CBS 58 signal?

[Eucker]

I am 54 miles from MIlwaukee.  Does anyone get a locked signal this far and how high is it?
Jim

[tenth_t2]

Well, I'm about 55 miles from the Madison tower, and I do get that.  Be prepared to loot at every factor of the setup from antenna, to calculating line and splitter losses, and terrain, etc.

Without any other info, I'd say that you're on the edge of the transmission range.  Chicago should be good though, no?

Greg O.

[Eucker]

 

Originally posted by tenth_t2:
Well, I'm about 55 miles from the Madison tower, and I do get that.  Be prepared to loot at every factor of the setup from antenna, to calculating line and splitter losses, and terrain, etc.

Without any other info, I'd say that you're on the edge of the transmission range.  Chicago should be good though, no?

Greg O.

Greg
I have a RS VU-190 up about 35 ft.  I am high on a hill and get the Chicago DTV in the 80-90 except for CBS (3-1 on VHF).  This channel comes in around 40-60 on my RCA DTC 100.  I loose  the HDTV signal thru pixeling and dropouts.  I REALLY want to watch the Masters in a few weeks and JIM HALL has just told us that Milw. will definatly carry the event.  I am hoping that the UHF of CBS 58 will come in better than the VHF out of Chi.  I am thinkind of raising my mast another 6 feet.  Any other thoughts?
Jim

Ps I do have a CM 7777 preamp if needed.  How far below the antenna on the mast should this be mounted?



[This message has been edited by Eucker (edited 03-20-2002).]

[nailbender]

Jim,
I'm in Antioch w/ a Winegard 7080 on a rotater in the attic w/ a tru-spec amp.I have A Sony hdtv(xbr2).The Sony has a digital  signal strength bar graph.I aproximate the % signal strength. I can pick up 4.1 and 10.1 at 80% strength.These channels look good and stay locked.58.1 is about 40% but doesn't lock to give me a picture.
All Chicago Digitals come in fine, except CBS.In early Feb., I did pick-up CBS 2.1 for several weeks.Since then, no luck.
What is it with CBS?

 
 


------------------
max

[tenth_t2]

Jim,

I looked at a map to find Antioch, and although I can't pinpoint tower locations, it looks like I have a longer distance to Madison than you do to Milwaukee.  From your description with regards to antenna and mount, well I'm somewhat jealous!

Anyway, as I said in another thread, raising the antenna (or also using one with better gain) generally will improve signal reception better than anything else.  I would say that at first glance, going to 41' won't really get you that much, but it's hard to say without my eyeballs at that height to look at the northern skyline.  I'm envisioning being able to see for miles, and you're above any immediate treelines or other obstructions-- that will be my assumption.

With that in mind, I'm also envisioning 35' of RG6 cable coming down to the ground at a minimum.  Better yet, can you estimate how much cable you have from the antenna to the DTC100, and are there any other devices being fed by that signal?  Each split will take 3-4dB of your signal, and at the broadcast frequency of ch46 (662-668Mhz) your line losses are probably somewhere around 5.7dB per 100' of cable.

If some of my assumptions are correct, I would first insert the CM7777 (I'm using the nearly identical 7778) as close to the antenna as you can, mine is downstream by about 10'.  Make sure that there are no splits between the outdoor piece and the indoor mounted power supply.  I was using the same VU-190, switched to the CM 4228 (UHF only), but that didn't really make a huge difference in my situation.  It is smaller though!

I'm assuming that you also can rotate the antenna and point to Milwaukee?  You may have luck with the Chicago VHF stations off the back of the VU-190, I did.  Although I'm about 20 miles from Miwaukee antennas, looks like you are further than that.

Today looks like a nice day to get back on the roof, maybe I'll get that rotor swapped out.

Nailbender-- I can't see a 7080 on Winegard's page to see the specs, but I would say that you're potentially losing a fair amount of signal by coming into the attic.  It's not as critical if you're close to the source, but as you start getting further out every little bit of signal you can eek out can make a difference.  Of course, not everyone wants an antenna on the roof.  Again, depends on what else you have inline from that 7080 to your XBR (nice set!).

I'll see if I can track down the power that CBS46 is at, and compare that to other stations that I get.  I can't get the Madison NBC affiliate, but they claim to be at 1/3 of what the CBS and ABC affiliates that I do get.

Greg O.

[DLLarson]

Hi everyone.

I'm new to this forum. I live in Hartland.

I just bought an HDTV tuner. PBS and NBC come in rock solid but I can't get CBS (46) with any reliabilty. I occasionally get a frozen picture but that's it.

I bought a UHF-only antenna for my attic which improved UHF reception all around but still no CBS. Next I tried an UHF amplifier but that didn't work either. PBS (which xmits in the VHF band) even works fine with my UHF only antenna.

What's the deal with CBS-58? Are they transmitting from a location that is different from the others?

This is frustrating since it looks like CBS offers a pretty nice lineup of HD material.

Dale

[MesaV]

I had the same problem until I moved the antenna to the roof.  Also, keep the antenna away from bulkheads (walls).

[Gregg Lengling]

Dale if you go to the chat page and look back at the on-line chats with Jim Hall, General Manager of WDJT 58/46 you will see that they are not up to full power.  They don't even have the 6" feedline up yet (guess they are using Heliax or something).  Also they have no amplifier at this time and are running exciter power of 800 to 1000 watts, this gives them only 10KW of ERP (effective radiated power).  So you are working with a low signal until they get a larger audience.
All you can do at this time is try to optimize a high gain outdoor antenna and possibly a preamp.  Good luck.


------------------
Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
gregg@camelcomm.com

[JimHall]

 

Originally posted by lummox:
Dale if you go to the chat page and look back at the on-line chats with Jim Hall, General Manager of WDJT 58/46 you will see that they are not up to full power.  They don't even have the 6" feedline up yet (guess they are using Heliax or something).  Also they have no amplifier at this time and are running exciter power of 800 to 1000 watts, this gives them only 10KW of ERP (effective radiated power).  So you are working with a low signal until they get a larger audience.
All you can do at this time is try to optimize a high gain outdoor antenna and possibly a preamp.  Good luck.

Greg;

Just to set the record straight and as I stated in the on-line chat, we have 6" solid line feeding from our buidling to the antenna.  We installed the high power line in anticaption of at somepoint in the future increase our TPO.  As far as the exciter and amplifiers are concerning, again, as I stated in the chat, the exciter feeds a rack of solid state amplifiers that then feed the transmission line.  The TPO is 1,000 watts with an ERP of 11.7kw.

JH

Jim Hall

[JimHall]

 

Originally posted by DLLarson:
Hi everyone.

I'm new to this forum. I live in Hartland.

I just bought an HDTV tuner. PBS and NBC come in rock solid but I can't get CBS (46) with any reliabilty. I occasionally get a frozen picture but that's it.

I bought a UHF-only antenna for my attic which improved UHF reception all around but still no CBS. Next I tried an UHF amplifier but that didn't work either. PBS (which xmits in the VHF band) even works fine with my UHF only antenna.

What's the deal with CBS-58? Are they transmitting from a location that is different from the others?

This is frustrating since it looks like CBS offers a pretty nice lineup of HD material.

Dale

Dale;

Since you are pulling in WMVS or WMVS-DT without problems, the potential is there to be able to pull in our station, CBS-58, as well.

With DTV signals, multipath or what we call ghosting in the analog world is a significant problem in the digital DTV era.

In order to eliminate ghosting or mulitpath, which typically shows up as frozen, stuttering, or wide variations in signal strength, you will need to try and make very fine adjustments to your antenna position.  I think you will find that just a small adjustment of a degree or two can make a significant difference.

If you have any further questions let us know.

Sincerely,

Jim Hall
Station Manager
CBS-58

[Eucker]

As a follow up to my original post, I put the titan 7777 about 5 feet below the antenna and have it running down the house to a grounding block, then into the house.  A total of about 95 ft.  I got it all set up the week before the Masters.  I scanned the Milw. channels and lo and behold, I got CBS locked in at 78 to 80!!  I had about 15 friends over to the house and everyone raved about the broadcast!  I realize that some of the shots were SD, but I too was Happy!  Thank you Jim Hall and CBS!!

PS Just remember to turn on the transmitter!  LOL!!

[JimHall]

PS Just remember to turn on the
transmitter!  LOL!![/B][/QUOTE]

The CBS-58 DTV transmitter is always on 24x7.
Its our friends at WTMJ that turn-on & off.  We have had our own problems like PSIP transmissions!


[This message has been edited by JimHall (edited 04-21-2002).]

[Kevin Arnold]

DLLarson: Since I live in Hartland area too, you will probably find that you can get CBS out of Madison on channel 50 with a good signal. They are fairly powerful, so aim west and give it a try. As a bonus you will find ABC on channel 26 (and they have lots of HD programming) and NBC on channel 19.

------------------
Kevin Arnold
38" RCA widescreen w/a Winegard on a rotor.

[Eucker]

Kevin
Thanks, I'll try it this weekend when I have some time to kill!
Jim  aka Eucker

[DLLarson]

Hi Folks,

Wow! I got a much better response then I could've hoped for! Even the CBS Station Manager jumped in.

Right now I'm trying to get away with having the antenna in the attic. It was all I could do to convince my other half to get that "huge" RPTV.   If I blemish the house with a post and rotor I think I'll really hear about it! I'll try to get a better mount so I can fine tune the direction to see if I can minimize multipath.

Heck, while I'm up there I'll try pointing at Madison. I never considered this (thank you fellow Hartlander). I'd rather have the local programming but High Def is what counts for me. The rest I can pick up on cable.

I just can't get over how fantastic 1080i material looks. I haven't found any 5.1 DD audio yet but I'm ready. I love showing this stuff off to friends and family. It's amazing how little people know about the existence of whole digital TV thing. The more people that can be exposed to it the better.

Thanks a bunch for all the great tips!

Dale

[This message has been edited by DLLarson (edited 04-23-2002).]