Is the OTA tuner on the 811 really this bad??

[Mr Tony]

I decided to hook up my decommissioned 811 in the bedroom for OTA only. I currently have a Voom box in there but with the issue with Voom box + O&O CBS affiliates (for the uninformed, if your CBS is owned by Viacom AKA CBS when you select the channel the box reboots) I decided to hook the 811 back up.

Since I only have one cable in there I needed to diplex the antenna and Dish signal (you need a Dish signal to get OTA) so I hooked up a line from 119 and the antenna and diplexed it out at the box.

Satellite worked fine..get 101, 213, 240 & 262
OTA sucked. Couldn't get a lock on 4 channels (5,45,17,2 which are ABC, Ind, 2nd PBS & PBS) so scrapped that idea. Tried 4 different diplexers. Voom box picked them up fine even with the diplexer in line.

So now I ran a new cable for OTA and have 2 straight lines and now all my OTA comes in around 91% and all channels work

So is the tuner really that bad on the 811 that I couldn't get a lock on a few channels with a diplexer? Cable run is about 65 feet....25 then diplexed to 40 feet then diplexed out

 

[kb7oeb]

I think the 811 is a second generation chipset, mine has always needed a stronger signal then anything else I have.

 

[dfergie]

I couldn't ever get a pic on the only digital signal here with 87% sig strength...

 

[Miner]

For a second generation tuner it was better than the hughes d* box and RCA DTC-100 (1st or 2nd gen). But compared to the 3rd or higher tuners, there is no comparison.

My feeling is the 811 was good with a clean signal, but once multipath was introduced, it couldn't handle much before the snr choked it. When I lived in coastal Texas (flat and no trees) it worked great. When I moved up to suburban Seattle (hills and trees) picking up the locals was so much a chore (rotator and high end pre amp combined with a variable attenuator). Then I stepped up to a 622 and don't hardly ever use the rotator or the attenuator.

Miner

 

[Fredinva]

My old 811 OTA tuner worked as good as my current 622.
I actually found most 811s had better tuners than the customers hdtv tuners.

fred

 

[dlsnyder]

Before I traded it in for a 622 last year I had no trouble with the OTA tuner on my 811. Of course the signal level on all my locals is very strong with neglegible multipath. Even a 1st-gen receiver would have done well here.

 

[Mr Tony]

see its odd. I'm close enough to the towers (suburban Minneapolis) and I use a big outdoor antenna (Radio Shack U-120 as all DT channels in Mpls are on UHF for now) and on the Voom box all channels came in between 93-99. It just seemed odd that the diplexers would cut that much signal and on a few stations...the only thing I can think of otherwise is maybe all 4 stations were doing upgrades or something

But its all good now

 

[dfergie]

I guess it's a psip thing as my Direct receivers get black sceen also...

 

[Cokeswigga]

My 811 was HORRIBLE at receiving some channels OTA.

It had a horrible time trying to tune in channel 7.1 in Los Angles (ota 53 i think)
I think I was getting a multipath signal from a mountain at a 90 degrees to the west, because when I pointed my antenna at the mount I got channel 7.1 at like signal strength 60. I would have to tune to 7.1 and let it sit for about 20 minutes, while the receiver tried to figure out if it could tune into the channel or not.
Once it did, it was usually ok... but if it dropped, I would have to start all over again.

As soon as I hooked up the 622..... all my OTA problems went away. But now whenever I loose a satellite signal, I also loose ota ....... booo on dish for this "feature"

 

[Cokeswigga]

here is a post from the past:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/hd-over-air-ota/53777-multipath-issues-possible-solutions.html

 

[Barry Erick]

Multipath for the 811 was better than for the RCA DTC110, but not too much. We are three generations futher along now than then.

I'm 20 miles from the towers and used a 10" piece of wire stuck in the OTA connector when I first hooked up my DTC110 and then used that with my 811 to no avail. I now have the 722 and use a outdoor VHF/UHF on a rotor.