Question

[Bobby C]

I Live in Oklahoma Zip Code is 73160, I have a problem i need to fix before the Feb 2009 analog shut off. The problem i have is on the digital side of my local stations, During severe weather with high winds and heavy rain i will constantly loose signals on some of my local digital channels, I receive them via Outdoor antenna. I am currently using Voom receivers to receive the local channels in digital. I don't know if this is an issue that will be corrected when the changeover happends or if it is somethigng i need to correct in my setup? it is not a big problem now as i have A/B switches installed where i can quickly switchover to analog signal but after the cutoff i dont want to have storms moving in and have my signal gone where i dont know whats going on weather wise.

Any help or advice would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks

Bobby

 

[emtpud]

bobby c: first, the basics. get up on roof and make sure all nuts/bolts are tight and you might consider an extra strap for mast(ok. noted for winds) i would use a 2way splitter on downlead in house-1 to box and 1 directly to tv ant. input. you also might need a stronger ant-1 that has a support brace underneath ant. we get high winds here in boston and digital signals are sensitive to any interference. i have found that direct input to my digital tv causes less loss of signal. emtpud

 

[Bobby C]

Ok, The mast goes up and is anchored in several spots on the side of my house, secondly i can not hook up the input directly to my tv because i do not own a digital tv and therefore have to run the signal through the digital voom receiver to be able to get digital local reception.

 

[TNGTony]

Bobby,

When you have storms like these with the trees blowing around, take a look at the analog channels. If you see ghosting coming in and out or your picture shifting sideways and color fading (as is normal for UHF stations in these conditions), that is your answer.

Digital is not always better, and here is example number 1:

On analog TVs when trees cause those anomalies in analog signal, they cause the same problems in digital signals. The difference is an analog TV can still decipher the signal and, ugly as it may be, still shows it to you.

On a digital TV the signal has to maintain a certain minimum level of integrity. If the signal is being bounced off of moving trees the antenna, (no matter how directional) will receive some level of multi-path (ghosting). If this multipath signal is strong enough, you lose picture or have a garble (blocky) picture, or on some TVs, picture freezes.

It's the nature of the beast. Not a thing that can be done about it. Isn't digital great?

You will find this problem in high wind situations rain or not.

See ya
Tony

 

[Peter Parker]

there is some chance that your locals might use more powere after Feb of 2009 . I believe that TVfool.com can tell you.

But it si likely that Tony is tight. High winds occasioanlly kill my weakest digital station.

 

[Bobby C]

Well that aint very good especially when you have severe storms with tornadoes barrelling down on you. Did they not think about this issue as being a major public safety issue to have to overcome when they came up with digital access only to your local stations? I have to do some serious thinking on this because this is not very acceptable to have blocking or total signal loss in times of danger. We go wall to wall coverage here in Oklahoma when tornadoes are occouring for precise up to the minute information.

 

[TNGTony]

Weather radio... Cheap. Reliable, and as accurate as the TV stations since they get their severe weather info from the same office at the same time.

See ya
Tony

 

[angiecopus]

Where i live i have trees and Winds do sometimes cause my signal to go week. Right now i am having a problem with our local Religous subchannels WKOI out of Richmond indiana, sound dropouts and pixels, yes tony is right sometimes Digital is not always Better, in fact after feb 09 we will lose our Dayton ohio CBS station because of Antenna is not the right direction. But thats ok, Cincinnati stations come in really good during a storm.

 

[TNGTony]

Being out in Camden, you don't have the multi-path issue of those of us closer to the stations. I can get WKOI here better than I can WCPO, WKRC and WXIX. WWLT comes in at 100% signal integrity so I have no problem with that one.

Remember that WKOI is licensed to Richmond, IN but the tower is in Butler County, OH between Seven Mile and Oxford. Near Ohio Rt 73 and US 127 on the north side of the "jog".

See ya
Tony