OTA Broadcast Problems, please help...

[Rob Grim]

Hello all, new to the forum so you'll have to give me a chance to get used to the way things are done around here. Anyways, I was referred to this forum from another forum buddy over at the Polk Audio Forum. Told me if I had any questions about satellite, you were the people to go too.

Anyway, here is my current situation. Just recently went over to High Definition television through Directv. My Hughes E86 HD receiver is the peice of equipment in question. I currently have the local channels provided from Directv and I have the HD package provided by Directv. I'm using a $10 pair of Radio Shack rabbit ears to receive my OTA HD channels. I've gone into the menu option and set my LOCAL 1 to antenna. After that I ran the channel scan which picked up all my locals in my area. When I go into the guide I can see the locals like 5-1, 6-1, and etc. On the guide they show the symbol "HD" which is telling me I've set that portion up correctly, at least I think so. The problem is, when I select those channels to watch in HD it's just a blank screen. If I select the locals provided by Directv they come in fine. Could someone that has had experience with this please tell me what I'm doing wrong. Is there another setting that needs to be changed. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

[bonscott87]

I would say that you don't have a strong enough signal so thus you are getting nothing. You should go into the signal stregth test for these local channels and see what they are. I'll bet they are zero or very low. Unless you are pretty close to the towers, a pair of rabbit ears probably isn't going to be enough. The E-86 has a pretty sesitive tuner so it will also pick up stuff that you can't actually get. I have this box too. I have a rooftop antenna and get all my digital OTA stations perfectly and I'm about 45-50 miles from the towers. The E-86 also detects channels from nearby (as in 75-90 miles) markets but I'm too far to get them in so I remove them from my channel lists.

Here are some things to do:
1) Go to www.antennaweb.org and search your address. It will tell you what digital channels are actually available in your area AND will tell you what kind of antenna you need. It will let you know if rabbit ears are enough.
2) Go to AVS, they are the experts in HD, hands down. www.avsforum.com and go to the HDTV section. There are 4 forums dedicated to HDTV and the first one is the Local broadcast forum. There should already be a thread for your city or area, search for it and you can get detailed information from people in your area and what type of antenna's the use.

Good luck!

[Rob Grim]

Bonscott, just checked antennaweb with my zip code and it says just about everything in my area is 50+/- miles away. So, with that said, I'm guessing the $10 radio shack rabbit ears are NOT going to do it. Due to the home owners association in my neighborhood, not really interested in installing a roof top antenna. Have you or any of the other forum members had any luck with the dish mounted antennas. By the way, thanks for your help.

[Mike123abc]

Remember Antennaweb deals with licensed power. Your station may be licensed for a digital signal of 1000kw but could be broadcasting at 3kw. Many stations are broadcasting low power at this time. Call the stations in question and ask if they are full power yet.

[bonscott87]

Also many have put antenna's in attics and they work fine. I would suggest stopping over to the local HDTV thread at AVS and find the thread on your area. People can then suggest specific antenna for your situation.