Help in San Diego, CA

[jelwell]

10.1 (ABC) stutters now. Which is weird. The signal strength meter goes up and down wildly. It peaks at 70, but is constantly moving, never dropping below 60 (which is really strong) but moving fast!
6.1 (CW) reports a 28 signal strength, not sure why that would have changed since my last test. That's nearly low enough to not get a signal.

I noticed my old report no longer works. Here is an updated one:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...823031c6717138

Since both antennas are on my mast, I might try splicing in the Clearstream for 10.1, since I'm pretty sure that came in reliably before (and it's on a different angle than most of my other channels). A quick google search seems to imply I can buy a ChannelMaster Jointenna.

Oddly they are out of stock:
http://www.channelmaster.com/JOIN_TE..._p/cm-0578.htm
Is there something else I can look for?
Thanks,
Joseph Elwell

[ADTech]

It's not odd at all. Jointennas were discontinued long ago, probably 10-15 years past. It just took a long time for the supply to dry up since they were slow movers. Besides, you cannot use one in your situation as your have TWO non-contiguous VHF channels (8 & 10) to deal with.

The 7697 is ill-suited for reception of your San Diego stations (beamwidth too narrow for the spread of your UHF and VHF towers) although it should be a great choice for pointing at LA. Use the RCA preamp on this setup. You would be better served for your locals by having gone with a two antenna setup as suggested several years ago.

The C4 *should* perform well for your locals that transmit from Tijuana and Mt San Miguel but reception of the VHF stations from Mt Soledad (La Jolla) isn't likely to be as predictable due to them being out of design band for the C4. They're probably going to come in by sheer power since those signals are very strong anyway.

Wildly oscillating signal meters are a hallmark of interference on the channel. Could be any of the following: Multipath, over-amplification, FM interference (usually affects high VHF), local electrical or electronic noise source.

Your TVFool plot is lying to you in that it's not accurately accounting for the ridge line to your south. Reception of your UHF signals is going to be substantially more difficult than the plot suggests due to terrain shadowing. Since I don't have your precise coordinates, I can only estimate your location. My estimate is that you're around 610-620' ASL while the ridge line 1/4 mile away is around 705-725' ASL (not including structures). That's a fairly significant amount of depression in that short of distance and it's likely attenuating your UHF signals by as much as 25-35 dB from the forecasts.

Before making any suggestions, please fully describe what is hooked up and how it's all connected and configured.

[jelwell]

I currently have a Winegaurd HD7697P (that I borrowed from my friend). It is attached to a chimney mount.
The mast is grounded to the same grounding pipe/conduit that my solar panels ground on.
The mast is hooked up to a rotor, so that I can rotate it from the comfort of my TV room. No more climbing up and down checking signal strengths. Or begging someone to sit through and document everything for me.
The cable line runs down to my house, into the pre-amp (RCA TVPRAMP1R) and then into a surge protector and then into my TiVo. I've taken the surge protector out of the equation before and it doesn't seem to make much difference.

The cable is R6 outdoor rated.

My chimney mount still has my old Clearstream 4 (above) the Winegaurd. Unfortunately the Clearsteam 4 was unreliable. I was unable to receive Fox (69.1) reliably, as well as other stations. In particular, from what I read about my TiVo's tuner it does not handle multicast well, so a directed antenna like the Wineguard is suggested. If you scroll back in this thread far enough you'll see that my Samsung TV's tuner gets all the stations and more with the clearstream - like 50 or more stations reliably. Unfortunately the TiVo is a dealbreaker - it needs to be in the loop.

Picture: http://postimg.org/image/5f0iuugyn/

I just tried removing the pre-amp here are the readings (I always list peak readings, not average):
ABC 10-1 70
CBS 8-1 71
NBC 39-1 31
FOX 69-1 40
PBS 15-1 42
CW 6-1 22 (not enough to display)
iON 30-1 301 (choppy)
KUSI 51-1 23 (not enough to display)

Most notably ABC (10-1) does not seem to stutter, and the readings aren't fluctuating wildly. So likely the pre-amp was not helpful.
NBC (39-1) is very close to the minimum required for a signal lock which is scary.

Here's with the pre-amp re-connected (so that weather/etc isn't distracting the numbers):
ABC 10-1 70 (choppy)
CBS 8-1 74
NBC 39-1 31 (choppy)
FOX 69-1 40
PBS 15-1 41
CW 6-1 22 (not enough to display)
iON 30-1 83 (moving wildly, not displaying)
KUSI 51-1 26 (broken up)

It seems like the pre-amp isn't helping. Without the pre-amp the channels I want, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX & PBS all come in (today) - but some are on the cusp of not coming in which worries me as it is a very clear day today. The CW (6-1) would be nice to get but not a deal breaker. iON and KUSI, I wouldn't bother to put any effort into receiving.

Indeed I am in a depressed area. I live on Black Mountain. Near here:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/32°58'36.4"N+117°07'45.8"W

There is a ridge that is higher than my chimney to the south of me.
Joseph Elwell.

[jelwell]

I believe my antenna (by checking from the ground) is not quite pointed at 150 degrees. I'm using my rotor to dial in the strongest signal I can get for FOX 69.1 which is at 150 degrees. When I get a peak signal for FOX (69.1), then CBS (8.1) becomes choppy even though it's reporting strong peak signals.
Thanks,
Joseph Elwell.

[ADTech]

When I get a peak signal for FOX (69.1), then CBS (8.1) becomes choppy even though it's reporting strong peak signals.

That's because you need a VHF antenna pointed one direction but the UHF antenna pointed a different direction.

...my solar panels...

Well, that might explain a lot. I've run into a good (bad) number of reception issues on homes with solar panels where their inverters were to blame for causing RFI and disrupting reception. The closer the antenna is to the panels and the inverter, the greater the interference can be. Something to keep in mind.