# the antenna guy was here today



## Carl Spock

A buddy and I put up my two OTA antennas a few years ago. I need two, one pointing north to pick up the CBS and NBC affiliates and another pointed southeast to get ABC, PBS and Fox. Earlier this week the one for ABC, PBS and Fox stopped working. It was real wet because of a winter thaw, with thick fog for half the day. Something wasn't happy with all the water in the air.

As I wanted to get it fixed right, I called Badger Antenna. Arlin, the owner, is mostly retired (he says every 5 years he retires again) but he came out today and gave my home-brew install the professional touch. Arlin is in his 70s but he still climbs up a ladder like a kid. He couldn't find anything wrong (of course the antenna had started working again) but some connections were suspicious. More important, he put a pre-amp on my system to bring up some of my weaker signal strengths. Before, my gains varied from +12 to -35 dB for the various stations I received. I know many folks aren't impressed with the tuner in the HR20, but I gained new respect for it today. I got that station at -35 dB no problem. Now all of my gains are around 0 dB minimum.

Arlin also put a ground on the system - what, my buddy and I didn't do that?  - and aimed the two antennas better. Otherwise, Arlin thought my buddy and I did OK with our install. "You actually bolted through," he said. Damn straight, Arlin. The tripod is well attached to my garage.

Here is the result:










The antenna closest to you is a Winegard HD 9095P. You real antenna experts will go _WTF is the other antenna_? It is the front half of a Winegard HD 8200P. The VHF elements on the back half of the antenna are useless now-a-days, so Arlin cut them off.










Arlin billed me $145 in parts, including the amp, and $125 in labor. With tax and a $20 tip - anything more would have been insulting to an old Norwegian - the job cost me $300. It was well worth it. I have a much better signal than before. Plus Arlin says if he has to re-do a job within 20 years, he didn't do it right. Yes, sir, I want Arlin climbing ladders and fixing my antenna when he's 95. :grin:


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## Richard King

From previous posts, I assume you are in Eau Claire? If so are you able to pull in the Twin Cities from there. I did some work with the local newspaper in Eau Claire many years ago (installed an automation system for their cable channel). I also had some dealings with a small recording studio there, if I recall correctly it was called Heartwood Recording.


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## Carl Spock

No, I'm actually La Crosse. I am in the Eau Claire/La Crosse DMA, which is where the confusion arises. I'm pretty much limited to my local stations.


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## Richard King

Ah, La Crosse. That would make it tough to get the Twin Cities, not only for the distance of over 100 miles, but if you are not above the river bluffs they could present a problem. Your north antenna is obviously aimed at Eau Claire, is the SE one aimed at Madison? If so, what kind of distance is that? I'm curious because I am about 80 miles from most of my locals, and even though in a different part of the country, you appear to be about the same from Madison.


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## Carl Spock

You are absolutely right about the northern one being aimed at Eau Claire. I pick up WEAU-NBC's tower, which is 50 miles away, near Fairchild, WI, with great signal strength. Along the way is the tower for WKBT-CBS, which is in Galesville, WI, and is actually my strongest signal at +12dB. The two towers are on almost the exact same line.

The antenna to the SE is aimed at La Cresecent, MN, which is directly across the Mississippi River from La Crosse. There is a tower farm on the top of the river bluff behind La Crescent, with the transmitters for WXOW-ABC (their station is right there, too), WLAX-Fox and WHLA-PBS. They are less than 10 miles away from me but these are the tough ones for me to get. Before the pre-amp, WLAX was actually -58dB for me. It's a weak digital signal anyway, but you can see my problem. WXOW was the one I mentioned above that was -35 dB, with WHLA about -25 dB. The weak signals are caused by a substantial bluff between me and the towers. The signal has to go around a lot of rock.

There is no way here in the river valley that I could receive Madison, or Rochester, MN, for that matter. People on the top of the bluff can get the Austin/Rochester DMA pretty easily as an alternative. It is also not unheard of to get Madison on a good day if you are up on the flat lands.

WLAX-Fox is so weak for me, the DirecTV DNS eligibility utility says I can't get it. That's fine because they only broadcast in SDTV. It was easy for me to get the waiver for the east coast Fox HDTV feed (I don't have HD LILs, being in DMA #127). That means I'll have the Packers playoff game this afternoon in HD and most here won't. But for those of you who think the ATSC tuner in the HR20 isn't very good, you should know that on many days I could receive WLAX's signal. It would be watchable without any pixelization for hours on end. It also disappeared on a bad day (Arlin's line was, "You may get it but you don't get it.") so I don't feel dishonest about getting the waiver. That said, any tuner that can successfully show stations varying in signal strength from -58dB to +12dB is acceptable in my book.


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## Richard King

> The weak signals are caused by a substantial bluff between me and the towers. The signal has to go around a lot of rock.


I am very familiar with the area as an old college friend and wife used to rent a farmhouse in LaCrescent (from the Philips family IIRC) many years ago and I spent many weekends there. That's why I mentioned the river bluffs in my previous post. I figured the bluffs were probably between you and Rochester, but when you said SE I figured that it had to be coming from Madison. Beautiful country there by the way. I always enjoyed the ride from the TC down the river road.


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## Carl Spock

I found out this weekend that even Arlin isn't perfect.

On Saturday we had a little snow here. Not much, less than two inches, but just like it came down hard for a while in Green Bay that afternoon, it did the same here on the other side of the state. During the storm, my CBS station disappeared. The signal meter in the HR20 read zero and all I got was a "searching for signal" screen on the TV. This was surprising because the CBS station is by far and away my strongest signal. It is the one upthread that was +12 dB. Back when my buddy and I first did my antenna set-up, I received that station with the antenna laying in the grass on the ground.

Saturday evening the snow let up to just flurries and the station returned, but just barely. The meter in the HR20 jumped from zero to 77 and back to zero. There was no in-between. The picture was pixelating constantly. It was unwatchable. Fortunately, I also have basic cable because my Internet is on cable. Channels 2 through 22 cost me only $5,99 a month. For that little, I keep basic cable as a back-up. I'm glad I did. It was the only way I could watch the Patriots/Jaguars game. Good game, too.

By Sunday the weather had cleared and CBS was back. During the Colts/Chargers game, the picture was fine except it stuttered maybe once every fifteen minutes. That never happened before.

By this time I had discovered another thread where somebody had exactly my problem. I knew that Arlin had understandably cheated my north pointing antenna towards the NBC station 50 miles away. The Winegard HD 8200p antenna is also quite directional. I figured I was on the hoary edge of good reception for the CBS station. This thread confirmed it. I was picking up too much multipath, or reflected signal, off the river bluffs right behind my house. This old thread also reminded me that the signal meter in the HR20 reads bits, not volts. That made its _all-or-nothing_ readings sensible

I called Arlin on Monday morning and he stopped by today. He agreed with this assessment. He frankly wasn't surprised. He'd seen it before. He commented that in the analog antenna days, you could cheat and get away with it. Not with digital. You either got the signal or you didn't.

It was an easy job for Arlin to re-aim my north pointing antenna. You can see him here in action.










After he adjusted the antenna, Arlin said the distant NBC station read -12 dB and the CBS one was at +2 dB. That should be fine.

It was a pleasure to see Arlin. We chatted for probably more time than it took him to do the job. He's a great guy. In one respect, I hope I have more antenna problems in the future. I really like Arlin.


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## LI-SVT

Do you think he would come to Long Island 

Nice job with the OTA, I really have to get a new antenna. Mine is an older model with better performance in the VHF band.


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## harsh

Carl Spock said:


> You real antenna experts will go _WTF is the other antenna_? It is the front half of a Winegard HD 8200P. The VHF elements on the back half of the antenna are useless now-a-days, so Arlin cut them off.


Here's to hoping that your digital channels don't move down into the VHF range.


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## Carl Spock

:scratch: 

Starting in February, 2009, a VHF TV antenna will be about as useful as a buggy whip. Probably less, actually. I'm in Amish country. There are still buggies around here. After 2/09, there won't be any VHF TV transmissions. And I feel pretty secure with my UHF antennae until then.

We've had maybe 3" of snow here this morning. The CBS station I was having problems with over the weekend is coming in great today, as are all the rest. Arlin's fix worked.


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## LI-SVT

I thought the TV stations had the option to move back to their old frequency after the cut off. 

Right now some of my locals are in the VHF range with their digital transmission. I have not heard they have to move to UHF.

All of the big networks are UHF for me which is why I need a better antenna.


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## Carl Spock

You learn something new every day. You guys are right and I am wrong.

Was this changed in the 2005 congressional act that extended the deadline for the switch over from 2007 to 2009? I always thought the government wanted to clear out the VHF frequencies so they could resell them and make some money.

According to this chart, my local CBS, which is analog on channel 8 and currently broadcasting on digital channel 41, is scheduled to go back to 8 after they turn off their analog broadcast. Harrumph! I just tried to call their chief engineer, who I know casually, to find out what's going on. I left him a voicemail. I'll let you know what he says. I'm _very_ interested.

FWIW, the station's website only mentions channel 41 for their digital signal and says nothing about going back to 8. I also know the station did major league work this last summer, upgrading their initially weak digital signal to a very strong one. The upgrade took many months and I'm sure cost them a pretty penny. I can't imagine they went through all that work to broadcast a strong signal on channel 41 only to shut it off in another year.

The rest of my digital stations are safely staying in the UHF band.

This would suck.


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## scooper

There are / were several rules about what stations could do for their "final" selection for after D-Day. Also playing into this was propogation charactersistics of the various frequencies. In short the table comes down to 

analog Lo VHF - station will try very hard to get either a High VHF channel (best) or a UHF
Analog High VHF - most stations would like to go back to this channel, with UHF as the next best


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## LI-SVT

Thanks for posting the chart link. It looks like one of my locals is going back to VHF ch 11 in the end. The rest are staying UHF, the lowest being 24.

I was thinking Yaggi but ch 11 has some sports so I might consider a combo. On to the research...


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## Carl Spock

It's been an interesting afternoon.

I talked to both the engineers for the CBS (WKBT) and NBC (WEAU) affiliate. They verified all that was said here. The lowest VHF frequencies, 2 through 6, are being abandoned after February, 2009. The CBS station will go to back to 8 from their current digital broadcast on 41 and the NBC station will return to their analog frequency of 13 from their current digital frequency of 39.

There's only about one thing you can say for my agreeing with Arlin's suggestion to cut off the VHF end of my antenna: Oops.

I did call Arlin. He wasn't home but I left a message telling him what I found out. I guess I'll see him one more time this summer when we replace that stub of a Winegard HD 8200p with a new, complete one.

Oops.

There's an old Transylvanian phrase that has been passed down through generations in my family that's applicable here: If you don't use your head, then you've got to use your feet.

Or in this case, your wallet. 

I have one last question. I wonder how the tuner in the HR20 will respond to this frequency hopping? Normally when the station switches their broadcast frequency, you'd just put the tuner in scan and it would find the new frequency and store it. As we all know, the HR20 tuner doesn't scan. The engineer at WEAU thought it wouldn't be any problem. He said when I enter _1 - 3 - dot - 1_ in the tuner, it's the station's responsibility to tell the tuner where to go. Currently it goes to channel 39. On the date they switch back to VHF, the TV station will tell my tuner to go to 13. Somehow I doubt it will be that easy. We'll see. That day I can envision Mr. Murphy laughing, watching TV while all I get is a blank screen. :grin:


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## scooper

How did your HR-20 know the OTA channels initially ? Is it possible it got them via the satellite ? Or did it do an initial channel scan on its own when it was first powered up ?

I'd suggest some reading of your owner' manual or a call to D* tech support to find out how the tuner knows which ATSC channels are put in .


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## Carl Spock

To get the channels, I enter my zip code in the HR20. There is a pause while it downloads from the satellite the stations I can receive. I then tell it which of those frequencies I want to watch.

The WEAU engineer may well be right. The download says NBC is 13.1, not 39. 

The manual doesn't answer technical questions like this. A phone call might answer the question but hopefully we can get the answer here, too. We've got a lot of good engineers on this board.

It isn't exactly like I've got to rush to find out the answer to this question. The switch over is a year away. I'm patient.


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## n3ntj

The PSIP info does sometimes get screwed up. Our local NBC station does not monitor their digital signal, so it's been up to me several times to tell them to reset their PSIP computer when it goes on the fritz and doesn't tell our tuners where to remap.


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## Carl Spock

PSIP? You don't find that on the DBS acronym list.

This is pretty inside baseball. I sure had to look it up. It's not the Puget Sound Institute of Pathology - that's #3 in the Google Hit Parade - but instead the Program and System Information Protocol. I like this definition I found the best. It's "the glue that holds the digital television (DTV) signal together."

From what I've read, I can see just entering _1 - 3 - dot - 1_ and the PSIP doing the rest to tune in the transmission.

I'll bet you a bottle of scotch it will still screw up the day of the trade-off.


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## Drew2k

Carl Spock said:


> There's only about one thing you can say for my agreeing with Arlin's suggestion to cut off the VHF end of my antenna: Oops.


I wasn't aware of the VHF possibilities after the cutoff, so I'm glad I read that. However, my question when I read that the installer cut off the VHF part was this: how stable is the remaining antenna and the mast? Wasn't it balanced for the distributed weight of the entire antenna? This may not be an issue, as antennas are actually very light, but I was curious about this ...


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## Drew2k

Carl Spock said:


> PSIP? You don't find that on the DBS acronym list.
> 
> This is pretty inside baseball. I sure had to look it up. It's not the Puget Sound Institute of Pathology - that's #3 in the Google Hit Parade - but instead the Program and System Information Protocol. I like this definition I found the best. It's "the glue that holds the digital television (DTV) signal together."


For anyone else interested, here's a good read on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSIP


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## scooper

I was just curious about that - I'm not too sure I like that method of getting from D*. The scan feature means you're independent of any provider if they are a little late on updating it.


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## Mocco71

Carl Spock said:


> I found out this weekend that even Arlin isn't perfect.
> 
> On Saturday we had a little snow here. Not much, less than two inches, but just like it came down hard for a while in Green Bay that afternoon, it did the same here on the other side of the state. During the storm, my CBS station disappeared. The signal meter in the HR20 read zero and all I got was a "searching for signal" screen on the TV. This was surprising because the CBS station is by far and away my strongest signal. It is the one upthread that was +12 dB. Back when my buddy and I first did my antenna set-up, I received that station with the antenna laying in the grass on the ground.
> 
> Saturday evening the snow let up to just flurries and the station returned, but just barely. The meter in the HR20 jumped from zero to 77 and back to zero. There was no in-between. The picture was pixelating constantly. It was unwatchable. Fortunately, I also have basic cable because my Internet is on cable. Channels 2 through 22 cost me only $5,99 a month. For that little, I keep basic cable as a back-up. I'm glad I did. It was the only way I could watch the Patriots/Jaguars game. Good game, too.
> 
> By Sunday the weather had cleared and CBS was back. During the Colts/Chargers game, the picture was fine except it stuttered maybe once every fifteen minutes. That never happened before.
> 
> By this time I had discovered another thread where somebody had exactly my problem. I knew that Arlin had understandably cheated my north pointing antenna towards the NBC station 50 miles away. The Winegard HD 8200p antenna is also quite directional. I figured I was on the hoary edge of good reception for the CBS station. This thread confirmed it. I was picking up too much multipath, or reflected signal, off the river bluffs right behind my house. This old thread also reminded me that the signal meter in the HR20 reads bits, not volts. That made its _all-or-nothing_ readings sensible
> 
> I called Arlin on Monday morning and he stopped by today. He agreed with this assessment. He frankly wasn't surprised. He'd seen it before. He commented that in the analog antenna days, you could cheat and get away with it. Not with digital. You either got the signal or you didn't.
> 
> It was an easy job for Arlin to re-aim my north pointing antenna. You can see him here in action.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> After he adjusted the antenna, Arlin said the distant NBC station read -12 dB and the CBS one was at +2 dB. That should be fine.
> 
> It was a pleasure to see Arlin. We chatted for probably more time than it took him to do the job. He's a great guy. In one respect, I hope I have more antenna problems in the future. I really like Arlin.


I think Arlin deserves a beer!


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## harsh

The only channels being abandoned are the ones from 51 to 69. I've read of a few Great Lakes area stations applying for VHF LO frequencies.


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## Carl Spock

* more reading *

Correct, although they aren't just in the Northeast. Stations have been allocated across the country to VHF-LO. Here is one list. There are many, depending on the date. Few have gone to VHF-LO because of impulse noise problems causing pixelating in the digital picture, even though VHF-LO gives a station the best reach. Stations are going to be moving all over the place in 2009. It will be a mess.

Here is an excellent article on all of this: HDTVexpert - *Hey, Kids, Time For A Game Of Musical Chairs!*

As linked to above, AVS also has a few threads on this, not surprisingly.

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Drew2k said:


> when I read that the installer cut off the VHF part was this: how stable is the remaining antenna and the mast?


Drew, initially I had your same concern as you. It's no problem, though. One, as you say, the antenna is very light, less than 20 pounds. Two, it is attached to the mast in two places. It is easier to see in my pictures on the other antenna, the one pointing SE. Besides the main support point, there is an upper one on one of the UHF antenna arms. The north facing antenna is attached to the mast in the same way. Holding the antenna in place is not a problem.


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## Drew2k

Carl Spock said:


> Drew, initially I had your same concern as you. It's no problem, though. One, as you say, the antenna is very light, less than 20 pounds. Two, it is attached to the mast in two places. It is easier to see in my pictures on the other antenna, the one pointing SE. Besides the main support point, there is an upper one on one of the UHF antenna arms. The north facing antenna is attached to the mast in the same way. Holding the antenna in place is not a problem.


Thanks for the explanation Carl. I can rest easy, now, not worrying if a bird lighting on the tippy-tip of the antenna would cause the whole thing to topple.


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## TheRatPatrol

Cool pictures. 

I can actually pick up VHF channel 8 (and FM stations) on my UHF only antenna, of course its really fuzzy. I wonder if I'll be able to get the the digital channel 8 when they switch over?


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