Why my signal Strength OTA irratic ??

[khanh]

Hello everyone,

Over the weekend I just installed a Radio Shack outdoor UHF antenna to get my local HD channels with my new SamSung SIR360. Anyway, it's strange that my OTA signal strength is very erratic at best. It goes from 0 to 60 constantly, it would not stay in on place. The pictures are incredible when I see it but it kept going in and out as signal fade in and out. I live in a apartment complex in the Bay Area and are about 28 miles away from the stations. Any idea why it's doing that? Do I need a better antenna?

Thanks,

Khanh

 

[rad]

Hello everyone,

Over the weekend I just installed a Radio Shack outdoor UHF antenna to get my local HD channels with my new SamSung SIR360. Anyway, it's strange that my OTA signal strength is very erratic at best. It goes from 0 to 60 constantly, it would not stay in on place. The pictures are incredible when I see it but it kept going in and out as signal fade in and out. I live in a apartment complex in the Bay Area and are about 28 miles away from the stations. Any idea why it's doing that? Do I need a better antenna?

Thanks,

Khanh

The signal meter usually is not measuring the strength of the signal but the quality of it, how many errors is it seeing. The bouncing around could be anything from multi path to electrical interference to another station in the same channel causing the problem. The first thing I'd say is to make sure that you're using the right antenna, go to www.antenna web.org, plug in your address and see what they recommend. Also if you have an amp on the line try removing it and see if that helps. You can also try tuning in the digital channel on an analog set and see if you see anything that might help, like another analog channel, or electrical impulse noise. Good luck.

 

[JohnDoe#2]

You didn't mention whether your antenna is unidirectional or omnidirectional.

Reflected signals (multipath) are a big problem with DigitalTV because the tuner may well see 2 or more viable digital signals on the same frequency and not be able to lock on the "best" one.

If you have an "omni" I suggest replacing it with a "uni" and rotate it for best response even if it doesn't seem to be pointed right at the transmitters.

 

[khanh]

I have a Radio Shack Uni-Directinal antenna ..

Thank you for replying.. Anway, I have a Radio Shack Uni-Directinal antenna ..poining in the right direction which I got from Antennaweb.org. I might just need some sort of amplifier or something. I have play with the antenna by point it at different direction with very little luck.

Khanh