Hello to all

I am offering myself as the " go to guy " for TV antenna questions.

As you can notice from by screen name I am DASK ( Dave's Antenna Service Kitchener ) a business I had for 25 years that sold and installed antennas for everything from TV , 2 way , data..... you name it !

The business has long been closed but may re-surface.

ASK AWAY ........

Do I need to upgrade my antenna to get these new digital stations, or will my old one on the roof work?

Welcome Dave.. I see that we both reside in Kitchener-Waterloo so here is my situation. I live in west Waterloo in a highrise condo on the ninth floor I'm approximating 100 feet off ground. condo rules stipulate that the aesthetics of the building must not be compromised. my only option is an indoor setup currently speaking I have the antennacraft mini-state antenna coupled with 60 feet of coaxial cable. it is perched in my sunroom by my front window halfway up any higher the concrete and steel girders affect performance. I face roughly east. according to the manufacturer the antenna is rated for reception within a 40 mile radius of course the only stations that are within that range are chch tv and cts the rest are 60 miles plus.and come in sporadically. my tv is a 2007 Panasonic Viera TC-32 LX700 my primary focus is on the digital signals are you aware of any directional antenna with high gain coupled with a low noise amplfier that you could possibly recommend based on my current location. one thing that was pointed out by some other forum members was to track down an antenna with larger elements however the ones they recommend seemed to be rated for the same 40 mile radius. any thoughts recommendations please.

Hi Dave . I was wondering if you could help me. I am an spanish speaking person who lives in Mississauga (for now , another winter like this and my car wont stop until miami, lol) but wants to be able to watch spanish speaking programming from at least this 2 major american networks, Univision and Telemundo. It could be in SD , I could care less about HD despite my username and unfortunaelly the Spanish closed caption service on ABC is a no go for me, it changes too fast!. I know for a fact that the closest Univision Affiliate is located in Cleveland, WQHS. BTW the Detoit one is low powered.

Do you think you could recommend me some kind of antenna system that would allow me to get those two TV networks reliably in any format or resolution and without any monthly fee associated?

Your old antenna should still be good to use asuming it is still in good condition.

keep in mind that you need at least a good signal to get anything in digital reception.

also the new digital signal may have been upgraded by the station or downgraded when change happened.

Well good news & bad news .......
of all the old analog antennas I ever tested while in the trade the mini-state was the best / the bad news is you are on the wrong side of the building.

I am surprised that you are not getting more channels

I am working on finding a better antenna for just your situation and that is why I am doing all of this running around ( there may be a couple bucks in it for me in the future )

My only suggestion is to follow-up on any of the "free to air " satellite systems around.

This has 3 big drawbacks .....
it is a sat. system so there is a dish & all the hardware
it will cost about 150.00 + upfront but nothing monthly
you still do not get the channels you want but do get the spanish programming free

Hi Dave, and welcome aboard. Realistically how many DTV stations can one expect to get in Kitchener from a conventional TV antenna?

The FTA systems are flying off the shelves in Toronto in large part due to the ethnic programming available on Galaxy 25. I have one myself and could've benefited from some expertise to get it going. LOL

Dave could you please explain your comment referring to the wrong side of the building? I'm glad to hear that in your opinion the mini-state is by far the best you ve tested. also in your opinion are all atsc tuners created equal in terms of senstivity, and accuracy? and can one use an hd reciever on a tv with a built in atsc tuner and expect better results.

Perfect answer , Thank you. Just let me say , that both Spanish language networks mentioned are indeed on FTA but on 2 different Sats.

Dave I think I found a product you may wish to research and possibly retail www.terrestrialdigital.com they sell a new range of antennas called clearstream they appear to have 3 distinct models one within a 30 mile radius one with a 50 mile radius and the flagship within a 65 mile radius these antennas are all primarily uhf and high level vhf which i'm guessing are channels 7-13 I am by no means a techie however the company specifies that their top model has a gain of 14.3 decibels and it doesn't appear to be much larger than the mini-state .. it would be stellar if there was a way to try it out in my location at no risk since it's a brand new design and product there are currently no reviews on it.

I live just east of hamilton Ontario (43.07227359766744, -79.5695972442627) and would like to pick up the Ham/Toronto HD stations, do I need clear line of sight? What would the compass heading be to point this antenna and pick up these stations? Please help

Hey Dave,

I'm located in Toronto, at the top of the Davenport hill - St Clair & Dufferin neighbourhood. Luckily for me (I think), both the CN tower and Buffalo are roughly in the same direction.

I've got an LG LCD TV, which seems to have a half decent tuner.

I currently receive the following digital channels:
14 (29) Fox
20 (5) CBC-En
24 (25) CBC-Fr
32 (23) CW
33 (2) NBC - Comes and goes
38 (7) ABC
39 (4) CBS
40 (9) CTV
43 (17) PBS
44 (44) OMNI 2
53 (57) City - Once in a while has problems
64 (64) OMNI 1 - Once in a while has problems
65 (41) Global - Once in a while has problems
66 (66) Sun - Once in a while has problems

My current antenna setup is:
- 2m RG-59 (w/ferrite) from TV to wall jack
- 10m RG-6 from wall jack to attic
- 25yr old bunny ears with 1m of twin lead and matching transformer in the (unfinished) attic

Picture of antenna:

Observations:
- Changing the coax makes no difference (ie: connecting antenna directly to TV using the piece of RG-6 doesn't help anything).
- Bunny ears work noticeably better in attic then on 2nd floor of house (where the TV is located).
- antenna is highly directional

I have some other antennas (loops and bowties) kicking around but none work half as well as the old bunny ears. Hardly any of the other antennas will bring in any signals at all. They are all indoor set-top antennae

Q1 - I thought the bunny ears worked better for VHF, and the loops/bowties better for UHF. But my experience seems to indicate the opposite - although I do seem to have trouble at the upper end of the channel list. Any thoughts?

Q2 - Although I can't really complain about the channel lineup I do get, I wouldn't mind getting rid of the problems in the upper channels, and maybe picking up 34 (49) myTV as well. I don't mind shelling out a bit of $ for something like a Channel Master 4228 ([Link: hdtvprimer.com]) (to install in the attic) as long as there is a reasonable chance that it will improve my reception. But I'm hesitant because so far the best antenna I have tried seems to be the simplest (and oldest). Any thoughts?

Very good question ( and I wish I had an answer )

In short and old analog signal that you did get that were watchable before without trouble should be now perfect in digital

You are on the east side of the building so all your reception will be from the east or only Toronto.

This leaves you out for any Buffalo stations , London Stations , etc.

About the Mini-state antenna ..... I very often was able to pick up UHF channels from far away. ( I once watched a ball game broadcast from Cincinatti Ohio off a mini-state.