Question about "extreme measures"
 

Hello to all. Here is my report http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...8d1768a095f6db
I currently receive all channels in the red but would like to get a couple of channels in the grey area, particularly virtual channel 60 WTJP and virtual channel 11 WTOK. I have an Antennacraft C490 with a CM7777 pre-amp and one 3-way splitter. Would these channels be possible to receive? What are the "extreme measures" that the definitions of the grey area are talking about? Thanks for any help and/ or advice.
Brad

Tv Antennas and Reception
 

The signal strengths are very low. The channels have adjacent channel and co-channel interference. Tropo means tropospheric ducting with WTOK. The upper atmospheric layers must be just right to funnel the signal to your location. And you will need this antenna array. http://www.simplicitytool.com/Old%20...quad_array.htm * . . Reception will be unreliable at best. The price will climb to $2,000.00 or more , are you still interested??

Sling Box
 

It would be better to use a http://www.slingbox.com . The sling box is set up where the channels are easy to receive ( close to the transmitter ) and the sling box receives the channel and transmits the channel ~via~ the internet to your Tv.

I reversed engineered your location to Hidden Falls Dr, but can't be sure which house is yours. Next I ran a TVfool report with a 100' tower.
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...8d171d65711713
The signal strength of WTJP goes up substantially. WTOK remains too weak. At 60' WTJP is still strong enough to be picked up.

Some would call a 60' tower extreme measures. (I don't)

Thanks
 

Thanks for the swift reply. I will do some investigation into the slingbox.

I have gone to the Slingbox website but had no luck finding the information I need. What kind of range does the slingbox have? Do you think the Slingbox will be able to improve reception enough to pull in channels from the grey area? You mentioned "channels easy to receive (close to the transmitter), please explain. Thanks for your patience in this.

The Slingbox or competing products would need to be located in an area close to the station you are interested in viewing. None of these devices will make an antenna perform any differently. This means you would need to place one unit in or near Meridian, MS to receive WTOK and another in or near Gadsden, AL to receive WTJP. You can use TV Fool to investigate the signal strength at locations between those two transmitters, to see if there is a single location that would offer a usable signal from both stations.

Slingbox-PRO-HD includes a built-in tuner and provides a means to send TV images and sound over the internet. There is no distance limitation per se. An internet connection with high bandwidth is required for usable quality picture and sound. At a minimum, the internet connection at the Slingbox location needs to support upload speeds of 1.5 Mb/s. Performance at this rate would be comparable to what you can see using 'YouTube'. The Slingbox device can easily use more bandwidth, 10 to 20 Mb/s for HD viewing. Of course the viewing location must also have an internet connection with a corresponding amount of bandwidth in order to obtain acceptable performance.

Products from Silicondust such as the HDHomeRun-Tech can be located at a remote site, as can Hauppauge tuners. These products will also require sufficient internet connection speed for acceptable viewing. These products are designed to stream data in real time and so the internet connection would need to support a throughput as high as 20+ Mb/s for HD content.

There are Home Theater PC hardware and software combination's that lend themselves to remote controlled operation. These can be used in a 'record', 'download' then 'view' mode which will allow for HD quality viewing with internet connection speeds lower than that which would provide real time viewing in HD. A 1 hour show recorded at 10 Mb/s would take 12 to 16 hours to download over a DSL connections with up-links limited to 800 Kb/s.

All of these technologies generally depend on a PC for viewing at the viewers location. There are internet ready TV's on the market and 'internet appliances' that might do the job of the PC.


http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=820
http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=1286

Tv Reception
 

WOW is that "Extreme Measures" !!??

Well, I've been thinking that it would be possible for my parents to put their antenna on the hill above their house with a HDHomerun and a wireless router and relay the signal to the house using Wi-Fi. ;)

From my perspective, yes. For someone determined to tell the cable company 'get out and stay out', maybe not. As internet access bandwidth gets cheaper, the practicality of using that bandwidth improves.

Investing more than a years worth of cable billing into a commercial antenna, building a 100' tower or large rhombic array supported by four or six utility poles would also qualify as 'extreme' if I understand the context of TV Fool's use of the term.

Working outside the tower at elevations above 100' always feels a bit 'extreme' (to me).

I hate climbing inside the tower. At 6' 5" I'm too big for that.

Some towers are bigger than others.

47.50431,-122.047619
46.973115,-123.138446
47.632693,-122.361568
32.060217,-110.652611

Yeah, I know. Most broadcast towers still leave too little room for me to be comfortable. Even the self supporting towers with lots of room tend to push the ladder too deep into one corner.

My TV antenna is on 120' of Rohn 45. It's very comfortable to climb.