Help on Waiheke

[Alex]

Hi DTT Gurus

I have a Hauppauge WINTV HVR-900 USB stick and need some help with reception.
Where I am in Surfdale Road on Waiheke Island I just can't seem to get a DTT signal.
Granted Kordia maps show that it is unlikely, but I want to give it my best shot.

Can anyone offer advice for people in bad signal areas?
Is there a good tool for checking signal strength, I have tried DVBViewer, WinTV, MediaPortal and other apps but can not find a signal meter tool.

I have a HILLS AX315/323/343/391 UHF aerial - not sure which of the 4 it is. but it has 10 elements plus the mesh.
I have it on a pole about 3 metres above my shed.

Any suggestions or am I wasting my time in a bad area?:confused:

[Apsattv]

I'm not familiar with that antenna?

Have you gone through all the basics?

Check the signal path using Google Earth and the DTT pin for Wiatarua transmission site?

[shadownz]

I just had a look at google earth, would the TX in Remuera be a better option or is that too low power? (even mt te aroha?)

[Apsattv]

What is your location in Google earth co-ordinates?

Distance not a problem I think.

Just looked at it around 43K to Waiatarua and 100k to Te Aroha.

The smallest of the Hills models you list is a 15 element, low gain. At 45K approx I think you will need to upgrade to something a bit better.

How about checking your analog on the channels used by Waiatarua to see what you can get off the current Analogue?

[wiredr]

hi alex ,
welcome the forum,
i also live on Waiheke and have been investigating dtt since the first broadcast,
my current most reliable method of viewing dtt is a wintv-hvr900h usb tuner, dvbviewer pro v4 . windows media center also works quite well too. On dvbviewer there is a display button on the bottom of the screen . clicking on this button will cycle thru 4 options , the default setting is prog completion as a % ,when you get to a green button with a % init then you are displaying the signal strength. on my setup i have 60% signal and 100% quality. the type of aerial is not critical although a digital specific aerial works better. the tuner should be scanning for 538,570,666 MHz which are off Waiatarua .
questions ?
when trying to tune the application does it find any muxes. ?
have you tried the aerial on analogue ie. prime. ?
which direction is the aerial pointing, from Google maps it shows a path thru the end of Burrell rd to line up with Waiatarua ?

[Alex]

Hi Guys, thanks for the replys

36°47'27.78"S
175° 1'23.90"E

I will check the other info shortly.

Oh yes, and I do have a grainy prime reception and sometimes TAB TV very grainy.

[Alex]

I have checked and it is 22.11 KM to Remuera at 243.09 degrees.

Does DTT have a fresnel effect so that the wee ridge that I have to pass over isnt going to be a problem?

How do I work out which way to point my aerial if I have a compass - compass skills a bit lacking...... but I do have one.

[kiwisat]

Hi Alex Sky tower may also be an option for you but remember the infills are all vertical polarity so you will need to orientate your antenna to vertical or you will be wasting your time. And although Te Aroha may be visible to you, you will require the SF 91 Hills Antenna or similar and probably with a Masthead Amp unless your cable run is very short, ie less than 10 mtrs.

[Alex]

Thanks for that, so if I have a infill site on Waiheke. All I need to do is aim my aerial at it but point it up in the air?

[allstarnz]

The elements would be like this for vertical

| \/ \/ \/ \/ \/
|--------------
| /\ /\ /\ /\ /\


-------ground------

[Alex]

Ok, I flipped my aerial over to vertical and pointed it at Remuera.
That made it worse. Before I was getting some UHF analog signals like prime now I get nothing.

[Apsattv]

Try runnng 1 single cable from antenna to tv set.

Bypass any splitter or combiners you have in place.

[Alex]

Woo Hoo - it works. DVBViewer works with the latest ffdshow for h.264. I still cant get winTV to even find the stations.
Any recommended site to tune the ffdshow h.264 codec? It is still jumpy from time to time and I have some synch issues.
Could that be an aerial issue or more related to PC?
P4 3.4 with 3GB RAM.

[Apsattv]

What did you do that made it work?

[Alex]

Nothing extra after vertically aligning my aerial and pointing it at Remuera.
Mostly I tried with WinTV as that came with my Hauppauge stick. Eventually I fiddled around with DVBView and got a digital signal.
I figured that if I was actually picking up a signal but not seeing anything it must be the decoder. I took my sound of mute and I had audio (normally muted)...
After a bit more reading it turned out that the version of ffdshow I had wasn't so hot with h.264 so it was recommended to upgrade which I did.

Now I just need to tune that bad boy a bit and things will be great - dump it out to the projector and voilla. Shame I missed the V8s.