I have a digital converter box connected to analog TV and use an outdoor analog antenna on the north shore of Lake Ontario, only 51 miles north of Rochester. Before the digital switch in February, I could get all the Rochester stations....now I cannot receive any.

Can anyone help explain why I can't get Rochester stations?

I can only receive 3 stations: WIVB - 4 in Buffalo, ION- 51 and CBLT-5 and only if it is sunny....reception is gone in clouds/ rain.

Hi!

I don't live in that area so I don't know much.

1. I know you probably already did this, but if not, try to point the antenna south towards Rochester. (I think you already did that). DTV signals are somewhat more difficult to get than analog ones (that is my assumption, correct me if I'm wrong) so you might need to rotate your antenna. to be more directed at the stations you wish to recieve.

2. What's your setup? How high are you above the lake, and how high is your antenna, what type/brand of antenna do you have? How long is your coaxial cable? These are all helpful things to know :)

1. Height of your antenna? The higher the better -- 35 feet or higher is best.
2. The grade of your house property -- some people live in valleys, where digital signals do not travel as well. North shore T.O or Lake Ontario -- not sure what this means. Mississauga is higher than the City of Toronto as an example.
3. The transmitters for Rochester are both comparatively weaker and at lower heights than those of South Buffalo.

45-1 is pretty doable, because its signal is 365 degrees. Usually when 45-1 comes in so does 16.1/16.2 (formerly analalog 21), and so does 31.1 (formerly analog 28).

4. General Interference across the lake (reflections, planes etc.)
5. 10-1 and 13-1 are VHF and require a different antenna configuration than 31 or 45.
6. The length of your RG6 cable and whether you are using a splitter in reverse which will lower the signal to your end destination.

That said -- you may wish to review my previous posts. I have experimented with a few different 'homeade' antennas. In early mornings, I have picked up 45-1, 31-1 and 16-1 and 16-2 with a regular copper wire (no balun) hooked into the metal frame from of old dart board -- 35 feet in the air.

In shortm, you really don't need an an antenna to receive digital signals (either HDTV or SD), what you need is anything metal (not rusty) that will vibrate in air.

However, formal antennas will most likely improve that signals that you ultimately receive.

Note: last weekend on my car fender Erie 54-1,2,3, were coming in fairly clear last Saturday and Sunday night (full moon and crisp -- I guess).

And during the same time period 51-1,2,3, and 4 were coming in on the other TV just as clear.

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Oh yeah? , I wonder why Engineers use them, then, lol. Although if by "vibrate" you mean resonate then you are right anything metal or not that resonates at a particular radio frecuency is indeed an antenna. The problem is non metal conductive materials that resonate at radio frecuencies do not exist , and the metal ones that are not expensive (gold is highly conductive) they indeed get somehow rusty, lol. Therefore Anything metal that Resonates at a set of frecuencies is indeed the definition of an Antenna. The size , shape , color , material or anything else as you can see does not define whether is an antenna or not , it is just its behaivour relative to a radio frecuency wave.

The OP is actually talking about the new digital dilema that some tv viewers have been experiencing since the digital switch. Usually people who used to live either very far away or in the frindge areas are now upset because they have lost signal to those that used to be very weak stations but somehow watchable Tv stations.

Is your antenna an UHF or VHF ? From experiments I find a 4-bowtie antenna or combos of them give the best reception. If you could pick up the analog signal you should get the digital much better if you live north of Rochester.

Well, I have heard that 2 of the 3 Rochester station broadcast on their original frequencies (VHF-HI, not UHF). Not sure which ones though..

2 things I can recommend

1.) Go to www.tvfool.com and click on the "check your address for free" link. After you fill in your info the site will spit out a handy antenna aiming chart.

2.) There is a HDTV site where all the Rochester HDTV folks hang out and talk about their "neck of the woods" at www.rochesterhdtv.com I am not advertising the place, only suggesting you visit cause they seem to be keen on the stuff going on in Rochester. (Sorry Dan.. ;-)

Good luck! Bill

Did you rescan the channels with the tuner after June 12? At my current location I had to do that because two local channels suddenly vanished into thin air. After rescanning they returned.

What WLIW said. Check also for loose connections or water in the feedline. It could be coincidental that it failed when the USA turned off their analogue transmitters.

two things I can think of

1) if nothing else has changed on most station, then try re-scanning. Don't know about your area, but some stations changed the real station number after the switch and so the TV might not be looking at the right station.

2) if everything has changed (for the worst) then probably something went bad and is not related to the switch (for example Canadian stations would not have changed), you would need to check, does the antenna have lots of corrosion on the element, does the balum still work, is there an amp/preamp and is there an issue....

3) an other thing, but less likely, is that too strong a signal can also cause issues, you can try an attenuator.