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Providence Antenna Reception

R

riradioguy2

Greetings,

I live in Providence and use an indoor tv-top antenna with my digital television. I generally get Channels 5, 6, 10, 10.2, 12, 12.2, 28, 28.2, 36, 36.2, 44, 44.2, 44.3, 44.4, 64 & 64.2. As of yesterday, with no change to the antenna, I am no longer receiving Channels 5, 6, 12, 12.2, 28, 28.2, and the 44's. Does anyone have any idea why this might be or do I just need a new antenna?

Thanks,
 
So you get WCVB, WLNE, WJAR, WPRI, WLWC, WSBE, WGBX and WNAC. Two questions for you:

1- Have you had any reception of WPXQ-TV (ION) channel 69 of Block Island/Providence?
2- What type of indoor antenna are you using?
 
riradioguy2 said:
Does anyone have any idea why this might be or do I just need a new antenna?
Click to expand...

First thing I'd do is check the connection from the antenna to your TV or receiver. F-connectors can easily come loose or develop just enough corrosion to prevent a solid electrical connection.

Next thing I'd do is rescan the TV or converter box. They go stupid sometimes and lose the memory that tells them how to map channels.

If that still doesn't do the trick, most converter boxes and some TVs have a signal-strength display. Bring it up and see what it shows on both the channels you're still getting (10, 36 and 64, if I'm reading it right) and the ones that went away.

There's really nothing much in an antenna to "go bad" unless you're using an amplified antenna, and you shouldn't need one of those in Providence. (If you are using an amplified antenna, check the power cord to make sure it hasn't come loose!)
 
Thanks for the feedback. I am using a Philips Amplified Indoor antenna. It's about 8 in by 8 in black square and has 2 traditional rabbit ears that come out the top. I live in Providence near RIC and have no direct buildings in my path. My TV sits atop a 6-ft bookshelf, my antenna behind it slightly raised. I generally keep the "rabbit ears" up only about 6 inches and point the unit NW.

I have tried to get ION before but have never had any luck. Should I be able to recieve it based on all of the other stations I generally receive?

I did check the connections and everything is properly in place. I am incredibly mistified!
 
Also, I did check the power chord and it's not loose. And I don't have a converter box and also no longer have the original remote to the TV... just a universal... so I can't check signal strength on the channels. Though I will say I moved the antenna down about a foot and picked up Channel 12, but lost Channel 10 in the process. So they must be weaker than normal.
 
Sounds to me like the amplifier portion of your antenna, or perhaps the power supply that feeds it, may have died. Is there a light that comes on when the amplifier is powered up?

If my hunch is correct, then your antenna is in fact dead and you'll want to get a new one, preferably one without amplification. The one I recommend is the Terk HDTVi, which is hard to find at retail but pretty easy to find online.
 
Thanks for all your help Scott. I'm going to take your advice on the Terk, but one quick question: Will it HURT my reception to get the HDTVa amplified version? I only ask because I can go up the road to Radio Shack to buy it today... or I can order the HDTVI version online and practice patience.
 
It's hard to know for sure if it will hurt your reception to get the amplified version; I'm not sure if the amplifier in the HDTVa can be turned off without breaking the signal path completely.

Here's why I (and a lot of engineers I know) dislike amplified indoor antennas for DTV: what matters for quality DTV reception isn't raw signal strength, it's signal-to-noise ratio. You can have a very weak DTV signal, but if the signal-to-noise level is above the threshold of your receiver, it will still decode perfectly. The amplifiers in these cheap set-top antennas are, unfortunately, cheap amplifiers...and while they may amplify the incoming RF signal, they also amplify the noise and often add more noise as well. What's more, those cheap amplifiers can be easily overloaded, so when they're used in an area with fairly strong signals (and in Providence, you're fairly close to the TV towers in Rehoboth), they can actually get so overwhelmed by the strong signals that weaker ones get wiped out.

So I'd counsel patience: order the HDTVi online and see what it does for you. I suspect you'll find yourself actually getting more stations that way than you did with the old antenna, especially the Boston ones.
 
Thanks Scott, you've been very helpful. I'm going to order the version online. I've read your website for years; it's great. Thanks again.

Mike
 
Did you do a rescan? After the transition from EDT to DST, which happened right before your original post, a lot of older digital tuners don't handle the time change well, and require a rescan.
 
Scott Fybush said:
It's hard to know for sure if it will hurt your reception to get the amplified version; I'm not sure if the amplifier in the HDTVa can be turned off without breaking the signal path completely.
Click to expand...

The Amplifier portion on the Terk is just an in line amp that goes on the end of the coax cable, between the antenna and TV. If you just don't put that in line, there is no difference between the two.
 
I just received my new antenna this morning; haven't had a chance to hook it up. My old antenna, the one I referenced in this post, had the amp inside somehow. There was nothing on the end of the coax cable. It merely had a coax cable coming out of it that went into the TV, and a small input for the electrical plug.

Regarding the scan... I have a digital TV and have never had to scan for channels... those that are available, or even become availble (such as when WPRI added COOLTV) just appear.
 
Hi Folks,

Just wanted to give an update in case anyone is interested. I did receive the Terk non-amplified antenna but unfortunately I did receive fewer stations than I had initially with the Philips amplified antenna. With the Terk I received: 6, 10, 10.2, 12, 12.2, 36, 36.2, 64, 64.2. I did NOT receive the 44's out of Boston, 5 out of Boston or 28 & 28.1. I re-packaged the Terk to return it (because it's also giganctic & bulky) and plugged my Philips back in, WITHOUT the amplifier power chord. This actually enabled me to receive the same channels above. As I'm trying to watch less TV anyway I'm sticking with this option.

Thanks to all for your help!
 
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