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Old 9-Jan-2012, 6:50 PM   #8
ChrisAntennahead
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Stamford CT
Posts: 19
Cool

Quote:
Originally Posted by GroundUrMast View Post
Combining two dissimilar antennas with a reversed splitter is not always successful. The common experience is that some signals are improved and one or more, and in some cases all, are less reliable. This I believe is due to the combined antenna array being more susceptible to multipath and signals combining out of phase an average of 50% of the time based on the random relationship between antenna spacing and cable lengths. Because each signal source is traveling a different path and is a unique span of frequencies, the performance of the combined antenna array is different for each channel. Your experience is exceptional in positive sense, but does not prove to me that it can not be improved on or that it does not have fault(s) which will appear intermittently to the viewer.

In my 30+ years of payed trouble shooting, I have been humbled on several occasions after having closed my mind to one or more possible causes of trouble that I was attempting to resolve. It gets even more challenging to keep an open mind when there are multiple faults contributing to the same symptom(s).

By connecting just one antenna I was hoping to obtain evidence that the problem was with the station, or, local to the receive antenna array. But, with symptoms no longer present, this test would not provide much if any conclusive information.

You're certainly free to dismiss any and all suggestions of how to diagnose or trouble shoot.

*** Hi Dave you posted a bit before me... sounds like we're one the same page though. Cheers ***
Part of my troubleshooting technique as of late is a good dose of "wait n' see". And so I waited until Saturday(Jan 7th) and sure enough both PBSers(21 WLIW and 49WEDW) returned to normal. During the phenomenon no other channels(from NY or Bridgeport directions) were effected.

I'd like to think, in a humorous sense, that some intern at EDW pressed a wrong button and somehow screwed up something, and that it took some time & doing before someone with seniority caught and corrected it. Problem is there is no way(on the weekends at least) to contact the station engineer or PD directly to report a problem.

I have also been told that a 90-100% signal strength but frozen green/pink pixellated picture and intermittent = severe multipath reflection(is that source correct?), so I guess whatever was causing this has moved on.

-Chris
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