Author Topic: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?  (Read 4134 times)

jeromedawg

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What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« on: January 30, 2016, 08:18:26 PM »
Anybody have ideas on why my reception is so poor esp on certain channels? I'm in SoCal (Orange County area) and I've historically had issues getting good reception for channel 7.1 and 9.1 (and 11.1 for that matter). I'm on the bottom floor condo unit and I have one of the Eagle Aspen antennas (http://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Aspen-EASDTV2BUHF-Directv-Approved/dp/B000GIT002). It's a bit old and weathered from being outside but it's really weird - sometimes the reception is just bad and I get nothing on the channels mentioned above. Other channels are [mostly] fine, so I'm not sure what the deal is. It's a pretty highly rated antenna so not sure what else the issue could be.

Any ideas? Should I just get one of those antennas that sticks to the window instead?

I moved this antenna outside too since indoor reception was terrible. Moving it outside was better but I still have issues with these channels. It has been pretty frustrating.

Could weather affect things? It was a little overcast today and was raining a bit.

randymarsh

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Re: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2016, 11:09:50 PM »
http://antennaweb.org/ has a wealth of information that should help.

jeromedawg

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Re: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2016, 11:28:54 PM »
http://antennaweb.org/ has a wealth of information that should help.

Yea, I've gone through that before and pointed my antenna in the recommend direction. It didn't really make much of a difference. Since I'm on the bottom condo unit, it's not like I can get up on a roof either. Best I can really do is locate the antenna outside and try to get it up on a pole, which even then is limited since my association won't let us have poles sticking out of our yards.

tj

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Re: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2016, 11:39:34 PM »
There is terrible reception basically all over OC. If you get any channels OTA, consider yourself lucky.

jeromedawg

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Re: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2016, 09:28:32 AM »
There is terrible reception basically all over OC. If you get any channels OTA, consider yourself lucky.

LOL, it's a good thing we don't watch *that* much TV. Or if we do, we're okay with a handful of channels at most.

tj

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Re: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« Reply #5 on: January 31, 2016, 09:47:11 AM »
There is terrible reception basically all over OC. If you get any channels OTA, consider yourself lucky.

LOL, it's a good thing we don't watch *that* much TV. Or if we do, we're okay with a handful of channels at most.

I believe most of the signals are coming from Mt. Vernon. Not very good line of sight in OC. The downside of stations covering a huge metro....

PhysicianOnFIRE

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Re: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« Reply #6 on: January 31, 2016, 10:46:48 AM »
I wish I could rely on OTA channels, but they're not easy to get in my area, either. 

I've tried cutting the cord once, but I had to sign back up when football season rolled around again.  Live sports are a weakness of mine.  I can't seem to go without.  And our Super Bowl party would be really lame and poorly attended if we couldn't show the Super Bowl.  Nobody wants to stare at a Supberb Owl on the screen for 4 hours.

AZDude

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Re: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« Reply #7 on: February 01, 2016, 08:38:41 AM »
When I was living in SoCal, reception was really bad for everything. Maybe its the hills, the smog, or the heavy air. Maybe its older infrastructure used by the stations. Probably a combination.


jeromedawg

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Re: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2016, 03:54:40 PM »
Cox is the cable provider in my area. I was wondering if they are able to offer or allow for customers to watch OTA channels without subscribing to cable (e.g. can I just watch the publicly available channels via plugging in the cable run that's currently in my place or do I have to subscribe, period?)

tj

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Re: What's up with my OTA reception? Do I need a better antenna?
« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2016, 04:11:28 PM »
Cox is the cable provider in my area. I was wondering if they are able to offer or allow for customers to watch OTA channels without subscribing to cable (e.g. can I just watch the publicly available channels via plugging in the cable run that's currently in my place or do I have to subscribe, period?)

Your best bet would be to subscribe first and then cancel, they probably can't be bothered to deactivate the coax. When I lived in Newport Beach, I just plugged the coax in the wall even though there was no box in the room, but we did have a paid box in a different room. I think the tech ahs to enable the signal and if nobody has subscribed to Cox before in that unit, you're probably out of luck because they would have had no reason to activate the signal.

You can always try just buying a coax and see if it works - they are pretty cheap.

I bought a coax cable hoping I could get a signal from Time Warner here, but nothing. It might be because previous tenants have also only used AT&T and Time Warner may not have activated the signal in the unit before, or AT&T may have messed with any prior Time Warner'cabling.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!