# Tivo OTA Sucks



## RjBDetroit (Dec 18, 2010)

For someone who's looking to replace all paid content and stick with Tivo, these unit totally suck! I have a digital TV older than dirt that picks-up so many more channels than Tivo can. I've tried so many configurations, outdoor/indoor antennas, pre-amp, post-amp, pre and post amp, coupler, Attenuator, you name it, I tried it and the old TV always picked-up fringe channels, Tivo never can. Very pathetic from a so-called TV pioneer. Could they have gone any cheaper with the tuners? I'm not giving them my money for such garbage.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Ever consider you may have a unit with a problem? It happens.

Have you called/contacted TiVo? I do not use TiVo for ota, so I cannot say if their tuners are better/worse than any other, but many here use OTA only.

With your bad attitude and title, I will not visit this thread again. Completely unnecessary.


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## Andyistic (Sep 25, 2009)

RjBDetroit said:


> For someone who's looking to replace all paid content and stick with Tivo, these unit totally suck! I have a digital TV older than dirt that picks-up so many more channels than Tivo can. I've tried so many configurations, outdoor/indoor antennas, pre-amp, post-amp, pre and post amp, coupler, Attenuator, you name it, I tried it and the old TV always picked-up fringe channels, Tivo never can. Very pathetic from a so-called TV pioneer. Could they have gone any cheaper with the tuners? I'm not giving them my money for such garbage.


There have been numerous complaints about the suckage of the S4 ATSC tuner. To this day, no one knows why it's inferior. Some day soon perhaps, maybe even before Tivo offers us HuluPlus (with advertising).

BTW, There is a planned maintenance on this board for Saturday, Dec. 18th.
Watch for it!


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## baimo (Mar 2, 2006)

I have the oppoisite experience. I get more channels than I did with my directv box or directly into my TV's tuner. I have only depended on it when cablevision and fox were fighting, But it works great for me.


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## skierbri10 (Dec 5, 2010)

Yep same with me. I returned my TiVo premiere today. I am going for an HTPC. Tivo' s ota receivers are the worst I have seen.


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## Ed_Hunt (Jan 2, 2004)

I am strickly ota and have no problems on either the 3 or the 4. I am more than 35 miles from the tower and have a 20' antenna on the roof. Both models work equally well.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

I am also OTA only - my Series 3, TiVo HD, & Premiere are all about the same, however the Premiere does show a lower signal strength than the other 2. My TV gets better reception than any of my TiVos. However what people should remember is that your signal is split another time inside your TiVo between the 2 tuners so that may effect it. My OTA reception can change from day to day. One day it is great the next day some channels maybe gone (everything has been pretty good for the last month so maybe something has improved - Knocking on Wood!!). When I loose channels messing with the antenna will normally get them back but it can be pain in the a**. All my channels come from the same spot, I have a very large roof top antenna with a pre-amp and I am about 35 miles from the towers as the crow flies.

Good Luck Everyone!


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## nolanski (Mar 27, 2006)

This is my 3rd Tivo.
DTV DVR, Series 3 and the new S4.
No issues at all with OTA reception.


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## plazman30 (Jan 23, 2005)

Does OTA have weather relates issues at all? I was considering dumping my TV service and going OTA, but with the FIOS bundle I have, I'm going to save myself maybe $25.00. And I would need some other way to get my hands on Disney, Cartoon Network and HUB.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

RjBDetroit said:


> For someone who's looking to replace all paid content and stick with Tivo, these unit totally suck! I have a digital TV older than dirt that picks-up so many more channels than Tivo can. I've tried so many configurations, outdoor/indoor antennas, pre-amp, post-amp, pre and post amp, coupler, Attenuator, you name it, I tried it and the old TV always picked-up fringe channels, Tivo never can. Very pathetic from a so-called TV pioneer. Could they have gone any cheaper with the tuners? I'm not giving them my money for such garbage.


If you aren't and can, try running the antenna feed direct to the TiVo and see if the reception is better. I don't have a Premiere, only the TiVoHD and the TiVo tuner works as well as any I have used.


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## David Platt (Dec 13, 2001)

Chris Gerhard said:


> If you aren't and can, try running the antenna feed direct to the TiVo and see if the reception is better. I don't have a Premiere, only the TiVoHD and the TiVo tuner works as well as any I have used.


The Premiere tuner is very inferior to the TiVoHD tuner. I have both. I can plug one antenna into the HD and consistently get 80-90% on most channels. If I plug the exact same feed into the Premiere, the exact same channels will come in at 50-60%.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

David Platt said:


> The Premiere tuner is very inferior to the TiVoHD tuner. I have both. I can plug one antenna into the HD and consistently get 80-90% on most channels. If I plug the exact same feed into the Premiere, the exact same channels will come in at 50-60%.


As has been discussed before, you cannot compare the signal % numbers between two totally different boxes. The HD and Premiere use different tuners and the signal strength meter is not necessarily calibrated the same and it is not an absolute measurement. What matters is how many channels you get and their quality.

That said, I use a small attic antenna for OTA channels from towers about ~18 miles away (in the same direction). I don't notice any difference between how my HD and Premiere actually *perform* with tuning. Others have noted they don't get as many channels (with stability) with the Premiere, and I don't doubt it. But that hasn't been my experience- although I am also not trying to get any "fringe" channels.


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## 241705 (Mar 9, 2010)

Despite the signal strength numbers, I also have not experienced any problems with reception between my TivoHD and my Premiere. However, many others report that they have, and the speculation I have seen on the boards here is that maybe the Premiere does not deal well with multipath.


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## Martin Tupper (Dec 18, 2003)

Based on the feedback in this thread, I believe proper OTA reception may require at least two posts.


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## skierbri10 (Dec 5, 2010)

I don't know what the problem is but my TV and HTPC receive the OTA signal just fine. My TiVo failed miserably at it.


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## Eamus Catuli (Aug 9, 2010)

You can check out these other threads on the same topic. I have reported mine to TiVo. I suggest everyone else do too. There's always strength in numbers (but is it enough strength  )

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8280743#post8280743

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=446075&page=6

If all your channels are coming from the same direction with reasonably strong signals, you probably won't notice a thing. If you have channels coming from different directions or have ones with weaker signals, you will be affected.


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## Charles R (Nov 9, 2000)

I had a TiVo HD for years and have been using a Premiere for a month (both OTA). I'd say their OTA reception is very similar and if there was a winner I'd pick the Premiere. It appears to pull in my weakest channel more consistently. I believe it's stronger than the Dish VIP722 I used and very similar to the set's OTA tuner.


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## huzier (Dec 23, 2007)

I had an Hd tivo that did a very good job at pulling in all OTA channels. Purchased a Premiere, hooked it up to the exact same Ant. feed and it would barely get any OTA channels at all.
Removed the amp from the line and now the premiere picks up OTA as good or better than the HD Tivo.

I dont know why the HD works with the amp but the premiere doesn't but all is good now.


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## skierbri10 (Dec 5, 2010)

Eamus Catuli said:


> You can check out these other threads on the same topic. I have reported mine to TiVo. I suggest everyone else do too. There's always strength in numbers (but is it enough strength  )
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8280743#post8280743
> 
> ...


I told them when I returned my premiere that it was because the ota tuners were too weak. So if people return thier TiVo for this reason maybe they will work on a fix I doubt they care if people just complain but keep the TiVo.


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## Eamus Catuli (Aug 9, 2010)

FYI ... I've got 14.7 firmware now. No improvement for OTA.


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## TVCricket (Mar 7, 2010)

I've had my Premiere for about a month with OTA only and I get all 4 broadcast networks, plus CW, PBS (which I don't watch), and IonTV. What else should I be receiving? What are these problems that people are having? ABC comes in because the antenna is pointed in one direction, while CBS doesn't until you point it the other way? Or are people expecting to get 20 free channels?


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## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

To find out what you TV stations you should receive at your location, try www.tvfool.com and www.antennaweb.org.

As for the Tivo Premiere's over the air performance, I don't think anyone unreasonably expects to receive stations that just aren't there. However, for a 2010 product that was introduced as one step short of the second coming, people expect weak signal reception and multipath rejection that is better than the 2007 era Tivo Series 3. Getting worse performance from the Tivo Premiere than the Series 3 and HD Tivo is not acceptable.:down:


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Did not notice a difference between my Premieres and going directly into my Tvs when testing OTA. I only looked at picture quality. 

Channels that worked great on the TVS directly worked great on the Premiere.

Channels that didn't come in very well on the TVS didn't come in through the Premiere either.


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## TWinbrook46636 (Feb 9, 2008)

I pick up about 5 fewer OTA channels (not including sub-channels of course) with my Premiere as compared with my Series 3. It's widely reported that the tuners in the Premiere are not as good as the older Series 3 so it's unclear if anything can be done to fix it with new software.


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

I have a DX'ing array of OTA antennas on my roof, on a rotor, with preamp, feeding a 4 way splitter in the house...That goes to the Premier, a DirecTV AM21 tuner, a Dishnetwork TRC40 converter box, and my Sharp Aquos. I get 90-100&#37; on everything except the Tivo, which reports 50-60%, and has constant video breakups, and shows large numbers of uncorrected errors on the diagnositc screen. 

From playing with the rotor, it *appears* that the tuners in the Tivo are incapable of rejecting multipath, unlike my other tuners. I am going to run a separate 2 bay antenna (really low gain in comparison), which should eliminate most of the multipath, and see what happens. All my stations are in the same direction at about 20 miles. The strongest stations (and the one on vhf) are the ones causing me the most issues.


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

Just an update to my above post. I resurrected an old Channel Master quantum antenna, which is know for its high gain narrow forward lobe, and exceptional rejection of signals from all other directions. I put this 20' off the ground on a tripod, and fed it directly with a 75' run of RG6, and pointed it at our transmitter towers 20 miles away. 

On the Tivo, the signal levels (or quality readings which they appear to be) went from the 50's to the 80's, and the uncorrected error rate dropped to 0, and the corrected error rate went to 0 on all but one UHF station, where it was running at about 20 errors per minute, corrected.

This pretty much confirms my conclusion that multipath, not tuner insensitivity is the cause for the complaints. Get an antenna to eliminate your multipath, and you should not have any problems with Tivo tuners.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Davelnlr_ said:


> Just an update to my above post. I resurrected an old Channel Master quantum antenna, which is know for its high gain narrow forward lobe, and exceptional rejection of signals from all other directions. I put this 20' off the ground on a tripod, and fed it directly with a 75' run of RG6, and pointed it at our transmitter towers 20 miles away.
> 
> On the Tivo, the signal levels (or quality readings which they appear to be) went from the 50's to the 80's, and the uncorrected error rate dropped to 0, and the corrected error rate went to 0 on all but one UHF station, where it was running at about 20 errors per minute, corrected.
> 
> This pretty much confirms my conclusion that multipath, not tuner insensitivity is the cause for the complaints. Get an antenna to eliminate your multipath, and you should not have any problems with Tivo tuners.


Thanks for this! What model is your quantum? I'm finding several different shapes when searching for "Channel Master quantum".


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## TVCricket (Mar 7, 2010)

I use a simple Silver Sensor type antenna and receive all the channels that I'd want. Looked at the tvfool site and the only channels I'd get are duplicates from the next closest city. Besides CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, CW, PBS, Music Video, and ION what other digital channels do some of you get or want to get that you don't with the Premiere?


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## aaroncgi (Apr 13, 2010)

Davelnlr_ said:


> Just an update to my above post. I resurrected an old Channel Master quantum antenna, which is know for its high gain narrow forward lobe, and exceptional rejection of signals from all other directions. I put this 20' off the ground on a tripod, and fed it directly with a 75' run of RG6, and pointed it at our transmitter towers 20 miles away.
> 
> On the Tivo, the signal levels (or quality readings which they appear to be) went from the 50's to the 80's, and the uncorrected error rate dropped to 0, and the corrected error rate went to 0 on all but one UHF station, where it was running at about 20 errors per minute, corrected.
> 
> This pretty much confirms my conclusion that multipath, not tuner insensitivity is the cause for the complaints. Get an antenna to eliminate your multipath, and you should not have any problems with Tivo tuners.


Dave,

Thanks very much for this information! Would you happen to know how the ChannelMaster 4228 (original, not the new 4228HD) compares to the Quantum in this regard? Although we don't have another digital tuner besides our Premiere to compare to, the reception with our 4228 is very peculiar. For example, VHF 11 comes in much stronger than UHF 39. Meanwhile, UHF 38 and 48 come in with twice the strength of UHF 39, even though according to TV fool, they are all within 2 dBm power. VHF 9 is even as strong as UHF 39 most of the time. All these channels are broadcast from the same hill, about 30 miles away.


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## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

TVCricket said:


> I use a simple Silver Sensor type antenna and receive all the channels that I'd want. Looked at the tvfool site and the only channels I'd get are duplicates from the next closest city. Besides CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, CW, PBS, Music Video, and ION what other digital channels do some of you get or want to get that you don't with the Premiere?


I think there may be a bit of confusion between the national broadcast networks that most people might hope to receive from one or more local affiliates versus the individual stations that you can receive at a given location.

For desirable networks, in my opinion you should have reliable reception of the Big Four (ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX) and your local PBS station before you consider relying on over the air HDTV reception and cut the cord with your pay TV company. You also might want to get the CW, MyNetwork TV, ION, Univision, Telemundo, and any interesting local stations and sub-channels if they are available.

A good, modern, reliable tuner will help you with weak signals, multipath resistance, and perform well despite adjacent channel and co-channel interference. This means that the Tivo Premiere should work better than a Series 3 Tivo for someone at the edge of attainable reception (50 to 70+ miles from a full power transmitter) when paired with an appropriate antenna (and preamp if necessary). The new Tivo should work better than older Tivos for an apartment dweller in the urban canyons of New York or Chicago. The newer Tivo should work as well as or better than the older Tivo when you are at the bottom of a hill or if you are near the flight path for a local airport.

If you live in a co-located market, you should be able to receive the local stations from both Washington, DC and from Baltimore. Or from Detroit as well as Toledo, Lansing, and Flint. Or perhaps from both Buffalo and Toronto or Los Angeles and San Diego.

I don't think anyone reasonably expects the Tivo Premiere to do the impossible. However, the over the air tuner performance should be at least as good as what the previous generation of Tivos could do. Ideally the Tivo Premiere would offer over the air reception right up there with the very best consumer grade tuners on the market. Right now, the Tivo Premiere falls far, far short of that mark.


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## Eamus Catuli (Aug 9, 2010)

Davelnlr_ said:


> Just an update to my above post. I resurrected an old Channel Master quantum antenna, which is know for its high gain narrow forward lobe, and exceptional rejection of signals from all other directions. I put this 20' off the ground on a tripod, and fed it directly with a 75' run of RG6, and pointed it at our transmitter towers 20 miles away.
> 
> On the Tivo, the signal levels (or quality readings which they appear to be) went from the 50's to the 80's, and the uncorrected error rate dropped to 0, and the corrected error rate went to 0 on all but one UHF station, where it was running at about 20 errors per minute, corrected.
> 
> This pretty much confirms my conclusion that multipath, not tuner insensitivity is the cause for the complaints. Get an antenna to eliminate your multipath, and you should not have any problems with Tivo tuners.


Agreed nearly 100%. It still think there is a slight sensitivity issue. One of my stations just barely locks on my 4 year old Sharp Aquos and doesn't lock on the Premiere, but I agree that multipath handling is by far the bigger issue.

My antenna is a ChannelMaster 4221 (the original, not the "HD" version). Since I have transmitters over 100° apart, I chose it for the wide beamwidth to get them all with a stationary antenna. This worked great with just a tv. With the Premiere in the mix now, it is no longer an adequate setup, hence my frustration.


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## 77setransam (Jan 20, 2011)

I am a new guy here and read this thread before purchasing a refurb from woot. I wanted on for OTA only to record Antenna TV and RTV. I decided to go ahead and if the tuner did not pick up what I wanted I would sell it. I received the unit yesterday and it found all of the channels that my TV's do so I am satisfied. I am 48 miles from the towers. Radio Shack's best antenna (4 years ago) and a channel master 7777 pre amp. My incoming signal is only split twice.


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

Yep. In the case of multipath, the farther away you are from the transmitters, the less multipath you will have, as the bounce attenuates the signals when you are farther away. 

In the analog days, we were 20 miles from Milwaukee, 60 miles from Madison. There was a water tower directly in line with Milwaukee which caused ghosts (multipath) on one high VHF channel, so we had to rotate the antenna and watch that network from Madison or Chicago (90 miles) if we wanted a clear(er) picture. The 7777 preamp is super.


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

orangeboy said:


> Thanks for this! What model is your quantum? I'm finding several different shapes when searching for "Channel Master quantum".


Quantums were discontinued when Channel Master sold out about 10 years ago. I have an 1165 I believe. Its the Deepest Fringe UHF, Near Fringe VHF model. If you find one now, that has all its elements, grab it.


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

aaroncgi said:


> Dave,
> 
> Thanks very much for this information! Would you happen to know how the ChannelMaster 4228 (original, not the new 4228HD) compares to the Quantum in this regard? Although we don't have another digital tuner besides our Premiere to compare to, the reception with our 4228 is very peculiar. For example, VHF 11 comes in much stronger than UHF 39. Meanwhile, UHF 38 and 48 come in with twice the strength of UHF 39, even though according to TV fool, they are all within 2 dBm power. VHF 9 is even as strong as UHF 39 most of the time. All these channels are broadcast from the same hill, about 30 miles away.


4228 original is a UHF only antenna, but works somewhat on stronger channel 10,11,12, and 13. Its problem, if you are within 30 miles of the transmitters, is its wide beamwidth, even though they claim its only 15 degrees, which allows a lot wider beam to capture multipath. From the sound of your description, you are having that problem with some of your channels. If, as I suspect, the signal strength meter is actually a 100 minus bit rate error meter, then even with a strong signal, it could read very low on the meter if you have multipath problems. The only way to tell for sure, would be to use a narrow beam yagi antenna like the XG91 for UHF, and your 4228 for the VHF one, run each into a UHF/VHF combiner. The reason I suggest the XG91 is even though its gain is totally overkill for 30 miles, its got a much narrower (25 degrees) beamwidth than a lower gain yagi would (30 or more).

If you know whats causing your multipath, then sometimes pointing the antenna in the wrong direction somewhat, to null out the reflection, will help. If you dont have an obvious cause (large building, metal cell tower or water tower, etc), then the easiest thing to do is get the narrowest beamwidth antenna you can.


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## facted (Jan 24, 2011)

I'm in NYC w/ a west facing apartment (towards jersey) and I don't really have a clear view towards the empire state building where I believe some of the signal towers are located here in the city. I'm only 3 miles away, but my signal strength is pretty terrible (I suspect because of multipath).

I'm using an RCA flat antenna (http://www.amazon.com/RCA-ANT1650-D...GW3K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295837354&sr=8-1) which picks up all my channels when hooked up straight to my tv but i'm missing out on 2.1 and 4.1 when connected to my TIVO. What can I do to improve my signal? I can't put anything on the roof, though I do have a balcony that I could technically put something on if absolutely necessary.

Thanks!


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## Andrel (Oct 19, 2000)

facted said:


> I can't put anything on the roof, though I do have a balcony that I could technically put something on if absolutely necessary


The premiere seems to be having problems with amplified antenna and multipath. Maybe you can try to put your antenna outside or use on of these. It is quite small and has excellent reviews. Cheap too! 
http://www.amazon.com/Channel-Maste...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1295840937&sr=1-1

I am not sure if any of your channels are on the VHF-lo, hi or UHF. Have your done a TVFOOL report for your location ?


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

I have tested the 2 bay version of the Channel Master (4220 I believe is the model number) and it should work on your balcony as well as the one that Andrel linked, depending on how strong your signal is.


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## aaroncgi (Apr 13, 2010)

Davelnlr_ said:


> 4228 original is a UHF only antenna, but works somewhat on stronger channel 10,11,12, and 13. Its problem, if you are within 30 miles of the transmitters, is its wide beamwidth, even though they claim its only 15 degrees, which allows a lot wider beam to capture multipath. From the sound of your description, you are having that problem with some of your channels. If, as I suspect, the signal strength meter is actually a 100 minus bit rate error meter, then even with a strong signal, it could read very low on the meter if you have multipath problems. The only way to tell for sure, would be to use a narrow beam yagi antenna like the XG91 for UHF, and your 4228 for the VHF one, run each into a UHF/VHF combiner. The reason I suggest the XG91 is even though its gain is totally overkill for 30 miles, its got a much narrower (25 degrees) beamwidth than a lower gain yagi would (30 or more).
> 
> If you know whats causing your multipath, then sometimes pointing the antenna in the wrong direction somewhat, to null out the reflection, will help. If you dont have an obvious cause (large building, metal cell tower or water tower, etc), then the easiest thing to do is get the narrowest beamwidth antenna you can.


Thanks for all the tips, Dave! This weekend I did several tweaks. I cleaned all the algae off the antenna's screen (7 years without cleaning), and ran an all new, significantly shorter run of RG6 (vs mish-mash of RG6 vs RG59). The net result is that all stations gained a couple ticks on the meter, though granted, it's well within the normal variation due to weather, so not really definitive. Our problem channel is up into the yellow range (44) and has been stable for the past few days. Again though, this could be weather related and nothing to do with what I did. I tried aiming the antenna to see if I could defeat the multipath, and yes, I could get the problem channel up into the 50's. However, at that aim, I lost our high VHF channel (channel 9) completely, which we don't want to do. It's marginal, in the high 30's, aimed directly at the towers, so nto really surprising. Aiming on the other side of the towers made all channels worse. So right now, as long as we stay in the 40's, we're good. If need be, I could always add a VHF antenna such as the YA-1713 and combine with the 4228 aimed differently, but that's a rather large expense just to get the numbers up on a couple channels which are stable say 90% of the time or more.

We do have a large building about 1000' away from us, directly in between the antenna and the broadcast towers. I would estimate it's probably twice as tall as our antenna. It's a rebuilt school which used to be considerably smaller, and the new building was finished about the time we started having problems. I don't know if this is the source of the problem, or why it only affects the one channel, but it would make a lot of sense. If this IS the cause, being that it's directly in line with where we need to point, does that mean a narrower beam width wouldn't help?


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## Royski (Jan 24, 2011)

I just received my refurbed Premier from woot and the OTA tuner works fine for me, comparable to the one in our Sony TV. We have a rooftop antenna.


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## craigf (Oct 30, 2002)

Have Premiere on top of Series 3 unit. Swapped antenna from box to box and reception is remarkably better on Series 3.

TiVo tech support said I should buy an amplifier for my amplified antenna and then hung up on me.


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## caseybea (Oct 14, 2010)

facted said:


> I'm in NYC w/ a west facing apartment (towards jersey) and I don't really have a clear view towards the empire state building where I believe some of the signal towers are located here in the city. I'm only 3 miles away, but my signal strength is pretty terrible (I suspect because of multipath).
> 
> I'm using an RCA flat antenna (http://www.amazon.com/RCA-ANT1650-D...GW3K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295837354&sr=8-1) which picks up all my channels when hooked up straight to my tv but i'm missing out on 2.1 and 4.1 when connected to my TIVO. What can I do to improve my signal? I can't put anything on the roof, though I do have a balcony that I could technically put something on if absolutely necessary.
> 
> Thanks!


My setup, before my tivo, was a large uhf/vhf antenna mounted in my garage attic. because it's a little low (as opposed to a true roof antenna), I needed a signal booster to get a decent signal into all the cable jacks in my home. For multiple HDTVs, and even an HDTV receiver for my computer, this was a flawless setup. Good signal strength, no drops, no problems.

Enter my new Tivo Premiere this past Fall. UGH. Unpredictable signal drops and cuts. No amount of fussing would cure it. I tried various pre-amps, different antenna types in my garage, you name it, I tried it. The fact that everything ELSE recived the signal just fine blew my mind.

In the end.... the *only* solution I was able to do that worked was (sorry), moving the antenna up to my rooftop. I am not only unhappy with how my home looks, but it was a heck of a lot of work.

I know in your situation you can't go up to the roof, but you mentioned a balcony. I suggest you try.

The Tivo Premiere's receiver, in a nutshell, BLOWS CHUNKS. It will not clearly lock onto channels when other technology clearly does- INCLUDING the older-model tivo units which multiple people have documented. Tivo, as a company, has completely ignored this as a problem. Their pat answer is always "go get an amplifier", etc.


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## gamo62 (Oct 12, 2002)

caseybea said:


> My setup, before my tivo, was a large uhf/vhf antenna mounted in my garage attic. because it's a little low (as opposed to a true roof antenna), I needed a signal booster to get a decent signal into all the cable jacks in my home. For multiple HDTVs, and even an HDTV receiver for my computer, this was a flawless setup. Good signal strength, no drops, no problems.
> 
> Enter my new Tivo Premiere this past Fall. UGH. Unpredictable signal drops and cuts. No amount of fussing would cure it. I tried various pre-amps, different antenna types in my garage, you name it, I tried it. The fact that everything ELSE recived the signal just fine blew my mind.
> 
> ...


So. I wonder if you could take the tuner out of the Series 3 and swap it with the PXL's?


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

aaroncgi said:


> We do have a large building about 1000' away from us, directly in between the antenna and the broadcast towers. I would estimate it's probably twice as tall as our antenna. It's a rebuilt school which used to be considerably smaller, and the new building was finished about the time we started having problems. I don't know if this is the source of the problem, or why it only affects the one channel, but it would make a lot of sense. If this IS the cause, being that it's directly in line with where we need to point, does that mean a narrower beam width wouldn't help?


If its directly in line, then no. What you might do, is try a small yagi, but mount it with the elements vertical, rather than horizontal. A lot of stations have a vertical component to their transmit signal to accommodate portable and mobile tv's, although not all do. Another thing to try, if you get a yagi, is to modify the beam tilt...IE, point the antenna above the horizon, even going as far as pointing it at the top of that building.

Unfortunantly, any change you make to help your problem channel, will probably adversely affect the others. All these problems is what started the cable tv industry in the first place. They could pick a nice high multipath free location to pick up all the stations, each channel with a separate antenna, combine all those signals, and deliver them to the home. It used to be free, or very cheap until they started adding satellite delivered content in the 70's.

Another thing to try...UHF has a 1/4 wavelength around 6". Moving the antenna up or down in 6" increments on your mounting mast might find a spot where your problem station is stronger than the multipath. Trust me, getting multiple stations on multiple bands to all come in with one antenna pointing in one direction can be troublesome...then throw in a town like I live in, where the stations are in 3 totally different directions...


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

gamo62 said:


> So. I wonder if you could take the tuner out of the Series 3 and swap it with the Premiere's?


No


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## aaroncgi (Apr 13, 2010)

Davelnlr_ said:


> ...
> Unfortunantly, any change you make to help your problem channel, will probably adversely affect the others.
> ...
> Another thing to try...UHF has a 1/4 wavelength around 6". Moving the antenna up or down in 6" increments on your mounting mast might find a spot where your problem station is stronger than the multipath. Trust me, getting multiple stations on multiple bands to all come in with one antenna pointing in one direction can be troublesome...then throw in a town like I live in, where the stations are in 3 totally different directions...


Well it must be good reception weather lately, because our problem channel is up at 50 now. Our second problem channel (VHF 9) is into the mid 40's. So long as these remain the case, there's nothing we need to do at all! That said, I definitely will try moving the antenna down in small increments, as it's free! I can't move it up because it's already at the top of the mast. I had this recommended on another forum, just didn't have time to fiddle with it over last weekend.

Worst case, I can get a small-ish VHF antenna like the Antennacraft Y5713 or Winegard YA-1713 and combine with the 4228. Since I know Channel 39 gets noticeably better with the 4228 aimed off axis, but I lose significant strength on VHF 9 and 11, this would certainly work. But I'm hoping it won't come down to that, since either way, that's still a $40-65 addition. Funny though, how that is barely over a month of satellite TV service.


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## Gootch (Feb 12, 2011)

for a premier, is there a way to distinguish between multipath or signal strength issues?

my old tivo worked fine, premier sucks...

My antenna is in the attic, it is a DB-2 antenna http://www.amazon.com/Antennas-Direct-DB2-Directional-Antenna/dp/B000EHUE7I

i can of course move to the roof and add one or three arrays (making it a DB-4 or DB-8). Or perhaps get another antenna. My broadcast antennae are scattered over a 45 degree pattern, 10-15 miles away. There are also trees in the line of sight.

how do i know if increasing the gain will help, or if it is a multipath issue and upping the gain will be futile?


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## Mister B (Jan 23, 2011)

I suspect that the sign of multipath reception problems is a constantly fluctuating signal-to-noise rating (SNR) on the DVR diagnostics menu. My Sony TV also gives SNR and it is steady on all of my stations. I know from back in the analog days that although I have strong signals being only 25 miles from the broadcast towers which are on high mountains, that I do have some multipath issues which used to show up as ghosts. With the Premiere the SNR is constantly on the move, especially with the VHF channels that used to have the most problem with ghosts. Fortunately I get no drop-outs or pixelation although the DVR registers a disturbingly high number of corrected and even uncorrected errors.


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## Davelnlr_ (Jan 13, 2011)

Gootch said:


> how do i know if increasing the gain will help, or if it is a multipath issue and upping the gain will be futile?


If you are 10-15 miles from your station, with no large hills between you, its not a gain problem, unless you are using 100' of RG59 or something.

Easiest way to test if its a gain issue is to insert a splitter in line with the coax at the TV. A 2 way splitter will drop the gain 3db. If the issue is low gain, the channel should drop way down like a rock. If it stays the same or gets higher, its probably multipath. BTW, you can use a 4 way or 8 way splitter to attenuate the signal at higher DB steps. Its a cheap experiment to see if the attenuation reduces the multipath enough to not cause issues.


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## Gootch (Feb 12, 2011)

i take back everything I said in my previous post. for the first week we had the premier, the reception sucked (as compared to old unit, same wires, antenna in attic). i played with wires, etc, etc, etc, no difference. started shopping for out door antenna mouts. reception slowly improved over a 3 day period, wham! now we have equivalent reception as old unit. I tried to correlate the poor reception to rain or snow on roof, furnace on or off, whatever, no correlation....it seems to have slowly healed itself....*SUN SPOTS?* *Racoon in the attic, nope*
fingers crossed that it is fixed.

I feel for those who are fighting these issues, somethings tells me we are not done with this yet....


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

Gootch said:


> i take back everything I said in my previous post. for the first week we had the premier, the reception sucked (as compared to old unit, same wires, antenna in attic). i played with wires, etc, etc, etc, no difference. started shopping for out door antenna mouts. reception slowly improved over a 3 day period, wham! now we have equivalent reception as old unit. I tried to correlate the poor reception to rain or snow on roof, furnace on or off, whatever, no correlation....it seems to have slowly healed itself....*SUN SPOTS?* *Racoon in the attic, nope*
> fingers crossed that it is fixed.
> 
> I feel for those who are fighting these issues, somethings tells me we are not done with this yet....


People always remind new TiVo owners that their machines will be a bit sluggish during the first few days as they connect several times to receive software updates and a full load of guide data (which must also be indexed). That should refer only to the understandable fact that the machines are so busy doing housekeeping that the user interface is sluggish.

Your experience may indicate that the sluggishness also affects basic TiVo operations such as tending the tuner/demodulator hardware and writing transport stream data to the hard drive. That's scary because it indicates that the program code in the TiVo doesn't prioritize very well. Basic functions such as receiving and recording programs should never be affected by lower priority functions such as user menus or housekeeping. The Premiere seems to have trouble with multithreading, possibly because that isn't properly supported by Flash.

I noticed after replacing my WD3200AVVS drive (8MB cache) with a WD20EVDS (32MB cache) that my uncorrected error counts improved noticeably. I think that is consistent with your experience in implying that the TiVo software services the tuner/demodulator buffers only sporadically, and overrun or underrun leads to breaks in the data stream which result in errors. I hope they can eventually improve the software.


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## EricM (Nov 19, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> Ever consider you may have a unit with a problem? It happens.
> 
> Have you called/contacted TiVo? I do not use TiVo for ota, so I cannot say if their tuners are better/worse than any other, but many here use OTA only.
> 
> With your bad attitude and title, I will not visit this thread again. Completely unnecessary.


LOL. Insert foot in mouth? 

Having this same problem right now. I have two premieres and two HDs, OTA signal is way stronger on the HDs with the same coax plugged in. I have a few channels (including ABC) that are unwatchable on the premiere.


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## gfgray (Mar 14, 2004)

I just got a Tivo Premiere for OTA and am having similar issues as everyone else. I am only 5-10mi from the Oklahoma City towers on flat terrain with no significant buildings. I had a Channel Master 4221 in the attic just hung upside down on a nail and haphazardly pointed in the general direction of the towers. My TV tuner and the 2 different (one newer with fewer discrete analog components, one older) tuner cards in my computer could tune all digital stations 100% of the time with or without a unity gain distribution amp. The Tivo Premiere HD breaks up significantly on my VHF High channels (frequency for 7 and 13) the vast majority of the time. The UHF channels are all solid.

I noticed that if I leave the coax from the Tivo (30ft) disconnected on the end in my closet, I can get the VHF channels with 50s signal strength with breakups only very rarely. But of course I can't get UHF channels. 

I am also able to get 50s signal with rare breakups with adding an attenuator to the unamplified 4221. Then I tried rabbit ears and I got in the 70s and 80s on the VHF. UHF suffered but is still good.

So I can't say for sure what is messing up the Tivo tuner, but I can certainly say the tuner is suck compared to my tuners ranging from brand new to 5-7yrs old.

I'll add a uhf/vhf combiner and rabbit ears to my 4221 and I think I'll have good reception. I will also try an FM trap. Wish I had an oscilloscope to tell me what was going on.


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## schwaps (Jan 26, 2013)

Below is the message I sent to TiVo regarding my TiVo Premier Unit and OTA tuner issue (specifically, one OTA tuner appears to behave differently/better than the other). If anyone has an idea what might be causing this, please let me know. I am highly curious and also still within my 30-day return policy. Thanks!

Note: I am using a CM-4248 along with a Winegard YA-1713 mounted at about 50 feet, CM7777 amp, and distribution amp. The station I'm having trouble with on the TiVo is about 53 miles away, but is normally received without issue using my television, prior DISH VIP-722 box, and one of the two tuners on the TiVo Premier (but NOT the other tuner - see below). As you can see below, I am highly perplexed on this issue. It seems to be either a lemon unit, or TiVo OTA Tuner design flaw/mismatch.

Using DVR Diagnostics when tuning 15-1 on both tuners:

Tuner 0: Strength is 50-65, SNR is 21-27 dB
Tuner 1: Strength is 0-61, SNR is 0-25 dB

As a hypothesis/guess, does Tuner 0 receive the raw input and then it is split for Tuner 1, or is it split first, then fed to both Tuner 0 and Tuner 1? I'm trying to figure out why Tuner 1 is weaker than Tuner 0, whether a hardware issue or design characteristic/flaw on all Premiers?

__

To TiVo tech support:

I am experiencing a technical issue that I am unable to resolve. Please send this to your highest tier of support so an engineer can review.

On my TiVo Premier, I have a channel (15-1 WLYH CW network) that I am having difficulty receiving with the TiVo. Through some experimentation, I have determined that it tunes perfectly through Tuner 0 of the the TiVo Premier, but is completely pixilated on Tuner 1 of the TiVo Premier. When I set up a recording for that channel, depending on which tuner the TiVo box selects or is available, my show is either watchable or garbage/pixilated. Please help me resolve this issue to determine if I have a hardware problem or if there is a configuration or software update that can address this.

For further information, this channel (15-1) tunes perfectly on my TV tuner (without TiVo) and I have ensured maximum signal by rotating my antenna.

Bottom line, the channel signal strength is not the issue, it appears to be some sort of weakness or incompatibility in one of the two OTA tuners in the TiVo Premiere. I need to know if I have a bad unit or if this is a common known issue among all TiVo Premieres. Or, perhaps if it has to do with a splitter inside the TiVo that inherently makes Tuner 1 less potent than Tuner 0.

To reproduce this issue on my TiVo:

1. First I go to the antenna signal strength meter on the TiVo and selecting channel 15-1. By doing this, the TiVo selects channel 15-1 and applies it to both OTA tuners.

2. Sometimes, I notice that the TiVo tries to tune it using the tuner that is pixilated first, then there is a brief pause in the display while the TiVo selects the other (stronger) tuner and the channel and signal strength goes up and reception is clear.

3. Then, I exit the signal strength meter.

4. Back watching live TV, if I press the "Live TV" button, I can switch between OTA tuners. The one shows up perfectly clear, the other is extremely pixilated to the point that it cannot be watched.

Furthermore, after testing all the channels I receive, this is the only channel that is causing this issue. Please help!


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## sulli2p (Jan 8, 2004)

Well, just retired our Series 1 DTV/TiVo after 13 years, and cut the satellite beam. Went OTA with a new Premier Series 4 running 20.2.2.1-01-2-746. I too noticed a big drop in OTA signal quality compared to our TV (we ran OTA for years just to get HD). We are just 10 miles from the broadcast towers, in the flat lands, and have never had any problem getting a very high quality OTA signal. 

Our TiVo though comes in at 50% to 94% with our ChannelMaster 4228 (outside mount, 25 feet off the ground). Anything under 60% on this TiVo will break up often enough to for me to consider it unwatchable. So I just switched to the well reviewed C2 ClearStream2 antenna and saw only the very smallest of improvements, but it did improve our unwatchable 50% channel just enough to eliminate breakup. The C2 is a 50 mile antenna, there just is no way that I should be seeing signal quality at the limits here, like I was 50 miles from the antenna farm, not 10. If you are out in the fringe of OTA land, I doubt if you can get the Premier to bring in any watchable channels. Just no excuse for this TiVo.


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## poppagene (Dec 29, 2001)

sulli2p said:


> Well, just retired our Series 1 DTV/TiVo after 13 years, and cut the satellite beam. Went OTA with a new Premier Series 4 running 20.2.2.1-01-2-746. I too noticed a big drop in OTA signal quality compared to our TV (we ran OTA for years just to get HD). We are just 10 miles from the broadcast towers, in the flat lands, and have never had any problem getting a very high quality OTA signal.
> 
> Our TiVo though comes in at 50% to 94% with our ChannelMaster 4228 (outside mount, 25 feet off the ground). Anything under 60% on this TiVo will break up often enough to for me to consider it unwatchable. So I just switched to the well reviewed C2 ClearStream2 antenna and saw only the very smallest of improvements, but it did improve our unwatchable 50% channel just enough to eliminate breakup. The C2 is a 50 mile antenna, there just is no way that I should be seeing signal quality at the limits here, like I was 50 miles from the antenna farm, not 10. If you are out in the fringe of OTA land, I doubt if you can get the Premier to bring in any watchable channels. Just no excuse for this TiVo.


Have you tried an FM trap?
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=10939219


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

I used to record OTA HD channels with my HR10-250 HDTivo back when I still had DirecTV about six years ago. I decided to try a HTPC so I wouldn't be monopolizing the HDTivo tuners for OTA and free up the tuners for recording DirecTV HD programming. I was surprised to find that the HTPC tuners clearly outperformed the HDTivo when it came to recording OTA channels. It would appear that after all this time Tivo still hasn't made any strides in improving their ATSC tuners. It's a good thing I don't use Tivos anymore because I'd be pretty pissed if I had to pay for a service that had mediocre OTA recording capability. Maybe that's why Tivo dropped them from the 4-tuner Elite. Rather than fix the problem, why not simply get rid of it altogether?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> I used to record OTA HD channels with my HR10-250 HDTivo back when I still had DirecTV about six years ago. I decided to try a HTPC so I wouldn't be monopolizing the HDTivo tuners for OTA and free up the tuners for recording DirecTV HD programming. I was surprised to find that the HTPC tuners clearly outperformed the HDTivo when it came to recording OTA channels. It would appear that after all this time Tivo still hasn't made any strides in improving their ATSC tuners. It's a good thing I don't use Tivos anymore because I'd be pretty pissed if I had to pay for a service that had mediocre OTA recording capability. Maybe that's why Tivo dropped them from the 4-tuner Elite. Rather than fix the problem, why not simply get rid of it altogether?


Sorry but your mythical HTPC solution doesn't work any better than TiVo when it comes to dealing with multi path OTA issues. My HD Home run dual OTA tuners (the newer version) do not work any better than my Premiere. I have done side by side testing and can state that without any reservations.

That doesn't mean I think the Premiere is doing anything great as the Series 3 TiVos deal with multi path issues sightly better than the Premiere. I find it fairly unacceptable that the Premiere isn't as good as the Series 3 units but at this point the Tuners in the Premiere are over 3 years old and I don't expect much to change. Hopefully when TiVo does a hardware update there will be some improvement.

Of the 7 or 8 devices I have/have had with OTA tuners my Panasonic TV is the best after that the Series 3 units and then everything else.

In my case I can go weeks with no issues at all then have a channel be unwatchable to for a few hours or few days. I have had this happen on all but one channel at one time or another sometimes it affects one channel sometimes several of them. It happens across all devices but sometimes a channel will still be watchable on my TV or Series 3 units but not my Premiere or HD Homerun.

The channel's tower I don't every have problems with is 10 miles mostly west and some north of me and is likely the reason I have the multi path issues with the other channels which are 35 miles mostly north and some east of me. But I will really don't know for sure as I can not find a definitive pattern for when the issues come up. It might be a quiet sunny day or windy snowy/rainy night I never now.


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## sulli2p (Jan 8, 2004)

poppagene said:


> Have you tried an FM trap?
> http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=10939219


Thanks for this advice, I could also shorten my COAX run too.

With the new antenna, and a reposition, I dropped my best channel from a 94% signal strength, to 80%, and my worst channel from 50% to 60%. So all channels are now in the 60-80% range. While I find these levels annoying, using a 50 mile antenna, mounted outdoors 25 feet up with good 10 mile LOS, the fact of the matter is I can't tell the difference between a 100% digital signal and a 60% digital signal. So I will probably resist the tweak temptation unless I have channels starting to drop below 60%, which would be a watch-ability issue for me. It really should not be this hard, while I know you can't directly compare signal strength readings between devices, my Samsung 5054 never dropped below 90% signal strength on any channel (most were 100%), and never, ever had a digital reception problem.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

poppagene said:


> Have you tried an FM trap?
> http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=10939219


An FM trap may be unproductive. FM is in the VHF band in the low channels 1-4. HDTV/Digital (ATSC) is usually in the UHF band in the USA. (There are exceptions, so you have to check your locality).

Those HDTV channels that do reside in VHF are almost always assigned to the higher channels and still will not fall inside FM.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cc/VHF_Usage.svg


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## jelwell (Jun 7, 2001)

I had to switch antennas. 
I had the ClearStream 4. It pulled in tons of channels when plugged into my Samsung TV. I live in San Diego, and it pulled in all the San Diego stations, some Orange County stations and even some Los Angeles stations (both in the opposite direction of the antenna facing).
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BRXW74

When the ClearStream 4 is plugged into my TiVo I don't even get all the San Diego stations. And obviously none of the Orange County nor Los Angeles stations.

I switched to the Winegaurd HD7697P, which has a more directional design. It handles the multipath for the sad TiVo tuner.

Now I get all the San Diego channels, but still none of the Los Angeles nor Orange County channels.

I am very disappointed with the TiVo tuner. I hope TiVo allows for external tuners, or the hacking community figures out a way to get one to work. I don't have high hopes though, especially given the Roamio OTA reports... I have a Premier XL.

Joseph Elwell.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I don't understand some of the issuees. My Roamio Basic gets the same channels as all the Previous TiVos did at home connected to my two combined squareshooter antennas. Going all the way back to 2004 with the DirecTV HD TiVo. Even if I take my Roamio Basic to my GFs house and connect her table top antenna to it. The Roamio Basic gets the same or more channels as her Series 3 TiVos do.


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## troasti (Nov 13, 2008)

I've used both the Tivo Premiere and Roamio for OTA and the Roamio's tuner was much better. You may not want to hear that as you would have to upgrade but it is what it is. The Roamio is a much better piece of hardware anyways and the software runs much better as well.


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## jelwell (Jun 7, 2001)

aaronwt, there's nothing to fix if your antenna setup works for you. If you want to understand, just know that not all TV tuners take the same antenna signals and translate that into a working video stream. In particular, the tuner inside the TiVo does not work as well in certain configurations.

troasti, I'm under the impression that a Roamio is a non starter for me. I have a combination of OTA for network HD channels and analog cable for Comedy Central, AMC, History Channel, etc. The Roamio line has an antenna only option, a digital cable only option and an option that has either, but not both simultaneously. I do appreciate the feedback that the Roamio is slightly better. If I ever drop cable I might consider it.

Joseph Elwell.


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