Hr20, Ota

[SkippyJasper]

I've been working on getting a clear OTA signal to my HR20. I have pixilation problems, but that's a different story as the D* locals work just fine.

This morning we were under a severe weather warning and we went to the basement and were watching the local news and such. The approaching storm finally wiped out the D* signal so I went to the OTA. Oddly, the OTA worked just fine in spite of the weather. As the storm passed the OTA started the pixilation problem again, so I went back to the D* side and that signal was now OK.

Hmmm...
D* signal OK then OTA doesn't work well. D* signal poor then OTA works OK.

So my question is --- What relationship is there between the OTA and the D* signal other than the HR20? I would presume that there should be no interaction, but am curious if others have experienced anything like this.

Skippy

[Ratman]

The weather conditions that hurt satellite reception, helped your OTA antenna that has marginal reception. It very likely not a receiver problem.

You should probably check/upgrade your antenna if you experience reception problems in good weather.

[SkippyJasper]

Ratman- Thanks for the reply. I've been working on the problem for some time now and thought this might be part of the solution.

History:
Antenna used to be in the attic - mostly OK reception except in winter when there was snow on the roof. The ATSC receiver was a Humax HFA100.

Installed a Slimline and quad shield RG6 and got the HR20. Installed a 2-bay antenna on the roof where the old dish used to be. Moved the Humax to another location since the HR20 has the ATSC.

Pixilation problems from the start on the HR20. Figured it might be line loss so I installed an amplifier. Didn't cure anything. Advice from another site (dbstalk) said I was too close to the transmitters as well as having multi-path problems. Changed the 2-bay for a SR-15 directional HD antenna and removed the amplifier. Also redid some of the connections, just to be sure.
This did make a difference, but the channels are not watchable. Too many freezes and voice drops along with the pixiliation.

Brings us to current.

Humax is running off the new antenna and has splendid reception.

My next step is to reinstall the attic antenna for the HR20.

Any thoughts?

Skippy

[Ratman]

The Humax may have a more "sensitive" tuner. Who knows?

You've made a lot of changes and it's hard for me to determine what's new/old, etc.

Perhaps a diagram of how things are interconnected, as detailed as possible (amps, splitters, barrel connectors, cable types, yada, yada) and your zip code would help.

[SkippyJasper]

Ratman,

The schematic is fairly simple to write out rather than draw.

Antenna on roof at 16 feet AGL.
First coax connection is at the balun (I tried a new balun too).

45 feet of quad-shielded RG-6 gets to the basement and the splitter.

2 way splitter (suitable for off-air and satellite)

Path to HR20:
30 feet of quad-shielded RG-6 (from splitter to HR20)

Path to Humax:
20 feet of quad-shielded RG-6 (from splitter to Humax)

All of the coax is new and there are no splices. The connection at the balun is also wrapped in black Scotch tape and over-wrapped with rubber tape to weatherproof it. The other 'inside' connections are not taped. I used a kit from Home Depot to cut the coax and fit the connectors. Each connector was tightened by hand to snug and then an additional tightening, one flat, by wrench.

Attached is the file from my dbstalk thread which shows the local signal info.

I hope this helps. I appreciate your time and advice.

Skippy

[SkippyJasper]

A suggestion had been made to attenuate the signal as I'm close to most of the transmitters. Finally bought some 6db ones. Installed 1 then 2 with little change. Somewhat frustrated I removed the attenuators and reset the HR20 using the red button under the front panel. Prior to this I had usually used the menu reset and also had done the 'pull the plug' reset. Following this reset the OTA pictures are clear and seem stable. Go figure!

The signal strength actually seems worse than before, but the picture/sound is clear and unbroken.

It might be too early to claim victory, but the picture seems very clear and the pixilation is gone.

Skippy