Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

[TheRover]

Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

I have a Technical Question:

Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DTV Converter Box ? ?

I bought the RCA DTV Converter and, an HDTV Antenna.

Should I have just purchased the Rabbit ears, and not an antenna that says it's an HDTV antenna ? ?

But, I get no signal strength coming across to pull in any digital channels....

Several years ago, when I had some rabbit ears (which I no longer have), I was able to receive most local channels where I now live.

I --don not-- have a an HDTV. The set is 6 years old.

 

[dhett]

Re: Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

There's no such thing as an "HDTV antenna". That's just phony marketing. An antenna is an antenna and will work with any analog TV, any SDTV, or any HDTV. Many times, "HDTV antenna" is a euphemism for UHF-only antenna, and next year, many people are going to be sorely disappointed.

What you need to know is, are your local DTV signals VHF, UHF, or both? And what will they be after 2/17/09? For example, in Phoenix, Arizona, all 12 DTV signals are UHF, so a UHF-only antenna will pick them up. However, after the end of the transition, KAET, KSAZ and KPNX will go back to their old VHF allocations, 8, 10 and 12, respectively, so you would need to have an antenna that can pick up VHF also.

The first question one needs to know to determine if your antenna is any good is, in what TV market do you live?

 

[pabsungenis]

Re: Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

Forget "HDTV" and "DTV" markings. They're just standard UHF or V/U combo antennas, branded to move.

Go to antennaweb.org to see how powerful an antenna you will need - interior or exterior, amplified or not - and look for any antenna that meets the needed criterior.

 

[TheRover]

Re: Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

Forget "HDTV" and "DTV" markings. They're just standard UHF or V/U combo antennas, branded to move.

Go to antennaweb.org to see how powerful an antenna you will need - interior or exterior, amplified or not - and look for any antenna that meets the needed criterior.

Right....

I was... assumming, that if I was able to receive most over-the-air UHF & VHF channels with rabbit ears, that I would also receive most Digital Channels over-the-air with rabbit ears, and a DTV Converter box.

And yes, it's clear that most of our Major Network TV stations will be going back to VHF after the Feb. 17, 2009 date, according to antennaweb.org.

I'm still puzzled as to why the RCA DTA800B Converter box, shows "No Signal Strength" with the Phillips SDV2210/17 HDTV Antenna. Maybe I have assign a particular digital channel, and then look for the signal strength....

Fisrt time Digital Converter Box user...

 

[TheRover]

Re: Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

------------------PROBLEM SOLVED-----------------

It turns out that I MUST to do a Channel Scan INITALLY, before trying to punch through to any digital channel.

So, the $9 HDTV antenna does work OK with the DTV box !

I think that I was remembering how Cable TV would allow you to punch though to a channel before initally doing any Channel Scan with the TV set.

 

[FightingIrish]

Re: Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

Forget "HDTV" and "DTV" markings. They're just standard UHF or V/U combo antennas, branded to move.

Go to antennaweb.org to see how powerful an antenna you will need - interior or exterior, amplified or not - and look for any antenna that meets the needed criterior.

Right....

I was... assumming, that if I was able to receive most over-the-air UHF & VHF channels with rabbit ears, that I would also receive most Digital Channels over-the-air with rabbit ears, and a DTV Converter box.

And yes, it's clear that most of our Major Network TV stations will be going back to VHF after the Feb. 17, 2009 date, according to antennaweb.org.

I'm still puzzled as to why the RCA DTA800B Converter box, shows "No Signal Strength" with the Phillips SDV2210/17 HDTV Antenna. Maybe I have assign a particular digital channel, and then look for the signal strength....

Fisrt time Digital Converter Box user...

From what I've seen, many current VHF channels (analog) will use their UHF digital allocations after next February, particularly the ones currently on the lower VHF spectrum (2-6). That spectrum is not very good for DTV, though the higher VHF (7-13) seems to do well.

Wikipedia is a pretty good source for this stuff. The people updating the individual articles on TV stations have done a really good job keeping up to date on it, particularly which channel allocations will be the permanent DTV ones after 2009. Just type in the call letters of a local station to get started, and use the navigational boxes at the bottom of the page to check for your market.

 

[pabsungenis]

Re: Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

I was... assumming, that if I was able to receive most over-the-air UHF & VHF channels with rabbit ears, that I would also receive most Digital Channels over-the-air with rabbit ears, and a DTV Converter box.

Sometimes. Some of the stations are still lower powered on their DTV allotment, and might be tricky to get until they move to their final resting place or go up to full power.

It also depends upon your physical location and some other aspects. I could never get WTXF-DT in Philadelphia off of my amplified roof antenna, but a friend across town gets it, and all the other DTV stations, beautifully off an indoor antenna just by pointing it at the water tower a block away.

 

[w9wi]

Re: Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

------------------PROBLEM SOLVED-----------------

It turns out that I MUST to do a Channel Scan INITALLY, before trying to punch through to any digital channel.

So, the $9 HDTV antenna does work OK with the DTV box !

I think that I was remembering how Cable TV would allow you to punch though to a channel before initally doing any Channel Scan with the TV set.

Good to know it's working.

DTV stations aren't broadcasting on the channels you think they are. Consider WNPT, the PBS station here in Nashville. Most viewers know this station as "Channel 8", and if you have an analog TV you punch in "08" to watch PBS. In fact, WNPT's analog video signal is broadcast on 181.25MHz, the frequency listed in FCC Regulation 73.603 (and known to the general public) as Channel 8.

WNPT is also broadcasting a digital signal. They can't use 181.25MHz - channel 8 - for that digital signal. It would interfere with reception of their analog signal which is already on that frequency. So the FCC has assigned them a different frequency. 662.31MHz, listed in 73.603 as channel 46.

Thing is, WNPT's audience knows the station as channel 8. It's been 8 since 1970. They'd rather not suddenly become "Channel 46" - and have to explain that to their audience.

So, WNPT's digital signal on channel 46 broadcasts a "Virtual Channel Table", or "VCT". This is a digital signal that tells your TV "This station is WNPT. We're transmitting on channel 46 but we want you to tell your human we're channel 8.". And your TV complies.

But the only way your TV can receive that VCT from WNPT is if it tunes to channel 46 first to find it. That's what the mandatory channel scan is all about. WIthout that channel scan, when you punch "8" on your remote, your digital TV has no idea what "real" channel to look on to find the station that you, the viewer, think is channel 8.

Now, many models of digital TV, if you punch in a channel number when you haven't scanned in the channels, the DTV will tune to the RF channel you punched in. If you punch in "8" on a DTV that hasn't done a channel scan, the DTV will look on RF channel 8. In Nashville, what it will find is WNPT's analog signal. The DTV box can't decode analog signals, so it will tell you there's nothing there. (in Nashville, if you punch in "46" on a box that hasn't done a channel scan, you'll get WNPT.)

If you'd known the RF channel numbers of your local TV stations, you probably could have watched them without doing the channel scan first. But all of the channel numbers would have been wrong - 27 instead of 2; 10 instead of 4; 56 instead of 5; 46 instead of 8; 15 instead of 17; etc.....

 

[TheRover]

Re: Technical Question: Will an "HDTV" Antenna work with a DVT Converter Box ? ?

This evening, I have made a list of all of the Digital Channels that I know of broadcasting in my area.

I tweaked the gain control on the Phillips Antenna MANT510 and picked up almost 30 channels logged onto the converter box.

The Punch through option, with the converter remote, has you first enter the main channel number, like "8" for example, then press the "-" key, and then press the sub channel number: 1,2,3,4,or 5.

Before I tweaked the antenna gain, the inital channel scan did log channel 8 or channel 5. I tried to punch in 8.1 after that inital channel scan, and got no place holder--nothing.

But after tweaking the gain control on the antenna, and doing another channel scan, channels 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, and 5.1 and 5.1 got logged.

I wanted 8.2 for the weather it displays, and 8.3 for the DFW Airport tower cam that it displays. 5.2 also has weather.

This is all good, because I still want to avoid paying Time Warner for their "digital servcies" and their mid-tier pricing, just to get The Weather Channel, (which I don't get now), but the local weather "channels" now come in with the free, over the air digital reception !