TV Antenna Help

November 12, 2022 10:41 AM

I just have a simple set of rabbit years with the round UHF antenna hanging on the wall above the TV. I'm about 15 miles from the transmitters. Signal strength is 97/100 on ABC on channel 8.1, yet the audio constantly drops out for a second or two. This is especially annoying during Jeopardy! What's my next move here/? Doesn't seem like an outdoor antenna is going to help, as signal strength is not the issue. Do I try an attenuator next, on the theory the signal is too strong? Maybe a 4G/LTE filter?
posted by COD to Technology (6 answers total)

I had bad enough luck with the antenna we have that I asked my mom for her login to Xfinity, not so I could use her services, but so that I could authorize the network apps and access their live feeds for their channels there.

(I do recognize you might need to use antenna because your internet doesn't live stream video ok well, though. )
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:18 AM on November 12, 2022

Best answer: I wonder if you might be suffering from multipath interference? (Where the signal from the transmitter bounces off something and you get the direct signal plus the reflected signal arriving at your antenna at slightly different times and clashing with each other.) In the analog TV era, this would cause some pretty obvious visual symptoms, but with over the air digital, who know how the processing in the TV will react to that? I wouldn't worry about the signal strength, I would try reorienting the antenna. A more directional antenna, pointed at the transmitter might also help. To get usable OTA hi-def, we had to install an attic antenna, despite being closer to the transmitters than you are. (We are in a built up area which does block any chance of line-of-sight type reception.)
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 2:04 PM on November 12, 2022

Also, are you using a soundbar? If so, sometimes they are more sensitive to signal quality/dropouts than the built in speakers in the TV. Try just using the built in speakers in the tv and see what happens. Also, if you are using a soundbar and can select digital audio output formats on your TV, select PCM output.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 2:14 PM on November 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

That it's just the audio makes me think it's a problem on the other end. My recollection is that the error correction is applied to the entire transport stream, not separately for the audio and video streams contained within.

If the station has subchannels, see if those are also being affected. If not, it's almost certainly a problem with the station's gear and you should contact them directly to let them know. There's a pretty good chance the engineering staff will be helpful. They can also tell you if there have been any changes on their end that correlate with the onset of your issues.
posted by wierdo at 10:21 AM on November 13, 2022

Also, if your receiver is recent and you don't live next to a highway with a lot of truck traffic, it's probably not multipath. ATSC chipsets made since 2006 or so are very good at handling static multipath interference.
posted by wierdo at 10:29 AM on November 13, 2022

Response by poster: I took the antenna and literally walked around the family room with it and found a spot on top of a bookshelf that appears to have a solid signal. We watched Jeopardy last night without a single dropout. It's six inches to the left and 6 feet farther back from the window that the previous placement. It shouldn't work better there, but it does.
posted by COD at 9:42 AM on November 15, 2022