Hi everyone

I have experienced really poor Prime SD and HD signals tonight - unviewable at times

I am Fraser on the north side of Mount Rogers.

Has anyone else had such problems - any clues on sorting out?

All other channels are fine, and though not the best at times, Prime is normally quite good.

Thanks in advance

Gooseman

Gooseman,
Read Get the Best Reception, ACT and read the links.
Unfortunately there is no commercial translators on the Bellconnen site. So it sounds as if there is a blocked path to Black Mountain. So I suggest a high gain band 3 yagi. A UHF phased array should be used for SBS.

AlanH

Hello

Your location is one of the poorest in Canberra for television reception. Can you describe the antenna setup at the moment?
Prime is transmitted on VHF 12, if your system is too old then the VHF antenna won't be designed for that channel. The most common antenna arrangement is a VHF phase array (CA16) and a 18 or 20 element band 4 UHF yagi. Added to this is a masthead amp, usually around 34 dBuV in gain and it's all sitting on a 4.5 or 6 mtr mast. Is this the case?
There are cases where there are two masts one for each antenna. The little translator at the CSIRO behind Fraser is next to useless. It only has ABC & SBS analog. You still need all the big gear to get the other channels and then have to mix a very weak band 5 signal into the system as well. It really is not worth it. Once you've spent the money on a correctly installed system receiving the signal from Black Mountain there's no need to use the translator.
We've had great success with DTV in Fraser, it has been the answer for alot of people that have strugled with analog for all these years. You will still need to have a good working system in order to receive reliable signals.

Gadget

AlanH and Gadget

Thanks a lot for responding.

I have been able to make a substantial improvement to the original problem by the simple act of bypassing my VCR. I originally had my VCR connected to the wall antenna outlet and then the tv connected to the VCR outlet. For some bizarre reason, I thought it would be useful to have the VCR capable of recording analog TV despite having a tv card in my pc cable of recording both SD and HD channels.

The upshot is a 2 fold improvement in signal strength (as measured on the television's signal strength meter) with zero or at worst 1 error bit rate.

So it seems the VCR was sucking away a lot of the signal strength

Gadget: I inherited a fairly substantial and obviously professionally installed antenna system with this house - VHF antenna having 10 vertical elements and the UHF antenna having a lot of elements (too dark to count!!). The signal is split to about 4 or 5 outlets but I have noticed a powered splitter at the junction point. Without the VCR in the way, the signal is now quite satisfactory

Anyway - nice to known that there are knowledgeable people out there will to assist

Thanks again

Gooseman