Reception

[TSBruce]

I live in Hales Corners, near 116th and Edgerton.  Has any one been able to recieve Madison or Chicago DTV in this area?  If so what antenna elevations were used?

[Tom Snyder]

I believe we've had guys in New Berlin and Hartland who have had success in picking up Madison and an Oak Creeker or two who can get Chicago.

I'm sure you'll get a response from one of them, but in the meantime use the search functionalty and enter "Madison" in the search box. If you search through all the forums, you'll get quite an education.  


[This message has been edited by Tom Snyder (edited 07-11-2002).]

[JohnRacine]

I live on the south side of Racine, about 1 mile north of the Kenosha Co line.  I regularly receive DT from Chicago stations.  5-1 is intermittent, 7-1 is always very strong, 9-1 is good 95% of the time, 11-1 is strong and 32-1 is good about 50% of the time.

My problem is that I have a Toshiba DST3000 STB for my OTA receiver which has only one OTA antenna input. And, it does not allow channels to be manually entered and forces one to use the scan feature.  That's crummy because when I turn my antenna south to get Chicago, hit the scan button, the Chicago stations are listed but all the Milwaukee stations are deleted.  Same thing happens when I turn the antenna back north and rescan the Milwaukee channels (all the Chicago channels are deleted).  That's a pain in the neck as each scan takes 3-5 minutes.  I put up a second UHF antenna and hooked both to a cheap signal splitter/combiner from RS and then to the STB.  That experiment failed as the signals from both cities became too weak and the scan didn't pick up much of anything.  

It's interesting that my old, $20, small RS antenna pulls in 1-1 (Channel 58HD)and 10-1 perfectly but my brand new, large, designed for HD, $80 Winegaard antenna will not receive either channel at all.  The Winegaard does do a better job of pulling in Chicago stations except for 5-1 which comes in stronger off of the old RS.  Go figure.  I wish I could find a decent signal combiner to properly hook the two antennas together so that I could receive signals simultaneously from Chicago and Milwaukee. That way I could scan in all the channels from both cities once and for all and just switch between the two antennas when needed for the strongest signal.  Other than this nuisance, the DTS3000 gives me a perfect HD picture with great surround sound.

Hope this helps you out.  If you know of a good way to combine two antennas into one please let me know.

[Kevin Arnold]

Read some interesting info about antenna theory which stated that combining antenntas via splitter results in halving the signal from each. And if there are any phase problems between the two antennas it gets worse. Might try hooking up the antennas in series and see if that works. I'll try and look up the info again and see what was said about making this system work.

As for Madison, it should be possible to get the signal with rooftop antennas as far east as Moorland road where the sub-continental divide goes down into Milwaukee. At your location it would be hit or miss. You have a good shot, though, as the Madison DTV stations are (gasp) at or near full power.

[uplinkguy]

Madison DT ERP as of May (as e-mailed by the chiefs at each station):

 WHA DT 20:  WHA-DT's licensed and current-operating ERP is 100 KW.

 WISC DT 50:WISC DT has a maximized authorization of 603KW.  We are currently operating at 380KW under an FCC STA.  (380KW was our original authorization before
maximization)

 WKOW DT 26:  WKOW-DT is currently authorized to operate with effective radiated power of 171.0 kW.  That is what we are running.

 WMTV DT 19:  WMTV-DT is authorized for 50 kW, we're running 21 kW under special
temporary authority.

 WMSN DT 11:  WMSN-DT is licensed at 15 kW average erp.  We currently are operating at
0.000000 watts.

[Gregg Lengling]

Putting two antennas on one coax with a splitter is a no-no.  First off a splitter introduces 3dB of loss for each port (3dB deciBels is 1/2 power).  Second you are now asking for multipath of signals which is terrible on ATSC, you could have a very high signal strenght but with multipath reflections you will have problems decoding the symbols.

Multiple antennas are usually used to increas gain to receive a distant signal, but both antennas have to identical and phased properly.  The antennas need to be 1/4 wave lengths apart on the same mast with vertical seperation.  So in theory this only works for a channel cut antenna.  Also you don't use a splitter but what is known as a phasing harness, which is made up of a different impedance cable than the normal 75 ohm so when the 2 are combined you once again end up with 75 ohm impedance.

You will notice that most of the STB's and Built-in STB sets have 2 antenna ports.  My TV has this and I have 2 antennas on my tower and I've programmed my set to change antennas for certain channels.  If you don't have a 2 input set then you need to put up your 2 antennas each with a separate feedline and install a antenna switch at your receiver.  This can be a simple mechanical switch (they've been sold for years as game switches), or you can get a remote controlled switch that is more expensive but has an IR input so you can program your remote to switch it for you.

I hope this helps with what you wanted to do.


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

[veyj]

Hey Gregg, hope your feeling better.

I'm not at home right now, but I'm pretty sure my Hughes E86 has 2 inputs (Antenna & SAT/Antenna).  For a two Antenna set up (Milw & Chicago), would you recommend running one coax to the Antenna In and diplexing a second with the SAT line?  Are there any tricks to diplexing?  Does it matter where in the line the diplexer is located?

I'm not sure if the Hughes box will switch inputs automatically with channel changes, but would appreciate anyone's input on this.

Is there any signal loss when using a barrel(not sure what they're called) to join two runs of coax?

How can I control a rotor from two different locations(upstairs, downstairs)?  RF remote or two seperate controls combined some way?

TIA,

John Vey

[Gregg Lengling]

I'm pretty sure it does, a friend of mine has his cable diplexed in and it switches automatically for him, but I'm not sure if he has the same box.  You want to put the diplexer right at the STB.  

As far as my health goes, it's good news and bad news.   I've got to change my life as I won't be able to do some of the work I've been doing for the last 20 years, so I have to put my business up for sale.  I also have to give up running, basketball and golf.  I have degenerating disks in my lumbar region (3 of them the one between L3 and L4 is the worst).  They're calcifying and 1 is pushing on the spinal cord.  I had an injection yesterday into that disc and we'll see in a couple days if that provides some relief, if it doesn't we have to start talking to surgeons.  But I'll never be able to do the things I used to, so I'll just have to find a desk job and use my engineering skills that way.

Thanks for asking.


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

[borghe]

I don't know if it's been confirmed, so I will. Yes, with the Hughes/Mits/Toshiba STB, to attach two antennas you have to either attach one antenna to each input or one antenna to one input and a diplexed rf signal with the satellite cable into the other input. Doing this allows you to run two separate antennas. You then enter in multple zip codes in the local area section for the two areas you are trying to grab from.

[JohnRacine]

Thanks for the info. Can you tell me more about a "duplexed RF signal with a satellite cable"?  I don't have enough background in electronics/antennas to know what that means.  I do not have a satellite cable coming from a small dish as I have 4dtv.  Keep in mind that with the Toshiba unit, I have to have both antennas active and connected when I do the scan...it has that crummy feature that won't allow manual entry and it deletes all channels and starts all over whenever the scan feature is activated.  This means that I must be receiving signals from both Milwauke and Chicago at the time of the scan in order for the unit to store them in the memory.  Thanks in advance if you can give me a few details on how to connect two antennas, pointed in opposite directions, simultaneously.

[John Brundage]

I have the Toshiba box, and it is possible to manually enter the channels.  First, clear the channel list.  Then scroll through the channels and select the digital channel...for example, select channel 8 for channels 10-1 through 10-5.

The only problem is that once the channel is selected, it scans for a signal.  If a signal isn't found, there is no way to deselect the channel.

I have a rotor also.  Point at Chicago, and enter all the Chicago stations.  Then point at Milwaukee and enter the Milwaukee stations.  You can even set up favorite channel lists with Chicago only and Milwaukee only stations.