[Canadianeh]

So, I still haven't moved yet, but for the fun of it, I tested out doing a channel scan with a Hauppauge 950Q and it's cheesy little stick antenna in the driveway, and was able to get the following stations with ease:

Vermont cluster (Real Phys. channel):
WCAX - 22
WPTZ - 14
WETK - 32

Montreal Cluster (real phys. channel):
CBFT - 19
CBMT - 21

While I didn't get a chance to write down the SNR received on all channels, I was surprised that CBMT came in with approx 23 SNR ratio. Seeing that the NM value TVFool gave was 15.9, I think this might be promising to state that the TVFool report for my area may be a little more pessimistic than reality.

Things to note:

- I was not able to pick up any of the VHF stations, probably due to the crappy stick antenna and the larger wavelength of VHF:
10 - CFTM
12 - CFCF
13 - WVNY

- I was unable to find the following Montreal stations in my scan:
15 - CKMI ( 2.5 NM)
49 - CJNT (-7.1 NM)

And the following Vermont station was just under the digital cliff:
43 - WFFF (10.0 NM)


Knowing this report from the crappy single pole antenna, and the fact that I'm going to likely go with a 91XG for Montreal UHF, a CM4221 for Vermont UHF, and possibly Y-5-7-13's for both VHF clusters, am I likely to be happy with a reliable setup here on the stations mentioned above - including the ones listed above that the channel scan couldn't find?

One thing I noticed is that if I map out the TVFool reception from Montreal that shows signal degredation about 2 miles ahead of me in the path to the tower is a "hill" that has since been turned into a rock quarry, and is probably not the height that TVFool and the terrain database think it is any longer (especially with CBMT coming in crystal clear at 23 SNR). This might be the reason for the report to be more pessimistic than reality seems to be here, so far. To the untrained eye, I have a thin tree line about 800-900ft away (bank of a river), and the other side, where this hill supposedly is, seems pretty flat... at least no higher than the tree line by any means.

Also, playing with TVfool, I'm about 45' from being LOS to Montreal, assuming the "hill" in front of me is accurate in their terrain databases. Raising my antenna to that 50' level in TVFool raises 15-CKMI to 13.3 NM, and 49-CJNT to 4.0 NM.