major hdtv problem with MyHD

[chadamir]

Im in new jersey. I'm 18 miles from the NYC transmitors. I've tried 3 antennas and I get 30-40 percent on cbs and fox but that's all I get. I should be able to get cbs, fox, pbs, and WB. I cant get anything from the latter two. I'm currently using a silver sensor with a 10db amp, but can't get anything. Anyone have any idea on how to increase the signal? I already tried an rca ant200 and the high end crap radio shack indoors. I really can't stray into outdoor receivers. Someone suggested in #HDTV that I need a directional antenna which they only make for outdoors. I can't put this outdoors and indoors it would take up about half of my room. Anyone have any ideas? Know of an indoor directional antenna?

[trbarry]

It is a problem with ATSC that there are some places like the famous Mark Schubin apartment where you just can't get good indoor reception, mostly due to multi-path.

Even here in Detriot with no tall buildings, flat land, and close towers I really don't get very good indoor reception so I finally broke down and put up a rooftop rotor antenna. And I'm not sure the NYC stations are even at full power again yet which may further hurt.

Note the amplifiers don't always help if it's a muti-path problem so you are better just trying many possibilities for each particular station. Each is very antenna location and direction sensitive. Sorry I can't be more help.

- Tom

[chadamir]

Dear Tom,

I was hoping you'd reply since you do some good work. I just had surgery today and I sent my dad to get me a teak 55 and an hdtv receiver for his tv. Im going to see whether we can get reception with that and if it's my room. If it is my room I'll just move the computer. I was wondering if using a small outdoor antenna inside would work? I saw one that seemed pretty small on channelmaster.com. Part of my issue is I leave for pittsburgh next month to attend carnegie mellon adn I really wnat to be able to use it in my dorm.

[trbarry]

chadamir -

Hope your surgery went well.

If the problem is multi-path then probably any outside more directional antenna might work, it doesn't have to be extremely large, though high is better. I first had a rooftop antenna with no rotor that I could find a compromise direction picking up 6 of the 7 available local digital stations without moving it.

Unfortunately that 7'th station was UPN, not even HD, but I wanted to record digital Buffy episodes. So I got the rotor. ;)

And if you are going off to a dorm it's a whole new ball game. Best to wait & see what you find there. With many dorms now wired for cable you might even want to find an unencrypted QAM card (none avail yet).

If you are up high in the dorm there may also be interesting things to be done with a wire thrown out the window. Remember, with ATSC it is not just signal strengh, it's also alchemy. ;) :)

- Tom

[chadamir]

hey tom,

Yeah, it went well. I'm a lot more mobile than expected. I thought I wouldn't even be able to bend over but I can even run. On the avs forum they suggested horizontally stacking two silver sensors on a plank. They said it would make it more directional. If that doesn't work I'm throwing an antenna in the attic. My dad's too tired to go tonight to pick it up(I can't go myself obviously) so I will let you know how it goes. I'd also like to thank you for your guides/tools for compressing hdtv to other formats, it's been a big help. Have you found anything which allows for keeping the 1080i without requring a mega processor?

[trbarry]

Have you found anything which allows for keeping the 1080i without requring a mega processor?

Actually I've found very little (any?) material that has enough detail to justify saving it at 1920x1080 even if I did have the processor power to play it. I re-encode almost everything to 1280x720p or lower, though I did save a couple short sections of the Grammy's at 1440x816. But that's the biggest I've encoded anything.

- Tom

[chadamir]

What have you founnd to be the best codec? Im talking in terms of processing power needed for all of them, assuming they are the same quality.

[trbarry]

I'm not a codec expert and I don't test every new option of every release.

I tend mostly to be an Xvid fan but think that for HDTV caps Xvid, WM9, and maybe Divx all maybe have comparable quality.

But Xvid is open source and can play better for any given amount of processor power than WM9. And I'm comfortable with it.

- Tom

[Entropy512]

Originally posted by chadamir
Im in new jersey. I'm 18 miles from the NYC transmitors. I've tried 3 antennas and I get 30-40 percent on cbs and fox but that's all I get. I should be able to get cbs, fox, pbs, and WB. I cant get anything from the latter two. I'm currently using a silver sensor with a 10db amp, but can't get anything. Anyone have any idea on how to increase the signal? I already tried an rca ant200 and the high end crap radio shack indoors. I really can't stray into outdoor receivers. Someone suggested in #HDTV that I need a directional antenna which they only make for outdoors. I can't put this outdoors and indoors it would take up about half of my room. Anyone have any ideas? Know of an indoor directional antenna?
From what I recall, PBS is pretty low power.

WB is currently using EXTREMELY low power (125 watts I think), with an STA on channel 12 for the time being. I don't think anyone who isn't able to physically see the Empire State Building with their naked eye has been able to receive WPIX-DT.

Supposedly WNJB-DT (Ch8) is on-air now, although at low power.

Might want to check AVS Forum - They have a good thread going on OTA HD in Central Jersey.

It doesn't get much better than the Silver Sensor until you get to outdoor antennas. Note that some people HAVE used CM 4228s indoors (leaning against the wall), if you don't mind a 3foot by 3foot flyswatter leaning against your wall. :) The RS 150-2160 outdoor UHF ant is also not THAT large. Better than a Silver Sensor, sadly worse than the current V/U combo I have in the attic. Once I can find a good source of hollow aluminum tubing I'm going to homebrew myself a log periodic for the upper UHF chans.