Success Report: San Francisco Bay Area

[patrick_here]

This is a success report on installation of my antenna. I had no previous experience installing a TV antenna; this is the first time. I just wanted to cut the cable and get away from the unscrupulous practices of Comcast ...not knowing what to expect.

Results far exceeded my expectations. I'm using an inexpensive antenna - roof mounted (HD7000R). I ended up using a pre-amp though I could have gotten away without it for many of the stations I'm getting. Here's my original tvfool.com forum post:

http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=12838
...and my signal analysis is here:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...cc493a6f7f4e7d

After eliminating all the stations I didn't want I'm still getting a total of 24 stations with perfect reception. All together I'm receiving 66 stations but after elminating all the Infomercial stations, the Church stations, the foreigh language stations (except for a couple of the Spanish ones), and the poor reception stations, I'm down to 24 stations with perfect High Definition Reception ...including the major networks, PBS, and several other very good stations.

I live in Redwood City, CA (about 200yards NE of the intersection of Alameda de las Pulgas and Jefferson). I'm receiving most stations from Sutro Tower (about 23miles away) and a few from Sonoma Mountain which is 63 miles away!

And YES the channels I'm getting now are better than the ones Comcast was charging me $600 per year for. That's $50 x 12 ...a very easy arithmetic calculation which few people outside of Comcast's marketing department seem willing to make. My wife likes the channels too.

The Coax cable from my antenna to the TV is a total of about 90' long and goes through a few connectors. At first I had a problem with my longest Coax cable section (70') ...it turned out to be a problem with the coax connector. The central conductor, instead of protruding at least 1/8" past the end of the connector was actually too short. It was about 3/16" back from the end of the connector. This meant that there was no conduction at this connector. The solution was to cut the cable and install a new conductor.

In my frantic attempts to debug this problem, I ordered a pre-amp but later decided to keep it when I realized that it gave me perfect reception on some of the channels that would have been borderline without it.

Thanks for the help !

-Patrick

[Stereocraig]

It's always nice to hear people report back w/ good news on forums. Be sure to tell your friends of your success!

[elmo]

Awesome! It's nice how quickly antenna purchases pay for themselves. And yes, the PQ is easily better than cable. It's crazy that people buy an HD TV only to feed it a crappy signal. That's how I started venturing back into OTA - comparing sat signal vs OTA for the same channel.

[patrick_here]

UPDATE

I'm still getting good reception on most channels (probably about 20 of them) but on about 2 or 3 channels the reception can be unreliable: occasionally we will get the little digital rectangular boxes and image freezing for several seconds at a stretch. So we're thinking of getting a better antenna than the HD7000R. It still needs to be relatively inconspicuous ...we don't want to go to a very big -highly visible- antenna but if we can get something a little larger we'd like to do that.

We're still using a pre-amp (ordered from SolidSignal). I'm assuming that the pre-amp is not the problem - ie that if the preamp failed I would see a very big difference in reception. We think that what we're seeing on these few channels was probably there from the beginning but we didn't notice it because it we weren't watching those channels so much at the beginning.

Please advise.

[ADTech]

Identifying the specific make and model of the preamp as well as the channels with spotty reception are bits of information that are needed to analyze reception problems.

[patrick_here]

Hello,
The Pre-amp is:
Winegard AP8700 Chromstar 2000 Series VHF/UHF Pre Amplifier (AP-8700)

The channel where we notice the problem most is: 54.3 KQEH-DT3

And the Antenna is aimed at about 330 degrees.

Thanks,
Patrick

http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=12838 .

Disconnect and Remove All parts of the Winegard AP8700 preamp , remove the preamp unit , remove the power injector , remove the power supply.

Aim the HD7000R antenna at about 311 degree magnetic compass direction.

Can also try , aim the HD7000R antenna at about 18 degree magnetic compass direction.

Here is how to aim the HD7000R antenna and other antennas , http://www.kyes.com/antenna/pointing/pointing.html.

As always , the starting antenna aim direction is --> the starting antenna aim direction.

The antenna aim direction can be adjusted for best reception.

Most Digital Tv's have a signal strength meter and some Digital Tv's also have a signal quality meter.

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Digital Tv tuners can develop - Digital Glitches - that are not cleared out with simple channel scans.

Do a Double Rescan. http://www.dtv.gov/rescan.html.

Install the HD7000R antenna at a location that has the least amount to no amount of obstructions of any type or kind in the directions of reception including your own roof and house.

At your location the directions of reception are , north west , north east , east , south east.

[ADTech]

It would be simplest to put the antenna on a rotor and aim it due east for those times when you want KQEH.

Based on your TVFool plot,a pre-amp does not appear to be needed. Try removing it completely and see what happens.

[patrick_here]

Well the reason for the pre-amp is that I have a long distance from the antenna to my TV. It's 70' total ...it goes first to a cable TV box and from there (through an intermediate connector) to my TV (it needs to go this way).

The reason I used the pre-amp was because I wanted to be able to point the antenna North-Northwest (to pickup many channels from several Transmit Antennas in that direction) and also pickup a few very good channels from a transmit antenna located almost directly east. In other words this antenna already had partial reception from a tower located 110degrees away from where it is pointing so I installed an amplifier to get better reception on those few channels located east of the antenna.

As mentioned in the original post ...rabbit ears (with a pre-amp) get quite good reception on several channels but when the signal from the antenna has to travel through the 70' of cable the reception is terrible. My house is not high enough to get a clear path to Transmt towers even with a roof-mounted antenna. There is a higher house nearby and a tree or two here or there. Nevertheless I do get great reception on most channels with a pre-amp through the 70' cable.

But I didn't know about the re-scanning option so I think I'll try the double rescan as a first step. Thanks for that advice teleview.

(UPDATE 7/26: I had previously stated in this post that "Without the pre-amp I do not get reception worth bothering with" ...that statement was incorrect; I had forgotten why I installed the pre-amp so I modified my statement - see second paragraph above.)

As a Test to prove reception , one way or the other.

Install the HD7000R antenna Above The Peak Of The Roof in such a manner that there is the least amount to no amount of obstructions of any type or kind in the directions of reception including your own roof and house.

Connect a New matching transformer (balun) to the HD7000R antenna.

Connect a New continues length of coax to the New matching transformer.

Make the New continues length of coax 70 feet long.

Run the New continues length of coax through a open door or window , Direct to 1 Tv.

To test reception , aim the HD7000R antenna at about 311 degree magnetic compass direction and about 18 degree magnetic compass direction.

And can also aim the HD7000R antenna at about 73 degree magnetic compass direction.

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Your Tvfool report is showing Strong Signal Strength Tv stations/channels that are LOS=Line Of Sight reception.

KQEH Real UHF Digital channel 50 is , 40.1 NM(dB) in the green reception zone and is only 20.8 miles away and is LOS=Line Of Sight.

The Tv stations that have 1 and 2 Edge path obstructions are Strong Signal Strength and are very close to your location.

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What direction is the "higher house" from your location?? , and what is the distance to the higher house??

What are the directions of the trees?? , and what is the distance to the trees??