OTA HDTV in Austin HELP!!!!!

I recently moved to Austin TX from LA ( where I got great OTA HD. Here
( in Lakeway) I have spent a year screwing with the OTA HD. I went from
TERK 55 ( no good) ..to now , a 50 Element Channel Master which is
giving me worse reception than the Radio shack 30 Element I just
replaced. Particulaly KXAN 36 NBC. Got it before ...now can't recognize
it. I Have 3 HDTV's.. some get some channels that others don't...Off
the SAME antenna??? Also I get these numbered channels recognized on
my scan that don't give me a picture ie 19,27 etc. Is it possible to
have TOO powerful of an antenna? I can't believe a bigger antenna
does't get a better picture than a smaller one I had. I used to sell
video tape equip. and installed cable for a while in my younger
years..so I'm pretty versed in these maters...but this is driving me
crazy. any suggestions would be appreciated. Fuzzy in Austin

baldguy96 wrote:
I recently moved to Austin TX from LA ( where I got great OTA HD. Here
( in Lakeway) I have spent a year screwing with the OTA HD. I went
from TERK 55 ( no good) ..to now , a 50 Element Channel Master which
is giving me worse reception than the Radio shack 30 Element I just
replaced. Particulaly KXAN 36 NBC. Got it before ...now can't
recognize it. I Have 3 HDTV's.. some get some channels that others
don't...Off the SAME antenna??? Also I get these numbered channels
recognized on my scan that don't give me a picture ie 19,27 etc. Is
it possible to have TOO powerful of an antenna? I can't believe a
bigger antenna does't get a better picture than a smaller one I had.
I used to sell video tape equip. and installed cable for a while in
my younger years..so I'm pretty versed in these maters...but this is
driving me crazy. any suggestions would be appreciated. Fuzzy in
Austin

Have you tried:
www.antennaweb.org
Plug in your zip code or even better your actual address. You will see where
the transmitters are in relation to your home. It looks like there two VHF
stations KAKW-DT Killeen / JCWX-DT Fredericksburg and the rest are UHF
stations. See the "street level' map and you'll see the direction you should
point your antenna for the Austin towers. I've found that proper aiming is
critical. Again... you need a good UHF antenna to pick up the Austin
stations.
Some DT tuners are better than others. My tuner picks up a few weak stations
when scanning but those weak stations will not display. I just ignore them.

On Fri, 24 Nov 2006 22:40:47 -0800, baldguy96 wrote:

I recently moved to Austin TX from LA ( where I got great OTA HD. Here
( in Lakeway) I have spent a year screwing with the OTA HD. I went from
TERK 55 ( no good) ..to now , a 50 Element Channel Master which is
giving me worse reception than the Radio shack 30 Element I just
replaced. Particulaly KXAN 36 NBC. Got it before ...now can't recognize
it. I Have 3 HDTV's.. some get some channels that others don't...Off
the SAME antenna??? Also I get these numbered channels recognized on
my scan that don't give me a picture ie 19,27 etc. Is it possible to
have TOO powerful of an antenna? I can't believe a bigger antenna
does't get a better picture than a smaller one I had. I used to sell
video tape equip. and installed cable for a while in my younger
years..so I'm pretty versed in these maters...but this is driving me
crazy. any suggestions would be appreciated. Fuzzy in Austin

All the Austin stations are within 10 miles of you. All but one are UHF
and the other is channel 13, which should be picked up ok with a UHF
antenna. Your antenna should be pointed at 106 degrees for best reception
of the Austin stations. You probably shouldn't be using a large antenna.
The Houston stations are only about 100miles the other side of the Austin
stations in the same direction. Too large of an antenna may cause
interferences. I would think a small indoor/outdoor antenna should work
well pointed in the right direction. With the trouble you're having you
might want to inspect your cable connections.

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Two points.

A bigger antenna is (usually) MORE directional and more picky in
pointing. You may need a rotor.

A bigger antenna (should) mean more signals. ALL signals. Not only can
your desired signals overload a digital TV tuner, but the rest (such as
powerful FM stations) will desensitize your receiver. Attenuators are
your new friends. In fact, most digital tuners are much more troubled by
too much signal than too little.

Digital is harder to troubleshoot without a spectrum analyzer because
digital doesn't show you the problems like analog did. The quality of
the analog channels can give a hint of problems, but I have seen
flawless HD and unwatchable analog.

In article .com,
"baldguy96" wrote:

I recently moved to Austin TX from LA ( where I got great OTA HD. Here
( in Lakeway) I have spent a year screwing with the OTA HD. I went from
TERK 55 ( no good) ..to now , a 50 Element Channel Master which is
giving me worse reception than the Radio shack 30 Element I just
replaced. Particulaly KXAN 36 NBC. Got it before ...now can't recognize
it. I Have 3 HDTV's.. some get some channels that others don't...Off
the SAME antenna??? Also I get these numbered channels recognized on
my scan that don't give me a picture ie 19,27 etc. Is it possible to
have TOO powerful of an antenna? I can't believe a bigger antenna
does't get a better picture than a smaller one I had. I used to sell
video tape equip. and installed cable for a while in my younger
years..so I'm pretty versed in these maters...but this is driving me
crazy. any suggestions would be appreciated. Fuzzy in Austin

baldguy96 wrote:
I recently moved to Austin TX from LA ( where I got great OTA HD. Here
( in Lakeway) I have spent a year screwing with the OTA HD. I went from
TERK 55 ( no good) ..to now , a 50 Element Channel Master which is
giving me worse reception than the Radio shack 30 Element I just
replaced. Particulaly KXAN 36 NBC. Got it before ...now can't recognize
it. I Have 3 HDTV's.. some get some channels that others don't...Off
the SAME antenna??? Also I get these numbered channels recognized on
my scan that don't give me a picture ie 19,27 etc. Is it possible to
have TOO powerful of an antenna? I can't believe a bigger antenna
does't get a better picture than a smaller one I had. I used to sell
video tape equip. and installed cable for a while in my younger
years..so I'm pretty versed in these maters...but this is driving me
crazy. any suggestions would be appreciated. Fuzzy in Austin

As a rough "rule of thumb", the higher the gain a directional antenna
has, the narrower its beamwidth. It's comparable to a candle vs a
flashlight that way. One will illuminate an entire room weakly, while
the other will illuminate a three-inch spot on the wall brightly.

If your higher-gain antenna is pointing at one transmitting station,
another could be outside of your antenna's narrow beam.

In article .com,
"baldguy96" wrote:

I recently moved to Austin TX from LA ( where I got great OTA HD. Here
( in Lakeway) I have spent a year screwing with the OTA HD. I went from
TERK 55 ( no good) ..to now , a 50 Element Channel Master which is
giving me worse reception than the Radio shack 30 Element I just
replaced. Particulaly KXAN 36 NBC. Got it before ...now can't recognize
it. I Have 3 HDTV's.. some get some channels that others don't...Off
the SAME antenna??? Also I get these numbered channels recognized on
my scan that don't give me a picture ie 19,27 etc. Is it possible to
have TOO powerful of an antenna? I can't believe a bigger antenna
does't get a better picture than a smaller one I had. I used to sell
video tape equip. and installed cable for a while in my younger
years..so I'm pretty versed in these maters...but this is driving me
crazy. any suggestions would be appreciated. Fuzzy in Austin

You're probably close enough to the towers that you need to aim your
antenna properly to avoid too much multipath (the equivalent of analog
"ghosting") interference with trees, hills, etc. The towers are on a
hill on Loop 360 about a mile south of the big bridge. Here in Anderson
Mill I have to aim the antenna for most of the local channels, but
lately I've been able to get KXXV from Waco, even though that's way
off-axis.

Also, if you use an amplifier, put it as close to the antenna as
possible. An amplifier can actually make a digital signal worse if it
adds distortion.

The way I figured out which way to aim my antenna was to mount it on a
stand on the porch and rotate it until I got a good squawk off of my
(2nd gen) tuner's signal meter. Then I mounted it on the chimney in
that direction.

If you've had HD before, then you probably have an older generation
tuner which has problems with multipath. Multipath for me is so bad
that _analog_ channel 7 is annoying to watch. When it rains, the
multipath knocks out one or two digital channels. More than once I've
wondered what was going on with the signal, then a minute or two later I
hear the rain. And about every three or four months the wind blows my
antenna off-axis and I have to climb a ladder and tweak it.

You can probably even use a rabbit ears antenna as long as you get one
with a rotatable UHF loop. At my mom's house in San Antonio, she can
get all the digital stations with rabbit ears, which is good because her
low-VHF cable TV picture quality is crap.