OTA Reception Problem, Columbus OH

[toxcrusadr]

I hate to post this here because it's not the digital/HD part of the forum, but seems to be busiest.

Helping out a friend in Grandview OH (Columbus suburb) who has cut the cable cord and gone OTA. Modern flatscreen. She lives on the 12th floor of a high rise with windows facing NNW. There are some towers out there and she gets some odd/small stations with flat antenna stuck to the window. She doesn't get NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox.

I went to TV Fool and input her address, found that the big networks are actually to her SE (110 to 150 degrees from N)! Thinking her antenna was not sensitive enough, or not directional enough, I sent her an antenna that should be good for 40 miles because she is shooting through concrete walls in that direction. It's a ClearStream Eclipse 1V, UHF/VHF antenna. CHannels she wants are broadcasting mostly in UHF.

No dice. She gets SNOW on those channels. On other channels where there is no signal, the Sony puts up a purple screen that says NO SIGNAL. This seems like they are broadcasting snow though.

Turns out on second inspection the towers are 1 to 3 miles away. Here's a link to the TV Fool report.

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...e6a472b68a9c9b

I tried having her tune to the actual broadcast channel just to make sure - ch. 4 (virtual) broadcasts on 14 (actual). Still snow.

I thought I had heard of major networks scrambling their signals but it seems that they are doing this to the HD signal only for cable customers. i.e. if you have basic cable, they don't feed you an HD signal for locals any more than they would for any other channel. But OTA, I thought, was still free and clear.

What are we missing here?