I currently have a 3ft parabolic broadband UHF antenna at 60 ft with a Blonder Tongue UHF preamp pointed at the CN tower and receive CBC 5.1, CBC French 25.1, analog Global 41 and CICA 19. I’ve had intermittent reception on , OMNI.2 44.1 off this setup.
No luck with CTV 40.1, 53.1 Citytv, 64.1 OMNI.1, 65.1 Global.
I’d also like to pick up CHCH 18.1, Crossroads 35.1. but have not pointed anything but a small UHF antenna at Hamilton yet with no results.
As I said above my antenna location is 60 ft high (I could get to 70 ft with a mast) in Amherst, NY. It is above the tree line and I can see the towers on Grand Island from where the antenna is. Any suggestions on improving reception on OMNI.2 and picking up the ones I’ve had no luck with yet? Also, would it be worth while getting another expensive UHF antenna for the Hamilton stations or just wait till they move like CHCH to 11.1?

Thanks

Duo, the best place for you to start is by showing us what you're capable of picking up using the "Check your address for free TV" link at tvfool.com. Key in your exact address/coordinates and antenna height, then click "find local channels". Post the results here using the "This page can be referenced at" link (link does not reveal exact address) and we can go from there. You may see the GI towers but the Seneca Casino/"who knows what" might be blocking you from LOS signal to the CN tower.. .

well seeing the grand island towers is a bad thing in this case. tv fool will tell you wether those grand isalnd towers will interfere with the canadian ones and on top of that if there is some sort of amp involved it will likely play a bigger factor. having a parabolic reflector helps a lot since it makes the antenna highly directional but if you see the towers in the direction of toronto then no help at all. I am acctually surprised you do not requiere notch filters for the near by tower frecuencies which highly speaks of the quality of the blonder tongue pre-amp.

I would not worry about pre-amp overload since the more powerful Canadian channels come in, the transmitters for the missing channels currently are VERY low power and directional, not in your favour, Hamilton is also a weak transmitter.

The best option is wait it out until next year when the Canadian go fully digitial, higher power and back to their assigned frequencies.

How are analogue Chn 57 CITY TV, or the Omni ones coming in? A few of these on on Commerce Court or First Canadian Place and not the CN Tower.

Im wondering what 3' parabolic your using? I have a 7 ft channel master at 85 and a 7' finco at 54 and am running small preamps on all. i only miss CITy tv during summer months. Most the BT amps only provide 20 db gain apx. I have a cmaUB on the 85 ft tower. I would suggest a winegard ap 4800 at almost 30 db. Thats what we install in amherst and with good results. Also the higher the better. A larger parabolic would help also ,but wondering about the one your using? at 3 feet their cant be much gain. I have 2 5 ft parabolics at my cottage on lake ontario and they are good but not as good as the 7 ft.
Rich