On May 9, 2009 01:26:31 pm Andy Walls wrote: > On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 11:34 -0400, Nick Nobody wrote: > > Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my sleepy state. > > > > Right now I have one length of wire that comes down from the antenna > > (which is on a mast above my roof) and gets terminated inside the house > > to something like this: http://imgur.com/JG0L.jpg > > > > >From there I either connect the television or the capture card, never > > > both at > > > > the same time as that would be impossible :P > > Ah, OK. moving on... > > > > This is the joy of digital TV reception that the FCC did not convey top > > > the public. :( The FCC didn't fully assess the impacts to OTA > > > broadcast to outlying areas either, I suspect. What does > > > > > > http://www.antennaweb.org > > > > > > say you can expect for digital reception of WFFF at your location? > > > What is the bearing that antennaweb.org say you should point you > > > antenna vs the bearing at which you have it? (antennaweb uses magnetic > > > north) Antennaweb should be running a Longley-Rice propagation model to > > > give you some decent expectation of availability. > > > > Sadly I can't use that because I don't live in the US. I tried entering > > my coordinates and it only lists two stations from Plattsburgh. One at > > heading 201 (WCFE) and the other at heading 188 (WWBI). > > Right. And antenna web is probably running a link margin with the > Longley-Rice Irregular Terrrain Model (ITM) with (I'm guessing) a 95% > (or greater) availability. Those were the only two stations, under > antennaweb's assumptions about your setup, that have that availability > year round. > > > The WFFF transmitter is > > southeast of me, I'd estimate the heading to be about 150 degrees and the > > distance (using google maps) is about 142km (~88mi) "as the crow flies". > > > > This may seem far, but there are 3 other transmitters in that area that > > I'm able to get great signal from (WCAX, WPTZ and WETK). > > For all four of those stations don't count on > 95% availability year > round. > > > > Weather fronts and temperature varaition betwenn you and the > > > transmitting station also make a difference at times. > > > > Sure enough, as soon as the sun comes out, "scan" no longer finds the > > channel nor will gnutv get a lock on the signal. > > Wait until the sun is higher in the sky, and not in any of the beams > (main lobe nor side lobe) of your antenna. Reception might improve as > long as your antenna isn't pointing at the Milky Way at that time. > > the time window when the Sun is not in your antenna beam might not be > many hours of the day at a northern latitude pointing southward... > > > So it looks like my only option is to try out a pre-amp, I'll see if I > > can find one around here at a reasonable price. > > Avoid units from Radio Shack, any unit that doesn't have a noise figure > stated, or units with a noise figure over 3 dB. > > The companies in the US that come to mind are: Winegard (Indiana?), > Channel Master (North Carolina?), and there's one up in new England > somewhere (IIRC). I found looking at various electronics stores to be a > waste of time; I ordered via the internet. > > > Good luck. > > Regards, > Andy > >
I set up my mythbox tonight and will be testing it over the upcoming weeks. If need be, I'll get a pre-amp (I found a local shop that sells the Winegard one that you mentioned previously). Thanks for all your help and your wonderfully detailed explanations, nick _______________________________________________ ivtv-users mailing list [email protected] http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-users
