Signal GH update

Channels DVR Server
#1

A public service announcement.

Many of us use a utility program called SIGNAL GH to tune our antennas on the HDHOMERUN. It is an excellent utility. It runs on ios, ipados, and tvos. Not sure about android.

Recently ive been having some reception issues.

I noticed this morning that SIGNAL GH has implemented a major app overhaul, most of which have been nice improvements, although the UI has a new learning curve.

There is one “feature” that could really cause issues with channels users when tweaking their systems.

I noticed that if channels is running and has an OTA station selected, SIGNAL GH now has the ability to change the station with channels running. This really confuses the dvr, because it thinks its on one station, while the tuner is on another.

SIGNAL GH shows the status of the tuner/station as “in use”. In older versions it used to show the tuner as “locked”.

Im not sure whether SIGNAL GH is being a good tuner
“citizen” or not. Seems to me if a tuner is “in use” it should be left alone. Or is there a flag in channels that locks the tuner that is somehow not being set for some reason?

This was confusing until i was able to wrap my head around it.
I dont think signal gh could change a locked tuner on older versions.

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#2

still no support for Android ?

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#3

Considering the app is apparently from a single individual coding for iOS in Swift, I doubt you'll ever see this app on Android.

#4

“Support for android” doesn’t come out of feature work on an iOS app.

They are completely different platforms requiring completely different programming languages.

“Support for android” means building the app from scratch for a completely different device platform.

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#5

As a follow-up: Signal GH has never had an Android version. There was an app called Hdhomerun Signal Meter, but it looks like it has not been updated in years and is no longer on the Play store.

However, you can still get the app from F-Droid, or if you so choose build it yourself using the source on GitHub.

(Since the latest commit was from 2018, I doubt it has the necessary upgrades to support ATSC 3.0. Also, all of the data these apps provide is available to you 1) by using the hdhomerun_config application SiliconDust provides, and 2) through the tuner's web interface albeit with less granularity.)

#6

Did you contact the SIGNAL GH developer (glenn AT genhelp DOT com) about the issue?
Maybe he can provide an older version for you.

"I took the opportunity to rewrite all the HDHomerun interface code in pure async/await Swift."

#7

I used to love this app. But now the UI is absolutely terrible. I like to think of myself as fairly intelligent, but I have no clue what I am looking at now.

#8

So its not just me….

#9

You can verify Channels DVR is locking the tuner using the hdhomerun_config utility.

hdhomerun_config <Device ID> get /tuner<n>/lockkey

This should return the IP address of your DVR Server.

tuner<n> is the tuner number, i.e. tuner0, tuner1, tuner2, ...

To address by <Device ID> the HDHomeRun must be on the same subnet as the host.
A Device ID of FFFFFFFF can be used as a wild card for the first HDHomeRun device found on the
network. Do not use this syntax if there are multiple HDHomeRun devices on the network, as the
device used will be random based on discovery order, which may change between commands.

#10

Channels is locking the tuner as expected.. Its SIGNAL GH clobbering the tuner when its locked causing undefined behavior in channels.

I tried your command above. The ip address returned is the ip address of the client.

I had better luck with
hdhomerun_config get /tuner/status

That returns the lock state.

For other curious folks, you can also go into the hdhomerun web interface to check the tuner status. Its located at the hdhomerun ip address on your network and can be accessed through browser..

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#11

Assuming you're not running both Channels DVR and the SIGNAL GH app on an M1 Mac with the same lockkey (IP address) for both, I would agree.

I wonder if the developer assumes anyone running his app wouldn't be using anything else to access the tuners at the same time.

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#12

That's not the tuner resource lock. It means the actual modulation detected

#13

For now there is a TVOS version of SIGNAL GH on my apple TV that is based on the OLD codebase. That programs displays the tuners as locked, and you cant change the station when locked. Just verified.

I reported the bug to the developer…

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#14

Yep, noticed this last weekend while I was messing with my antenna direction. It's awful!

#15

@mnwxman132 Did you ever contact Glenn (the developer) and inform him of this? He's been very responsive to emails for me in the past.

#16

I did contact him and he acknowledged the issue.

#17

I have one tower that I've been having problems bringing in. I found the tower in Google maps (satellite view), then pulled a straight line distance to it from my house, zoomed in on my house and took a screenshot of it beside the straight line distance, printed it and have been using that sheet of paper to try and dial in a better antenna angle. Apparently I'm old.

Sounds like this app would have been a better option if it's navigable.

#18

You may also want to consider your physical elevation in relation to the tower to additionally fine-tune your antenna …

#19

It's just one channel (or range of channels) I'm having issues with so will need a second antenna, outlined in a different post.