[opendtv] Re: Sony Vaio home theater PC
- From: Kilroy Hughes <Kilroy.Hughes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:41:20 -0700
I have line of sight to those 3 towers you mention (on Queen Anne Hill) 1 to 2
miles away across open water (Lake Union). The Space Needle is about 15
degrees left of the towers and 2 miles away. I started with omni then
reflector antennas because towers are spread in a 50 degree arc, but a silver
sensor pointed away from the towers with gain set high gives the best results.
I have to point another 15 degrees left of the Space Needle to get stable
reception, so maybe I'm getting the bounce off the Space Needle while rejecting
the first arrival of the 3 nearest towers. Or maybe one of the big bridges, or
the tall buildings downtown are producing the echo of those three towers while
allowing direct path from some more distant towers that I'm receiving. When I
do a circular sweep, I can find dozens of strong echoes that give me a few
stations at a time, but only one angle where there are no towers located that
gives me the most. I get 7 stations (plus a few subchannels), including one
station I can't get on analog but minus one I used to watch the most on analog.
My remaining problem is that the echo pattern seems to shift with the weather
and a couple stations drop out to the point they sometimes aren't watchable.
Luckily, "The Daily Show" and "Arrested Development" are available 24x7 on my
phone line to the Internet.
Kilroy Hughes
-----Original Message-----
From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Manfredi, Albert E
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 1:07 PM
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: Sony Vaio home theater PC
Kilroy Hughes wrote:
> My biggest problem was getting a reliable ATSC signal because
> I'm near city center on a flat lake with line of sight to the
> transmitters (:-) go figure. I went through several tuners and
> antennas until I found a combination that could handle the
> multipath for most of the stations with a single antenna position
> and gain ("5th gen" tuner cards beat out the built in DTV tuners
> I tried). I still record dropouts and blocking every couple
> minutes when the rain gets bad ... about 160 days a year in
> Seattle. I never watch live broadcast, so I'm not around to beat
> and swear at the antenna when it's happening and just have to
> delete shows when they are too messed up.
On a recent trip to Seattle, I finally went up the Space Needle. The
guide and elevator operator said it is 520' tall. So my first reaction
was, "Big deal. I bet I can see TV towers looming over it."
And sure enough, after we got to the top, I scanned the horizon and
found three TV towers on a ridge, I think to the North of the Space
Needle, and considerably taller than it is. It seemed like DTV reception
in Seattle SHOULD be a piece of cake. How strange. Maybe they should use
Mount Rainier instead? I'd love to know exactly what makes reception
difficult when it should be easy. Is it one of those super long and
strong echoes, like they measured in the Bay Area?
Bert
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