I would like to find out what is required for me to receive OTA hd signals in northern Waterloo. I live in an apartment building on the 15th floor. It is the highest buliding in the area. Can anyone recommend an indoor set up which would suffice? If indoor will not work, is there an outdoor setup which I could install on my balcony (it is facing roughly south-west). Only problem with the outside setup is that my balcony is enclosed.
I would appreciate any information.

Thanks

It sounds like you have a difficult orientation with a southwestern exposure. Strong HD signals are available from Buffalo and somewhat weaker signals from Stoney Creek mountain which would be south east of you. Weaker HD signals are available from Toronto which would be east of you.
You don't necessarily need to point directly at these signals but parts of your antenna must have some line of sight to these signals.

I do quite well from Hamilton mountain but I have clear line of sight and boom antenna with a rotor.

I know some of the folks here in urban areas have some success with indoor antennas placed out on balconies picking up signals as they deflect off of building etc.

Daniel probably has some more insight into this as I believe he has or is using an indoor setup.

Read some of the previous threads in the Toronto Buffalo OTHD reception forum as some of the members describe their antenna setup as well provide some helpful links.

Hello I to live in Waterloo .. and have passed along my results ( i'm on the ninth floor facing east ) I'm honestly not sure what you might pickup facing southwest.. ) Detroit is 180 miles away Erie might be 150 miles away. London will eventually have a digital signal (A Channel) I am by no means an expert in this field..however that being said i'm always happy to share my experiences. Perhaps since were so close in vicinity (we can learn from each other. )

Rocket65,
You said that you have passed along your results but I do not see them. Are they in another thread?
I have recently bought a new tv with atsc tuner and since I am not planning to order cable, I would like to know if given my location it is worth to invest the money.

(my ota post is number #1438 on February 24th 2008 ) what ive been able to pick up since E channel 11-1 (Hamilton) and sporadically CTS at 36-1 if your seeking out a signal analysis of your exact coordinates and what's available check out www.tvfool.com

I recently put up an antenna, I live in North Waterloo.

I am having a problem getting any of the digital channels.
For analog channels I get
I can get CKCOTV (13) as if they were broadcasting in my room,
I get CityTV2 (31), CHCHTV (11), CIIITV (6), CBLNTV1 (56), CICOTV28 (28), CBLFT8 (61) and somehow CFPLTV (10)

According to TvFool.com I should be getting a number of digital channels as well,
especially ones like CIII-TV (6.1), CKCO-TV (13.1)

I am in an apartment facing south, is digital require better LOS? I figure the proximity to these stations should totally allow me to receive that channel.

I should mention that my TV does have the ability to tune digital channels.
I have a Sharp (LC-46D62U),
It has a Setup Digital Antenna part in the menu which is greyed out until it detects a digital signal.

If your Sharp has not detected the digital channels during settup, you will have to tune to the digital channels manually at which point it will add them to its memory. You need to enter the actual channel number and not the so called virtual numbers. (I wish they would scrap this virual channel number scheme).

You should get the following digital channels:

CBLFT 49.1
CIII 30.1
CKCO 7.1 (note, this is on VHF unlike most others which are on UHF)
CHCH 18.1
CKNX 62.1

Unfortunately I cannot manually add digital channels until it can detect a digital signal to unlock the setup digital antenna. I do not know why it does this, its kind of a terrible setup.

This could be a problem with my TV, I have seen a number of posts by people on the internet complaining about this, but most seemed to solve their problem by using the auto channel tuning.

So for 30.1 for example, why does it have a .1?
Is this some standard for digital channels?

Using your AQUOS remote go to:

Menu (on the remote)
Scroll over to Setup, Enter
Scroll down to Channel Setup, Enter
Scroll down to Air/Cable, Enter
Scroll Down to Air, Enter
Make sure your antenna (not cable) is connected to the TV

Now using the remote just enter the ACTUAL digital channel number that you want to watch. For example enter 18.1 to watch virtual CHCH 11.1. The TV does not recognize virtual channel numbers until it has locked onto the actual channel's PSIP which then identifies it as 11.1. Once you've tuned into this channel it will be added to the momory.

I will take your word for it,
the manual says nothing about entering the numbers manually,
hopefully I do not need a firmware update
Thanks, I will try this when I get home!

Finally, okay...
SO I was wondering before about the 18.1 and what the .1 meant.. well I did not see the button with the big DOT on it, so it literally means put in 18.1.
Had I noticed this button before this may have worked long ago.
For people new to digital signals, this is not very obvious!


Thanks,

nhoel here is my insight regarding your reception to the best of my knowledge and from personal experience neither global or ctv are broadcasting in waterloo region on the digital band (6-1 13-1) tvfool has this listed for future undertaking ..currently ctv is broadcasting on 9-1 out of toronto as well global is at 65-1 . you are absolutely correct when you mentioned digital is line of sight. that is why you need to be facing the transmitter and the higher your elevation the better (Waterloo is at an elevation of 1030 above sea level ) this can aid in broadcast reception to a point ..of course however the downside is that Waterloo is also a fringe reception area which means that many signals are quite weak by the time they penetrate this market. I live in west waterloo in a ninth floor condominium unit facing east the only station that I'm able to nab daily without fail is cbc hd 5-1 all of the rest tend to be quite sporadic. I have posted my entire list earlier on. depending on your current elevation and your southerly direction you may be able to successfully capture burlington's cts 36-1 hamilton's chch 11-1 and toronto's cbc 5-1 as well due to the elevation and high power output perhaps even buffalo's cbs (wivb 4-1) and abc's (wkbw 7-1 and it's affiliate station rtn 11 7-2.. ) these two stations have high output power (790 kw) for cbs and close to (400 kw) for abc their transmitters are each at approximately 1400 feet of elevation. in closing you will find that if it's foggy out or rainy out count on poor to no reception.

Yeah I managed to get 18.1 (11.1)
but the building across the parking lot from me is blocking my LOS on all other stations it seems.

If I could only get a little more height, but I am not able to put this on the roof.
Of course I would also need a convenient way to rotate my antenna then.

Thanks for the help