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OTA Recpetion in Southington Sucks

Marc, read my posts in the other thread. I'm not doing any better in New Britain's south end. By the way, I assume you're talking about analog over-the-air reception?
 
I must assume that your folks live in that part of Southington that's in the valley of the upper Quinnipiac River. So, you're surrounded by higher terrain on all sides. New Haven stations 8 and 59 are located on a tower that's on a ridge that's exactly south of you and those signals must pass through West Peak in Meriden to serve the lower elevation portions of Southington. That hinders each signal

You're quite far south and along the same ridgeline as Avon Mountain, so channels 3 and 24 may be shaky too (depending on where your folks live). They have to pass through a lot of bedrock to get to you.

And, if you're in the central to southern part of that elongated bowl, even Rattlesnake Mountain and its transmitters for channels 30 and 61 will be partially blocked by terrain.

All and all, I think that you'll need more than a $10 K-Mart antenna to get decent reception in that area.
 
Re: OTA Reception in Southington Sucks!

I have friends/relatives in Southington CT as well as Kensington CT (probably about 3-4 mi (max) from the south side of New Britski.
Parts of Southington are horrible for OTA, parts are capable of getting 2,3,4,5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 13 on VHF analog w/ an outdoor antenna. Lots more on UHF. Parts get 3 and 8, maybe ome real fuzzy NYC stuff with the same rig.
Same thing for Kensington. In most of South NB you get diddly squat, same thing in parts of Kensington, other areas will get a station on pratically every VHF frequency (w/ an outside rig).
And in areas in North New Britain, particularly on the hillsides that abut Stanley park and Farmington Ave, you get the boatload of stations vs the handfull in many other areas of town.
Having lived at the bottom of a hill for my first 25 years or so, I promised myself to always live on top of a hill since water (and other things) flow downhill. I kept that promise except for several years where I moved from one end of town with about 30 stations avail OTA (w/ an antenna) to a very low lying area that had only 4 good ones (with a good indoor antenna). If U like OTA TV, live in a location condusive to high quality (and quantity) reception like on top of (or at least on the correct side) of a hill.
I used to bemoan living on the first floor with crappy reception but remembered there's someone living in a basement with even crappier reception.
One thing that will definitely improve reception, particularly for 3-4 months a year is to take the TV outside, sit uder the stars, drink some beeer, and hope to hell you don't trip over the TV, converter box and power cords (or beer bottles).
 
Collins Street in the east end of New Britain was wonderful for channes 18, 22 and 24, while it was ok for channel 40 (it's by East Street and the Cumberland Farms). While I live now near Arch Street (south end), it pretty much sucks. Analog channel 3 is crap without a roof antenna, 8 and 59 are decent, 24, 30 and 61 are great (thanks Rattelsnake!) while 20 and 26 are so-so. Forget about 18, 22, 40 and 57 for me. The digital is spotty for channel 3 and 18 (thanks to Walnut Hill being in the same direction as Avon Mountain), while it's OK for channel 8 and 59. Channel 53 comes in enough to use, if necessary. 26 is almost never there while channel 20 only likely comes in due to the short distance from Rattlesnake (5 miles or less).
 
re the parts of southington that get ch 6, I had 1 friend and 1 relative that had outdoor antennas that got 6 out of Providence. One was Malcein Dr, one is a street I haven't visited in 20+ years because of a divorce. Even in a very low lying area of New Britain (high st.) our family got ch 6 prov. In Kensington my aunt got ch 6 prov. A sidelight, my aunt in naugatuck consistently got ch 6 schened, waay outsive their coverage area. And she had a low elevation but a monster antenna. All pictures were not city grade but definitely watchable.
 
That valley is not an area targeted by any channels except the low powered AM station that is always mentioned on this forum.

It's not really a population center, it's a suburban area populated by people who commute to other cities where reception is probably good. They obviously didn't move there for the OTA television reception!
 
Whale: Southington has decent OTA reception, better than many places than New Britain. Many places in NB have trouble getting a clear CH 8 analog. We did. And we had a good antenna.
My friends moved to Southington in the mid 70's and put up a decent sized antenna which got all the locals and watchable chuncks of the NYC market 5,9,11,(prob 85 mi as the crow flies) and peripheral reception on 6 10 12 out of Prov which were already duplicates. He got the UHF locals but nothing else out of market. Southington is JUST close enough to pull in NYC depending on one's location. In New Britain, less than 10 mi away, I got a watchable Ch 5 Boston with the antenna pointing east and a poor Ch 5 NYC pointing SW. I got a weak 9 out of N.H., nothing from NYC on 9.
All he cared about besides the networks were the games on 9 and 11 which would come in well enought watch.
I don't know what it is like now.
 
We ended up using the cheap indoor antenna for 10 1/2 days. For some reason the brain dead idiots at COX Cable told us we couldn't get cable even though all our neighbors got it. The idiot contractor (who works for both COX and COMCRAP) wanted to run a line from our neighbor's house into our house. Neither our neighbor nor my dad was too thrilled about that idea. We got DIRECTV on May 8th. We get 200+ channels - all the locals (except for 26 and LPTV 50) plus WCBS, WNBC, and WNYW and HBO, Movie Channel/Showtime, and Starz/Encore. We're happy, though I kind of miss WGBY/57 and WPIX/11 as an alternate PBS and CW affliliate respectively.
 
MarcB said:
We got DIRECTV on May 8th. We get 200+ channels - all the locals (except for 26 and LPTV 50) plus WCBS, WNBC, and WNYW and HBO, Movie Channel/Showtime, and Starz/Encore. We're happy, though I kind of miss WGBY/57 and WPIX/11 as an alternate PBS and CW affliliate respectively.
Click to expand...

Interesting that Directv would carry 3 NYC affiliates in Southington being that it is in Hartford County. I can understand Cox doing that since their Southington system probably overlaps with Cheshire and Meriden in New Haven county. Directv carries the national ION feed on channel 305, so you don't really need WHPX-26 seeing that they offer no local programming anyway.
 
I know I was surprised that we got those 3 NYC stations too, however they're not down by the local channels; they're up on 380, 382, and 388 respectively. My parents were thankful for WCBS last week when WFSB was having problems sending their signal to DIRECTV.

Interestingly we get Hartford's WUVN/18 but we also get the national Univision feed on 402.
 
Marc, what digital locals does COX pass through there? The Newington/Rocky Hill/Manchester areas pass through digital/HD for channels 3, 20, 30 and 61. Comcast here in New Britain also carries channel 8 and the cable-only digital station of WEDH.
 
MarcB said:
We ended up using the cheap indoor antenna for 10 1/2 days. For some reason the brain dead idiots at COX Cable told us we couldn't get cable even though all our neighbors got it. The idiot contractor (who works for both COX and COMCRAP) wanted to run a line from our neighbor's house into our house. Neither our neighbor nor my dad was too thrilled about that idea. We got DIRECTV on May 8th. We get 200+ channels - all the locals (except for 26 and LPTV 50) plus WCBS, WNBC, and WNYW and HBO, Movie Channel/Showtime, and Starz/Encore. We're happy, though I kind of miss WGBY/57 and WPIX/11 as an alternate PBS and CW affliliate respectively.
Click to expand...

Maybe they got tired of hearing you slander them on the internet. People do watch and listen.
 
MarcB said:
HD LOCAL CHANNELS on COX Digital Cable in Southington:

700 WVIT
701 WFSB
702 WTNH
703 "WEDH"
704 WTIC
705 WTXX
706 WCTX

Also NBC WEATHER PLUS is on Digital Basic 800 (meaning everyone gets it, not just HD customers). And 801 is Eyewitness News Now on Digital Basic 801.

Digital Basic 71-74 is Leased Access. Digital Basic 75 is WSAH/43.
Click to expand...

There is no such thing as an "HD Customer" except maybe for the likes of Discovery, et-al. the 700 tier is free to watch provided you have a set that can handle HD.
 
MarcB said:
HD LOCAL CHANNELS on COX Digital Cable in Southington:

700 WVIT
701 WFSB
702 WTNH
703 "WEDH"
704 WTIC
705 WTXX
706 WCTX

Also NBC WEATHER PLUS is on Digital Basic 800 (meaning everyone gets it, not just HD customers). And 801 is Eyewitness News Now on Digital Basic 801.
Click to expand...

So you get WCTX-DT on your lineup? Hmmm! We don't. I can get it over the air here in New Britain at least. I'm also able to get at least a decent signal of WEDN-DT (PBS) from Norwich. Hopefully that will change in the summer when WEDH-DT finally signs on!
With my LCD HDTV's QAM tuner, I get NBC Weather Plus on 88-3 and Eyewitness News Now on 89-3.
 
KML-224 said:
So you get WCTX-DT on your lineup? Hmmm! We don't. I can get it over the air here in New Britain at least. I'm also able to get at least a decent signal of WEDN-DT (PBS) from Norwich. Hopefully that will change in the summer when WEDH-DT finally signs on!
With my LCD HDTV's QAM tuner, I get NBC Weather Plus on 88-3 and Eyewitness News Now on 89-3.
Click to expand...

The DT rules are still in flux (non-existent). It'll be there on Feb 18, 2009 I can guarantee. Comcast is taking the transition very seriously, and I believe they have plans to pass the entire multiplex, when there is one.
 
Better to have DirecTV than OTA

Especially with the cutover to DT less than 9 months away.

WCBS-2, WNBC-4 and Fox 5 are Significantly Viewed stations for Southington. That's so you don't miss out on the football Giants ;D come summer and fall. You also have to put up with the Jets as well.

DirecTV adds Significantly Viewed channels based on town/city, not on county.

As you're in Southington you also get to see the Boston Red Sox :) on NESN with your basic DirecTV. The Olde Towne Team isn't available OTA except for the occasional Fox game.
 
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