[StephanieS]

Greetings,

Sorry to hear of your struggles. I would call WLOS engineering department @ 828-684-1340 and ask about W05AC and if there is any timeline for it to be operational. You can say you are eagerly awaiting it going online because WLOS main signal is a extremely difficult catch for you. Ask them to keep you up to date and when they plan to do testing so you can provide that you are receiving.

WLOS may be a case of waiting until that translator is operational. You could spend the money on a big VHF beam for it and get semi-reliable reception from it, but eventually the local translator will be broadcasting and the beam will be nothing but a big bird perch.

Doing a quick piecing together of your signals I came up with:
VHF WSPA 7 CBS
WNTV 9 PBS
W11AH-D NBC (WYFF retransmission)

UHF WHNS 21 FOX
WYCW 45 CW
W05AC 32 WLOS ABC

I want you to conduct an experiment. For this please remove the preamp and have antenna lead unsplit going to one TV. Aim the HBU33 to magnetic heading 270. Test if WSPA, WNTV and W11AH-D (NBC) are all good to excellent signal strength. I'm setting a baseline on one heading. I want to know that all these VHFs are solid. You should be able to test that if you are indeed receiving WYFF on channel 11 simply by on your remote entering channel 11. It should then flip to read "4.1" and WYFF programming should appear. If that is the case, you are receiving the translator.

Don't forget to run a complete rescan on your tuner for over the air signals.

If during this test you also receive FOX WHNS as well with excellent quality I would do no more. When W05AC comes online, it should pop right up and be visible along with everything else. You might be without ABC though for a spell. If you see CW, that's a bonus.

How is your pathway to 270? Do you have trees or other obstructions to contend with?

Last thought, WLOS main signal at 9.6 db field strength will have the potential to be touchy. When you start getting below 10 db of signal strength, the signal is so weak atmospheric conditions or weather can cause drop outs. This is why when I gave my original suggestion, WLOS' main signal I ignored in favor of the off-the-air W05AC translator. If going for WLOS RF 13 signal a much more robust VHF beam or combo would be desired.