Attempting to get UHF from Montreal
 

Good afternoon,

I'm really curious to see what you guys think of this possibility. I'm about 75 miles away from the Montreal tower, which has the vast majority of all Montreal TV and FM radio stations on it. (337 degrees). TVFool is showing all of these channels in grey, and as 2-edge.

Here's the report from my location: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...1ddab3804c3d9b

My goal is to get the UHF signals... most of the time, hopefully CBMT and possibly CKMI... I may also look into a VHF antenna to grab CFCF, again if possible. For a UHF antenna, I'm looking at AntennasDirect ClearStream 4, or perhaps the DB8 / DB8e. If I go VHF, I'd be restricted to the ClearStream 5, as I don't want a 10-foot long antenna hanging out on the roof :) I live in a pretty windy area.

While this might sound close to impossible, I currently have a Winegard HD-6000 FM antenna pointed at the same tower set, and can get the following FM radio stations with some minimal static on a bad day, and on a good day they're clear with a slight FM stereo hiss. The HD-6000 says it's a 5dB gain antenna.

http://www.fmfool.com/index.php?opti...pper&Itemid=29

The reference FM stations are: CJFM and CKOI FM. I can receive the others, too, but do not listen to them.

So, using the FM antenna as a guide, is it likely that I could add an appropriate UHF antenna and accomplish my goal here?


Thank you in advance for all input! :)

The tvfool antenna height is 8 feet.

Do not delete the 8 foot antenna height report.

To see what signal strengths look like at higher antenna heights above ground , please make 3 more tvfool radar plot reports with antenna heights at , 25 feet , 40 feet , 60 feet.

Sure thing. The 8ft would put the antenna on the same post I'm using for the Winegard FM antenna. I don't appear to get much by adding additional height, until the 200-250ft range - at which point it turns to a 1edge, but here are the elevations you requested:

25 ft: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...1ddac216e456c2

40 ft: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...1ddaa2c09bea56

60 ft: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...1dda10f88ee9dc

Realized that my FM Fool link doesn't work. Here's the image file.

60 feet will not do it.

If you can install a Winegard HD7698P antenna with a Antennas Direct CPA-19 preamp , 200 to 250 feet above ground then Ok.

Thanks, Teleview. So even though I'm getting decent FM reception from the same 8ft pole, you're pretty sure that the TV reception just won't quite cut it - I assume because it's digital?

There is a significant difference between a TV signal and FM signal. Because the FM signal occupies a far narrower range of frequencies than the TV signal, the FM signal is affected by noise less. This translates into the FM receiver being able to be sensitive to lower signal levels than a TV tuner. This is fundamentally true regardless of whether the TV signal is analog or digital.

If you're interested, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist...mpling_theorem & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson...3Nyquist_noise are jumping off points to do some research on the relationship of noise and band-width's effect on the information capacity of a theoretical 'information channel'.