Okay so right off the bat, I understand that my setup probably doesn't get a high degree of respect around here, but stay with me. I have what I consider to be a real problem here, and any help is appreciated.
I'm entirely Ethernet at my house. I have an AndroidTV device on one TV and a Roku 3 on the other TV, and that's it. No cable, just Netflix and Hulu and so forth. To tune in OTA TV, I use a
Tablo, which encodes the shows to stream to my set-top boxes.
I live just outside a city. In fact, I am situated right between the city and the transmitter for my local CBS affiliate. It is 3.2 miles away. The signal analysis tool lists it at -12dBm. In my old apartment, the signal was so strong that I could tune it in without even connecting an antenna. Not exaggerating. Anyway, while I was in that apartment, I used a cheap-o
Mohu Leaf, and the few local channels came in okay. To be honest, I didn't use it much.
I moved to a new house across town, still only 3 miles from the transmitter, and to my surprise I couldn't tune in CBS any more! I figured I must be having some trouble with the hilly terrain near my new location, so I bought an amplified
Mohu Sky and installed it in my attic. Still, I couldn't pull it in.
The channel, when it can be tuned at all, is severely degraded with lots of glitches. It will play for a few seconds with occasional "mpeg blocks", then skip for a few seconds (an artifact of the Tablo when the signal is too incomplete to encode)
Now, with the new amplified antenna, I can reliably tune in an ABC channel from 31 miles away. Works great, which is confusing, but the plot thickens even more!
Every now and then I will randomly try the CBS channel. Sometimes, especially late at night, it will tune in perfectly. I mean solid, high-def, no glitches... beautiful. I don't do anything different. I haven't touched anything. It just works. Then the next day it's back to being unwatchable.
The only explanation I can think of is interference. It's got to be some kind of interference that occasionally disappears. But how can I track it down? I have no way of pinpointing what could be causing my problems, be it in my house, a neighbors, or somewhere further away.
Ideas?
