I'm an antenna TV viewer in Vernon Hills, IL...smack dab in the middle of Lake County, IL about 30 miles NNW of Chicago. I'm writing about some odd reception behavior that I hope you all might be able to help me understand.
My current setup:
large VHF/UHF antenna from Radio Shack aimed at Chicago (might be off by 5 degrees or so)
coax into house (50 ft)
PCT 8-way distribution amp (+4.5db)
coax to TVs
I can receive all Chicagoland stations and many stations outside of my market (South Bend, IN, Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo, MI). Overall signal strength has never been an issue. My issue is with one channel: WGN-TV (PSIP 9, channel 19) I can tune in WGN 9.1 and Antenna 9.2 with no issues during the day. I get a strong signal (reported by my TV as 78%) during the day. However, as the afternoon turns to night, my signal drops until, by 10pm, I cannot pull in the channel at all. I've found comments online that WGN's channel (19) conflicts with a channel in Madison, WI.
From Wikipedia article on WGN-TV:
In the far northern suburbs of Chicago and rural areas north and west, WMTV (Channel 15) in Madison, Wisconsin interferes with reception of WGN, especially in Kane, Lake, Boone and McHenry Counties — both WMTV and WGN broadcast their digital signals on channel 19. The signal from WGN-TV also battles in this area with the signal of WOTV which is based in the same area as WXMI-TV. The station also interferes in some portions of Berrien County and Van Buren County in Michigan with WGN's sister station WXMI (Channel 17), a Fox affiliate in Grand Rapids, which serves Western Michigan and also transmits over channel 19. WXMI maintains a digital translator station on channel 17 from Muskegon to address this interference.
Is there any way to work around this conflict and continue viewing WGN at night? Is my antenna too strong? I chose the antenna I did (knowing far less than I do now) so I could receive two VHF Chicagoland stations. Now we're almost all UHF (WBBM still broadcasts on 12 instead of their original 3) so would something smaller than my current VHF/UHF antenna provide good Chicago reception and not be strong enough to grab the competing signals?
Thanks for any advice you can offer.