Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 OTA tuner issue

[rds11]

I have an Hauppauge 2250 OTA tuner card, which I use along with Windows Media Center to record tv shows. A few weeks ago I moved my PC to another room, and since I returned the PC to its original place the tuner is not working good, but only for 1 station. I still receive something for that 1 channel, but I get a lot of dropouts. Moreover, that same channel is playing perfectly on all TVs in the house, using the same OTA antenna (in fact, the PC is the unit closer to the antenna, it should have the best reception).

I used my ATI TV Wonder instead of the 2250 to record a few shows, with the same PC and also with Windows Media Center, and the reception was great (no dropouts).

I deleted then reinstalled WMC and for a day the reception for that 1 channel got better with the 2250, but it has since returned to being bad.

So my question is : is it possible for a tuner to go bad, not across all channels but for one (or a few) channel only ? If not, any advice on what could be causing this issue ?

[usually_quiet]

I don't think what you are describing is unusual. I've noticed that one tuner will sometimes be able to tune an individual channel better than the other. I can see the difference between the tuners more clearly if I use the Signal Monitor provided for each tuner with the WinTV software package.

AMD's TV Wonder cards have one RF input and one digital tuner. The Hauppauge 2250 has only one RF input for DTV serving two digital tuners, which means it splits the RF input internally. Splitting the signal probably affects it, and there are probably some slight variations between individual tuners even if they are the same model.

[KarMa]

There is also the risk of the tuner being over powered by one or more of the channels. I live pretty far the city that I receive OTA from, like 80 miles, so I use a higher end outdoor antenna and a signal booster. This works pretty good for these distant stations but like 4 years ago a station popped up between me and the distant town. While the station has pretty low output it's only 15 miles from me so it's pretty over powering. My large Sony TV and my Hauppauge 1250 dealt with the strong signal fine, but my small and cheaper TV did not. No stations could be found on the TV besides the new station, which had blocking errors too. I ended up putting an extra splitter on the coax going to that TV, as splitters will reduce the dB of the signal on their output side no matter what. Now that TV works fine.

[rds11]

I'm pretty sure it's not overpowering, since I get all the channels that are less than 15 miles from home, but the one channel that give me the most problem is 60 miles away. The antenna is not the problem because that problematic channel is okay on all the TVs (and the signal of each tv is strong enough), the problem is just with the Hauppauge card.

And I'm also pretty sure it's not the splitting from the card that is an issue, because all other channels have strong reception, only the local CBS is problematic.

Anyways, since my firs post I removed Windows Media Center and reinstalled it again. For some reason, the problem went away for about 2 weeks this time...but it came back last night. I tried again to remove/reinstall WMC this morning, but this time it didn't get any better. So instead I took my ATI TV Wonder USB stick, and reconfigured WMC with the OTA signal coming in the stick instead of the Hauppauge TV card. Now, I'm getting a signal from my local CBS (success !) but the overall OTA TV reception strength (according to WMC) is a below what I was achieving with the Hauppauge card.

My takeaway is that the TV tuner on the Hauppauge card is probably going bad, but the TV tuner (when working) on that card is better than the one on the ATI TV Wonder stick.

So getting back to my original question, has anyone see a TV tuner go bad, but affecting only specific channels, not all of them ?

[usually_quiet]

So getting back to my original question, has anyone see a TV tuner go bad, but affecting only specific channels, not all of them ?

No. The last time a TV tuner that I owned failed, most channels were affected before the tuner finally just stopped working. With my present Hauppage 2250, one digital tuner can tune a couple of weak channels better than the other. It has been this way for years.

[rds11]

I have finally figured out what the problem is : adjacent channels.

My local CBC, broadcasting 8 miles from my home, is on channel 21 while my local CBS, 70 miles from home, is on channel 22.

It never was an issue previously, so maybe the CBC signal got a little bit more stronger or the CBS signal is a bit weaker, and now I'm seeing a problem. Also, my TVs tuner don't have any issues with this adjacent channel thingee. I don't see any dropouts or any other pattern on CBS when watching live. I'm also having issues when capturing using either my PC or my laptop. The adjacent channel issue shows up when I'm recording with the Hauppauge 2250 on my PC, or the ATI TV Wonder 600 on my laptop.

So, anyone has a solution to propose ? I've read about the Wingard UT2700, a variable UHF trap, but the model is discontinued and not easily available on Ebay...any other device could do the trick ?

[KarMa]

I have finally figured out what the problem is : adjacent channels.

My local CBC, broadcasting 8 miles from my home, is on channel 21 while my local CBS, 70 miles from home, is on channel 22.

Are these digital channel numbers, or the actual NTSC frequency channel? Cause the broadcaster can appear as any digital channel that they want, and no longer tied to the actual frequency.

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Television_Frequencies

[rds11]

No, these are the actual frequency channel, and not the virtual channel number. On TV, the CBC shows at channel 6.1 while CBS is on 3.1.