HDTV, I thought I understood it, but not sure now

[DJKraze]

Ok, I made the splurge after seeing the Accurian HDTV set-top box from Rat Shack for 89 smackers and I'm happy with it.

Plugged it in, wired it up to a roof anyenna I have hanging up in the attic (can't rotate it though) it's facing Providence but that didn't give me a problem getting the following upon first scan... 3, 20, 30, 61

I figured I should also get 8, but even after manually entering it, not getting more than 49%, so I got an inline amp, that did the trick, 8 was fine all weekend, even got 18 and on occasion, 40.

Here it is only a couple of days later and now I've lost 8, 18, forget about 40, and even though 61 is about 89%, I'm getting no picture or sound from them (SNR is all the way up to 31dB, it was in the mid 20's before), but here's the really weird thing... I rescanned and suddenly I have 26, even though the signal never gets above 23% also I get all 4 channels for 26, but the main channel has no sound (SNR is about 17dB).

I have 2 main questions, first, is the lack of picture/sound on 61 due to the SNR and is the lack of sound on 26-1 (but not -2,-3 or -4) because of the low signal?

In addition, I am curious as to why I can't get the other stations when they all seem to be about 49% signal and yet 26 is in without pixelization? (8 is also about 17dB SNR)

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

You may need either a new outdoor antenna, or at the very least, move the "outdoor" antenna now in your attic outside of the house.

The attic itself may be a hinderance as regards receiving digital TV signals.

Mounting the antenna outside will likely deliver much better results, especially with digital signals.

 

[DJKraze]

> You may need either a new outdoor antenna, or at the very
> least, move the "outdoor" antenna now in your attic outside
> of the house.
>
> The attic itself may be a hinderance as regards receiving
> digital TV signals.
>
> Mounting the antenna outside will likely deliver much better
> results, especially with digital signals.
>


I knew I forgot to mention a couple of things (I need to stop posting in the early morning and late evening).

Ok, first, I can't put it outside, the landlord won't allow anything other than a standard DBS dish because of the previous antenna taking down the chiminey, and second (part of the reason the chiminey went down) this house is so old there's no metal blocking reception, so the only advantage would be that extra 5 to 10 feet altitude that I'd get from putting it up outside.

I have changed the configuration slightly, I moved the preamp to the antenna now instead of just behind the set-top box, I'm now getting an increase on WHPX, it's at about 37% signal now, WTNH is now a bit better moving almost into 70% and actuaqlly opens up a picture and WUVN comes in most of the time, however there's much less signal on WGGB. I have an idea that maybe it is direction afterall affecting most of this and I'm going to try to move it around a bit.