Strange TV behavior
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Thread: Strange TV behavior

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 1998
    Location
    Toronto
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    Strange TV behavior

    I have an RCA 40" flatscreen.. nothing special.. middle of the road quality, 3 yrs old(ish) and up until now behaves pretty normally.

    I run it, for OTA broadcast TV stations only and have done since I bought it. (also as a monitor for streaming from my media server via HDMI but this is strictly related to the TV function).

    Starting about a week ago one of the many (~45) stations I get, MY TV from Buffalo NY, freezes the television and shuts it off after a few seconds of non-response. This happens with the primary signal of 49-1 (WNYO) and also sister/subchannels 49-2 and 49-3.

    I have to immediately hit the -channel button on the remote when I restart it to back out of that specific channel otherwise the TV freezes and shuts down again.

    It could be related to weak TV signal since MY TV is often on the low end of reception strength but so are a number of other stations that this does not happen to.

    It's not a show stopper because I don't really watch those stations much but if I forget I sometimes channel surf through them and it gets stuck. It's an annoyance I could live without.

    Anyone else ever experience a similar problem? It's not an easy thing to google. Impossible actually.

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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Sheboygan, WI
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    Ice building up of the transmitter tower?
    Can you put a signal booster in line? Had that work.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 1998
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    Toronto
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    Don't think it's ice since the temps were pretty balmy for the first few days the problem started.. even in Buffalo.

    I have a line amp in place already. I bought it a couple of years ago when I was experimenting with different antennae and placement/aiming. I found the boost does nothing in my case.. I left it on anyway... but aiming my 4 bay antenna is crucial to reception. Even a degree or two horizontally or vertically can make a huge difference and ideal direction changes somewhat from season to season. I try not to obsess about that too much because it could drive you crazy constantly trying to get the absolute best signal by constantly nudging the antenna one way or the other or the other or the other or the other....

    (and there's also tropospherics over lake Ontario but don't get me started )

    I've found a happy place for it for now, at least for the winter.

    The problem I think has got more to do with the TV's processor not being able to deal with just this one weaker frequency. I did a factory reset but that didn't help.

    What I might do is set my TV to block/delete those channels. A bit of a shame since I probably would have occasionally wanted to watch the newest sub channel addition of Comet TV.. old sci-fi movies and shows. http://comettv.com/

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  4. #4
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    Apr 2000
    Location
    Sheboygan, WI
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    I have CO-PHASED tv antennas and do WELL know about tropo , GRRRRR.

    4 element is weaker than the 12 I used, and easier to bust into from the side also.
    Had Denver , while in the Louisville, KY , stomp a station that WAS12 miles away.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 1998
    Location
    Toronto
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    My antenna is indoors by a window so size is kinda limited. Anything larger than what I have now will take up most of the room LOL. My friends already think it's a bit weird but when I tell them how much money I save they start asking questions. Cable TV rates here in Canada are a lot more expensive than most other countries.

    I'm fortunate to have an apartment that is 220 feet above grnd level and also faces SxSE with line of site directly to the lake and Buffalo so I get all the major US networks at close to 100%. I rely on the many surrounding high rise structures to reflect my local stations to me and that actually works pretty well.. most are around 40-60% and for a digital signal that's just fine.

    I mostly just watch sports on TV so I get spoiled with the uncompressed OTA signal... when I'm forced to find something that's streamed on line the lower quality is often hard to deal with and hard on my eyes (and patience).

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  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Sheboygan, WI
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    Kind of stuck then. 20th floor, no thank you.

    A antenna built for that one freq might give better results.

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