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Fred McKenzie Fred McKenzie is offline
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Default OTA TV reception problems

In article ,
wrote:

I tried posting something about this in the past but got no response. I'm
holing that this time someone might read it who may have a theory as to what
could be going on.

I live in southern New Hampshire and watch OTA TV out of Boston, which is
about 60 miles from here. Lately I as well as several other people I know
have been experiencing intermittent problems with channel four. While most
other channels are presently operating fine, for the past 10 days or so
channel 4's signal has been in the toilet. This station, WBZ TV operates on
UHF channel 30, runs 825KW, and has an antenna height of 390 meters. By
contrast Channel 5, WCVB, operates on UHF channel 20, runs 625 KW, and shares
the same tower and has it's antenna at the same height as channel 4's, and we
never have any problems with that channel. Could propagation be that much
different 60 MHZ apart? What is really weird is that the signal just drops to
almost nothing.

I discussed this with the chief engineer at Channel four and he had no
explanation for this. Does anyone have any theories about this? Thanks, Lenny


Lenny-

If you provide data to Jeff, he can give you a more accurate prediction
of how well you should receive the station.

As a rough estimate, the range of an signal in miles is the square root
of twice the sum of transmitting and receiving antenna heights in feet.
For 60 miles, the sum of heights would be 1800 Feet.

As others mentioned, reflections can make a difference. Was a large
building erected about the time you noticed the reduction in signal?

Fred