Don,

Want a fix for your reception issues?

Mount the antenna outside!

I know, I know, you and your neighbors don't want to see it out there. But really, that would make all the difference in the world.

In Greensboro here, approximately 90 miles from the WRAL antenna, and can get the station with either a 4228, or a Square Shooter, mounted at 20' from ground level.

Trunk-Slammer -Supreme,

I have been giving it some thought especially since I just picked up a Pioneer PDP-434OHD over the weekend.

Heck the Pioneer downstairs had very solid reception using its built in HD tuner and my old powerd RCA tv top antenna for WRAL and Fox than I am getting upstairs on my Samsung using the 4228 in the attic and amplifier. I don't know if all the foilage is the culprit or maybe the amp is overheating in the hot attic. All I know is it is frustrating.

But.. I will admit that the Pioneer and RCA tv top antenna would not receive PBS no matter what way I oriented the RCA.

Now I have to figure out how to get Coax down to the Pioneer that is two floors down from the attic.

-Don B

I routed coax downstairs and now have the Pioneer hooked up to my antennas. So far reception sucks ! We have been experiencing rain lately. I was actually receiving ABC,CBS,NBC, and FOx better over the RCA powered TV top antenna.

Maybe my booster is going bad on the attic antennas. I was so PO'd that I walked out side and investigated where I could mount an outdoor antenna that would not be conspicuous.

Even my PBS reception which had been close to rock solid was dropping out about every ten to 15 minutes. Nothing serious but picuture would freeze followed by audio cutting out. I could put up with it if the audio wouldn't drop out.

I am about ready to hook the RCA back up but it bugs me that the attic equipment does not work better.

In addition I noticed the the PBS station was not supplying program guide info last night or this morning. And this was on both the Pioneer and the Samsung. I was seeing program guides for the other stations I receive.

-Don B

I agree with Truck Slammer Supreme.

I used to have antenna attic mounted, and would constantly be tweaking and adjusting to get channel A which would then have a negative effect on Channel B, so I tinker some more, now Channel A & B is fine but no channel C if the weather is bad...and so on; frustrating.

Since I mounted on the roof, I've simply sat back and enjoyed. - with the one exception of CBC-E, though that seems to be working lately...but that channel is just a "nice to have, but not essential" for me.

Sure it's not pretty, I guess it depends on your neighborhood, and the broadcasters in your area. I'm in an older neigborhood where others have big VHF antennas, so in that context mine dont look so bad.

If you get a nice weekend, you could just try throwing up a temporary mount of some kind, and drop the coax thru the window - just to see if the results would be worth it before commiting to anything further, depending on your location and which way your facing, you may be lucky and be able to mount it at the rear of your house, on your roof at about roofline height - barely noticable from the front.

I am attempting one last gasp . I am moving a cross truss higher up on the attic so I can slide the 4228 under and have more room to rotate the antenna. Only need to move one. Will put the new cross truss up first before removing the old cross truss of course.

The SS- 2000 is small enough to be no problem on the other end of the attic pointed towards the Chapel Hill PBS station.

-Don B

I watched 24 on Fox 50 in HD last night. It was pretty good. I wish I had caught Star Wars Sunday since I am told it was also broadcast in HD over Fox 50.

-Don B

Last night I got a chance to see how much better my reception was after moving the 4228 antenna and orienting it more North..

I now can get ABC,CBS,NBC,FOX,WB,UPN with very good signals and even PBS can be watched although if I were to watch PBS I would use my SS 2000 antenna at the other end of the attic.

The only channels I don't get and I probably could with a rotor is PAX and the Spanish network, also I think there is a shoppiing channel.

So I am happy but of course reception is subject to change with out notice !!

PAX has about 5 channels so it may be worth investing in a rotor down the road.

-Don B

I installed a remote a/b switch in the attic this morning. It will allow me to switch bettween my two antennas in the attic without having to go up into the attic.

I could not find a radio remote or X10 remote a/b switch so what I ended up with was 1-infrared a/b switch and 1-radio remote repeater from Radio Shack.

I have the a/b remote and 1/2 of the radio remote downstairs and than the other half of the radio remote and the a/b switch in the attic.

-Don B

I am receiving much better reception after relocating the 4228 which points towards FOX , ABC and so on. After moving it I was able to rotate it enough to remove the ghosting problems that I was getting before. Basically I can rotate it 360 degrees if I have to.

In fact I watched "Traffic" last night in 16:9 HD and had 99 % perfect reception.

I still have the SS 2000 at the other end of the attic to receive PBS exclusively.

I am in the process of replacing the mechanical A/B switch that I placed between the antennas with a wireless remote A/B switch from Radio Shack.


It is possible that I could receive all channels on the 4228 including PBS if I invested in a rotor but one thing at a time.
-Don B

I experienced a little of what other people have commented about concering audio in other posts. Last night I switched to PBS 4-2 which is the HD multicast and it was not producing any audio. Picture was there but no audio. It was some show about Volcanoes. - Quiet ones !

Also PBS still does not have their guide working.

-Don B

I noticed another weird HD display.

It was while watching UPN and WB22. I receive both of them with bars on the side but one of them I can stretch and the other one I can not stretch. I guess one is broadcast in digital and the other in HD.

-Don B

HD issues that keep catching me:

Several times now I have completed a channel search on my ATSC tuners only to find I have lost a station that I previously had. This can happen depending on a lot of things including which one of my two antenna I have selected when I am doing the search.

The other night I lost WB22 and UPN28 which I was getting 70 to 80 signal strength from. Anything above 63 on my Pioneer tuner is typically rock solid reception.

Once I saw they were missing I punched 22.1 and 28.1 and could still not receive them. The signal strength meter was rock solid at 49 if I remember correctly.

And this was with either antenna that I was able to select with my A/B switch.

To make a long story short I needed to select 23 for 22 and 27 for 28 and than it found the stations.

Someone else can speak better on this but I guess 22 is broadcast on 23 and when it is received by your tuner it is switched via software/hardware to 22 which the station broadcasts on over NTSC. I think it is like a DNS name in the Internet Web world.

Oh well I am sure I will get sucked in again.

-Don B

I notice that now when I go to antennaweb.org and enter my zip code for the Raleigh NC area that Pax channel 47 appears as follows:
WRPX 47 i ROCKY MOUNT NC 56° 48.3 47

In the past it had PAX in the area where the "i" now appears. I assume it means independent but does anyone else have more info ?

-Don B

On 7/7 and today I had trouble with more than one OTA digital station, in particular last night 5.1 acted up and this morning 11.1. I would have a solid 80 to 90 percent signal strength and than a minute later it would drop to 45 or so and than go back to 80 or 90.

It was similar to in the past when I was experiencing multi path problems which I thought I had resolved.

I am guessing that it may be from the heavy rainstorm that was moving through the area which could have been messing wtih signal strength or causing mult path problems. Or since my 4228 is mounted in the attic maybe rain water had built up on the roof reflecting the signal or what ever.

The only other thing that has changed is that I had reassembled the plastic cover back on my remote Radio Shack A/B switch which I use to select between the 4228 and my SS 2000. The reason the cover was off to begin with is that it would not work at all on one side of the switch when I first got it and I took it apart to see if there was a loose connection. I did not find one and attributed the problem to a 75 ohm jack that had some dirt in it from the factory on the A/B switch.

Tonight I will take the A/B switch completely out of the circuit and see what happens.

Don B

When I got home I tried the same channel that was breaking up this morning. It did the same thing as before working for awhile than dropping to 5 out of 8 and losing the signal.

I then looked at the same channel over analog tv and it had a ghosty picture.

I went up in the attic and disconnected the ab switch and hooked up the 4228 antenna by itself.

I go down stairs and all the ghosts are gone. Best analog picture I have ever seen. I than switch to digital and the station has not dropped out once in an hour.

I got thinking maybe PBS will be better and I don't need the a/b switch for the SS 2000 antenna so I switched to the digital pbs station and it would barely come in signal strength of about 6 max.

I switched to analog PBS and I had a very viewable picture. I can't believe that the digital picture does not come in better.

I will replace the A/B switch. It appears to be unreliable.

-Don B