Greetings,
Spyderman, I'd love to hear about your experience with CBC reception in Waterloo.
Teleview, I'd highly value your opinion too. How would your advice change now that CBC analog is off the air?
The CBC analog transmitter in Kitchener was scheduled for decommission on July 31, 2012, without a planned digital replacement. This leaves the only the CBLT-DT transmitter on the CN Tower to service the Waterloo area, and our city is (still) in the extreme fringe area.
So, what options are available, and which have been tried for CBC reception in Waterloo?
At my location, (
TV Fool Signal Locator), a 35ft height leaves CBLT-DT with a noise margin of 5.1dB, as seen in the chart, while a 30ft height yields -0.1dB (as seen
here). Can 5ft make that dramatic of a difference? Our house is just below the top of a gentle hill, with the hill-top between us and CN Tower, perhaps we are 20ft or so lower altitude than the hilltop.
Since a mast/tower taller than ~20ft mounted on the rooftop is not a practical option here, the only other variable is the antenna itself. Would a light consumer 4-bay or 8-bay antenna do the trick, or perhaps a yagi tuned to ch 20 would be light enough for such a tall, but lightweight tower? Something more serious like the CM 3671 probably requires a much more substantial 20ft tower.
Which way would you go with antennas? Or is there another way to get CBC TV without a cable subscription? Maybe streaming on Roku somehow?
Kind Regards.