<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 8:25 AM Jim Abernathy <<a href="mailto:jfabernathy@gmail.com">jfabernathy@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<div class="gmail-m_-134103608815368625moz-cite-prefix">On 2/22/19 10:43 AM, Allen Edwards
wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at
3:37 AM James Abernathy <<a href="mailto:jfabernathy@gmail.com" target="_blank">jfabernathy@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<div class="gmail-m_-134103608815368625gmail-m_7079545078189259528moz-cite-prefix">On
2/17/19 6:07 PM, James Abernathy wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">On Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 5:57 PM
Devin Heitmueller <<a href="mailto:dheitmueller@kernellabs.com" target="_blank">dheitmueller@kernellabs.com</a>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">> You
mentioned the HVR-2250. I threw that card
away because it could not receive my local
PBS station. my HDHR Connect and Quatro can
receive that station at ~50%. My new WinTV
Quad PCIe receives that station at 83%.<br>
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I would encourage you to be very careful
throwing around these numbers<br>
as they are not an apples-to-apples
comparison. Each demodulator chip<br>
exposes it's SNR and signal level in a
different format, so the scales<br>
are largely arbitrary (and each of the three
products you mentioned<br>
have different demodulator chips). Knowing
that 50% is worse than 80%<br>
is useful for a particular card, but don't
think 80% on one product is<br>
the same as 80% on a different product if
they have different<br>
demodulator chips.<br>
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I'm not doubting the empirical results
you've observed (i.e. that<br>
newer devices are performing better than
your older generation<br>
products) - just the comparison of the
actual numbers.<br>
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(speaking as someone who has worked on
various ATSC demodulator<br>
drivers in the Linux kernel).<br>
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Devin<br>
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==<br>
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs<br>
<a href="http://www.kernellabs.com" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.kernellabs.com</a><br>
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<div dir="auto">I would not disagree with you. My
point is with my antenna setup the HVR2250 could
not scan the PBS station. The HDHR Quatro could
receive the station with occasional break ups.
The WinTV is rock solid. </div>
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<div dir="auto">Jim A</div>
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<p>I had a situation with my reception recently that
made me do a revamp of my antenna situation. I had 2
antennas pointing in different directions and
combined before making the long run from the attic
to the splitter in the data distribution box. My
previous setup was for use with HDHR tuners. <br>
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<p>Now with the WinTV QuadHD PCIe card I removed the
weaker of the two antennas and the combiner. The
main antenna is a Clearstream 4MAX without a
distribution amplifier. I set the antenna 45
degrees off of both main signal sources, about
half-way between them. I used the HDHR signal
strength to peak the signal, but when I scanned with
mythtv-setup I had achieved 91% on the weak PBS
station 30 miles away and 100% on all other
channels. <br>
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<p>I know these signal values don't mean much except
100 is better than 90 is better than 50. <br>
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<p>What I conclude is the WinTV-QuadHD PCIe card is
the best tuner I've tested. Much better than even
the latest HDHR Quatro. A big issue for me is the
network problems are completely removed. I had to
completely isolate the HDHR tuners on one gigabit
switch alone with the Mythtv backend to fix some of
the issues, but that didn't fix them all. So now
the network is only for FE client activity which
will have no impact on recording even if we are
streaming multiple UHD 4K Prime or Netflix.</p>
<p>Jim A</p>
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<div>One of the advantages of independent antenna inputs
on the HDHomeRun and perhaps other tuners is that you
can set one tuner to one antenna and another tuner to
the second antenna. Then you set myth up so that the
channels you want are on the appropriate antenna. </div>
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<div>Using a combiner to add two antennas creates a new
antenna with new directionality and gain
characteristics. The signals from the two antennas adds
or subtracts depending on the patterns of the antennas.
It is not a good idea unless you really know what you
are doing. People sometimes take identical antennas,
space them vertically a specific distance and make a
higher gain antenna. Companies used to make antennas
like this but you are not going to get good results with
a wide bandwidth antenna just combining them. So not
doing that was a good thing.</div>
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<div>I would say that if your antennas are getting signals
45 degrees "misaligned" that they are pretty low gain
antennas. If you look at the polar plots of what I would
consider an acceptable HDTV antenna you will see that if
you are 45 degrees off you are going to lose at least
half your signal. <a href="http://www.winegard.com/kbase/uploads/HD7694P.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.winegard.com/kbase/uploads/HD7694P.pdf</a></div>
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<div>On the other hand, I looked up the Amazon Recommended
antenna and there are just no specifications that I
could find. I did notice a long "50 mile range" and
"multi directional". Long range and multi directional
are mutually exclusive terms so what is the
performance? Who knows. Marketing hype. Antennas get
gain the same way a telescope allows you to see distant
objects. You just don't get a wide field of view and
close up detail at the same time. It is just physics. </div>
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<div>I would not buy an antenna that had a 50 mile range
and was multi directional any more than I would send
money to the Nigerian Prince who told me he would give
me five million dollars for helping him move his fortune
into this my bank account.</div>
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<div>I did some more looking and found this probably old
document. I think it is old but still useful.</div>
<div><a href="http://www.winegard.com/kbase/uploads/WC-939%20OTA%20Product%20Cat.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.winegard.com/kbase/uploads/WC-939%20OTA%20Product%20Cat.pdf</a></div>
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<div>Just looking at a couple of antennas I see that a
smaller one has 4.5dB of gain and 61 degrees of
beamwidth. A better one has 12dB of gain and 40 degrees
of beamwidth.</div>
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<div>My point on antennas is that if you get a narrow
beamwidth it will help eliminate multipath reflections
and give you a stronger signal at the same time. The
trend seems to be to dumb down antennas, make them easy
to set up and put amplifiers in them. Half the market
doesn't even know that you can get TV off the air so
this might be a good way to go but it is a bit
frustrating to someone like me. I still have a full
range huge antenna on my roof. Actually I have three of
them as when HDTV first came out signals came from three
directions. Now all the stations we watch are more or
less in the same direction so two just sit there
disconnected.</div>
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<div>As a note. Where I am there are stations on channel 7
and 12 and I see they will be reassigned to 12 and 13
next year. These stations are called 7 and 11 but I am
talking about where the RF energy is. That still means
that I could buy a "HDTV" antenna that might have
negative gain for these stations. Antennas are important
and specifications are very difficult to find as far as
I have been able to see.</div>
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<div>Good luck.</div>
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<div>Allen</div>
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<p>I noticed your references were from Winegard. They know
antennas. I use theirs on my RV. My RV sits in the backyard and
with the antenna up it's much lower than my Clearstream 4MAX. It
also receives stations 90 miles away. I know that is very fringe
situation but my house stuff stops receiving at about 50 miles.
Everything like trees, wind, rain come into play. <br>
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<p>One interference that I've become aware of is LED light
regulators. The RV industry use cheap LED pancake lights mounted
to the ceiling and when they are one it wipes out any but the
strongest signals. Nothing worse for noise than a square wave
regulator. <br>
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<p>Jim A<br></p></div></blockquote><div>I am a HAM and there are no light dimmers in my house for the same reason. I was not aware of the LED issue as I have been off the air for a number of hears. Your RV antenna in all likelihood has an amplifier built in, mine did.</div><div><br></div><div>In the old days, if you didn't have a good antenna setup you got ghosts. You needed a good antenna, a preamp, and good lead wire to get a good signal. Now you get a good signal regardless of what you have, until you don't like when the wind blows. I don't think people appreciate the importance of the antenna. From the sales literature and the Amazon review comments it looks like the customer base is significantly dumbed down. </div><div><br></div><div>Allen</div></div></div>