Digital TV Converter Box Recommendation

[geoffschultz]

The long awaited switch to digital TV will take place next week. I spent a lot of time researching converter boxes and I selected the Zenith DTT901 based upon recommendations for good weak signal reception. I installed it on Monday and was very impressed with the reception.

BlueJacket is in Portsmouth, RI and I was able to pick up about 20 Boston stations, which is about 50 miles away. I had scanned for the channels at home, which is ~25 miles due west of Boston, and forgot the controller, so I wasn't able to access the menus to rescan in Portsmouth. However, it received, without any breakup, all of the channels that it found at home. Note that before I installed this, I could barely watch channel 7 out of Boston and only got 2 UHF channels.

Sears sells the Zenith DTT901 for $50. You can get a $40 coupon from the US government (https://www.dtv2009.gov/) which drops the cost to $10. Note, you have to pay cash if you use the coupon!

Anyhow, I can highly recommend the unit. Note that other units have better Electronic Program Guides (EPG), but I was primarily interested in weak signal reception.

-- Geoff

 

[Ken Palmer]

Please comment on something that I was told by another sailor. He said that it was verified by a TV station engineer.

With your TV antenna on the mast, and slight wave action while at dockside watching your favorite program, the movement of the antenna will cause the signal to "break up" or "freeze".

Did you notice this at all? Thanks.

 

[geoffschultz]

With your TV antenna on the mast, and slight wave action while at dockside watching your favorite program, the movement of the antenna will cause the signal to "break up" or "freeze".

Did you notice this at all? Thanks.

My antenna is mounted on top of the radar arch which is about 10-12 feet off of the water, so it doesn't swing anywhere as much as one on top of the mast. I haven't seen any break-ups, despite BlueJacket being on the marina's main channel. Of course I don't have a lot of experience with it either.

-- Geoff

 

[windward54]

Don't wait until next week. The conversion date is June 12, just two more days!

 

[rardiH36]

Just last week I had an eMail conversation with a RF Systems Engineer at the NBC station in the San Francisco area. I eMailed the station because after about 1 year of fine digital reception (at home .. not my boat), the channel's picture was freezing into pixels on occassion. I wanted to know if the station was modifying their broadcast leading up to the June 12th "all converted" date. (They weren't). Here is a quote from his reply which I think might be of use in this thread:

"Digital signals do not have pictures that deteriorate at a gradual pace like the analog signals do. Instead if the received level is above the DTV Cliff the pictures are almost perfect. If they are on the edge of the DTV cliff then there will be freezes and blocking in the picture or possibly audio drop outs as the signal varies above and below the cliff. If they are below the DTV cliff level there is no picture at all. It's just that in DTV the picture is perfect or not there at all hence the cliff effect term."

This matches what I had previously read. For digital "off the air", you mostly will get a great picture, or none at all. There is only a small "band" of reception quality that will cause the picture to pixelate and the sound to drop out. So for a boat, even if rocking, as long as the the signal is strong enough, the picture will be perfect. Only if the rocking causes the reception to fluctuate between strong and marginal will the picture go bad.

Anyway, at home, I rotated my roof-top antenna just a few degrees to line up with NBC's transmitter. The reception has been great since. All of the other stations are in the same general direction, only much closer. The change in direction has lowered these stations' signal strengths (as shown on my receiver's strength meter), but still comfortably above the cliff strength.

 

[Rich Stidger]

Please comment on something that I was told by another sailor. He said that it was verified by a TV station engineer.

With your TV antenna on the mast, and slight wave action while at dockside watching your favorite program, the movement of the antenna will cause the signal to "break up" or "freeze".

I am located in Bristol, RI, near Portsmouth. I installed a new 15" flat-screen TV to replace my old 9" analog set this Spring. Some "strange" reception issues have occurred.

At the first try of the new set, I was on the hard and the reception was very good. I was receiving about 30 digital and analog signals. Most had a signal level (as displayed by the TV) as "Good". Some were "Bad" and the picture on those was pixelated or intermittent. But the major networks came in solid.

The next time I was still on the hard and the reception was poor. Most stations were changing in signal strength from "Good" to "Bad" every other minute or so.

The third time I was onboard, I was in the water. Reception was the same as the previous time- the reception was bad. Signal levels were varying.

Now this past Monday and Tuesday, I was onboard and floating and the reception was about as good as the very first time. Most stations were good, although the signal levels were still varying to some extent.

I have suspected that the stations are "playing around" with their signal levels and actually turning their digital signals on and off. In particular, Channel 12 (CBS, Providence) was present at the first try but absent during the next two tries. However, when Channel 12 was missing, Channel 4 (CBS, Boston) was broadcasting. During the past two days, first Channel 4 was broadcasting and 12 was missing, then they swapped. Very strange, I think.

With my old analog TV, I always had some reception issues, but I believed that it was due to swinging at anchor and perhaps the shadowing of the antenna by the mast.

I am hoping that after the switch-over this week that the stations will go to full power if they are not already there and the reception will become and stay good.

Attached is a picture of my TV antenna. It is made by Triax and has an amplified gain of 20db. There are newer antennas that have gain as high as 34db, and maybe a new antenna is called for if the poor reception continues.

Oh, yes I have checked power and connections to the antenna at the TV end. I can't get to the connection inside of the mast and the connection at the antenna has not been checked since installation in 1999 but it is secure and sealed with heat-shrink.

 

[Bob Poff]

Don't forget to do a new channel scan Saturday morning!
Not every station is staying on the channel they're now operating in digital.

For example at the station I work for, our digital is now on channel 58.
Friday night I'm turning it off for good.

Turning off the channel 8 analog transmitter for good.
Then turning on the channel 8 digital transmitter.

 

[sailingdog]

Instead of getting a HDTV for the boat, I got a HDTV tuner for my laptop, since I have it aboard the boat most of the time anyways.

 

[jknappsax]

Here's a list of 12Vdc DTV converters

Potentially Externally Powered Units:

Access HD - DTA1010-D
Access HD - DTA1010-U
Access HD - DTA1020A-D
Access HD - DTA1020A-U
Access HD - DTA1030-D
Access HD - DTA1030-U
Artec - T3A
Artec - T3APro
Coship - 9900T
Daewoo - DAC-100
Daewoo - DAC-200
Daewoo - DAC-299
Digital Stream - D2A1D10
Kingboz - K8V8
Microgem - MG2000
Microprose - MPI-500
Sansonic - FT300A
Sansonic - FT300RT ???
Tatung - TDB3000
Tivax - STB-T9
TRT - TACB-S1
TRT - TACB-S1sa

Make sure whatever converter you buy is negative ground, as well as the 12 Vdc monitor, and the DVD player if you get one.

 

[chuckwayne]

Re: Here's a list of 12Vdc DTV converters

good list! I've had good results with the Artec 12vdc converter on our boat with just a deck mounted antenna

 

[Broke sailor SV Marcell]

Sailing Dog: Can you elaborate on the HDTV laptop tuner? How does it work?

 

[sailingdog]

It is a USB device that plugs into the laptop and allows me to watch HDTV ATSC over-the-air broadcasts via the laptop. The one I have is primarily designed for Macs, but there are several companies that make them for both Macs and Windows-based machines.

BTW, it would also do HDTV from cable, but cable isn't available at most anchorages.

Sailing Dog: Can you elaborate on the HDTV laptop tuner? How does it work?

 

[rardiH36]

Radio Shack's "Fathers' Day" sales flyer (received and tossed a couple of days ago) had a USB HDTV device for laptops/desktops PC's. The price was $59. From the picture, it comes with a small antenna, which appears to attach to the USB device with a standard coaxial fitting. Hence, a mast antenna should be attachable.

 

[philwsailz]

good list! I've had good results with the Artec 12vdc converter on our boat with just a deck mounted antenna

X2

I use the Artec in combination with a Glomex omni-drectional antenna on top of the stick. I am somewhere between 45 and 60 miles away from the broadcast towers, but I still have about 22 channels combined, analog and digital. the count will go down tomorrow though....

Another option for anyone considering a new TV as a possibility would be to look at some of the over-the-road trucking website stores. Pretty much everything over there that is electronic is 12-volt. I know that Skyworth has a 19" or 22" HD TV that is 12-volt. It has a DVD player built in. You can search for it and find it at a few different websites. It is a little pricey, but they also go down to 15" and 12" as I recall... Maybe a little less?

 

[larryw]

Just plunked down 3.5 C's for a 22 in. Toshiba LCD HDTV with a built-in DVD player. I already have some kind of powered antennae up there. I'm gonna just plug it in and see how it works.

 

[philwsailz]

Is your Toshiba 12-volt capable? If so, what is the model number?

 

[larryw]

I don't think so, most TVs over 9 in. are not 12 VDC, but that is for CRT TVs, the LCD is another ballgame, but I planned to run it via an inverter. We're usually anchored or on a mooring when aboard, seldom spend a night in our own or any slip. I'm going to hook it up on Saturday, so I'll have more info then.

 

[RobG]

A few words about antennas

What Rich is experiencing is very likely the result of his omni-directional (od) antenna. Digital tv (DVT) is very susceptible to multi-path and impulse noise. Multi-path is just what it sounds like. A station's broadcast arrives at the antenna by direct line of site (preferred) and by being reflected off of something or many somethings. The reflected signals are slightly delayed compared to the original. In analog tv these affects are called ghosting. In DTV the affects put you closer to the "cliff" nicely described above. The more multi-path the closer to the cliff you are until you fall off. An od antenna is made to have equal gain from all around it so it will pick up the direct signal as well as it picks up the reflected one. Not good for DTV. Atmospheric conditions greatly affect multi-path which is why Rich has different reception from one day to another.
There was a thread a while ago about "digital" antennas which pooh-poohed the whole idea. I agree that the word digital is grossly miss used but in the case made, it was semantics. There are antennas designed for DTV. The "front to back ratio" spec of an antenna is a measurement of the ratio of the gain from the front compared to the back. The higher the ratio the better the antenna rejects multi-path signals. Old antennas only needed to achieve around 3dB to be acceptable. They were essentially just rejecting ghosting. With DTV the higher the ratio the better. Some DTV antennas are pushing 10dB. Quality vs cost of course comes into play here.
I used to use a Mini State antenna and it was good quality then. It has since changed "ownership" twice that I know of so I can't vouch for the current Antennacraft. The antenna is DIRECTIONAL (which you want) with an integrated rotor and runs off of 12V. If your having problems in your area with your omni antenna I'd try this one. On a mooring it would be a bit tricky but an antenna like this is the best bet.
http://www.mini-state.com/

 

[philwsailz]

I don't think so, most TVs over 9 in. are not 12 VDC, but that is for CRT TVs, the LCD is another ballgame, but I planned to run it via an inverter. We're usually anchored or on a mooring when aboard, seldom spend a night in our own or any slip. I'm going to hook it up on Saturday, so I'll have more info then.

got it, yes, you are right on CRT TV's.


I have a 12" LCD at the moment, on 12 volts, but it is 15 years old, and the technology is so much better these days. Iam loooking at the Skyworth 15 and 19" TV's for the boat... I know there are a few from Skyworth in that size that are 12-volts and are HD with digital tuners...