I recently put up a new antenna and am experiencing a strange problem. In San Diego there are 2 stations on VHF, channels 8 and 10 (plus at least one from Mexico on Channel 9). I have a Winegard 8200 pointed at 105 degrees to pick up UHF stations and the VHF stations are at about 290 degrees so I get them backwards. All works fine in the daytime but in the evening I lose the VHF stations. the UHF stations continue as before. I am using a Channelmaster preamp on the mast to drive the coax down to the 3 TV locations. I'll go up and recheck all the connections later today, just wondering if anyone has any suggestions other than that. BTW the old antenna used to show some pixelation of the VHF signals in the evening but never a complete loss of signal such as I see now.
Losing VHF signal in the evening
- Thread starter JohninSD
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 10
- Views 2K
Try aiming the 8200 at 290 and see how the UHF stations come in from the backside. You might have to adjust the aim to maximize the signals.
Here's the TVFOOL report. I rotated the antenna 180 degrees and rescanned - getting pretty much the same channels as before - won't know until after dark whether it helped. I do have a rotator on order but it won't be here until next week. BTW I see I was wrong about Ch 9 being a Mexican channel - it's actually in LA it seems. When I first put up the 8200 and had it aimed somewhere to the SW I did get several LA stations - but not as many San Diego stations. So I'm looking forward to getting the rotator up and running.
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id=d243332bba7d92
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id=d243332bba7d92
What is the gain on the pre-amp that you're using? What model# is it? You may be getting better reception at night on the VHF and overpowering your tuner, those stations are very close to you. Maybe try it without the pre-amp in the setup and see what that does, the 8200 is a fringe ant and over powering the tuner might be what's going on.
as close as you are to the towers you dont need a pre-amp. As noted you are probably overpowering the signal which is just as bad as not having a signal there
With the antenna rotated to about 290 degrees I watched Channel 8 all evening last night - not a glitch. I still plan to install the rotator when it arrives - I'd like to experiment a bit with receiving more distant stations. There is an Ion station in Bakersfield that I've seen occasionally with the old Channelmaster antenna, wonder how reliable it might be with this one. I find playing about with the antenna and dish (I have a 1 meter FTA dish) often more interesting than actually watching a TV show - but that's just me.
John... You're definitely not alone finding that playing with the antenna is more interesting than watching the actual TV shows. I've got four sets of antennas on my roof so that I can pull in stations from lots of different directions. There's even a group dedicated to logging distant stations, the Worldwide TV-FM DX Association - http://www.wtfda.org/ - that you might want to check out.
For a look at my antennas, take a look here: http://www.larrykenney.com/tvantennas.html
Larry
For a look at my antennas, take a look here: http://www.larrykenney.com/tvantennas.html
Larry
I also like to "experiment" with the antenna to see what or what not I can receive. It's fun!!
