San Francisco, CA - DTV Channel Assignments

[SolidSignal_Mike]

[vance]

My view of Sutro tower (S.F.'s biggest TV tower) is blocked by the hill i live on. If i was fifty feet up I could probably have line of sight. I can't have a mast this tall due to land lord restrictions.

Using a Terk HDTVa antenna indoors I get most of the channels, but only at 50-60 percent. I get spotty reception on a couple of channels and if it rains its worse on all. I find that I have to point the antenna 45 degress away from the direction of the tower to get the best signal. I assume this is a reflection from the top of my hill.

So, I was thinking about getting the DB2 since it has two dipoles for better diversity. If I place this outdoors I will have to add about 50-100 feet of coax.

Any sugestions? trying to get (better) football this weekend

Vance

[Jeff Songster]

Originally Posted by vance

My view of Sutro tower (S.F.'s biggest TV tower) is blocked by the hill i live on. If i was fifty feet up I could probably have line of sight. I can't have a mast this tall due to land lord restrictions.

Using a Terk HDTVa antenna indoors I get most of the channels, but only at 50-60 percent. I get spotty reception on a couple of channels and if it rains its worse on all. I find that I have to point the antenna 45 degress away from the direction of the tower to get the best signal. I assume this is a reflection from the top of my hill.

So, I was thinking about getting the DB2 since it has two dipoles for better diversity. If I place this outdoors I will have to add about 50-100 feet of coax.

Any sugestions? trying to get (better) football this weekend

Vance

That antenna should work better than the terk... You may not need it outside if you have an indoor space away from other electronics that can "see" the tower. Good Luck

[brettski]

I'm new here, and I am still working on antenna selection! I realize this post could be also be posted in the Antennas forum, but I figure I'll deal with one issue at a time.

From antennaweb.org, I got a list of stations in my local area. Then I sorted them out by distance, direction and post-transition.

It looks like, from my location, there will be about 24 DTV stations in two groups (a bunch to the north, 'nother bunch to the south-east). Of these, four appear to have channel designations (KPIX 5.1, KGO 7.1, KQED 9.1 and KNTV 11.1) of the low and high VHF variety.

Having read SolidSignal's Antenna FAQ, it is my understanding that after 17-Feb-2009 most DTV stations will be UHF.

Will the four stations mentioned above actually be UHF? If they will remain VHF broadcasters, will I have to install separate VHF antennas to receive their signals?

Thanks!

[SolidSignal_Mike]

It was believed at first that most stations would go to UHF, since the release of the FEB 2009 Tentative Channel Assignment list, it appears that most of them will be 7-69. In some areas they will still broadcast on Lo band VHF (2-6).

Now it seems that most areas will have VHF UHF HD. So it's a safe bet to buy a VHF UHF Antenna. Check www.antennaweb.org's listed for your zip. They know list the channel as it is being broadcast now digital and another of the stations future channel designation. The column to the far right is Frequency Assignment and lists the truth designation of your channels.

-Mike

[Jeff Songster]

The entire list and lots of other cool details are available in the following websites.

Digital/HDTV Television Channel List - SF Bay Area

SFONAIR has the info on Sutro Tower... and Mt San Bruno... and lots of other cool stuff.

AntennaWeb is the best place to scope out what you should maybe get from your locale.

Turns out that the after the transition channels will likely be 7-51... which means that you need some high vhf 7-13 and some low 14 to 51 UHF. There are some new antennas custom cut for this new reality...

Choisser's web site points out that after the transition to digital Channel ABC7 will be back at 7 with a digital signal and so will 12 with what used to be NBC11...

So... I recommend a combo antenna for VHF and UHF... the Channel master 4228 is listed as a UHF only but because of odd properties of its reflector it does a fair job on the Hi VHF also. I am using 2 of them ganged together to get SF and a New HB something from AntennaCraft for Sacramento... I live almost equidistant from both on a hill top.

Good Luck

Jeff

[brettski]

Choisser's site is totally overwhelming.

I take special interest in your remark about the CM 4228, and you are using two of 'em.

Why are you using two? Which ways do you have them pointed? Do you have them stacked one on top of the other? Side-by-side, one behind the other?

What I would like to do is have two DB2s in the space under my ridge beam (I have a Cape Cod cottage built back in '56). There's no metallic-faced insulation up there. One pointed north by north-east (to get Mt Sutro and a couple stations in the north bay area), the other to the south-east. If the beam width is fairly wide I expect I will pick up a couple stations in the San Jose direction as well.