Digital TV questions

[myredracer]

We are new to digital TV in an RV via an antenna. Not all campgrounds have coax. TV available or only at a few selct sites so we have to go with digital TV sometimes.

Have a few questions I can't find answers to yet.

Is air digital available across the US? We were at one c/g a month ago and couldn't get any digital TV signals (did search/setup). Someone their said you can't get air digital TV in most places around the US because they aren't supposed to transmit it by air (what??).

How on earth do you aim your antenna to optimize the signal strength? Just when I think I have it aimed okay, by the time I sit down, the image is all screwed up again.

If you aim the antenna for one station, do you need to keep re-aiming it for optimal signal on another channel? What a pain that's going to be if so.

What are the ".2" stations, as in 24.2 for example? And where can you find a guide for the digital channels so you can find what is on or coming up?

I have to say that we are very impressed with the picture quality (when working okay). The downside is that most of the channels are shopping channels, in another language, or music video stuff (crap to us). Maybe only a couple of channels have anything on worth watching. We're freaking out that we won't be able to see Survivor or Dancing With the Stars some day.....

[Smitty75]

I may be able to help with some of your questions.

Almost all channels are now broadcasted in high definition over the air. The problem is how far your camp site is away from where the signals are coming from. This will determine whether or not you will pick them up. And in most areas, each channel or group of channels is coming from a different direction, so you will usually have to rotate the antenna for each specific channel you want to watch. Antennaweb.org is a great site for locating what direction your antenna should be aimed for a specific channel in your area. They also make antenna extensions/boosters to help pick up a better signal and more channels. These will just clip onto or replace the existing antenna on the roof of your TT. The biggest problem with high definition, is you either get it or you don't. So you will never have a fuzzy HD channel, it just won't come in all together.

[amxpress]

When I use my antenna at a CG, I either look at the direction other camper's antennas are pointing, or use a compass to point to the nearest big city near by.

[boubou]

Originally Posted by amxpress

When I use my antenna at a CG, I either look at the direction other camper's antennas are pointing, or use a compass to point to the nearest big city near by.

That's a good tip!

[Bttravel]

The digital signals they are broadcasting now don't carry as far as the old vhf signals. Hopefully you have one of the yagi digital add-ons on your existing antenna. No electrical connection but they make a big difference. The new multi-directional antennas eliminate the pointing problem and some are better than others. Ours does a fair job but when we're down home country we're just too far away to get the signals. Thank goodness for cg cable.

[Toby]

My 19RR came with the cheesy default antenna that you can't aim or point. I have friends who have FR campers with the ones you can raise up and aim. They get channels just fine while mine gets maybe one channel for 10 minutes. I've given up trying and know I must upgrade my antenna to watch TV. I just bring DVD's for now until I get up enough nerve to update. The only time I ever watch TV anyway is right before bed so I doubt I'll upgrade it soon.

[itat]

Originally Posted by Smitty75

I may be able to help with some of your questions.

Almost all channels are now broadcasted in high definition over the air. The problem is how far your camp site is away from where the signals are coming from. This will determine whether or not you will pick them up. And in most areas, each channel or group of channels is coming from a different direction, so you will usually have to rotate the antenna for each specific channel you want to watch. Antennaweb.org is a great site for locating what direction your antenna should be aimed for a specific channel in your area. They also make antenna extensions/boosters to help pick up a better signal and more channels. These will just clip onto or replace the existing antenna on the roof of your TT. The biggest problem with high definition, is you either get it or you don't. So you will never have a fuzzy HD channel, it just won't come in all together.

The Antennaweb.org website shows stations with colored-coded antenna types. What do the colors mean for us with the usual Winegard antenna?

[itat]

Doh! Figured it out on my own.

[Herk7769]

Originally Posted by Toby

My 19RR came with the cheesy default antenna that you can't aim or point. I have friends who have FR campers with the ones you can raise up and aim. They get channels just fine while mine gets maybe one channel for 10 minutes. I've given up trying and know I must upgrade my antenna to watch TV. I just bring DVD's for now until I get up enough nerve to update. The only time I ever watch TV anyway is right before bed so I doubt I'll upgrade it soon.

Toby, which antenna is that?

[myredracer]

Today I bought a Winegard Sensar add-on yagi type antenna. Will have to wait until we are camping again to see how well it works. It's supposed to increase gain by up to 100%.

I now understand that two big factors are trees in the way and line of sight. So if you are in a low area surrouded by trees, nothing much will help anyway.

Still trying to figure out where to find a programming guide for the DTV signals. That website link helps a lot, thanks!

[Herk7769]

Originally Posted by myredracer

Today I bought a Winegard Sensar add-on yagi type antenna. Will have to wait until we are camping again to see how well it works. It's supposed to increase gain by up to 100%.

I now understand that two big factors are trees in the way and line of sight. So if you are in a low area surrouded by trees, nothing much will help anyway.

Still trying to figure out where to find a programming guide for the DTV signals. That website link helps a lot, thanks!

Learned something new today!

Yagi Antenna

Thank you.

As to TV Guide, try TitanTV

[myredracer]

Yagi antennas have been around quite a while. Besides being a ham radio thing, before cable TV became widespread (I remember those days as a kid) a lot a people had yagi type TV antennas on their roofs on tall poles held down with guy wires. They really looked like h*ll, but everyone in the neighborhood had one. Sometimes they would come down in a bad windstorm.... Quite often they were fixed only. Folks with deeper pockets had electric rotators to aim them for best signals. You could only get 4 or 5 stations back then, and my parents TV was black & white. Oh, the good 'ol days!

Antennas need to be a shorter length the higher the frequency is. A yagi antenna is a sort of compromise in that it has several elements of different lengths that worth better in a particular UHF frequency range. The basic antenna that comes with an RV, is longer and designed to work at lower VHF frequencies.

This is what I bought today: SENSAR RV VHF/UHF Television Antenna - #1 Antenna in the RV Industry! I've read a lot about people adding a Wingman and didn't know exactly what they were. Now we own one!

I just noticed that CW has them for $14 less than what I paid at a wholesale only electronics shop. Better not let DW know.

[SimchaSabre]

I use a Sure Lock Digital TV Signal finder to locate the strogest digital signal source before I even turn the tv on. I also upgraded the stoc Winegard (no Yagi) to a Jack TV Digital replacement head. It was an easy replacement and made a big improvement in signal strength and number of channels.

Of course... none of this helps if you are just too far from the transmitter towers.

[Namchief]

A couple of years ago the government had forced the Television stations and Cellular providers out of the analog business and into digital. The analog always were stronger but also needed stronger signal to work for Cellular you needed almost 3 bars to talk where as with digital I can talk with 1. With analog television the picture has about 20 different levels of signal. The digital has 4 working, some pixelation, alot of pixalation and no signal.... While in TX this spring I was hooked up to cable but the picture on the digital OTA was sooooo much better I watched that 90% of the time while watching tv and not dvd, netflix or digitally stored media
Gotta love Google tv

[vasnipe]

Thanks for the help with AntennaWeb and TitanTV!.
I've bookmarked them on my laptop and Android tablet for future reference.

Chris in Virginia

[Herk7769]

Originally Posted by vasnipe

Thanks for the help with AntennaWeb and TitanTV!.
I've bookmarked them on my laptop and Android tablet for future reference.

Chris in Virginia

See if there is a Android app called TV Towers. It uses Google Maps to not only plot the towers but what networks are on them.

[Freds342]

One of my students' projects was to design a Yagi-Uda antenna, with each one having different requirements, such as gain, bandwidth, wind resistance, and directionality.

I had some very interesting solutions.

The biggest problem with Yagis is the bandwidth-directionallaty-gain trade-off; you can get a really good signal in a marginal area if you have high gain and pinpoint aiming, or okay signals in a strong reception area with a less directional antenna, or some reception in an area with strong signals.....ZZZZZ! I'm even boring myself!

[Coops1]

Originally Posted by myredracer

Still trying to figure out where to find a programming guide for the DTV signals. That website link helps a lot, thanks!

This will make your day then All you need is a postal code from the area you close to.
TV Listings Guide and TV Schedule, Where to Watch TV Shows - Zap2it

[myredracer]

Coops1, thanks for that link! That actually seems to work since you can input your location. Now, just have to pray for a good WiFi connection at a cg.

Thanks to the others for the great info. The TitanTV only seems to be for the east coast?

Freds342, not boring - gives me a headache thinking about it though. Took antenna and wave propogation theory in eng. school several decades ago (back in the day of sliderules) and think I'd rather permanently forget about it.

I have to admit I know nothing about how air digital signal transmission works. Anyone have some explanation?

[Toby]

Originally Posted by herk7769

Toby, which antenna is that?

I don't have any idea what kind it is. I have yet to get up there and check it out. I don't watch much TV at the campsite so it is down a little lower on my list. Someday I'll resolve it though. On the inside I have a little booster button which I can push but it does very little for reception. We do take a collection of DVD's to watch but we have yet to watch a full movie.