what to try next? higher antenna, new preamp, or 2nd antenna

[kzimmerm]

also, we have not really had any significant rain since I've installed the antenna so i can't comment on rain's effect on WBRA's reception.
k

[No Static At All]

The preamp & FM are unlikely culprits since the test didn't change anything. I have never had to deal with "digital" VHF LO band issues, so not sure what to recommend next. Doesn't make sense why 3 is so troublesome unless there is some pretty intense electrical interference around you. If no one else chimes in, you may want to check the Roanoke local thread in the AVS Forum to see if others in your area may have some other ideas. Other forums that may offer some help are TV FOOL forum, Hi Def Forum, DTV USA & Digital Home.

[kzimmerm]

thanks for all of your help with this, I'll post on one of the sites you mention to see if any other thoughts. Thanks again.
k

[kzimmerm]

Greetings again,
I wanted to share with your forum members my discovery related to the cause of my inability to receive a PBS LOW-VHF station, real channel 3. During a recent wind storm the power was interrupted to our home due to downed power-lines. I took the opportunity to try the reception on channel 3 and was surprised to see that it was now perfect. This supported your (moderator) suspicion of some form of electrical interference from nearby power-lines. So I thought there would be little I could due to permanently resolve the issue. Even more to my surprise was that when the power was resorted the reception on channel 3 was still perfect. I then discovered that during the outage our computer (always on with DSL connection) had shut down. As soon as I restarted the computer we lost channel 3 again. So apparently all the interference on the LOW-VHF station was coming from the electrical noise from that single device. Hope this helps some other members before they build a higher antenna to improve their signal. Now I just have to figure out what to do about a computer that has too many stray electrons…any suggestions
k

[No Static At All]

Thanks for the helpful info Is the computer on the same circuit as the TV?

Funny you mentioned that problem. I had some computer speakers hoooked to my set at one time & it wiped out a fringe channel 12.

[DXer]

I have found that ethernet switches and cabling radiate spurs at least as high as 148 Mhz, I get blasted by it every time I drive into the garage underneath my home network. TV channel 3 at 60-66 Mhz is probably going to see some interference as well. This is true on both 100Mbit and gigabit networks. I'm temporarily running a 91XG and a 10 element VHF antenna in my bedroom within 5 feet of a bunch of ethernet and WiFi gear, and sometimes I'll see relatively strong signals from channels 7 and 12 that the TV tuner cannot lock into. It's probably the ethernet interference.

Some things to try:

Put the antenna as far away from the ethernet switches, hubs, and cables as possible. Vertical separation is also helpful, can you go higher with the antenna?

If you can, try putting the interference source directly to the side of a yagi antenna. The side null is the deepest one available from a yagi. Otherwise, place the antenna so that the ethernet hardware is behind or in the rear hemisphere of the antenna. This will help reject ethernet noise reaching the antenna.

Run your network on WiFi as much as possible, using minimal cable length on ethernet. WiFi runs at 2.4 and 5 GHz, while UHF TV channel 51 tops out at 698 MHz - less chance of interference. You can reduce the chance of interference even further by running the WiFi at lower than max power.