Need help with Real vs. Virtual and VHF Low

[Moofhead]

Hello,

I live in the northwest part of the Portland, Oregon metro and am trying to get set up to get my TV signals over the air, having recently called Dish Network to bid them Farewell.

I'm about 6 miles from where all the TV transmitter towers are located, and they are all up on a high hill overlooking the city. Here is a link to my TV Fool report.

For my first antenna, I bought a Mohu Leaf and placed it high up on the south wall of my first-floor living room. I tried several locations and orientations, doing the auto-scan on my TV each time, and found the south wall location to be the best.

I have found that I can receive almost every station of interest to me, with the exceptions of KATU and KOIN. I'm still foggy about the Real vs. Virtual channel thing. My understanding is that KATU broadcasts on UHF channel 43 and KOIN broadcasts on channel 40, but I can't receive either one using the Mohu Leaf antenna or a similar Terk antenna that I bought tonight for comparison. I have tried entering 2.1 and 43.1 for KATU manually on my TV's remote, as well as 6.1 and 40.1 for KOIN, but get no signal every time.

I don't understand why I cannot pick up 40.1 and 43.1, but I can pick up channel 42.1 just fine.

The other puzzling thing is that I can key 30.1 into the remote and it redirects to 49.1, which I receive fine, and can also key 33.1 into the remote and it redirects to 32.1, which also comes in fine, but... if I enter 43.1, expecting to be redirected to 2.1, it does not redirect and is not received. I can also enter 40.1, expecting to be redirected to 6.1, but that doesn't redirect either, and is not received.

It also seems a bit too coincidental that both of the stations I can't receive are formerly of the VHF low band variety. Apparently I'm missing something here.

I am also uncertain whether I'm going to be able to use an indoor antenna, in spite of the encouraging report I get from TV Fool and other websites.

Any help or advice for this confused old dude?

TIA,
Paul

[John Candle]

Is this a , house , condo , apt. , mobile home , motor home??

[Moofhead]

Originally Posted by John Candle

Is this a , house , condo , apt. , mobile home , motor home , etc. .

A two-story house with vinyl siding. I do not know whether the insulation in the walls is foil-backed but have tried placing my indoor antenna near a window, which didn't seem to improve reception over mounting it on a wall.

Since my original post, I have received and tested a replacement Mohu Leaf antenna, as well as a similar Terk antenna, neither of which improved reception.

[John Candle]

Some digital broadcast tuners will accept direct channel entry with out scanning for digital channels first. Some digital broadcast tuners must scan first to find channels before direct channel selection can be made. Read and understand about , REAL Digital Broadcast Tv Channels , Virtual Digital Broadcast Tv Channels , Analog Broadcast Tv Channels , http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=695 Be sure and rescan from time to time because new digital channels can begin transmission with out notice.

[John Candle]

Do Not use any type or kind of amplified indoor or amplified outdoor antenna. The Tv transmissions are Very Strong at your receive location. And reflected Tv transmissions off mountains and buildings (multipath/ghosts) are very strong. An amplifier Will Over Load and be the cause of bad reception. And the Strong multipah will overload the tuner and be the cause of bad reception. I recommend a Winegard HD7210P , multipath reduction antenna. And because the Tv transmissions are Very Strong , I recommend a Model number 1296F variable attenuator to 'Dial Down' the signal strength. Aim the antenna at about 125 true - 108 degree magnetic compass.

[John Candle]

Here are places to buy Tv antennas and etc. , http://www.solidsignal.com , http://www.starkelectronic.com , http://www.amazon.com , http://www.3starinc.com . Here are some but not all free Tv guides , http://www.zap2it.com , http://television.aol.com , http://tv.yahoo.com , http://tv.entertainment.excite.com , http://www.titantv.com , http://www.tvzap.com

[John Candle]

I also recommend grounding the lead in coax with a coax grounding block. This will direct interfering signals to ground.

[Moofhead]

John, thank you very much for all of your helpful replies. I just now tried to post again with all the details of what I've been doing to solve this issue, but when I clicked the Submit button, the system told me that I wasn't logged in (I *know* I was) and I lost the post.

I also posted a couple of evenings ago in response to your first post, but don't see that here yet, either. So I'm trying to post this brief message to let you know that I'm not ignoring you and that I'll try to post again later if I get this solved or need more help.

[John Candle]

It happens to me also. A box will appear that says , you do not have permission to make these changes. What I do is , click the box off and then click on the the Go Advanced button and then click on the Submit Replay button in the go advanced part. Sometimes I have to enter in my name and pass word again. Here is another trick I learned , Like when I finish typing this response I click on the Submit Reply button and if the program takes it and it looks Ok , then I Do Not Click On The Back Button , I click the whole web site off and start over again , I go to Google search box and type in tvfool and go back into tvfool , and my post is always there at the question askers question/post. I learned a long time ago that if I lose something that I post several times , that I go at it a different way . Well you say , what if you lose it , and I say , I am going to lose it any way so what have I got to lose.

[John Candle]

Another action that I take is print out a copy of the page/information before I hit the submit button , this way I know what I said and I can type it in again.

[Moofhead]

John (and all),

In conclusion, I tested two different Mohu Leaf antennas, plus a Terk and a Clearstream2. The Clearstream2 gave me the best reception; I tried it indoors and out, in all kinds of positions and orientations, up to about 14' above ground. The Clearstream2 brought in marginal signals for KOIN and KATU, but not good enough to be useful.

After talking this over with my wife, we reached the conclusion that we're not interested enough in receiving local stations to put any more effort and money into this. We don't watch the local news. We were primarily interested in RTV and Antenna TV for the old shows, which we have found that we can get on Hulu Plus, which costs much less than the Dish Network programming that we were getting.

So for now, we're going to see how things go without any live TV signals. We've never done that before. Should be interesting.

Thank you very much for your interest and assistance!

Paul