As you can seen by my info, i'm in the bayview/sheppard area of north york. I have a 4228 channel master antenna and i'm working at trying to get abc out of buffalo (channel 7.1 on my tv). so far hi-def wise i have the following

cbc 5.1
cbc french 25.1
cfto 9.1
city 53.1
toronto 1 66.1
wnlo pbs broadcasting cbs 23.1
wutv 29.1

but i would really like to still get abc and i have rotated my antenna a couple degrees while tuned to 7.1 and did a complete sweep from southeast to southwest and i'm not getting anything. i've been at this for over 2 weeks. as far as i know abc is supposed to be something people have an easy time at even at long distances. can someone pls give some pointers at what i'm doing wrong?

some more info- i'm in an appt building with the antenna out on the balconywith a clear shot at south to southwest. i'm on the 4th floor of the 4 floor complex and when shooting to the southeast i can shoot out over the top of the building. the balcony is metal and has a metal divider separating my neighbour and i which i'm thinking might give some type of interference, however i get the other channels listed above, so....

pls post or email with any pointers you can give.
thanks

ABC is the furthest away station in Buffalo. Since you don't mention being able to get 33-1 (AKA 2-1) or 39-1 (AKA 4-1), two other stations in the same general region as ABC, it sounds like you need more gain, like a preamp, and possibly an antenna with higher directionality, like the CM 4248.

If you haven't already, take a look at the location map.

I was thinking that could be the case, but i've had other people post on this forum (i'm sure i saw a guy from bayview and steeles which is a little further north with the same antenna have no problems. if i were to try a pre-amp, is there anyone with a suggestion of one to try?

yes i have checked the location map. that's why i have the 8-bay antenna now as i had a 4-bay and thought according to one of the sites that the 8-bay is supposed to have a little more gain and would be able to get me another 10miles or so and thought that would be enough to get those towers that are a little further away and past grand island.

Channel Master's preamp is good.

before i go out and get a preamp though, does anyone else have any other ideas?

could it be all the metal out on the balcony causing interference?

as far as channel 7 (abc) the analog channel, i get a snowy black and white picture and decent sound. as far as i've heard with hdtv, you either get it or you don't, unlike the analog. if i get that kind of reception on the analog, does that mean i'm close to being able to tune in the hdtv version?

also would this cause any problems (going to a preamp) with stronger channels, ie. cbc?

I live almost directly west of you in northern Etobicoke and am able to get all of the available stations with my indoor antenna. Now mind you, some of them are definitely tougher to get than others but for me ABC is one of the easier Buffalo stations to get as I guess you have heard from others.

When trying to tune into ABC HD have you been checking your signal strengh meter? If so, are you getting any signal at all? I think if you are getting a weak signal showing up that a preamp would help but if you aren't getting any signal at all then you must not have a clear shot in the direction that the signal is coming from. I found that with my internal antenna my signal strength can go from 0 bars to 8 bars by just moving the antenna a few feet in right direction.

I hope this helps.

7's reception won't tell you much about how 38 will come in, since that's VHF and you have a UHF antenna. :-)

ota aok- unfortunately i don't have a signal meter as my hdtv tuner is built right into my tv (sony 60xs). so basically i can just do scan's with the tv and either channels come in or they don't. i don't have a way of figuring out if i'm close or not, so it's very frustrating.

daniel- by going on the channel list,
[Link: remotecentral.com]
it seems my channels show as the bottom smaller channels in black, ie. for cbc i get it on 5.1 not 20.1 and fox i get on 29.1 not 14.1, so i'm assuming for abc i would get it on 7.1 not 38.1.

so does anyone have any idea of a work around to figure out strength, anyway with a regular expressvu receiver that you can scan strengths of ota signals (i really really doubt it), but i'm grasping at straws here.

The large number is the channel number the station is actually broadcasting on. The small number is the "PSIP channel map", basically a virtual pointer to make the digital channel seem more related to the long-estabilished analog one. Think of 7-1 as a shortcut to 38-1.

All of the stations you currently get are essentially close-range. ABC, NBC and CBS are further range. What's your analog reception like on channel 49 (The WB)?

wb (49) comes in in colour, but a little snowy with ghosting and you can hear a 'fuzz' in the analog. if i had to compare say a strong signal that's crisp and clear as 100%, i'd guess the wb is coming in somewhere around 65-70% maybe. i rotated the antenna around a little to see if it made any difference and it didn't seem to change much. what do you think?

and if you think i'll need a preamp, do you think that will cause any problems with the close toronto channels, mainly cbc as it seems to be the strongest?

thanks again for all your help.

With the antenna tweaked, 49 should come in fairly clearly if you want to get the others. Before I installed my current antenna 49 was fuzzy, and I didn't really get any of the south Buffalo stations.

Re the preamplifier, I think it'll depend on the receiver. I've got a dual UHF antenna stack on a 44' tower with a strong preamp and my reception of Toronto stations is **super** strong - for instance my antennas are very directional and yet City-DT comes in almost ANYWHERE I aim them. Yes, you can overwhelm your receiver, however Toronto stations are fairly low power to start with so it may not be an issue.

so basically you're saying if i 'tweak' the antenna to get in channel 49 (wb), that if i do a rescan, i should be able to finally get the south buffalo stations? if so i'll work on that this weekend.

as for my receiver, my hdtv is built into my tv, so it's the tv itself, i just want to make sure i don't have issues with other channels (toronto) because the amp gives too much gain on those and obviously don't want to damage the tv.

No, what I mean is 49 seems to have a fairly narrow range of clear reception for me, even with the big antennas, so your antenna needs to be fairly "on" to check true reception of 49 (ie. don't just blindly aim south and go with that).

Also, 49 is fairly to the east of the other channels, so it's not too useful for aiming. However it's about the only strong analog UHF station in that region, so it can used be a rough guide for your overall signal strength.

From what you're reporting you REALLY need amplification. You won't be able to boost it enough to do any damage. However a too strong signal can be as much of a problem as a too weak signal.

Weak          Good      Too Strong
___......-----====---...___     <- Quality

so overall you say go with a preamp? and i should have all my problems solved? if i go for one, i'm looking at probably the channelmaster 777

Nothing with an antenna is a guarantee. But from what you've said, it SOUNDS like you need more gain, so try out a quality preamp like the CM 777X series.