OTA it worked for me...

[houskamp]

If you found a way to get your OTA to work or improved it please post it here... please don't post 'didn't work for me'... just trying to create a list of things to try...

On mine a pair of FM traps did wonders.. as well as playing with the aiming

[kaminsco]

If you found a way to get your OTA to work or improved it please post it here... please don't post 'didn't work for me'... just trying to create a list of things to try...

On mine a pair of FM traps did wonders.. as well as playing with the aiming

What are FM Traps?

[houskamp]

What are FM Traps?

small box with 2 f connectors blocks fm band.. I was getting blown out of the water by a local fm station...

[kaminsco]

small box with 2 f connectors blocks fm band.. I was getting blown out of the water by a local fm station...

Sounds great, where do you get them and why two (a pair)?

[houskamp]

Sounds great, where do you get them and why two (a pair)?

those came from radio shack.. had that much interference..

[aramus8]

If you found a way to get your OTA to work or improved it please post it here... please don't post 'didn't work for me'... just trying to create a list of things to try...

On mine a pair of FM traps did wonders.. as well as playing with the aiming

You are entirely correct. I turned the FM trap on in my amplifier several weeks and increased my signal to noise ratio significantly. I live way too close to one of those top secret military bases and god only knows what they were using, but it definitely interfered at times without the FM trap.

[houskamp]

ok no one want to post here so I will go steal as many posts as I can...
http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=798906&postcount=77

Everytime I would do a download of new release candidates, I would go through and redo my OTA antenna setup, but I would NOT retype my zip code...

After reading this post, I redid the setup and RETYPED my zipcode..
MY ext 771 ISSUES ARE HISTORY!!!!!

EVEN channel 2-1!!!!

If anyone from DTV is reading this, you need to program the receiver to delete the zipcode from memory in OTA when a RBR is done, so that the user needs to retype it...

Mine is super-sensitive compared to my old 10-250. I no longer need a signal booster or fancy antenna. In fact, I'm using nothing more than rabbit ears now. And have been watching both games today (sorry, both football games) while the local antennas are socked in by a high-altitude snow storm (Albuquerque - our local antennas are all on a moutaintop.) This is with 10b release.

According to the website that I can't recall - sorry - I'm too far from that mountain for rabbit ears, indoor anything, to work. And it didn't before, or not well.

I'm posting this to encourage comments from others as to whether or not OTA is degrading per releases ... I'm not a representative sample. Apologies in advance if this sort of post is too touchy-feely - not my intent. If you're having hardware problems coincidental with releases you should find that out. If I'm to expect OTA degradations for some software reason, I need to find that out and prepare for it.

I have done a little bit of testing with OTA signal levels, antenna aiming, etc. What I have found is that reflected signals (multipath) seems to make a much greater difference than basic signal strength.

I have an outdoor antenna, which has a pretty narrow beamwidth (very directional). Moving it just a tiny amount in azimuth (perhaps 1 or 2 degrees) can make a digital station go from 100% signal strength to 0% signal strength.

On the other hand, attenuating the signal has almost no effect on how well it works. I added various levels of attenuation, from 3db to 32db. I saw no degradation of performance until I got all the way to 32db, where I lost one station (the farthest, about 28 miles away). 32db attenuation is like 0.00063
of the original signal level (1/1580 th).

Then, as a final test, I removed the external antenna altogether and stuck a paper clip in the OTA antenna jack of the HR20, and got just about the same performance as I did at 32db attenuation.

Carl

[bonscott87]

If you found a way to get your OTA to work or improved it please post it here... please don't post 'didn't work for me'... just trying to create a list of things to try...

On mine a pair of FM traps did wonders.. as well as playing with the aiming

I'm assuming this didn't solve the WWMT channel 2/3 thing, did it?

[houskamp]

nope thats in the box it's self...

[brittonx]

If you found a way to get your OTA to work or improved it please post it here... please don't post 'didn't work for me'... just trying to create a list of things to try...

On mine a pair of FM traps did wonders.. as well as playing with the aiming

Houskamp,

Thanks for pulling this one together. Hopefully this will help people.

[houskamp]

bump

[houskamp]

bump

[tucker301]

When we set up our rooftop OTA, we had some weird stuff going on.

For where I'm located, I wanted to aim the directional for the best signal from the RDU stations, which are about 70 miiles South of me.

Trying to get the right aim proved to be a challenge.

Using two walkie talkies one of us would slowly rotate the mast while the inside man relayed updatse on signal quality.
Problem was, every time we thought we had it, and talked to each other to acknowledge the progress, the signal dropped out completely.

We're just country folk here, so it took us a few rounds to figure out that the walkies were killing the signal every time we keyed them. :grin:

Wanna PO a neighbor or a "friend" who's watching UHF OTA?
Get one of these and setup outside his house when the big game's on!

http://www.tele-link.ru/1-g-400.jpg