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Old 03-21-2018, 12:45 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
<----Zenith C845
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
Posts: 4,035
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Schafer View Post
Hi All,

Just wondering about scanning today's TVs for receiving air broadcast signals. I have one of those Walmart, RCA square, flat, wall-mount antennas (used, hand-me-down, no manual). Do/can/supposed to...?, these antennas operate in one permanent spot (mounted on the wall)? I currently need to move the antenna around to receive certain stations. I have 3 wall mounting hooks inside the cabinet the TV resides in. One for facing South, West & North (viewing facing East). I'm on Lake Erie so I can't get too much from the North. On very unusual, rare days I can get London Ontario. (Wonder if having a proper antenna I could get it all the time?)....dream-on. My two questions: Should the finished surface of that square antenna be facing the proper direction when on a wall? Would you do a separate scan for each direction and see which comes up with the most stations? Seems the signal strengths vary from the stations. Almost a month will go by then suddenly one has to mess around with the antenna placement.
Anyone's 2 cents or helpful links on the subject appreciated.

Old man trying to catch-up
I live 30 miles east of Cleveland, near Lake Erie; the city's seven TV stations transmit from a location 40+ miles southwest of me, so I am in what could well be considered a near-fringe area. My TV reception using an indoor antenna (a flat, UHF-only one) is surprisingly good on most stations, although the antenna does not receive channels 8 and 19, the latter being the CBS and MeTV affiliate for my area, the former being the FOX and Antenna TV affiliate (as (bad) luck would have it, my two favorite DTV subchannels, beside COZI TV on channel 3.3). I've tried the antenna in different areas of my apartment, with no change. The problem with channel 19 is it is on VHF DTV channel ten, which apparently does not reach my area; I don't know and don't care why channel 8's main signal doesn't reach here, since I don't watch FOX. I finally gave up on OTA TV and am now watching TV via streaming video, which gets every station in Cleveland with subchannels, and even a couple of stations (PBS and ION) in Akron. Since I live in an apartment building, I cannot use any kind of outdoor TV antenna, despite the FCC's ruling regarding such antennas in apartments.

I had cable for years, but I gave it up when Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable) started its streaming video service a couple months ago. I had some problems at first with the service getting the wrong local TV stations for my area (Cincinnati (!) instead of Cleveland locals), but after I don't remember how many phone calls to the cable company that was corrected, so now I'm getting all the correct local stations. Since getting this streaming "cable" service, I have absolutely no use for traditional cable anymore. Between that service (streaming cable), my Roku Internet device, DVDs and VHS video tape, I am enjoying TV more than I have in years, especially now that I have no more reception problems.

BTW, since I have the streaming video service from Spectrum, I am also not the least bit concerned about TV eventually changing to the ATSC 3.0 standard, since it affects only OTA television reception. I read somewhere (don't remember where), however, that ATSC 3.0 is already in effect, so that gives me one more reason not to give it a second thought.

The station you get on occasion from Canada is CFPL-TV, channel ten, in London, Ontario. This station is seen quite often in northern Ohio (the part near the south shore of Lake Erie, anyway; I used to see it quite often before I got cable in the early '80s), which is giving Raycom Media fits left and right due to co-channel interference from and to channel 10; the company owns channel 19. The company should have, IMO, put this station's DTV signal on a UHF channel from the start, instead of on a VHF channel that is giving them no end of trouble in the form of complaints from the Canadian station, and vice-versa. I realize the decision to put the DTV signal on channel 10 was largely a financial one, but the station is losing viewers east of Cleveland right and left because the VHF channel 10 OTA signal does not reach that area; this means, of course, less advertising revenue. I think the station's management should bite the bullet and correct this issue before they lose any more OTA viewers, which they very likely will if this goes on much longer. Not everyone wants or can afford cable or satellite. Just because TV is now all digital does not and should not mean rabbit ears and other types of indoor television antennas cannot be used any longer; in fact, in some areas, indoor antennas work amazingly well with DTV. I would use one on my TV if not for the reception problems on channel 19 I mentioned earlier; however, as long as I have streaming cable service from Spectrum (I intend to keep it indefinitely, as it seems to be working very well even as I write this), I honestly don't need an antenna.

The reason you sometimes must move your DTV antenna, especially when changing channels, is that DTV signals are not of equal strength in any given location; that is, there can be dead spots, where you get no signal at all, and there will be "hot" spots where the signal is excellent. I don't know where you are located in the Cleveland area, but even being on the lake you will have the same situation. The Cleveland TV stations' towers are all located southwest of the city, in the suburb of Parma. I don't know whether you are using an indoor TV antenna or an all-channel outdoor one; however, if the latter, I would point it directly southwest, which will aim it directly at the towers. This orientation worked well for 60 years with analog NTSC TV signals, and should work just as well with DTV if you keep in mind the RF hot and cold spots I mentioned.
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Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002

Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten.

Last edited by Jeffhs; 03-23-2018 at 08:10 PM.
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