[Oliwa]

I am getting less than stellar performance on my HR20 regarding OTA reception. My old HR10 would get between 75 and 90 for the 4 majors, but the HR20 is 60 to 80. ABC used to come in great on the HR10, but it comes in around 70 on Tuner 1 and 40 on Tuner 2 on the HR20.

I tried putting a splitter in line to see if my signal was too strong and my signal went to the 30s so it's definitely not too strong.

Would an amplifier help? I am considering trying this one

Thanks!

 

[badit11]

n St. Louis my Panasonic plasma picked up all channels great but the HR20 doesn't pick up any channels, all 0 signal strength. Very dissapointed in OTA tuner.

 

[thekochs]

IWould an amplifier help? I am considering trying this one

If you try it and it helps let us now....PM me.

Thanks.

 

[Mrmiami]

I am getting less than stellar performance on my HR20 regarding OTA reception. My old HR10 would get between 75 and 90 for the 4 majors, but the HR20 is 60 to 80. ABC used to come in great on the HR10, but it comes in around 70 on Tuner 1 and 40 on Tuner 2 on the HR20.

I tried putting a splitter in line to see if my signal was too strong and my signal went to the 30s so it's definitely not too strong.

Would an amplifier help? I am considering trying this one

Thanks!

I do not have enough info on your type of antenna but you may want to try a preamp of 10-13db boost if you have to go higher than that then it might serve you best to go with a bigger/better antenna. If you have you antenna diplexed into your Sat lines you really should break it out and go direct to receiver. Inside or Outside? Obviously, outside would be better.

 

[dwenn]

Oliwa-
I live about 30 miles but more importantly in the bottom of a deep valley. So deep that the valley has translators for the analog signals. When the stations went digital they built a common tower that was much taller.
So I could barely get in a few channels with rabbit ears and then bought a roof mount antenna from Radio Shack to get everything in much better and it included this amplifier.
On my Sammy with internal ATSC tuner I got everything in with anywhere from 50-65% signal stength. That worked fine with only VERY RARE signal break up.
Of course couldn't DVR anything until Wed.
To my pleasant surprise after 108 my signals were now from 65% up to 90%!
Now it has been limited amount of opportunity to record and watch closely full programs but I have noticed a few things.
One station in particular which has a known transmitter signal power issue does have trouble being stable but had huge issues of having a much lower signal on one of the tuners as compared to the other. So not sure what that is about in general with the two tuners.

I have also seen that inspite of the "improved" signal strength I now have more signal interference with pixelization and drop outs. Given the limited amount of experience with the OTA tuner I can't say anything definitive but I am a little troubled with these break ups.

Having said all that what are you seeing with your signal? Is the signal stenght just lower and you want it higher or are you getting break up?
Being digital if you are getting at least 60% consistently you should be good to go.

badit11 - that really doesn't sound right - do you have any kind of amp on your line which may be pushing too much?

 

[jaywdetroit]

n St. Louis my Panasonic plasma picked up all channels great but the HR20 doesn't pick up any channels, all 0 signal strength. Very dissapointed in OTA tuner.

Ditto in Detroit -

I have a clumsy setup right now though. But this clumsy set up pulled all the Detroit Channels in fine on my Samsung. I'm getting two with the HR20.

 

[luv2fly3]

I actually am seeing better results than my 10-250. The signals appear to be stronger and I'm seeing no drop outs from any of the Lansing stations. I will say that my Sony Wega internal tuner is stronger however then the HR20's. But so far so good here as far as signal strength.

My setup is a Radio Shack rooftop antenna, in my attic and only half of it is being used. It's their big daddy model, however I'm only using the front half of it, which is the UHF section anyway. Then I have a Radio Shack amplifier as well. It's the inline two piece model with the one part next to the antenna, the other down by my TV. It gives me the ability to adjust the amplification, and so far I've had to keep it pretty low.

Sorry my description isn't more "technical" but I hope it might help anyway.

In case he reads this forum, thank Earl for the heads up!! It was great to have a second chance last night to get the software!! Kudos to you and those at D* that made it possible.

 

[Oliwa]

Here is my setup and my results...

I have...

1x HR10-250
1x HR20-700
1x Winegard? antenna installed by D* 2 years ago

The antenna cable is a straight run to the back of the HR10 with a coupler just inside the house.

On my HR10 I get...(Station/Tuner1/Tuner2)
ABC/90/90
CBS/80/79
FOX/74/76
NBC/85/88

When I disconnect the cable from the HR10 and hook it up to the HR20 I get...
ABC/70/40
CBS/74/75
FOX/78/79
NBC/75/76

When I introduce a splitter into the mix the signal strength drops in 1/2.

I'm heading up to Radio Shack now to get that signal amplifier. I will report back and let you know how it goes.

 

[PoitNarf]

Aren't you guys being a little silly? There's no guarantee that the HR10 and HR20 calculate signal strength in the same way, so there's bound to be some discrepancy. If you're getting a signal and receiving the channel then that's fine. It's a digital transmission, so you're not going to see any picture quality improvements if you go from 70% strength to 90%.

 

[pgiralt]

Aren't you guys being a little silly? There's no guarantee that the HR10 and HR20 calculate signal strength in the same way, so there's bound to be some discrepancy. If you're getting a signal and receiving the channel then that's fine. It's a digital transmission, so you're not going to see any picture quality improvements if you go from 70% strength to 90%.

In my case my H20 and Sony LCD both my PBS channel and subchannels without a problem, but the HR20 gets 0 signal on both tuners. Granted my directional antenna is not pointing towards the PBS antenna and the H20 is registering about 60% signal strength, but it is able to get the channels without a problem. I plan on getting another antenna to be able to grab PBS, but the fact remains that the HR20 receiver does not appear to be as good as the H20 or my Sony TV.

 

[dvelleco]

Aren't you guys being a little silly? There's no guarantee that the HR10 and HR20 calculate signal strength in the same way, so there's bound to be some discrepancy. If you're getting a signal and receiving the channel then that's fine. It's a digital transmission, so you're not going to see any picture quality improvements if you go from 70% strength to 90%.

I really do believe there is an issue with OTA performance. I just got the 0x10b and can not receive some of my locals. Others are fine.

I have two different HR-20's. It's strange, both are reporting different signal strengths (while hooked to same antenna).

Also, one of my HR-20's even is reporting very different signal strengths on each of it's own two tuners.

Here are the following channels (and their signal strengths) that I can NOT receive with either of the HR-20's. These channels ALL are received fine with either my built in HDTV tuners, my HR10-250, or my H20 DirecTv boxes. Signal strength is in the 65-85% range with those "good" OTA boxes.

Market = Providence, Rhode Island DMA; Zip Code = 02879

HR-20 (Box 1) - Can't receive while other DirecTv boxes and TV's can

Channel #Call Letters Tuner 1 Tuner 2

12-2 WPRIDT2 49% 67%
36-1 WSBEDT 0% 30%
64-1 WNACDT 0% 0%
64-2 WNACDT2 0% 0%

HR-20 (Box 2) - Can't receive while other DirecTv boxes and TV's can

Channel #Call Letters Tuner 1 Tuner 2

12-2 WPRIDT2 84% 85%
36-1 WSBEDT 40% 42 %
64-1 WNACDT 43% 44%
64-2 WNACDT2 41% 42%

 

[bwaldron]

OTA reception is part science and part art. Lotsa variables involved.

We have one HR10 and one HR20. For us, the tuner in the HR20 is definitely showing improved multipath rejection on one relatively distant channel compared to the HR10.

 

[Oliwa]

Aren't you guys being a little silly? There's no guarantee that the HR10 and HR20 calculate signal strength in the same way, so there's bound to be some discrepancy. If you're getting a signal and receiving the channel then that's fine. It's a digital transmission, so you're not going to see any picture quality improvements if you go from 70% strength to 90%.

In my case, I'm trying to get a higher signal strength because if I'm right on the threshold (say 65%) and the wind blows my antenna a bit or I have some bad weather my signal may drop to 55% and I won't get a picture at all.

I also want to run my OTA feed to both of my receivers and when I introduce a splitter my signal dies.

 

[Oliwa]

Here's an update...

I went to Radio Shack and bought a 1-4 Bi-Directional Cable-TV Amplifier and it has solved all of my issues.

Catalog #: 15-2506

http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=15-2506&origkw=15-2506

It's only 8db, but it's a 4 way splitter and now I have both of my receivers hooked up with signal strength in the high 80s to 90s.

Hopefully this will work for some of you. Radio Shack also has a 10db amplifier, but it doesn't come with a built in splitter.