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Am I Doing Something Wrong with My DTV Converter?

G

Gregg

My family owns a summer cottage on the Maine-New Hampshire border. It's only used about 5 weeks a year, so it doesn't pay to get cable or satellite. It's about 40 miles from Portland (although closer to Portland's TV towers, which are 25-30 miles away) and about 45 miles from Manchester.

We have a Radio Shack antenna on the roof (although the rotor isn't working) and a Channel Master antenna booster, all bought about 15 years ago.

In analog, with the rooftop antenna pointing toward Portland, we get 6-NBC perfectly, 8-ABC well and 13-CBS from OK. But none of Portland's UHF channels are watchable. We also get 9-ABC from Manchester, 11-PBS from Durham, NH and 21-Ion from Concord, NH well, although they were better when the rotor was working and the antenna could be repositioned to the south. We even used to get Boston 2, 4, 5, 7, 25 (100 miles away) some nights when conditons were right... and once in a while 10 and 12 from Providence RI.

Well, when Feb. of '09 rols around, that will all be in the past. I installed a Magnovox converter this month and guess what happens.

Only 6-NBC from Portland comes in (6.1 and Weather Plus 6.2). The converter also reads a signal from ABC-8 (8.1 and 8.2) but every few seconds the video freezes and the sound drops out. The converter doesn't even detect 9, 11, 13 or 21.

Even with a rooftop antenna and an antenna booster, after Feb. '09, it looks like we'll only have one TV channel available.

Did the FCC foresee this happening? Did they realize folks who live more than 35 miles from their local big city are going to lose most of their TV signals? Am I doing something wrong? Should I invest in getting someone to install a new rotor on the roof, which will likely cost more than $100?



Gregg
[email protected]
 
I miss the days of picking up distant TV signals overnight via e-skip already...
 
I have had the same experience. Channels that I can get perfectly in analog are non-existent on digital. Only time will tell what the fallout from this will be.
 
You are not alone. This is happening in rural areas nationwide. Where i live, about 70 miles from Atlanta I can get most of the Atlanta stations with my rooftop antenna and a converter box. The exception is the ABC affiliate, WSB. I get a strong analog signal from WSB but absolutely nothing in digital. You might try moving the antenna just a bit to see if your reception improves. An inch or two in either direction could make the difference.
 
Gregg said:
In analog, with the rooftop antenna pointing toward Portland, we get 6-NBC perfectly, 8-ABC well and 13-CBS from OK. But none of Portland's UHF channels are watchable. We also get 9-ABC from Manchester, 11-PBS from Durham, NH and 21-Ion from Concord, NH well, although they were better when the rotor was working and the antenna could be repositioned to the south. We even used to get Boston 2, 4, 5, 7, 25 (100 miles away) some nights when conditons were right... and once in a while 10 and 12 from Providence RI.

Only 6-NBC from Portland comes in (6.1 and Weather Plus 6.2). The converter also reads a signal from ABC-8 (8.1 and 8.2) but every few seconds the video freezes and the sound drops out. The converter doesn't even detect 9, 11, 13 or 21.

Gregg
[email protected]
Click to expand...

I assume you're fairly close to Portsmouth, NH? Would placing the antenna on a line of roughly northeast to southwest work for you? According to the distance calculator at indo.com, Portland, ME and Boston are 101 miles apart when drawing a straight line. Were you able to pick up WMEA-TV (PBS) channel 26 from Biddeford, ME or WZMY-TV (MY) channel 50 from Derry, NH?

As for the Maine sites, WCSH is in East Sebago, WMTW is in Baldwin, WGME is in Raymond and WPXT is in Gray. The site of WPFO-TV (FOX) channel 23 of Waterville has their site in Litchfield, ME, which is near Augusta. They're going to do a flash-cut to digital on the same channel next February, so I wouldn't bother. I'm not sure where WPME-TV/DT (MY) of Lewiston has their site.

On a side note, have you checked the transmission line to see if there are any splits or frays?
 
Gregg said:
We have a Radio Shack antenna on the roof (although the rotor isn't working) and a Channel Master antenna booster, all bought about 15 years ago.
Click to expand...

It looks like the only UHF station you're getting (in analog) is channel 21? I wonder if the booster is a VHF-only unit? Or there's a serious problem with the feedline. (physical damage, wire loose, etc.)

All the Portland stations interim DTV operations are on UHF. The bigger stations are also already at full permanent power. However, the two PBS channels (10 and 26) are still on low power, as is channel 35. (MyNetwork TV, and it doesn't look like they're going to increase)

Fox has no digital signal at all yet. The station is too new to get an interim channel for DTV, so they're not going to be able to start digital broadcasts without turning the analog off first.

In my experience it would be quite unusual to not be able to get the digital signal of a station whose analog is delivering a stable picture, when that digital station is at full power.
 
Gregg said:
In analog, with the rooftop antenna pointing toward Portland, we get 6-NBC perfectly, 8-ABC well and 13-CBS from OK. But none of Portland's UHF channels are watchable. We also get 9-ABC from Manchester, 11-PBS from Durham, NH and 21-Ion from Concord, NH well, although they were better when the rotor was working and the antenna could be repositioned to the south. We even used to get Boston 2, 4, 5, 7, 25 (100 miles away) some nights when conditons were right... and once in a while 10 and 12 from Providence RI.
Click to expand...

Well Channel 8 is broadcasting it's digital signal on Channel 46 but will return to channel 8 after the shut down. The problem is the digital transmitter for channel 8 is in a different location than the analog transmitter

Channel 13 is on UHF channel 38 for digital (stay on channel 38 after transition)

Channel 6 is on UHF channel 44 for digital (stay on channel 44 after transition)

Channel 9 is on UHF channel 59 for digital

Since you said in analog you can't get UHF channel I think this pretty much explains why you can't get the digital channel 'cause they are UHF. Or maybe not but it's a good guess
 
After 15 years it is very doubtful the antenna amplifier is still working, and as someone already said, CHECK YOUR LEAD IN. If it has not been replaced in 15 years in probably needs to be replaced. I also wonder if you have an all channel antenna up there, or is it VHF only? I notice almost all the analog channels you say you get are VHF, even though there are MANY analog Us in that area. In any event, even a very small UHF only antenna will get better reception of UHF channels than a VHF/UHF combo. You should be able to get good digital reception in that area....
 
A year or two ago I bought an antenna from Radio Shack that included a "UHF loop" separate from the base and "rabbit ears".
 
Thanks for all the helpful comments. I should point out that the cottage is just a few feet above lake level. So even with a rooftop antenna and antenna booster, we're pretty low compared to the surrounding hills in this part of New England. I'd guess folks who live near the top of some of the surrounding hills get perfect reception, not just from Portland and Manchester but from Boston, too. But then, they're not on the lakefront.

I'm starting to think it may pay to get the rotor repaired or replaced. I notice when I try to get DTV signals where I live in Manhattan, even moving the rabbit ears an inch or two makes the difference between getting a certain station in perfectly and reading the words "no signal" on the screen. And virtually all the NYC signals come from the same location, the Empire State Building or a building nearby in Midtown. Yet I notice Channel 13's digital signal is very fussy. Moving the rabbit ears an inch makes all the difference.

(Ironic that at home, where I have cable anyway, I get 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 25, 31, 41, 47, 50 and 68 perfectly on digital, even though among the tall buildings I only get a few of these channels clearly in analog. And at the cottage where we don't have cable and we get several analog channels fine, I'm having so much trouble getting DTV.)

And with those Portland TV stations NOT using a common transmitter tower site but spread out over numerous locations 15 miles north or northwest of Portland, I can see that a slight movement of the rooftop antenna might bring in one station and cancel out another.

So I suppose what might be a perfect position for the rooftop antenna for NBC-6 is not good for ABC-8 or CBS-13. And I guess without a rotor, I shouldn't hope to get any of the NH stations to the south or southwest of my cottage if my antenna is pointing east. In analog reception, being 180 degrees in the wrong direction actually got you a decent signal on some channels. But I guess not in the digital world.

(My cottage is right on the Maine-NH border almost directly west of Portland, about 25 miles north of Rochester NH and, as I said in my previous post, about 100 miles north of Boston.)

Now I wonder how much a professional will charge me to replace the rotor?



Gregg
[email protected]
 
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