So is there a question?
Problem to solve?
I've had nothing but a positive experience with SiliconDust support and their products have all worked great for me. I even had one of my Quatro tuners fail out of warranty and they replaced it for free.
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Yes there was... Still kind of is.
All of which is contained in the previous posts.
TV Fool is no longer useful. Its databases are all out-of-date. They haven't been updated since before the recent UHF channel repack. Nearly every station in UHF has changed frequencies. Some are even now on VHF. Many stations have changed transmit power levels and/or relocated their transmitter antennas. Some have even ceased operation. TV Fool shows none of the changes for any market.
People on AVS Forum have tried to contact TV Fool's maintainer and heard nothing back.
What does that mean?
Well, even locast has not fully "updated" to match what my antenna picks up for specific channels numbers/stations.
Also, for whatever reason, some channels are being broadcast on at least 2 separate channel numbers.
Over the last year, a few channels have shifted numbers, or become available on multiple numbers.
Recently, I noticed GRIT, used to be in lower numbers where I got near 100% signal, is now moved to the 41 channels, next to ION, and that sucks, cause that channel bands transmitter is the farthest away from me and hardest to get.
This whole re-pack thing is freaking annoying and waste of my time having to re-program my DVR to hide or unhide channels i had before or new ones i don't want. There was nothing wrong with they way they were and have been, just leave it alone please.
I am not even seeing anything above 600mhz as far as new channels go, so no idea why, now that some the C.M. LTE/5G filter i now have range is extended to now cut off at 608Mhz instead of 600. (so I guess OTA range is 5 - 608Mhz nation wide? i have only seen the range of 200 - 599Mhz in my area)
At least, low quality set aside, if one only uses Locast, assumedly, that would always stay up to date when the power that be decided to meddle and move channels around.
Though, having to only edit a few channels here and there, far less a problem then when i had Comcast cable, and my Prime tuner would pick up their line up, in quadruplicate number sets (so did the comcast cable box) and new channels would appear at least once or twice a month.
Exactly what it says. Using both antenna and Locast now.
I can control, in my own home, what I turn on/off and know exactly when it will cause a glitch or extended interference, but I have no idea or control when neighbors in units that surround mine, turn on/off some device of theirs that thus then causes glitch or interference to my antenna.
Thanks for the info, I will have to switch over to RabbitEars then. I don't like that you have to grab the coordinates from Google Earth first to feed into it (their instructions for searching the address and centering the pin don't work, at least any way I enter my antenna location).
Are you saying it's your neighbors causing your Antenna issues? More likely it's from the Repak
I find Channel Master to be good enough and simple to use.
If you are wanting more radio engineer level details and GUI type look....then there are for sure better sites like RabbitEars. But the average person would take one look at that site and think they somehow hacked into some nasa database.
Repack, is just channels moving frequencies, NOT that there are millions of people out and about, flipping fans on and off, or using their Magic Wand personal massagers about.
As I stated a few times now, all channels are affected by the electrical devices mentioned, not just some, not just ones that have by been moved in the re-pack.
Only a few of my channels, ones i almost never watch, changed in the re-pack, and my area was completed more than a year ago, so said whatever site i looked that up on, Rabbitears perhaps?
And yes, when ever my neighbor directly below me, uses their foot massager, or their massaging chair thing, my tv channels glitch out. some more than others.
Yes, they are new neighbors, moved in some time last year.
but it made me investigate my own devices and resulted in me finding out that i can cause the issue as well, and probably have been the cause of my other tv users frustrations, when i am wanting to relieve my back pain by using said massager and it glitches out her soaps.
Also, it is not nice, to basically broadcast to my tv users, that i am having "personal time" since the Tv goes out when said device is in use. Nor do I want to know when my neighbors are also doing that.
Repak is less bandwidth because of it being sold, My NBC moved to a different city. My Fox messed up the tower. The signals are weaker. Could be interference on a weak signal to begin with. I notice that when my Roomba comes into the room with the antenna.
The only Channel that I have noticed that has physical moved locations and thus dropped significantly in signal strength and quality, is GRIT...which i don't watch often.
All but one tower is within 15miles of me. That one tower, hold ION and couple other sub channels that I do not watch, but ION is a channel my mother watches, she loves that Law and Order SVU etc....and that has issues most often late night.
11.1 KARE11 201Mhz Hi-VHF is the main news channel watched here, and that station gets strong signal and quality, but for some reason, is more sensitive to others in the tv spectrum for interference. Has always been that way even before the era of HDTVs.
Locast did not offer service in my area until recently...if they had I never would have spent the time and $ on the antenna setup. It was quite the fun project though...I tried at least 15 different antennas of various types, and locations all over my place. All in the name of "free" tv. Was very satisfying to finally find the best hardware setup for my needs and it has been excellent and 99% reliable, up until most recently.
Thats the thing about interference and devices that can cause it. There is zero logic, or consistency or pattern one can find to say for certain that X item of certain type will cause an issue or not.
Hell, i have a dual motor window fan in the window directly under the antenna, causes no issues. A portable AC unit, one room over. A wifi AP and a few smart plugs in the same room as the antenna...none of them cause any issues since day one of setup and install of the antenna...(and yes, i did try fully powering off all wifi devices in my home, to see if they had any effect, individually or cumulative to my issue, and they did not.)
I had 2 identical model fans, purchased at same store same time, one glitches out the tv signal, the other does not.
Its sooo weird.
Overall UHF spectrum: Yes. But the individual licensees all have the same bandwidth they had before the repack. (And it's repack, not repak. It's not a trade name. It was merely an FCC spectrum reallocation scheme.)
The fact that many stations have reduced the resolution of their digital channels to pack more sub-channels into their allocated bandwidth is separate from the repack.
Yes, there was a lot of that kind of fallout from the repack. In some cases it was because stations didn't want to go to the expense of antenna and transmitter changes, so they simply tossed their own transmitters and leased space on other stations' equipment. Other stations simply closed their doors.
You'll see a lot more of all this with the advent of "NextGen TV" (ATSC 3.0). Stations will re-purpose their own hardware to ATSC 3.0 and lease space on other stations' equipment to maintain ATSC 1 for the FCC-mandated time (five years). Other stations will simply abandon their licenses.
Anyway... other stations, in other markets, saw improvements from the repack. E.g.: The only stations with which we had trouble were all in the higher UHF frequencies. Once everybody was moved down below RF channel 37, all our reception problems went away.
I am going to try and borrow a old Frequency Counter a family member has.
That can detect and readout the Mhz of any transmissions it picks up...maybe that can give me an idea of what frequency the trouble devices are broadcasting, though, I suspect it may just be wide spectrum and not a set frequency.
So...now my HDHR Connect Quatro is dead. Won't power on at all.
I tried with a different 5v power adapter, nothing.
Got some sort of life by putting pressure on to the power jack, but nothing that will let it stay on.
just great...and very bad timing...as my other user is now on her way home from ebing out of town....gues i have to see if S.D will replace it. since i can not buy one anywhere localy.
Edit. I see they are selling a refurbished connect Quattro for $129 on eBay... But everything is out of stock. What's the point of that might as well buy the brand new 4K model for $199.
I wish channels could also work with other OTA tuners like Tablo... As I can find those models devices easily at Best buy or other local stores.
So...only the $199 4K model is in stock on ebay or from SD direct.
Order it from SD, saved $15 in taxes.
I can only assume that the new 4K model will work the same in Channels as the non 4K model. I don't care about 4K channels. I just need the normal line up to work. I don't have a 4K tv, so unless the tuner or channels will downscale the 4K stream, maybe it won't even tune it ..idk. I have not payed any attention to the ATSC 3.0 thing.
I think you need to get the antenna outside. When I lived in an apartment I ran wire out the window and had my antenna attached to the outside wall of the building. This was an 8th floor window facing out to a busy street and other buidlings in Baltimore. And still was significantly better than anywhere inside.
I couldn't get all channels though, and certainly not stations from Washington DC. Until I got a house and mounted 2 yagi antennas on the roof. Now I get all channels from both cities at 100%, it is perfect all the time, day or night, rain, snow, or shine. And there is no interference from electrical devices in my house or any of the rowhomes nextdoor. Yagi on the roof is the way to do it right, if you can.
Can't. Lease violation to run a cable through a window or something.
the position of the thing is pretty much just as good as if it was on the outside of the window sill. I tried putting it out on the patio temporarily, and it was pretty much the same.
Like i have said before, nearly all channels come in very strong no matter where i put an antenna. A few, KARE11, needs to be in a certain direction to get stable signal, and ION is weak, but that would be true even outdoor. ION hovers around 65% signal. All the others are 87 to 100%.