High Def over bunny ears?

[JohnEyles]

The DB2 is bigger and significantly better performing than the RadioShack antenna I listed earlier but half the size of the 4-bay antennas (the DB4 and PR4400). Many forum posters I read used this indoors, but at $40 it's twice as much as the PR4000.

I got a DB4, thinking it would be great - all the transmitters are about 38 miles from
me, more or less in the same location - and my place is not particualrly problematic,
except for the heavily wooded lot.

Anyhow, I'm a little disappointed, especially when leaves are on the trees I do not get
everything without dropouts. I thought of exchnging it for a DB8, but I think it I can
get it mounted higher it should be ok.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I got a DB4, thinking it would be great - all the transmitters are about 38 miles from
me, more or less in the same location - and my place is not particualrly problematic,
except for the heavily wooded lot.

Anyhow, I'm a little disappointed, especially when leaves are on the trees I do not get
everything without dropouts. I thought of exchnging it for a DB8, but I think it I can
get it mounted higher it should be ok.

Ah-ha! I found my handy antenna comparison link: http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/comparing.html (edit: erm, it's not my site, just a favorite site of mine)

The DB8 looks to get about 2db net gain higher than the DB4 over the entire spectrum. It's also more directional and presumably may ignore bounced signals better.

I also stumbled across a page describing antenna siting with various problems including trees.

If the antenna is behind a tree, it is in overlapping fields: a weak field that passes through the tree plus a weak field that is diffracted around the tree. Overlapping fields are complicated, with strong spots and weak spots. This will be true even if the tree is not a perfect sphere. If you get a UHF antenna to work behind a tree, you will likely see dropouts when the wind blows because the strong and weak spots will move around as the tree deforms. Even in a good-signal neighborhood it is inadvisable to put a UHF antenna behind a tree.

The farther away a tree is, the less of a problem it is. For far away trees, assume no signal penetrates the tree, and reception will be by diffraction around the tree. Trees block 100% of satellite signals.

My inexpert interpretation of the above tells me getting the antenna above the trees would be best. If you can't, getting a more directional antenna may help, but I'm not sure on that one. Unfortunately just getting a higher gain antenna won't seem to help you because the issue isn't signal strength but signal diffraction.

Anecdotally my PR4400 which is very similar to the DB4 worked well for signals from Bloomington, about 30 miles away from my apartment with a clear line of sight. So again the trees seem to be a bigger problem than the distance.

The home page of the linked site is a great resource for all sorts of HDTV info: http://www.hdtvprimer.com/

That siting page says that leaves block all satellite signals, but I had a DirecTV dish lazily mounted on a table on the patio (instead of the roof) and pointed directly through the neighbors tree. Surprisingly it worked even after the leaves came in and did pretty well through most thunderstorms. My anecdotal theory was that precise aiming could compensate for the tree, but the link refutes that. Maybe I was just lucky or had a satellite-friendly tree.

EDIT: I notice you say your wooded lot is the problem. If the surrounding lots aren't wooded you could try burying an antenna cable to a point where there is no tree interference and use a strong amplifier to cover the distance. Going up may be simpler, though. That Solid Signal site probably has some tall pole equipment or maybe even a small tower.

 

[dwk]

a good website iswww.antennaweb.org. Enter your address and it will tell you the direction and distance to the broadcast towers. There is good information regarding antenna selection.


I did the OTA thing about two years ago. Just recenlty switched over to dish network for the nfl and sports packages. I have a Winegard antenna and zenith receiver that I'm getting ready to put on craig's list.

I found the PBS stations have the best image quality, abc, cbs, nbc is okay and fox has the worst quality. I'm surround by large trees, in the spring and summer signal strenght was reduced greatly.

dwk

 

[Cut-Throat]

I have OTA HDTV and the picture is superb! - I have an antenna in my Attic. I get about 12 channels. I have no cable bill and all the TV I would ever want.

 

[laurence]

Thanks for all the insight and research - dang BMJ, if I was Trump, you'd be hired! I experimented with the UHF/VHF antannae on multiple t.v.s in multiple locations, upstairs and downstairs, and could only get one channel - poorly - upstairs. I'll have to go external. But that is a project, and DW says I can't start any new projects until I finish the ones we have now. That includes fixing the HDTV ( the red has de-converged, suspect some board burnt out). I've just turned it down, so now I have a clear picture, but I'm watching smurf t.v. (I'm blue dabadee dabadaa). I'm going to investigate these links though, and put this on my to-do list.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Sorry to hear it. We've been with Dish for 7 years at two houses, and they've always been responsive.

Maybe because you havent tried to cancel the service yet. The lawsuits and most of my problems had to do with cancellation terms and contractual illegalities. In my case, when I terminated they didnt inform me of a fine print charge until it showed up on my bill. I also was required to climb up to the 50' upper roof over the garage and remove their LNB and ship it back to them along with the receivers. When the box they were supposed to send didnt arrive I called and was told "The contract doesnt specifically say we have to send you a box!". The contract also doesnt say anything about returning the LNB or uninstalling the product myself. When I asked what I should do I was told "well, you might as well keep the equipment. According to the contract if we didnt have it by today we can charge your credit card $1000, so we're going to do that."

I escalated it to the vice president of customer service and after threatening to sue them in small claims, got him to agree to waive the fees if I shipped them the stuff overnight in my own box at my own cost.

I did make sure to give everything a nice warming up in the microwave before packing it up and sending it back to them. The contract didnt say anything about not nuking the circuit boards.

As far as equipment problems, read some reviews on the popular review sites. Many people have overheating problems with specific receivers, signal loss issues, require unplugging and replugging equipment regularly, and significant issues with standalone tivo interoperability.

Never had any problems with comcast or directv installations/equipment installations or cancellation. Usually they tried to keep me as a customer, not poke me in the face and grab for my wallet.

Laurence...look for the model of your tv and "service menu". Most tv's have a remote control key combination that fires the tv into service mode and displays a service menu. Read any docs you can find including online copies of the service manual and be very careful as you can do some unpleasant and permanently bad things with some of the options. But a 'self check/diagnostic' and 'convergence adjust' are usual options and non destructive. Besides the service menu, when in service mode there are also often many, many documented "hidden" features that can be fun to play with. Just beeeee careful.

 

[JohnEyles]

Great stuff BMJ, thanks for the research ! Never thought about how important
it might be to back away from the treeline as I try to rise the height. And it looks
like upgrading from DB4 to DB8 is unlikely to help much.

 

[laurence]

CFB, we are pretty well versed with the options and convergence menus, but this is beyond those options (we know because it's broken this way before - under warranty, unlike now!). I'm going to dissasemble this weekend and give it a go, and if not, it's not worth the $400 to fix.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

So you've already accessed the service menus? Not the regular setup menus, but the hidden, secret service menus?

it's not worth the $400 to fix.

Thats my story, and i'm sticking with it.

 

[laurence]

Yeah, I got the service manual on line. I haven't given up, mind you, but things don't look good. Reading bbs postings on my t.v. it sounds like there is a common problem of a part overheating due to bad design and poor air circulation - causes a melt/short. Since we are possum living, the old 25" may find it's way back to the living room.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

My lcos set was doing some funny things when it got warm. Put an air purifier behind it with the air blowing at one of the intakes. No more problems.