Antenna Signal quality/strength

#1

Hi Folks,

I’m just getting started with my Channels/hdhomerun setup. I was having issues picking up channel 6(vhf 6) out of Philly but could pick up pretty much all other channels. I bought cm-3020 antenna and that did not improve reception on 6. I ended up building a folded dipole tuned to 85mhz, and I was able to pick up several low vhf channels with this, but lost uhf quality. I ended up buying a second hdhomerun, one for uhf and one for vhf. I’m excluding the lower strength(quality) channels in the channels config. After getting both tuners running side by side, I’m confused about why the cm-3020 is unable to tune in channel 6. I’m getting very similar signal strength(I know it’s not an indicator of quality), but I can never lock on the channel 6 with the cm-3020. My tuned, albeit low quality, antenna can lock on with 65-75% signal quality. Is it possibly a multipath issue, or the cm3020 is picking up more interference with the signal?

Thanks,
Tom

#2

What about using both antennas, and combining their signals into a single feed?

#3

Thanks for the response. That’s what I tried initially. I got a vhf/uhf combiner. Using this lowered my already marginal channel 6 signal. Have dedicated vhf and uhf tuners seemed like a simple solution. The cm-3020 can’t even reliably pick up vhf channel 9 which is only about 15-20 miles away. It seems like the vhf elements on that humongous antenna don’t pick up vhf reliably.

#4

You can use a notch or VHF filter on the commercial antenna to filter out ch6 before feeding it into the combiner. But that's a bit of extra work.

If you have two separate tuner units, you're probably better going that route.

#5

You'll most likely get a definitive answer if you post here
AVS Forum Local HDTV Info and Reception

If you're in the Philly area the thread is

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#6

Thanks so much for the links to the AVSforum threads. Tons of good info in there.

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