# HR10-250 and OTA Signal Strength



## JayDog08 (Oct 21, 2003)

Just got the HR10-250. The OTA signal is terrible. Signal strength goes from around 80, down to up to 40, down to zero. It is constantly flucuating. When I attach the same indoor antenna straight to my TV the signal comes in perfectly. Am I doing something wrong or is the DVR just that bad at receiving the signal?


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## kdonnel (Nov 28, 2000)

Is the tuner in your tv NTSC or ATSC? You can't really compare NTSC reception to ATSC reception.

You are describing multipath. Try pointing the antenna differently or getting a directional antenna. Multipath occurs when the signal is coming at the antenna from multiple directions due to reflection off something out of your control.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

Multipath is to ATSC as ghosting is to NTSC. Also, your digital station isn't broadcasting on the same frequency as the analog version. For example, my ABC affiliate is analog ch 34 and their digital frequencey is ch 4. So I only use the analog side to get the general alignment to the towers. Then tweak in the digital.


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## JayDog08 (Oct 21, 2003)

kdonnel said:


> Is the tuner in your tv NTSC or ATSC? You can't really compare NTSC reception to ATSC reception.
> 
> You are describing multipath. Try pointing the antenna differently or getting a directional antenna. Multipath occurs when the signal is coming at the antenna from multiple directions due to reflection off something out of your control.


ATSC


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## Philly Bill (Oct 6, 2004)

Huh?

I have an HD Tuner built into my set and get great reception using my Silver Sensor.

Can I expect the same when I get the HDTIVO? I guess I'll be connecting it via HDMI right?


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## pudge44 (Dec 5, 2002)

Many reports on these threads have suggested that the built-in ATSC tuners in the HR10-250 are sub-par. I got excellent OTA with a silver sensor plugged right into the TV. But plugging it into the HR10 (without moving the antenna at all) produces much lower signal strength and poorer reception.

I get my networks drom D* so I haven't taken much time to really tackle this issue.


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## A J Ricaud (Jun 25, 2002)

Many posters have had success with dealing with multipath by inserting an adjustable attenuator from Radio Shack in the OTA line. It's cheap, so not much lost if it doesn't help. Also, some posters have also used an FM trap from Radio Shack with some success. I would try the attenuator first.

Also, check antennaweb.org for antenna recommendations.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

Philly Bill said:


> Huh?
> 
> I have an HD Tuner built into my set and get great reception using my Silver Sensor.
> 
> Can I expect the same when I get the HDTIVO? I guess I'll be connecting it via HDMI right?


The Silver Sensor just connects to the HDTiVos antenna input. One thing to remember is that all TV tuners are not created equal.

You use the HDMI to connect the unit to the TV.


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## Philly Bill (Oct 6, 2004)

JimSpence said:


> The Silver Sensor just connects to the HDTiVos antenna input. One thing to remember is that all TV tuners are not created equal.
> 
> You use the HDMI to connect the unit to the TV.


Ah...

Well I'll be highly pissed if I don't get a good signal on the HDTIVO. Thats the main reason I bought it is son I can HD TIVO OTA channels.


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## dogdoctor (Feb 20, 2006)

Philly Bill said:


> Well I'll be highly pissed if I don't get a good signal on the HDTIVO. Thats the main reason I bought it is so I can HD TIVO OTA channels.


That is the only reason I am getting one as well. I hope the channels come in just fine. I have the indoor Terk and works beautifully...the HD Tivo better as well. 



JimSpence said:


> You use the HDMI to connect the unit to the TV.


I'll be using the component. The Sony TVs do a great job with the component inputs. I'll be saving the HDMI for the playstation 3 when/if it ever is revealed.


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## n8. (Feb 26, 2006)

dogdoctor said:


> I'll be using the component. The Sony TVs do a great job with the component inputs. I'll be saving the HDMI for the playstation 3 when/if it ever is revealed.


I've had problems with hdmi on my panasonic so I use component as well. A few weeks ago I thought hdmi was causing my hr10 "hang-ups" and "cut-outs" but i'm starting to think otherwise as its getting worse.

My box is well ventilated and its still having hiccups (audio skips and periodic video blackouts 1-2 secs). Kind of annoying; im about to call d*.


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## SHood (Aug 6, 2005)

JayDog08 said:


> Just got the HR10-250. The OTA signal is terrible. Signal strength goes from around 80, down to up to 40, down to zero. It is constantly flucuating. When I attach the same indoor antenna straight to my TV the signal comes in perfectly. Am I doing something wrong or is the DVR just that bad at receiving the signal?


I used a Sony HD 200 for 2 years w/ DTV and got OTA HD signals for over a year just fine, Great in Fact.

When I got the TiVo unit my NBC signal disappeared. I tried everything. Amplified the signal, attenuated the signal, replaced the unit ... twice, spun 3 different antennas around till the cable twisted off. No NBC. Hooked the Sony back up several times NBC HD every time.

The towers for all my OTA's are 2000 ft high 15 miles away. I can see'm from my yard.

The TiVo tuner is not as good.


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## csweeny (Jun 9, 2004)

Philly Bill said:


> Ah...
> 
> Well I'll be highly pissed if I don't get a good signal on the HDTIVO. Thats the main reason I bought it is son I can HD TIVO OTA channels.


I'm using the Silver Sensor and the HD TIVO 30 miles outside of DC with great results (going strong for 2 years).


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## greenknight (Aug 6, 2004)

I hooked up a 10-250 on Saturday and the OTA signals were fine. Yesterday, the signals were non-existant. Bad unit? Call D* for a replacement? SqS on a rotor so it's not multipath.


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## JayDog08 (Oct 21, 2003)

I went out and bought two attenuators yesterday from Radio Shack. One adjustable and one not. 

Right now I have only put the none adustable one in the line. I also moved the location of my antenna. Signal has gotten better except for one channel. I get anywhere between 65 and 90 signal on the other channels, but the signal still flucuates on the one channel. The thing I don't understand is they are all on the same tower. I plan on replacing the non-adjustable one with the adjustable one tonight to see if that helps. But I have a question.

Will I benefit from putting an amplifier in the line?


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## greenknight (Aug 6, 2004)

JayDog08 - Would you elaborate on the use of attenuators? Thanks


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## JayDog08 (Oct 21, 2003)

greenknight said:


> JayDog08 - Would you elaborate on the use of attenuators? Thanks


See the 7th post in this thread. Some people have had success putting one in the line. It helps eliminate multipathing and excessively strong signals. It seems to have worked a little bit for me. They are really cheap at Radio shack.

What I don't know is can you put an amplifier and an attenuator in the same line or are they basically counterproductive.


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## pdawg17 (Mar 1, 2003)

JayDog08 said:


> I went out and bought two attenuators yesterday from Radio Shack. One adjustable and one not.
> 
> Right now I have only put the none adustable one in the line. I also moved the location of my antenna. Signal has gotten better except for one channel. I get anywhere between 65 and 90 signal on the other channels, but the signal still flucuates on the one channel. The thing I don't understand is they are all on the same tower. I plan on replacing the non-adjustable one with the adjustable one tonight to see if that helps. But I have a question.
> 
> Will I benefit from putting an amplifier in the line?


I don't get it either when they are all on the same tower...all my channels are in the 80's but one struggles around 60 even though it is located on the same tower...


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## JayDog08 (Oct 21, 2003)

pdawg17 said:


> I don't get it either when they are all on the same tower...all my channels are in the 80's but one struggles around 60 even though it is located on the same tower...


Only thing I can figure is there is something obstructing only that signal or that signal is not as powerful as the others to start with.


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## wje (Jan 8, 2005)

Philly Bill said:


> Ah...
> 
> Well I'll be highly pissed if I don't get a good signal on the HDTIVO. Thats the main reason I bought it is son I can HD TIVO OTA channels.


The ATSC tuner in the HR10 isn't great; I can get 5 off-air stations if I use my TV tuner, 2 (sometimes) with the HR10. One problem is that the antenna input is passively split to feed the two internal tuners; you lose more than half the signal strength right there.

The HR10 tuners seem to be very susceptable to overloading, so if you're close to the stations, try an attenuator. If you're in a fringe area like me, get a high-gain antenna and a good low-noise high-gain preamp.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

JayDog08 said:


> I went out and bought two attenuators yesterday from Radio Shack. One adjustable and one not.
> 
> Right now I have only put the none adustable one in the line. I also moved the location of my antenna. Signal has gotten better except for one channel. I get anywhere between 65 and 90 signal on the other channels, but the signal still flucuates on the one channel. The thing I don't understand is they are all on the same tower. I plan on replacing the non-adjustable one with the adjustable one tonight to see if that helps. But I have a question.
> 
> Will I benefit from putting an amplifier in the line?


There are two things you want to accomplish. One is to get the signal at the proper level, the other is to get the signal without interference.

Amps and attenuators can only affect the first issue. It takes a better antenna and better placement (higher and outside, usually) to improve the interference issue. There are plenty of threads right here on how to do that, if you will search over the last few months.

But the amp/ attenuator/ signal level thing, while it is less likely to improve things in many cases than improving the antenna system is, is the easiest to start with.

Put your adjustable attenuator in line, go to the setup screen that displays a bar graph of signal strength, and slowly turn the control from one end to the other while watching the screen. If the signal quality goes up as you increase from 0 to -20 dB, that means that you have too much signal to begin with, and that the attenuator is doing it's job of bringing the signal level into the operational window.

There may come a point where more attenuation makes the signal quality meter start to go back down. If the signal first goes up and then starts to go down, that means you should move the control to where the reading is at the highest and leave the attenuator in the circuit (and forget about an amp).

If instead the signal quality decreases steadily as you turn the control from 0 to -20, that means that you do NOT have too much signal to begin with, and that the attenuator is not needed. In that case, an amp might help. If the amp is not adjustable, put it in line and place the attenuator between the amp and the HR10, and repeat the experiment peaking the signal quality meter for the highest reading as you adjust the attenuator. If it improves, leave it in. If it doesn't, take it out.

If you start with just the attenuator and the signal quality reading increases constantly, all the way up to -20 dB, you may need to add a fixed attenuator and repeat the process with both in line. It also means you are damned close to the towers (or have a really hot antenna, or both) and you have a ton of signal. No amp needed here.

Of course, if you have too much interference and the signal level is swinging wildly up and down on its own, you may have to solve the interference issue first. Keep in mind that a more-directional antenna will have more gain also, so the amp and or attenuator adjustment will have to be done again with the new antenna. Once you can successfully peak for your worst channel, check to make sure this has not degraded your other channels. You may have to tweak for a happy medium in that case.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

JayDog08 said:


> See the 7th post in this thread. Some people have had success putting one in the line. It helps eliminate multipathing and excessively strong signals. It seems to have worked a little bit for me. They are really cheap at Radio shack.
> 
> What I don't know is can you put an amplifier and an attenuator in the same line or are they basically counterproductive.


Attenuators rarely can help solve an interference issue. Interference becomes a problem when the RATIO of undesired to desired signal becomes too high. Since an attenuator will decrease the level of both proportionally, the ratio will stay very much the same after attenuation, or after amplification, for that matter. If you add an attenuator (or amp) and if helps, that is because you have moved the signal level within the operational window of the tuner, and not because interference has been eliminated.

Amps and attenuators do have an identically opposite effect, but used in tandem both can be effective together under the right circumstances. Again, moving the signal into the center of that operational window is the goal. As described above, there are situations where after amplification, you might then have too much signal (compared to too little without the amp). An adjustable attenuator between the amp and the STB can help properly fine tune the level going into the tuner.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

Another thing to keep in mind is that just because all of your stations are transmitting from the same tower doesn't make them equal. The transmitting frequency and the ERP (effective radiating power) will affect reception.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

JimSpence said:


> Another thing to keep in mind is that just because all of your stations are transmitting from the same tower doesn't make them equal. The transmitting frequency and the ERP (effective radiating power) will affect reception.


Great point, Jim. This is why we usually direct folks to antennaweb.org. Not only will it give you aiming and antenna instructions, you can compare output power. For instance, the two channels that were breaking up for my location turned out to be the two with the lowest power. An amp cured that.


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## JayDog08 (Oct 21, 2003)

JimSpence said:


> Another thing to keep in mind is that just because all of your stations are transmitting from the same tower doesn't make them equal. The transmitting frequency and the ERP (effective radiating power) will affect reception.


Do/can stations typically change the radiating power during the day? Last night I was playing around and took the attenuator out of the line and magicly I was getting all stations in the 80's and 90's without much variation. Thought I had finally figured out the the right combination of antenna placement and "stuff in the line." Well this morning I checked and two of them (including the problem child) are back to flucuating from 65 to 40 to 60 to 0. I'm only about 10 miles from the tower. That got me to thinking if maybe during the day when no HD content is on that maybe they reduce the power or something like that.

Also, where is the best place to get an amp? What type? I saw two on Radioshack.com. One was like $10 one was $40.


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## kepper (Nov 28, 2003)

JayDog08 said:


> Do/can stations typically change the radiating power during the day? .


Yes, sometimes they have to reduce power for maintenance/inspection issues. They may also reduce power for a variety of other issues dealing with installation and testing of new equipment, etc. So it is not only possible but likely that power is reduced occasionally, sometimes for several days in a row if its an ongoing project. And if the station is at an antenna farm with other broadcasters on the same or adjacent towers, they may be requested to lower power if work is being done on a nearby "neighbor".

Kevin


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## JayDog08 (Oct 21, 2003)

kepper said:


> Yes, sometimes they have to reduce power for maintenance/inspection issues. They may also reduce power for a variety of other issues dealing with installation and testing of new equipment, etc. So it is not only possible but likely that power is reduced occasionally, sometimes for several days in a row if its an ongoing project. And if the station is at an antenna farm with other broadcasters on the same or adjacent towers, they may be requested to lower power if work is being done on a nearby "neighbor".
> 
> Kevin


I'm in the Baltimore area. All mine are on the same tower or adjacent tower (130° and 131°). ABC, NBC, and CBS are one one tower. I get NBC at like 90 and the other two flucuate greatly what seems like only during the day. Last night at like midnight the signal on all three was 80 and over.

This may be a dumb question but can multipathing be more prominate during daylight hours?


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## kepper (Nov 28, 2003)

JayDog08 said:


> I'm in the Baltimore area. All mine are on the same tower or adjacent tower (130° and 131°). ABC, NBC, and CBS are one one tower. I get NBC at like 90 and the other two flucuate greatly what seems like only during the day. Last night at like midnight the signal on all three was 80 and over.
> 
> This may be a dumb question but can multipathing be more prominate during daylight hours?


Signal propagation is affected by atmospheric conditions which change throughout the day. That said, lower frequencies (like AM radio) are far more susceptable to this than are the much higher frequencies that UHF uses, though I've read reports of strange reception at night. But other things could be affecting your reception during the day... RF noise, multipath from airports, adjacent frequency interference, etc.

Another thing to consider, which I failed to mention in my earlier post, is that some stations have an auxillary tower, antenna, and/or transmitter which have different radiation power and patterns than the fulltime equipment. If the station is using their auxillary equipment during the day for whatever reason, this also could cause signal variation.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

Operating at reduced power is rare, I would say it only happens less than 2% of the time. But if you are receiving more than a marginal signal, a reduction to half or quarter power should make very little difference, if any. If you are regularly getting 80's and 90's, a power reduction of this sort will normally not reduce that number at all, because in either case, you are probably decoding the same ratio of bits correctly, or uncorrupted. Fringe viewers might be affected, however.

The same thing with atmospheric issues. There should no be enough variance from time to time or day to day to significantly affect reception if you have a strong carrier level at the input to the tuner front end.

So, if you have marginal carrier level issues, either changes in output power or changes in atmospherics might cause regular interruptions, but if you have strong signal levels, these issues will not cause any change in reception.

Multipath is a little different. Changes in broadcast power will not affect the interference ratio significantly (all else being equal). Atmospherics can have some affect. But once again, if the signal to interference ratio is high to begin with, there will be no regular interruptions.

IOW, if you have changing reception patterns, that can mean only one or both of two things: marginal signal carrier levels, and/or marginal multipath interference ratios. The best first step in that case to do is to get a highly-directional antenna such as the 4228 and roof-mount it as high as possible. It will both increase the signal level and increase the signal to interference ratio. If you have problems beyond that, you can further fine-tune each of those two things.

The only caveat here is that too much signal can mask as either a multipath issue or a low signal issue (since the manifestation looks pretty much the same). Factor in how close the towers are to see if that should be looked at as well. If you are 10 miles away, it is obvious that an amp might not be the answer. If you are 45 miles away, it is also obvious that an attenuator might not really help.

One other potential issue is adjacent interference from strong FM stations (which usually come from the same transmit site). An FM trap can help in that case.


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## JayDog08 (Oct 21, 2003)

I'm currently using the Terk HDTVI antenna. I bought a Silver Sensor and am going to try that. If that doesn't work I think I am going to put the antenna on the third floor and diplex the satellite signal and antenna signal to the basement and then split it apart. I can see the towers from my backyard. It's funny after some more playing I can get all stations but one at any given time depending on how I aim the antenna. If I aim it one way I don't get ABC. If I move it slightly or angle it up more I get ABC but not CBS. I get high 80's or even low 90's on each (except for the one which flucuates). What doesn't make sense is they are all on the same tower. I'm figuring I have some type of multipath issue like TyroneShoes says. Hopefully, the Silver Sensor will help. We shall see.


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## tall1 (Oct 12, 2004)

I used a silver sensor and had some pretty lousy results using the HD Tivo ATSC tuner. D* came back with a DB2 OTA attenna and installed it on a J pole to my dish on the roof; OTA is rock solid. I paid D* $49 for the antenna and installation was free.


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