[Kimmer]

I have the HR-10 now - have an antennae for local HD channels. They really do not come in all that great. Sometimes they are fine other times not at all. Very sporatic. This as well as the audio drops makes me crazy. Will and HR-20 help these issues?? I see all the posts about "OTA" not activated. I hate to say but, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!! Does if affect me in Boston???

Any help would be great!
Thanks

 

[SockMonkey]

It means that the OTA port is there, and it is a functional port, but the software has not turned it on yet so it's just there and doesn't do anything. Everyone's hoping that the port will be activated in the next couple of days (maybe tonight???).

If you're having signal problems with the HR10, you're most likely still going to have them with the HR20. This could possibly be fixed by repositioning your OTA antenna or something like that. The good news is, if you're in an area where HD locals are available, then you can get them through the HR20. The HR10 can not pick them up because it does not know how to decode the MPEG4 stream.

Bob

 

[islesfan]

I have the HR-10 now - have an antennae for local HD channels. They really do not come in all that great. Sometimes they are fine other times not at all. Very sporatic. This as well as the audio drops makes me crazy. Will and HR-20 help these issues?? I see all the posts about "OTA" not activated. I hate to say but, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!! Does if affect me in Boston???

Any help would be great!
Thanks

OTA means Over the Air, and it is the ATSC tuner that your HR10 has. As for quality, I am almost certain that Boston was one of the first to get HD locals via D*, so with an HR20, you would get your local HD's right through the dish without an antenna.

 

[hasan]

I have the HR-10 now - have an antennae for local HD channels. They really do not come in all that great. Sometimes they are fine other times not at all. Very sporatic. This as well as the audio drops makes me crazy. Will and HR-20 help these issues?? I see all the posts about "OTA" not activated. I hate to say but, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!! Does if affect me in Boston???

Any help would be great!
Thanks

The HR20 has two internal OTA-HD tuners...they have not been "turned on" yet for our use (D* has been testing them). They should be turned on "soon".

The HR20 OTA tuners are (from what I have heard) much better than those in the HR-10. You still need an antenna...how much of one and where to locate it can be found by going to antennaweb.org, plugging in your zip code and letting it tell you what kind of antenna you will need.

 

[Bay CIty]

I have the HR-10 now - have an antennae for local HD channels. They really do not come in all that great. Sometimes they are fine other times not at all. Very sporatic. This as well as the audio drops makes me crazy. Will and HR-20 help these issues?? I see all the posts about "OTA" not activated. I hate to say but, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!! Does if affect me in Boston???

Any help would be great!
Thanks

it mean that if you hook up your OTA antenna to your hr-20 it will not work. Once the OTA feature has been enabled on the hr-20 then you will be able to receive and record OTA programing via your hr-20.
However if your not getting a good OTA signal now that will not improve later.

 

[Stuart Sweet]

Welcome, new member!

It looks like it's possible that the OTA features of the HR20 will be turned on very, very soon. You might want to lurk around here for anothe couple days, possibly look for a new software release thread. I don't know anything other than that, but it's a slow day at work and I've been reading and posting a lot.

 

[SockMonkey]

Wow... 4 answers in about 30 seconds. Good timing guys!

 

[Stuart Sweet]

Wow... 4 answers in about 30 seconds. Good timing guys!

Like I said, slow day at work.

 

[Tom Robertson]

I have the HR-10 now - have an antennae for local HD channels. They really do not come in all that great. Sometimes they are fine other times not at all. Very sporatic. This as well as the audio drops makes me crazy. Will and HR-20 help these issues?? I see all the posts about "OTA" not activated. I hate to say but, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!! Does if affect me in Boston???

Any help would be great!
Thanks

Welcome to the forums! :welcome_s

On your HR10 bring up the signal strength meter for your digital channels. If they are weak, but steady repositioning the antenna may help.
If they are strong and steady, then the problem is likely what is being sent, but I doubt you will this scenario.
If the are strong then weak then strong, bouncing all over the place, you have the digital version of ghosting--multipath distortion. The signals are reflecting off buildings, mountains, etc. and several versions are arriving at your tuner at different times. The tuners go nuts trying to lock on all of them. Definitely reposition your antenna to be as close to the towers as possible. In an attic, I've watched signals bounce all around the attic until I placed the antenna right up against the wall closest to the towers, then everything worked great!

This is where the HR20 is expected to be much better than the HR10 as it has a much newer chipset designed to reject the distortion.

HTH,
Tom

 

[Radio Enginerd]

Wow... 4 answers in about 30 seconds. Good timing guys!

Have you checked to see if HD locals are available in your area? What DMA (market) do you get your SD locals from?

 

[Kimmer]

Have you checked to see if HD locals are available in your area? What DMA (market) do you get your SD locals from?

Yes I believe the HD locals are available. I'm in the Boston/Manchester market.

Thanks everyone for your responses!

 

[hdfan01]

I'm not sure about your area, but most HD OTA locals are UHF signals. UHF signals are difficult to receive. You must be "right on" in aiming your OTA antenna. UhF is very directional. If your station towers are more than 10 degrees apart, your may need two, pointed in 2 directions. If you can get OTA HD, the PQ is really superior to getting them via satellite. But you will have to ask around in your community and bone up.

 

[hasan]

Yes I believe the HD locals are available. I'm in the Boston/Manchester market.

Thanks everyone for your responses!

Advantages of OTA-HD over your MPEG-4/HD-Locals:

1. PQ (Picture Quality). The Gold Standard of PQ is OTA-HD and is likely to remain so for quite some time. Your MPEG-4/HD-Locals from D* are transcoded from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4...there is loss. Available bandwidth on D* is limited, so all HD on the satellites is bit-starved (further degradation). HD as delivered via D* is at best HD-Lite compared to OTA-HD, in most cases.

2. Immunity from signal loss: OTA-HD (unless you are in a fringe area) is much less vulnerable to signal loss from precipitation.

3. Sub Channels and PBS (I don't think PBS-HD is carried yet by D*). There is wonderful programming on PBS, and the video quality is stunning.

The expense of adding OTA-HD to your current setup is minimal. A good antenna for local OTA-HD is the U-75 from Radio Shack. It is only about 25 bucks. It has a 40" long boom and a corner reflector, so it has a small footprint, but very good gain.

Go to antennaweb.org, plug in your zip code and see what kind of antenna and where it needs to be located in order to receive your locals via OTA-HD. You might find you don't need an outside antenna, or you might be able to put the U-75 in your attic. Some people do well (if within 15 to 20 miles of a good transmitting site), with nothing more than a Sliver Sensor (do a google for it), mounted a few feet from the TV itself.

If all your OTA transmitters are in one location (like they are here), you're in good shape, as long as you aren't too far away.

 

[Earl Bonovich]

I'm not sure about your area, but most HD OTA locals are UHF signals. UHF signals are difficult to receive. You must be "right on" in aiming your OTA antenna. UhF is very directional. If your station towers are more than 10 degrees apart, your may need two, pointed in 2 directions. If you can get OTA HD, the PQ is really superior to getting them via satellite. But you will have to ask around in your community and bone up.

Where as UHF may require a little more "pointing"... .it has a much farther range then VHF, and is less affected by other conditions.

I can get all my UHF stations, with an attic mounted antenna... and nearly 100%... and I am 35 miles away.

I can can barely "sniff" the VHF-3 signal.

This was the case with both my HR10 and my H20

 

[jimbo713]

SEEEEE! Earl has OTA!!!

 

[Radio Enginerd]

Yes I believe the HD locals are available. I'm in the Boston/Manchester market.

Thanks everyone for your responses!

If that's the case, the HR-20 will allow you access to the HD locals available in your area. For some (me included) the picture is FAR BETTER than what I can receive with an indoor OTA antenna. I just don't get enough signal into my tuner.

Many folks on the board will comment that OTA reception is far better then what you can get through your dish. OTA reception (if you get a good signal) does exceed what you can receive over the dish but for my money and my eyes, they're damn close!

Best of luck to you and welcome to the forum.

 

[Tom Robertson]

On his H20 (no R...)

 

[jimbo713]

Oh - - - H20

 

[carl6]

Where as UHF may require a little more "pointing"... .it has a much farther range then VHF, and is less affected by other conditions.

That is not true in and of itself. UHF has a shorter wavelength than VHF, which affects how it propogates. However that by itself does not directly cause it to have greater, or less, range.

There are a great many things that can affect range of a radio/tv signal, which I am sure relate to Earl's specific experience. But someone else, someplace else, could very well have just the opposite experience.

Carl

 

[hasan]

That is not true in and of itself. UHF has a shorter wavelength than VHF, which affects how it propogates. However that by itself does not directly cause it to have greater, or less, range.

There are a great many things that can affect range of a radio/tv signal, which I am sure relate to Earl's specific experience. But someone else, someplace else, could very well have just the opposite experience.

Carl

OK...here's a quick and dirty primer for ya:

1. Path loss is proportional (logrithmically) to frequency. As you go up in frequency, path loss goes up with it. However, lower frequency VHF is power restricted by the FCC, so VHF channels 2,3,4,5 all have very significant power restrictions...and they have lower gain antennas (both at the transmitter and at your receiver) So what they gain in lower path loss, they lose in power restrictions and antenna gain.

2. Vegetation loss goes up with frequency, and become troublesome at 220 mhz and above, becoming near brick wall at 2 gigs

3. Noise immunity improves with increasing frequency.

4. Signal enhancement due to tropospheric ducting improves with frequency, up to at least 1200 megahertz.

5. Signal diffraction improves with frequency (big help to those in valleys)

For the same size antenna, gain and directionality of a properly designed antenna will be substantially in favor of UHF. This along with #3 above improves the signal to noise ratio of UHF stations. This is true of both the transmitting and receiving antenna, not to mention the vastly increased authorized (and used in our area) transmitting power on UHF.

The only issue with pointing is if you have your HD OTA transmitters located in places that are greater than about 20 degrees apart in azimuth from your location. If the transmitters are in the same location, go for the biggest UHF antenna you think will stay up (very big grin). Chances are very good that your UHF setup will equal or outperform a VHF setup, and especially if any of the channels you are needing are in the Channel 2-5 range.