TV Antennas are Crazy
Now that I have my converter box in hand, I’m researching antennas here in the burbs of Wendell. I just picked up a Phillips Silver Sensor PHDTV3 indoor antenna at Target in Knightdale and ran some tests versus my outdoor antenna. Target has also re-stocked the RCA box, and a trip across the street to Wal-Mart proved fruitless as they have no boxes in sight; just the cute little digital countdown clock on an empty shelf, but we’re back on antennas now. Other stores have plenty, so there’s no problem with finding boxes.
So on to the test! The Silver Sensor blew me away. It actually picked up ION in Louisburg on the side, when it was pointed to our main transmitter site in Auburn. Not only that, it had better numbers on some channels than my outdoor antenna, which made me take a look at it, but more on than in a minute. This version of the Silver Sensor has VHF ears, and looks like a starship, but it did an awesome job. Turning it 90 degrees towards Chapel Hill pulled in the PBS stations, and maintained the others reasonably. I was not expecting to get Univision from Fayetteville, but when I rotated it in that direction, it locked in clear as a bell. After searching in all directions, I put it back towards Auburn, and experimented with the variable gain control. It has a built-in 10 dB amp, and I monitored the signal strength on the RCA DTA809 box. The signal increases until a little over half way, and then decreases as you over-drive the box. That’s a very common mistake Newbies will make with amps. You do not need a huge amp, or tremendous gain, just enough to overcome noise, multi-path, and deliver a flat signal to the box. You can easily over-drive a digital tuner which gives you the same results as too little signal, freezing, blocking, and drop-out.
These new generation converter boxes have very good technology packed inside them, and they tackle reception issues pretty well, but it’s still the antennas’ job to deliver a nice flat 6 MHz wide digital signal. At my house, the Silver Sensor does a great job.
So good, in fact, I was amazed and amused my outdoor antenna wasn’t blowing it away like I expected. Sure the outdoor antenna was better, but not what I expected. So outside I go to check the connections and see if I could find anything wrong. Everything checked out, so I followed the wire to the splitter. Everything looked good, until I took a close look at the splitter. It was a 3-way splitter installed by the cable company, and when I inspected the splitter, I noticed 2 outputs were rated at -7 dB, and one was rated at -3 dB. The house was wired for 2 cable drops for TV, and 1 for phone or Internet. I swapped out the splitter, and the signal increased like I suspected it should have been in the first place.
If you are having problems with a particular indoor antenna, please write me and I’ll see if I can get my hands on one and test it. I’ve heard the Silver Sensor is hard to find, so when I saw it at Target, I had to buy it. They had other indoor antennas with 45 dB and 50 dB gain printed on the box for less money, but I really don’t see the point in that much gain. Maybe if you have a lot of terestial interference it would be helpful, but I really think it’s too much, because amps are like computers; garbage in, garbage out. Just a lot more garbage when it has been amplified. That makes the box work harder, and it can’t decipher bad signals from good signals at times.
Again, I’ll be experimenting with antennas a little more, and my counterparts at the other stations are doing the same. We get together nearly every week and compare notes, so if you have a bad experience with a particular antenna, or have rave reviews of something you are using, let me know and we will pass along what we learn as we go.
Pointing the antenna is tricky, so here’s where the stations are:
WRAL-DT (CBS), WNCN-DT (NBC), WLFL-DT (CW), WRDC-DT (MY Network) and WRAZ-DT (FOX) are all on the candelabra tower at Auburn, on US-70 East right at the Wake / Johnston County line.
WTVD-DT (ABC) is only a few hundred yards away in the same location. Theory is, get one, get all.
WRPX-DT (ION) is near Louisburg.
WUNC-DTV (PBS) is south of Chapel Hill. (I can also get 36 from Roanoke Rapids, and 25 from Greenville)
The rest are low power stations not affected by the conversion next year.
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