11. Wasn't there talks of those two stations sharing the same tower?

Maybe this means CHCH will sign on in digital soon. Then again...they are owned by Global...so I doubt anything will happen soon!

Eh, I can't get Hamilton too well... lots of ghosting. 36 comes in "okay", but I can't get higher than 38% signal strength on 35.1 with bad quality - not enough to get a lock to even see the PSID.

Mississauga here.I've just locked in chan 35 and it was around 30% So i played with antenna.Now my best results are ~65% and CTS HD is 1080i with 18mbit.Showing Night Lite prayer show.

Well I finally got around to trying a different tuner on my antenna.

Guess what..

I now get EVERY channel except CityTV (which only gets 41 signal strength)!!

I can't believe I've been tearing my hair out because I thought something was wrong with my antenna all this time! :(

Now to get my Vista Media Centre computer to work with the signal.

Has anyone compaerd the video quality (NOT signal strength) of the PBS affilates out of Grand Island, Rochester and Syracuse (if you can receive that station) as to if there is a quality difference between the three??

All three affilates run the main PBS HD feed and two sub channels, correct??
I also understand WXXI has run, or runs a FORTH sub channel. Any comments here as to PQ?