DTV darkness

So I finally got around to buying a digital converter box this last weekend and guess what my digital reception sucks a big one. I have an antenna mounted to the top of our house so you would think I would have no problem getting a signal, I have always gotten analog crystal clear. So what's the deal? Will they be "boosting" the power when everything switches over, or am I doomed to never watch TV again? Also I'm curios how many other people are having this problem, by the way don't tell me to get satellite or cable I have no desire to pay $50 a month for a bunch of infomercials and crappy reality shows.

It could be the antenna you have. Does it receive both UHF & VHF? Lots of the digital channels are UHF now, but that could change in February. You might just need a different type of antenna. Or maybe have it aimed differently? You can check at Antenna Web to see what channels you should be able to get and the directions of the towers. You can set it to only show the digital channels.

As for the power, some channels will probably increase power after the switch, but it's not a requirement or anything. You'd just have to check with the channel.

do you have a antenna signal booster in the line? helped me. and it wont hurt to have one even if you do need to get a new antenna. im using one ... improved 110%

Also, check out TV Fool to see what digital channels are available now, what ones should be available after the transition, and in what direction to point your antenna for best reception.

if you can get signal a booster should make a big difference since digital shouldnt have as many noise issues. if you dont have cable/dish how did you end up with the Stig for an avatar?

Stig is from the internets I use surfthechannel a lot. I checked online about aiming my antenna seems to me that I have it pointed correctly, the antenna is UHF VHF maybe I will have to try a amplifier.

The DTV transition has been the bane of my life for the past 2 weeks as I work at a station currently going through the change. It so happens that the VAST majority of our viewers used to catch us on rabbit ears and are a) VERY elderly, b) handicapped, and c) disgruntled about the whole thing. I'm not sure how many calls I've taken from people who are convinced that we've done this to them on purpose.

Back to technicals (I can only speak to our situation).

Due to the work on the transmitter, the signal strength has been decreased for now. When the transition is completed it should boost back to normal. We're waiting on more equipment to push our footprint out further.

You must have your antenna pointed at us. There's very little wiggle room here.

For now you'll need UHF to catch us. After the switch it'll be VHF. Oh, and our channel number is changing from 33 to 13. Don't forget to re-scan for channels!

I think those are the high-points. We send people to both of the sites listed above.

If you were able to get them on rabbit ears, you should be able to get them once the transition is done. Depending on how far you are from the transmitter you may just have to be patient.

Good luck!

ya theres not noise ... its just signal strength (on my dtv converter box)
I dont get any channels digital or analog without the booster... worked for me but im a way's out ... over air tv sucks ... might as well put a fishtank in an old tube tv and watch that ... probably be more entertaining.

Subscribing since I'm buying mine this week....

What's surf the channel? I tend to use Hulu, veoh, and Guba to watch the stuff I want online. I'm another non cable person (for political reasons, if we got another provider other thatn moneygrubbing lousy customer service comcast I'd be more willing to pay...maybe.)

Ill add watch-movies , joox , and watchtvsitcoms . go non-cable ... saves money for the brew stuff!!!!! ...

Since you said that you get crystal clear analogue, I wouldn't think that you'd need a booster. I'd try tuning the converter box to one of the channels and see what signal strength you're getting. If you're getting none then you might have a bad box. If you're just getting low signal then it might need that booster.

yeah ... did not think about that - you should be getting some kind of signal strength...
i agree with above ... before you spend the money on a booster check the box.

farmbrewernw said:

Stig is from the internets I use surfthechannel a lot. I checked online about aiming my antenna seems to me that I have it pointed correctly, the antenna is UHF VHF maybe I will have to try a amplifier.

Click to expand...

ahhh, i love top gear, other than their hatred for American cars.

There's one thing I've noticed about DTV. Before when an analog signal "faded" a little the picture got a little fuzzy. But with DTV when the signal fades a little it's unwatchable.

Of course the flip side of that coin is that when it's a solid signal it's a very good picture.

kornbread said:

There's one thing I've noticed about DTV. Before when an analog signal "faded" a little the picture got a little fuzzy. But with DTV when the signal fades a little it's unwatchable.

Of course the flip side of that coin is that when it's a solid signal it's a very good picture.

Click to expand...

thats the world of digital, 1's and 0's, no in between. with a digital signal you either have it or you dont, there is not much room for error like there is with analog.

Revvy said:

What's surf the channel? I tend to use Hulu, veoh, and Guba to watch the stuff I want online. I'm another non cable person (for political reasons, if we got another provider other thatn moneygrubbing lousy customer service comcast I'd be more willing to pay...maybe.)

Click to expand...

Comcast?? hehehehehe....

Oh, yeah, I was going to post something useful here too..

I got a new widescreen with integrated digital tuner, and hooked up our rook antenna. The picture was terrible. Am I supposed to search for a different channel for digital? I haven't watched analog tv for years. We've had Dish for a long time. I only tried the digital to see what it was like. I'm still ignorant about the whole thing.

My idea was that I could simply tune to channel 9 and it would show up crystal clear...

Well I just hooked both boxes up in my apt...and NOTHING...

It scans and says it finds 6 channels....BUT when it's done with the search I get a NO SIGNAL box floating on my screen....According to the TV fool...I SHOULD be getting at least the top few channels inside on my rabbit ears..




I'm pissed...needless to say the only reason I hooked them up today was becasue I wanted to watch the Redwings....

Mine does not work with rabit ears at all... i was told the amplified ears work ... but i would go with a roof top antenna the powered mini roof top antenna's with the rotors work. one like this if you look around about $40 on ebay



O but be warned there really lightweight... So a major wind storm could probably destroy it easly , "you get what you pay for" If your not in a windy area it should be fine.
but for $30-40 they work.

hopsoda said:

Mine does not work with rabit ears at all... i was told the amplified ears work ... but i would go with a roof top antenna the powered mini roof top antenna's with the rotors work. one like this if you look around about $40 on ebay

O but be warned there really lightweight... So a major wind storm could probably destroy it easly , "you get what you pay for" If your not in a windy area it should be fine.
but for $30-40 they work.

Click to expand...

I live in an old loft apartment and we can't persuade the landlord to let us put an antenna on top of the building....

You are probably trying to pull in the Portland stations, which puts you about 50 miles out? At that distance, you probably will need a signal booster. Channel Master makes good ones. The AntennaWeb.org mentioned earlier is a good site for determine how big an antenna you will need. We live 18 miles from Eugene, but can not get any of the Eugene stations as we are on the north side of a 700ft hill and all the transmitter are on the south side of the hill.

Outside the city, rabbit ears don't work very well for dtv. My brother bought a nice amplified set of rabbit ears and they only improved the signal a tiny bit.

Then, I stumbled upon plans to build one of these:



It's ugly, but it works like a charm. We're picking up stations 90 miles away. If most of the stations that you are trying to get are in the same direction you can add a reflector to the back to boost the signal.

The plans are easily found online with a little searching. You can place it in a window facing the tv stations. Or, you can mount it outside.

If you decide to mount it outside you need to make it very durable. We mounted my brothers out side and all the connections are loose already. I guess it the wood expanding and contracting in the weather.

Good Luck.

Edit: This is a UHF only antenna. Right now, in this area, all of the HD broadcast are in UHF. I'm not sure if that will change after the stations stop broadcasting in analog. But, if so you only out a scrap of wood, some wire coathangers, and a cheap balun from Radio shack.

Get HDTV OTA antenna.

Revvy said:

I live in an old loft apartment and we can't persuade the landlord to let us put an antenna on top of the building....

Click to expand...

There is a law that forbids landlords from enforcing tenants to install satellite dishes and be forced to only use cable of the building. I think it should apply to Over The Air antennas as well and in the light of the DTV switch if you get a few of your neighbors to complain you might have a shot at convincing your landlord.

FCC Fact Sheet on Placement of Antennas

If you have a patio or a balcony then you are allowed to put up a dish, if a few of your neighbors play along you can tell your landlord that 5 of you will be installing small dishes if he doesnt put up 1 giant dish for the whole building

I totally forgot that I started this thread, holidays have been busy. Anyway I haven't tried doing anything I figure I'll get worried when things switch over in Feb to be honest I watch more and more shows online anymore anyways so I guess I wont die if I can't get TV. I was talking to SWMBO last night and she agreed that we should just get a large monitor or a small lcd tv and hook the computer to that. Revvy you should check out surfthechannel.com it's pretty sweet the only thing is that one of the video sites they link to has time limits as to how much time you can watch something consecutively(megavideo gives you 70min and then you have to wait an hour to keep watching). Hulu is legitimate but they don't have that much in comparison surfthechannel links to a bunch of chinese video sites which well you know can't really be controlled.

Homercidal said:

My idea was that I could simply tune to channel 9 and it would show up crystal clear...

Click to expand...

If you're tuning in just channel "9" and not "9.1" then you are on the analogue channel. The reason for this is that digital television has subchannels

when buying a converter box make sure you get the one with the analog pass through.

as for antenna's. antennasdirect.com is the best place to buy them. and rev the complex only needs one antenna.

one more then as well. make sure your using rg6 coax and not the old rg59. and allow of the times the channels are going from vhf to uhf and the channels automaticly change over to the old channel #. for instance here channel 2 is now broadcast on 56 with 2 sub carriers. so its 2.1 and 2.2 with 2.2 being the weather channel channel 6 is uhf 55 with two sub carriers 6.1 is cbs hd and 6.2 is cw analog anyway hope this makes sense.

holden said:

If you're tuning in just channel "9" and not "9.1" then you are on the analogue channel. The reason for this is that digital television has subchannels

Click to expand...

I am not up on all that, but a wuick look on one of those digiatl channel listing sites shows that the same station broadcasts their digital signal on like channel 40 or something. I found digital versions of the analog stations all over the place. Have not yet had a chance to tyr and tune them in. (antenna lead is not long enough now that we've moved the TV to another room.)

Just got a great deal on a 26" lcd hd tv from costco online so I guess I'll be hooking the computer up to it and watching stuff online more, I'm also hoping the digital tuner is better than the crappy box we bought, maybe I'll actually be able to pick up some channels.

Allright, I'm going in....

I'm making a pair of these today...we'll see how they fare!!!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw]YouTube - Coat Hanger HDTV Antenna![/ame]

You also might find this here info interesting...Heard it on NPR last night..

Ahead Of Switch To Digital TV, Some Opposition
Go here and click listen now...http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99175037

All Things Considered, January 9, 2009 · Not everyone is happy with the nation switching to digital TV Feb. 17. The Consumers Union called for a delay in the changeover and President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has also requested that Congress push back the date. Joel Kelsey, a policy analyst with Consumers Union, talks about his group's call for a delay.

Click to expand...

I tried to make a home made antenna and it didnt work very good, I read somewhere that the distance between the rods or coat hangers or whatever makes a huge difference on what types of signals you pick up. uhf/vhf/fm/ exc.

Who cares what it looks like, your Grandma still loves you".

hopsoda said:

I tried to make a home made antenna and it didnt work very good, I read somewhere that the distance between the rods or coat hangers or whatever makes a huge difference on what types of signals you pick up. uhf/vhf/fm/ exc.

Who cares what it looks like, your Grandma still loves you".

Click to expand...

That's probably why the video says to space the 5 3/4 inches apart and make the tips of the outer end of the hanger "v's" 3 inches apart....

good , my video is blocked here , just trying to help , home made stuff is the best , i allways have some project going... im in the proccess of building a small scail wind generator it has a 3 - 4' blades and a dc motor ... but thats anouther thread.

Take the results from Antenna Web with a large grain of salt. It says I can receive over 50 stations. Actual reception: Zero

They assume hills do not exist.

I have an HDTV antenna that I bought and I have problems receiving NBC and CBS sometimes and actually attached pieces of foil (last week during Colts game). I have a powered antenna and NBC its hard to tune into sometimes. I dont understand why if I am like 10 miles from Manhattan and thats where all the antennas are (probably on Empire State building, used to be on WTC).

hopsoda said:

I tried to make a home made antenna and it didnt work very good, I read somewhere that the distance between the rods or coat hangers or whatever makes a huge difference on what types of signals you pick up. uhf/vhf/fm/ exc.

Who cares what it looks like, your Grandma still loves you".

Click to expand...

As a former Ham Radio op, I can say for sure that distance between the elements is important as well as length of the elements themselves.

Good Luck with yours Revy. The one we built for my brother works great. I just wish we'd made it more durable for outside use.

I had what the cable company called antenna service- what is available via antenna, for $8 a month. I had channels 2-12, 18, 42 62 and a couple others.
When I upgraded to high speed internet via cable, I was forced to upgrade to all but premium channels. still only runs me 14 dollars a month for tv, and 60 for internet.

Look into antenna service if your house/apt is cable ready.