[kwlug-disc] Future of [Rogers] PVR (wrt HDMI)? Black boxes? MythBuntu?

[unsolicited]

Thank you so very much for this, you're going on my Christmas e-mail list!

PLEASE tell me someone took video of your contortions!

And ... which month did you say the LUG meeting was going to be at 
your place? We can't bring the Huether to you, but we can probably 
work some sort of liquid refreshments out. Not to start a trend or 
anything ...

Andrew Kohlsmith (Mailing List Account) wrote, On 09/28/2009 12:34 AM:
> On September 16, 2009 02:03:39 pm Jason Locklin wrote:
>>>> Keep us posted as to your progress and success, please.
> 
>>> Will do.  I've informed the wife that if she wants TV this winter I need
>>> to get this done before it gets cold. :-)
> 
>> I'd love to year how it goes, planning on doing something similar
>> myself. Looks like all the digital channels we may be able to pick up
>> are UHF, so no need for a big VHF antenna (UHF-only antennas are often
>> cooler looking anyway IMHO).
>> http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=109935
> 
>> I'd love to know if anyone has managed to pick up Buffalo and Toronto
>> with something like the CM-4228.
> 
> So. I've got some preliminary findings.
> 
> I bought the ANT-2109; it was the biggest corner reflector yagi from Digiwave, 
> and about $40 from Research Electronics behind Williams in Waterloo. Orion has 
> them as well, for about the same price. I really wanted to try their 91XG 
> clone, but I figured let's start at something with the highest likelihood of 
> working and optimize at the right time. :-)
> 
> The antenna's very solid (they actually inject plastic into the hollow 
> aluminum passive elements, which I thought was a neat trick) and it's about 5' 
> long.  I installed it in my attic instead of uglifying the roof, although I 
> may end up putting it on a 15' pole on the roof.
> 
> I also purchased a CM-7777 low noise amplifier (preamp) - After doing some 
> reading it's the second-best LNA available, with 26dB gain and a 2dB noise 
> figure. The top-rated amp is a Kitztech amp (KT-100VG, $60 from kitztech.com), 
> which is a variable-gain amp, up to 20dB but with an amazing 1dB noise figure.  
> I actually paid $100 for my amp, so I may have been kind of foolish there, 
> without buying both and comparing I'll never know which is a bigger factor: 
> 1dB better noise figure or 6dB gain. It's certainly not something obvious.
> 
> I am able to pick up CBC, CTV and Global reliably (that is, any time of the 
> day). I am also picking up CITY and OMNI 1 and 2. With the exception of 
> Global, which transmits out of Stoney Creek, these are all from the CN Tower.  
> I spent the better part of the weekend cursing and aiming, cursing and aiming 
> in the attic. I picked up all these and several others when I just had the 
> antenna lying on the ground kind of half-assed aimed, but once I put it on a 
> mount I lost everything.  I ended up using a couple of tie-wraps to secure the 
> reflector and then very slowly doing some fine-tuning trying to pick up CITY and 
> Omni 2, which are the weakest stations on the tower.
> 
> I also pick up two or three different stations out of Buffalo. I just watched 
> the Fifth Estate and then flipped to Buffalo to watch a little CSI Miami. It was 
> a good episode with beautiful women playing volleyball, but then a dead body 
> in the sand ruined everything and I had to turn it off.  :-)
> 
> All of these stations are digital and HD; I am not worring about analog 
> reception at all at this time. I also broke off half of one of the passive 
> elements on the antenna trying to get it aimed "just a little more" against 
> one of the rafters. :-(  I'm sure it's affecting performance to some extent, 
> but without replacing the antenna and retesting I can't tell for sure.
> 
> Anyway there are a couple of tricks I'd like to pass along.
> 
> 1) rip out the POS balun in the ANT-2109 and replace it with a $2 balun you 
> can find at Wally World, Radio Shack, Orion, Home Depot or a thrift shop.  The 
> balun that the antenna comes with is utter crap.  I am going to be 
> experimenting with a coax loop balun, as testing over on digitalhome.ca seems 
> to show it's a stellar balun for UHF.
> 
> 2) dvbtune can't tune ATSC cards without a little patch. I wasted a LOT of 
> time with this until I discovered it was silently failing to tune.  Best bet 
> is to use a TV and work on getting a station pulled in, then tweak the 
> antenna, move away from it and see what difference it made to the picture. I 
> could find CBC pretty quickly, then woudl jump to CTV, and then over to OMNI2 
> and CITY (the weak transmitters) to try and tweak the position.  Do this at 
> nighttime when propagation is best, secure the antenna and then see what you 
> can get in midafternoon when propagation is worst.
> 
> 3) Check and recheck your wiring; I had the TV up in the attic with me after I 
> got sick and tired of dvbtune/w_scan not giving me consistent results. I used 
> the method described above and then went back to the tuner card.  I am 
> backfeeding the home coax and there is a run of crappy cable in there 
> somewhere, so once I clean that up I'm sure I'll get better results with the 
> tuner card. The HVR-2250 is supposed to have a really good receiver (low noise 
> and high sensitivity).
> 
> 4) Antenna position is not ... "normal." What I mean by this is that lying on 
> the attic floor, I pulled in something like 19 analog and 16 digital stations, 
> but when I put the antenna on a mount 4' higher, I got nothing. Putting the 
> antenna on a few cross-beams refused to give me anything, but holding it 2' 
> above them I could see a signal. There are also all kinds of near effects where 
> your own body influences what kind of signal the antenna receives. It's a royal 
> pain to try and pull in weak stations!
> 
> But yeah... change out the balun (experiment with a few! they're the cheapest 
> part of the whole system) and patience (several days worth) is needed to make 
> this work.  I did a lot of research and you don't seem to have any CLEAR 
> advantage by spending your money on the 8-bay channel master antenna. In fact, 
> one extensive site showed how they used poor baluns as well, and how their 
> "new and improved" design is actually worse than their older antennas.
> 
> I might also try experimenting with different driven element designs, but I'm 
> also kind of lazy. Unless this stops working or I really get the itch to pull 
> in some more stations, I think I'm going to be leaving things more or less how 
> they are.
> 
> OTA HD is definitely doable in Kitchener-Waterloo, and can be done for about 
> $100 to $150 in parts, depending on what you choose. It takes some patience 
> and perseverance to get it working beyond CBC-HD, though.