Weak Signal

[jim]

My zip code is 62801. I'm about 65 miles from St. Louis stations which we want to receive. I live about 1 mile NE of town with no tall buildings or towers close. This is pretty flat country but I am on a bit of a ridge. I do have trees.The antenna is at the E end of the house and there is a big tree at the W end of the house about 65' from the antenna and much taller. It is not a very dense tree.
We have always received St. Louis stations pretty good and put up with the snowy pictures. Now with digital it is either a good picture or no picture - mostly no picture for us.
My antenna is about 35' above the ground. I have a new Channel Master 0064DSM amplifier. Winegard suggested their HD-7698P antenna. I put it up and it didn't do as good as my old antenna. Then they suggested adding their HD-9032. I put it on top and my old antenna about 4' below it. I can only Ch 8-1 and 11-1 pretty good and Ch 5-1 part of the time and that is about it.
I will never have more than 2 TVs on the antenna at one time.

Any suggestion time is getting short. Thanks Jim

[tigerbangs]

Are you sure that you gave me the right zip code? 62801 puts you in Centralia, IL, about 120 miles from St. Louis, and I wouldn't ever expect you to see St. louis on any regular basis from there....

[jim]

The 62801 and Centralia are right but we are not 120 miles from St. Louis. ANTENNA WEB shows KSDK ch5 at 275dg and 65 miles from Centralia - KPLR ch11 at 272dg and 63.1 miles from Centralia - KTVI ch2 at 273dg and 67.1 miles from Centralia - KMOV ch4.1 at 272 dg and 63.1 miles from Centralia. These are all St. Louis stations. Jim

[tigerbangs]

I'm kind of baffles at the difference in results that I get from TVfool.com vs what you got from Antennaweb.org. TVfool.com puts you much farther away from the St. Louis transmitters than does Antennaweb.org. I tend to believe Antennaweb.org in this case because you tell me that you got at least a snowy picture on the St. Louis stations in analog. I have a feeling that the suggestion of adding a 9032 in addition to the HD-7698P was a bad idea. They are dissimilar antennas, and wouldn't work well in conjunction to one another...

Some of the St. Louis stations are going to be changing frequencies after Feb 17: KMOV-DT will be moving to channel 24 from channel 56, which should help that signal by quite a bit.

Do you think that yu could PM me with your street address so I can zero in on your location? When I put in general coordinates for Centralia, it shows that you ought to get enough signal to see the St. Louis stations without much of a problem. This leads me to believe that you may be in a valley, or behind a hill that may be preventing better reception...

[jim]

I'm inclined to believe antennaweb on distance. I have driven to St. Louis thousands of times and it is close to 60 miles by road to down town. My address is 879 Green St. Rd.. I'm on a ridge - there is a valley and creek about 500 feet N. of the house and a little more than that S. is a lake and about 1/4 mile W. the road goes down a hill. Most of the time ch5 and several other channels comes in real good on analog. Lately we can't get ch4. How bad do trees hurt? I do have a big tree about 65' W. of the antenna. I could cut it down if that would fix the problem. I wounder about connecting one antenna to the other even though the 9032 has a place to connect a 2nd antenna. It seems to me it would be better if the amp. had a place to connect 2 antennas ( mine don't ). I would think the 9032 should work good by it's self on the UHF channels but I tried it and it don't. I even tried running the coax through a window straight to the amp. power supply then to the converter box - wasn't no better. I would buy an other UHF antenna if that would fix it. I just don't want to have a satellite bill each month from here on no more then we watch TV. I could raise the antenna if I was sure that would fix it but that would be a big project. I have a farm house about 3 miles N. of my house. I put a converter box on it and it seems to do ok. No one lives there full time so it hasn't been tested much. Any more suggestions? I'll try most any thing. THANKS for all your time. Jim

[tigerbangs]

HD-7698 that you that you have. I wonder if aiming is the issue, or if you may have an issue with your tuner. What kind ot TV set ot digital converter do you have? How do you have the antenna aimed?

[jim]

I have the antenna aimed at about 270dg. I have it so I can turn it by hand and have tried changing the aim with no improvement. I have tried 2 different brands of converter boxes and I have a new DVD recorder with a built in digital tuner and I get the same results with any set up.
BUT MAYBE WE ARE ON TO SOMETHING. Maybe the old TV is too old. I don't know the age of it and can't find a date on it. We got it used. Tonight I took a little 13" TV we keep in our travel trailer and tried it. I got 10 digital channels not counting the - 2 3 & 4s all pretty good although the signal strength wasn't very good. It run from a low 30% on 9-1 to 68% on 30-1 the rest fell in between. It looks like maybe I need a new TV instead of a better antenna. This was done with my old antenna and the 9032 hook together. Is it possible for an older or larger TV to pull the signal down? Or maybe a newer TV will operate on a lesser signal. I don't know the answers. This also could have just been one of the good days. Some times we get much better signal than others with nothing changed in between. I'll get back after some more testing. THANKS again Jim

[jim]

Forget about the newer TV doing better. After more testing they both seem to do about the same. It must have been one of the better signal times when I 1st tried the 13" TV. I'm back to square one. I don't know where to go from here. Jim

[tigerbangs]

Jim, did you use new coaxial cable when you installed the antenna?

[jim]

No - I know everyone suggest to use new cable. I'll get some and run it through the window directly to the amp. power supply. I have never understood how a new piece of copper can carry any better signal then an old piece but then there is a lot I don't know about TV signals. At this point any thing is worth a try. It may be a few days - the weather isn't very nice here right now. I'll post the results. Jim