When I moved my antenna less than a 1/2 inch to the left, some of the channels got strong. Are digital antennas that sensitive?
No. You don’t say what strong means. Signal strength? That’s not a good measure.
Bit error ratio (BER) and module error ratio (MER) are more interesting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_error_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulation_error_ratio
ATSC can correct errors—until there are so many that it can’t (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_effect).
Well, this is my first time using a digital antenna, so not familiar with all the technical aspects.
By signal strength, when I have the antenna hooked directly to my TV and I show the info for the channel, there are 5 bars showing strength. One of the channels, was showing 2 bars. When I moved the antenna over a 1/2 inch, it went up to 4 bars.
Does that help?
How to I measure/see BER and MER?
OTA reception depends on a lot of factors, including the antenna, your location and elevation. We have some resources in our FAQ you can use to figure out where your tv towers are. Pointing the antenna in the direction of the signal will improve reception.
As I said, signal strength is not a good measure. To do this right, you need a meter (I have this: https://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=digiair-pro-atsc). It let’s one see how many errors are being corrected. As such, you get a better sense as to how close you are to the digital cliff. If you are close to it, a change of time of day, weather or time of year might take you over.
Having said that, if you’re not having an isssue, do nothing. If you are, I would start with one of the apps that shows signal quality and symbol quality. These will help you adjust. You should see 100% symbol quality for channels you receive well as error correction should be fixing everything.
Edit: my.hdhomerun.com shows symbol and signal quality. Check that out.
Thanks. All very interesting. I will find it a bit hard to justify the $300+ price tag for the meter. I’m not having a lot of problems. Just occasional pixelation. And, one channel goes from 2 to 4 bars every 10 or 20 seconds…back and forth.
Thanks for the insights.
Looking at my.homerun.com. I have 4 tuners. How do I know which tuner is connected to which channel?
For example, I see the following for one of the tuners:
Virtual Channel: none
Frequency: 479.000 MHz
Program Number 8
I am guessing Frequency? I don’t see anything like 15.1, 12.1, etc.
Use this to convert to channel:
Then convert the channel to virtual channel with this:
https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps
Select you zip code, then click on call signs until you find an RF channel that is equal to the channel you found in the first chart. For example, here in the SF Bay Area, channel 11 is actually channel 12. As such, clicking on rgat station shows RF12.
Would be very interest to see signal quality for the station that pixelated. I’m guessing signal quality is a measure of how many symbols need to be corrected.
I found the hdhomerun signal strength app was extremely useful in positioning my hdhomerun connect and cables.
As you say, it can make a huge difference to the signal strength and quality depending on even the position of the aerial cable.
My rooftop aerial is years old though, and the cable doesn’t look like its in very good condition, but I still get perfect performance using a hdhomerun connect and Channels 
I have my antenna inside my condo but thinking I should get it installed on the roof. The roof is flat. When I bought my antenna, I saw a sign that said houses with cable TV are already wired for an antenna.
Is there some kind of junction box I should look for on the roof? I’m really hoping I don’t have to run coaxial cable down from the roof and through walls.