RCA ANT1650 receiving FOX-2 (Detroit-Ann Arbor)

Hi all. I live in Ann Arbor and I bought RCA ANT1650 indoor antenna and it works perfect for everything else except for FOX-2 WKBJ.
I heard that's because it's broadcasted on VHF. But I think ANT1650 can receive VHF, right? What's the problem?

The problem is - when you buy a toy, you get what you paid for.

There is 8 zip codes in Ann Arbor Mich, and even with a zip code it would still not help your cause.

The simple truth is - when you have buildings more then 3 stories tall, when you have trees, in your case when you are trying to receive a signal from inside of your house - you will have issues.

I would suggest that you get a good outside antenna and position it in the proper direction.

One question is - in your TV fool report, there is no WKBJ - channel 2 Detroit.

TV fool calls it - WJBK channel 7 - what is up with that?

WJBK FOX 2
P.O. Box 2000
16550 West 9 Mile Road
Southfield, MI 48037-2000
Phone: 248.557.2000

Let's say you are at the McDonalds on 3325 Washtenaw Ave
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

To the station at 16550 W 9 Mile Rd
Southfield, MI 48075 - it is 28.4 miles away

So basically at a Eff. pwr: 9.469 kW - you are too far away for that particular model of antenna.

Welcome to the forum and I see you have gotten a warm response form our forum clown!! Is there a way you could mount a outdoor antenna? You may not need a big one. If you could post your tvfool report. There are many experts here that will help you!!

To allinwonder,

By in large, JBantennaman is basically correct, but I think its not productive to call the RCA 1650 a toy. Its a rather pricey indoor amplified antenna that list cheat figure gains of 18 DB on VHF and 26 DB on UHF. And I call them cheat figures because they are counting both the gain of the antenna and the amplification when non cheat figures just list the gain of the antenna itself.

But at the end of the day JBantennaman has told you what is wrong, the way you have the RCA 1650 antenna presently set up is not lifting
the comparatively weak WJBK above the digital cliff while lifting quite a number of other stations over the digital cliff. Or to restate the symptoms, at its present location, your 1650 antenna may receive some signal from WJBK, but after all the losses going through building materials in your house, and through the coax cable, and then into your TV Tuner, it ends up being too weak to be usable.

So in my mind, you have to ask the proper set of questions, namely what can I do to get the same set of channels plus get WJBK also?
And do so in a cost effective manner. And this forum can do much to give you that answer, but its going to take an exact address TVFool report to start. Which if nothing else will give your distance and heading to WJBK and the rest of your stations. However, since best gain in an antenna is usually on exact aim, you may or may not get involved in a tradeoff, the best aim to get WJBK may or not be the best aim to get the bulk of your other channels. Depending on the outcome of your TVfool report, I could suggest the following decision tree.

1. Since cost effective basically implies not throwing away your 1650 antenna you probably paid $50+ bucks for, you could invest $10.00 or so to buy 25 feet or so of indoor grade RG-6 coax cable. which would then open up vast new worlds for the set of possible indoor antenna locations. An upstairs window pointing at WJBK may be best
because it may minimize the signal losses through building materials and indoor walls.

2. Failing that, consider throwing away the 1650 antenna, investing in something like a winegard 7694P, a $60.00 investment, you should be able to reuse the indoor coax, and try an attic install. But if you have aluminum siding or signal opaque stuff in your attic, forget that idea.

3. After that you are left with an outdoor install, again you can reuse the 7694P, you may need extra coax, but that is almost certainly the best option.

Option 2-A.
Return 1650 antenna to store where purchased - receive $50 refund :)

Continue as NMT suggests...


Of course there may be other options also - but you'll never get any of them without first posting an EXACT ADDRESS tvfool.com report!

Oh, and welcome to the forum;)

The truth is - and let it be known, that not all people lives in their own house. Apartment dwellers - who for years was able to receive as many channels as they chose from a urban city location recently found themselves with a unique situation. Their old style rabbit ears antenna no longer worked.

In a world where we want everything now and we want everything handed to us on a silver platter, the most basic option was for retailers to put this crap out in the shelves. It appealed to even the most sophisticated consumer because it had all the bells and whistles they were looking for. It was ultra high tech, it didn't take up much room, it claimed to do everything from soup to nuts and it cost just enough money to convince people that they didn't want the cheapest antenna and they thought that if they spent $50 it must be good.

Back in the early 70's, there was a myth that you could connect your television to the UHF port - to a toaster and it would receive television stations. The problem with that theory was that no one told you that you had to push down the lever that you had to push to make toast. Probably if you lived close enough to a UHF station and you pointed your toaster in the right direction and pushed down the lever - it would actually work.

Pocket AM radio's came with a antenna that was nothing more than a iron ferrite core with a very small wire wound around it. It was semi directional and functioned ok - because AM radio was very easy to receive in the PM hours and did not require a lot of transmit power.

You actually had to reduce the transmit power at night.

So basically when I call the antenna - the RCA ANT 1650 a toy, what I mean is that it is basically not any more technologically advanced then the AM radio antenna that came in a portable radio 50 years ago.

Technologically speaking, a antenna is tuned to a certain length so that it can receive that frequency. So if you were to take a bunch of wire and wind it up in a ball and place that wire inside of a cereal box and put the two leads sticking out onto the F connector on the back of your television, you could basically build the same antenna you bought for about the price of a length of wire and the empty cereal box and a balun transformer and a length of RG 6 wire with two F terminals on it.

A UHF antenna does not pick up VHF - very well if at all.

A VHF antenna does not pick up UHF very well if at all.

So how can a ball of wire pick up both UHF and VHF when it is not tuned to either length of wavelength.

Things such as Secret Decoder rings, whistles and clickers were all nice prizes found in a box of Cracker Jacks when I was a kid.

Since there are no more Little Orphan Annie or Captain Midnight programs on the radio to listen to - where you could use your Cipher disc to see what the secret message they had for you to decode, there is no reason for kids to eat cracker jacks or collect those items.

No one remembers who Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo are, so there is no reason for anyone to remember how antenna's works anymore. All we understand is what is on the box. It says that it will work and so we believe it and if we are lucky we can shake the box and it will make a rattling noise. We take the box home excitedly like a little kid with his first box of Cracker Jacks - anticipating what prize we are going to get. Only when we get to the bottom of the box, and we open the little paper sack, we find that it is a plastic figurine, the same figurine we found when we opened the other 4 boxes our mom's bought us to put in our lunches for school. After that experience we didn't want to eat Cracker Jacks any more and we forgot about all the glorious prizes the manufacturer promised us when we saw our first Cracker Jack commercial on TV .

So the moral of the story is - if you want something that really works, you don't trust what the salespeople in Radio Shack and Walmart tells us and we go to someone who knows something about antenna's and we ask questions and we find out which antenna will work best for our situation.

NonMctubber is right, you can buy some wire and try moving it around your apartment or you can take it back and buy a real antenna. There is no right answer, if a person is happy with what they bought, who is to say that it will or will not work.

JB

That antenna is made with fractal geometry. So it is an advanced toy printed circuit antenna. I have the unamplified version and it doesn't work very well. But it will pull in some signals from 30 miles. Definitely the smallest VHF antenna I've had.

From my point of view, the RCA 1650 indoor antenna might be a fairly good choice for some folks who are very close to a large number TV transmitters inside of a major city. And with digital television, if everything is above the digital cliff, having an antenna system able to deliver even more signal to the television is no better. And can be worse if the amplified signal overwhelms the tuner.

So bad mouthing the RCA 1650 antenna is simply situational, and mainly a factor of location, location, and location.

The point being, our OP, allinwonder, is missing at least one channel I assume the OP wants. Its not due to to the fact that the RCA 1650 can't receive VHF or UHF, its due to the fact that in our OP's location, the RCA 1650 simply does not receive enough signal to lift some channels over the digital cliff. Since the weak channels are unlikely to increase power and the TV transmitters is not going to grow legs and move closer, the OP either has to find a better location for the RCA 1650 antenna or get a better antenna with more real gain. ( or with less loss due to going through building materials.)

Or simply accept the reality that some channels will not come in with that choice of RCA 1650 antenna. Of course there is one more alternative, move the OP's the house location to a better place closer to the TV transmitters.

The bottom line is to get more channels, some sort of action has to be taken. And to make those actions intelligent, it sure helps to have that exact address TVfool report as a guide.

But even failing that, we should ask the OP if they have any sort of signal meter on their television, which could give us a clue on how far they are above or below the digital cliff on various station of interest.

This may be a bit off point, but I'm just wondering...

... And with digital television, if everything is above the digital cliff, having an antenna system able to deliver even more signal to the television is no better. And can be worse if the amplified signal overwhelms the tuner.


if that statement is 100% true. Well, the first part anyway - obviously the last part is, but that leaves quite the wide window of operation. What I'm getting at here is if you're receiving a good, strong signal then little "digital correction" is being applied when processing said signal, as opposed to a marginal strength signal close to the digital cliff that requires much "digital correction" to be viewable. Do you not think this can make a difference in picture quality? I'm not saying this difference would be discernible on an old 20 or 32" with a converter box, but if you're running the latest & greatest big screen LCD or Plasma & viewing full 1080i isn't it possible there would be a difference?

Or did I just wake up too early today with the time change?

In MHO, aka.Hooper asks an excellent question, and maybe I was the disoriented one yesterday and today.

But still I feel compelled to defend my assertion because a digital television signal differs from an analog one because the digital signal has a thresh hold value other wise called the digital cliff. While the analog signal simply smoothly degrades from a very good picture, to some snow, to a lots of snow, and at some snow or noise value, the analog sound and digital becomes so bad that it becomes unwatchable while the sound disappears.

But if the digital cliff is at some signal value X, we can say three things.
about a digital Television signal.
(1) In theory, below that value X you get no picture at all and above that value X you get a perfect picture. (2) Since that value X is measured at the end point, namely the individual TV tuner, there are a pile of variables in antenna systems, the individual TV tuner, and above all, in atmospheric conditions that can vary moment to moment with things like wind but mainly changes at a slower hour by hour rate as the sun rises and sets, the atmosphere changes, and weather fronts cause abrupt changes. (3) So we have to add in a fudge factor Y which is basically the width of the digital cliff while not confusing it with rare or common DXing conditions that cause high clouds to reflect the TV signal to reflect the signal downward.

So bottom line, to avoid occasional pixelization on a given station, the antenna system has to deliver a signal of X+Y to always stay over the digital cliff. With a possibility that really bad weather, somewhat 3 plus standard deviation events can very rarely drive many stations below the digital cliff.

What I am far less sure about is the aka. Hooper question, namely, is that digital value X and Y the same for a 480 scan line signal used by a converter box, a 720P signal, and a 1080P signal? And we can also ask the same question for a 720i and 1080i signal. And the other joker in the deck also becomes, different stations broadcast all possible signals and others only offer up to digital 720P signals

I agree totally with everything NonMcTubber says, with the exception of:

(1) In theory, below that value X you get no picture at all and above that value X you get a perfect picture.

It is the word "perfect" that I am questioning...

When your tuner is receiving a digital signal it is decoding the digital information that comprises the picture/sound. Now in my mind, (which can be a scary place BTW :D) if you're receiving that signal at 100% quality, there is [theoretically] no information missing from the signal and you certainly should have a "perfect" picture. (As perfect as the original transmission anyway.)

However, as the received signal degrades from 100% one would assume some information is now missing, and this missing information is substituted by means of "digital correction".

To my understanding the term "Digital Cliff" (Value "X") refers to the point at which there is so much information missing from the signal that the correction method can no longer make an assumption as to what information to substitute, and the signal becomes un-viewable.

My original question was that I suspect at some point in all this correction & substitution a difference in picture quality may become visually apparent as you approach the digital cliff. (Assuming viewing full Hi-Def transmissions on a hi resolution monitor.)


And NMT also raises another question in:

...is that digital value X and Y the same for a 480 scan line signal used by a converter box, a 720P signal, and a 1080P signal? And we can also ask the same question for a 720i and 1080i signal. And the other joker in the deck also becomes, different stations broadcast all possible signals and others only offer up to digital 720P signals

It would be a logical assumption that since a 1080 or 720 resolution picture contains more information than a 480 resolution picture that they would have different thresholds at which correction can no longer be applied, and thus the 480 signal should have a lower digital cliff...

I suppose a fair test of differing thresholds would be to see if a station which is transmitting 1080 or 720 on its main channel, along with 480 on its subs has the same digital cliff across those transmissions - measured on a HD monitor. I also suspect that a converter box which is only processing the picture to 480 would not be a fair test, as it may just be ignoring the extra information anyway. (Unsure about this tho.)

If any of this is true then some given safety margin (Value "Y") should be adopted to ensure the best picture quality that can be obtained. Which is to say if for instance your digital cliff occurs at 60% signal strength on your meter (under the worst atmospheric conditions) you should maybe tweak your antenna system until you see a signal no lower than 70%.

Or is the correction & substitution process so accurate that it is not perceivable even on the best of monitors, with the signal just barely above the digital cliff?

These are the things I think about when I can't fall asleep at night - my version of counting sheep! :D

I think aka.Hooper has done an excellent job at better asking the question and that my explanation was weaker.

So maybe I should redefine the explanation under the assumption that we can some how eliminate the day to day and moment variations of weather. Something possible in a laboratory environment but not in the real OTA world. And I should admit my global variable Y is somewhat misleading because weather is simply too big of a variable.

And restate it in terms better put by aka.Hooper. There will still be that digital cliff value X, such that below that value X, there is not enough digital information transmitted for the tuner to fudge together any kind of a picture. And the television will display no signal for that channel and a dead black screen.

However, much above that value X, there should be enough information to put together a digital perfect picture. But at exactly X digital signal we get a momentary amount of pixelization where the TV tuner does not have enough information to put together all parts of the picture. Hard to explain to someone who has not seen it happen with a digital signal, but nearly anyone with experience with HGTV has seen it happen.

But going back, I have defined this as a laboratory experiment where all weather related variables are controlled as the signal, as a variable, can be set at any value that it stays at. And smoothly increased or decreased. But anyone who has experienced pixelazation in the real world knows it effects different parts of the picture at different times
rather than effecting the same part of the picture.

Or we might say, in such at laboratory experiment, we can shrink variable Y and call it variable Z. Such that below signal information value X you get no picture. At exactly signal information value X, you get a pizelated picture. And at some signal information value X+Z the pixelation vanishes and a perfect picture results.

Now in terms of that variable Z, how many DB's wide is that variable at any digital transmission type, be it at 480 scan lines or 1080P or anything between. And is that required signal value X the same for 480 scan lines and 1080P and everything in between.

Personally, I tend to think that at least that variable Z is not many DB's wide, I am less sure about the variable X changing with increased
resolution, but what I think is somewhat irrelevant. Because surely exactly the type of laboratory experiment I proposed has already be conducted numerous times by television manufacturers if nothing else.

So can anyone who does have the equipment most of lack and have conducted the research shed some light on the subject?

Weather, as NMT correctly states, is a constant variable (if you will) in this equation - the actual signal being received is always in a state of change. But all things being equal...

The question still exists: What is a "Perfect picture"?
In my mind it is one decoded from as strong, and therefor a complete a signal as possible, and the less "digital correction" applied (which I assume is nothing more than substitution based on surrounding/adjacent pixels) the better.

Say for instance, that you're watching the World Series, and the pitcher throws a wild pitch. Upon replay they zoom to a close-up, but not close enough - because you're receiving a marginal signal and digital correction is filling the area with duplicate information, you can't see that a fly landed on his face just as he was in his release. The fly was within the missing information, so you miss the fly...
Maybe that was a stretch, but you get the idea.:D

Let us pretend for a moment that the percentage value of signal strength displayed by your tuner's signal strength meter is not only indicative of the tuner's sensitivity, but is also the representation of how much actual digital information that comprises the picture/sound is being received. (And for all we know this well may be the actual case, and the differences between tuner level "Digital Cliff" readings represent how well a given tuner can perform the function of "Digital Correction".)

So for instance, the Dish DTV Pal+ that I have will maintain a solid lock on a signal as low as 58% or so on its meter, and if it drops below this number momentarily I will get pixelazation, and if it stays lower for more than a moment it goes black screen.

My point being that, does this mean that only 58% of the picture is from "real" information, and the remaining 42% "fudged"? And that being the case shouldn't a picture from an 80-90% "real" signal look better than one made from a "digitally reformulated" 58% signal?

I think it would be interesting to take an afternoon football game transmitted in full 1080 on a good monitor and add attenuators into the line to go from a good strong 80-90% signal and bring it down close to the digital cliff for that tuner and see if there's any perceivable change in pic quality.

This is beginning to sound a lot like discussions from when CD's first came out, and the analog purists
insisted you were losing something when going digital...:)

Hi Hooper,

I have used pad attenuators to determine my margin to dropout for all my local channels. I cannot tell a difference in picture quality until I get down to a margin of 1 or 2 dB's (some pixelation/macroblocking plus audio dropouts occurring).

HTH,

Rick

I cannot tell a difference in picture quality until I get down to a margin of 1 or 2 dB's (some pixelation/macroblocking plus audio dropouts occurring).

Hey Rick,
So you can't see any difference until you're leaning over the cliff waving your arms so you don't go all the way, so to speak.

I suppose maybe the level of missing information we're talking about is not even the equivalent of a hair on someones head, and this is a bit like the analog/digital CD discussions after all then...

Now since you've done this, is there any differences between the digital cliff meter reading when comparing a station's HD signal with that of their SD sub transmission? Thinking about it again, I wouldn't think so - since the signal level is usually given in percent, it's all relative.

Hooper,

I did not see any differences between SD and HD channels. I did my testing with an Apex 502 converter box, 25 ft rg-6 cable, and an old analog tv. The converter box displays both signal strength and signal quality. I simply added attenuators until the signal dropped out.

An example graph is attached. Note, the linear relationship between margin to dropout and signal strength. The Apex is clearly measuring signal strength *not* signal to noise ratio. Also note, signal quality was 100% until margin to dropout had decreased to about 5 dB's. The tuner was still able to display a good picture until the margin decreased down to 2 dB's. There was some pixelation and/or macroblocking when margin to dropout was 1 or 2 dB's. Based on my testing, for a quality picture, one must have a margin to dropout of 5 dB or higher.

Interestingly, my tv tuner could handle signal quality below 100% but my htpc has video/audio errors if signal quality falls below 100%.

HTH,

Rick

Thanks for the feedback!
Your graph clearly shows no drop off in quality until you're right at the cliff, which is great. And 5ft (dB) back from the cliff is as close as we should be to maintain pristine quality, if possible.

I suppose my fly on the pitcher analogy was a severe overstatement of the process, and there's really nothing to worry about.

Thanks again!:)
Hooper