Sometimes I'll check on WBBZ-TV, the low power station from Springfield, N.Y. with all those great subcarriers, It rarely comes in here, but it occasionally rates a signal strength of up to 70 - but zero signal quality. How can one be that strong and the other non-existent?  

Thanks. As thick as I am on this stuff, you actually explained it in a way I understand. The only problem is I don't want to have to buy a 3.0 set to eliminate the problem! But I guess that will come in time. 

With streaming all the rage, will ATSC 3.0 actually be popular enough to catch on? Or will we eventually see the end of over-the-air distribution as we know it before it comes to that? Never has the future of the kind of TV most of us grew up with seemed so cloudy. (Or should that be snowy? Yeah, maybe not. That was an analogue problem!)

Yeah, I have tried that. I get almost nothing without it. Better to lose one or two channels than all of them! But I appreciate the suggestion. 

True. I get some of them, but anything even remotely out of town (including CHCH) and anything from Buffalo disappears. Even sometimes a few of the T.O. stations go when I try it disconnected, depending on conditions. Not sure why, but I've concluded over the years that I can't be without an amp.

Even if it means I'm occasionally overdriving the DVR it's connected to. Occasionally, this happens with Global's signal off the CN Tower. Both signal strength and signal quality are at 100, but the screen stays black. A rotor adjustment usually fixes that issue. But then my Buffalo signals are affected. 

I guess there's no happy medium on this medium! 

I do recall reading you on this before. I tried a different amp, but returned it when it didn't work even as well as the one I replaced. The antenna is on a splitter - one to the living room DVR (a Channel Master DVR+ made for OTA signals only and a wonderful machine), the other to another DVR+ upstairs. 

I think you're also correct - I'm just not close enough to the WIVB transmitter to get it consistently. You just never know from one day to the next if it will be there. Sometimes it's there as a show starts and then disappears or pixelates towards the end. (It always seems to happen just as the show is about to end!) Depends on the weather and more. Just something that I have to live with, unless I move closer - and that ain't happening any time soon!

But I thank all of you who responded about the reason a strong signal strength doesn't necessarily translate into a decent signal quality. Frustrating, but as Walter Cronkite used to say on the CBS affiliate I now have trouble receiving, "That's the way it is..."

It's an old UHF antenna that dates back to the analogue days, but it still works pretty well over all. There are some VHF crossfires (I think they're called) up there, too, but they're no longer terribly useful. The tower is about 40' high and there's a rotor that controls both. The line of sight is fairly clear, but there are some trees across the street that might interfere. 

Not sure of the cabling - it went in in 1991. There's a splitter in the living room and another off the same antenna in the upstairs bedroom. It was originally installed for analogue, but with the amp (outside, on the tower) everything worked well. 

It was pretty good, even with the switch to digital, until the repack! That's when everything changed. I've had a few antenna people up here to look at it over the years, but they did very little and charged me very much! But you can't say I didn't try. Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that it is what it is, and it's not likely to change anytime soon. 

Still, outside of WIVB and WNLO, I really can't complain. I get just about everything else 24/7, so overall I guess I'm good. 

RadioActive wrote:

Not sure of the cabling - it went in in 1991. There's a splitter in the living room and another off the same antenna in the upstairs bedroom.

What is the route of the antenna cable?  I presume one splitter is fed off the first splitter?  If so, the signal at that point will be about 1/4 of that at the antenna (at best).  Possibly your pre-amp has multiple outputs?

If you have poor and/or long runs of coax cable (100ft - 30m) and multiple spiltters, you are probably dealing with a marginal signal at the receiver.  Throw in some multipath and/or pre-amp overload (which generates spurious signals that can interfere with the wanted signal) and you are fighting a loosing battle (that you can't see).  All is fixable, but you need to know what your doing, and be willing to spend a few $$.

Every OTA signal is different.  Not all will work 100% all the time.

Even with a well designed installation, there may not be enough signal in the air at your location for everything to work well.

Such is wireless transmission....


 

RadioActive wrote:

With streaming all the rage, will ATSC 3.0 actually be popular enough to catch on? Or will we eventually see the end of over-the-air distribution as we know it before it comes to that?

It will hit a point 3.0 will be the standard and 1.0 will be mandated off the air (in the USA).  It's not a "will it catch on" it  will hit a point that if you want OTA, you have to upgrade or add a box.    I think in Canada, things will be different because there is less effort by the owners to care about OTA signals. We will have to see.