Issues with 1 Channel

I got my Tablo set up a couple days ago. The channel scan went fine. Almost all of the channels showed as having a strong signal. One channel was “yellow”, but I haven’t had any problems viewing or recording it. The one channel I’m having problems with is the local CW channel (34-1 where I live). When I try to view or record it, it constantly stutters, stops, restarts. It’s unwatchable. I have a nice new digital HD antenna attached to the Tablo box and I believe the signal is good. I plugged the same antenna directly into the TV and the CW channel comes in fine. In fact, the channel comes in fine with a set of old 25 year old rabbit ears on the TV. So my question is, assuming it’s not an issue with reception, what else could be causing this and any suggestions on what I can do to fix it? If it is a reception issue, why does the scan show it as having a strong signal strength? The issue is the same with that channel on all my devices - Apple TV 4, Fire TV and iPad.

Unknown. Because you say it comes in fine with rabbit ears, makes me wonder if somehow it’s getting over amplified?

I don’t have the problem. Rabbit ears and simple indoor loops pull in “nada” where I live. :slight_smile:

Over amplification was my first guess too, because it comes in fine with rabbit ears.

Do you have an amplifier on your antenna. If you do, you might try temporarily disconnecting it. If that clears things up, then it probably is over amplification.

It is interesting that it works well with rabbit ears since rabbit ears are tuned for VHF stations. That may be a clue as to the strength of the station that it comes in green with a UHF antenna.

Thanks for the response, but no, I didn’t attach an amplifier. The antenna came with one, but since I stuck the antenna on the TV and reception was fine (and as I’ve said, got fine reception with some old rabbit ears also), I didn’t attach the amplifier.

So just to be clear, the new HD antenna attached directly to the TV works fine. An old set of rabbit ears attached directly to the TV works fine. The HD antenna attached to Tablo box doesn’t work (for the one channel at least). The HD antenna on the Tablo box is one room over from where the TV sits (mabye 20 feet away). The antenna I’m using is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LG8HGQ0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 . Not using the amplifier that came with the antenna.

oh… did you test, or can you test, the TV reception with antenna of your choice from the room and location where the antenna would be on the Tablo? There’s lots of things that can mess with OTA. 20 feet or even 2 feet can make a huge difference.

I guess it’s worth a shot, but the Tablo app is telling me that the signal strength is good in the room where the antenna is attached to Tablo box. If it is an issue with over-amplification (which I’ve never heard of thank you), I guess it could be possible that the room it’s in gets a stronger signal than the room next door where the TV is. It’s also possible that the TV itself processes the signal differently than Tablo, so the over amplification isn’t an issue when connecting the antenna directly to the TV. I thought that connecting Tablo via Ethernet cable directly to my router would be the way to go, but that locks me into having the Tablo box along with the antenna attached to it in a specific room. Maybe I should set up Tablo on Wifi so I can move the box around along with the antenna attached to it? Still, the whole “over amplification” thing is confusing. If I move the antenna to an area that got poorer reception to fix the over amplification issue for that one channel, I might lose another channel or 2. The one channel that shows as getting less than a strong signal when scanned in Tablo is the local NBC station. That’s the one station that I’ve gotten less than perfect reception on with the old rabbit ears, so might lose that if I mess with the antenna. Thanks for the suggestions.

@Dave89 You should check out this blog post: https://www.tablotv.com/blog/getting-technical-over-air-tv-reception/

I think you’ll find it super helpful in understanding why this might be happening.

Lots of great suggestions above but definitely make sure to rescan between moving/changing antenna parameters as Tablo’s reported signal strength is not live.

Our support gurus are also happy to help troubleshoot. They have access to some additional details and/or can pull some video from your Tablo that may help diagnose the problem.

Ignore my statements about over aplification, I don’t think they apply to your situation. What may apply is location of the antenna.

Again, for me, I wanted a “negative” test… that is not a test involving the Tablo, but curious if your TV gets the same great reception if the antenna is located where it is when connected to the Tablo.

If your TV gets the same great reception using the antenna location where it would normally be for the Tablo, then maybe something else is happening (?) And of course, all tuners are not equal.

I say forget over amplification. My guess is it has more to do with antenna positioning and signal direction from that channel. What is your *HD" antenna?
BTW “HD” antenna is a meaningless bogus industry designation. Any TV antenna is a HD antenna including your rabbit ears as you can see.

I moved a TV into the room the Tablo box is and connected it to the antenna that’s connected to the Tablo box. The reception on all channels was good including the one that’s not working with Tablo. I got a couple channels that Tablo didn’t pick up with scan. I’ll contact Tablo support. Thanks for the info.

Over the past several years, some people at this forum have had the problem that a TV picks up channels the Tablo doesn’t (on a scan). It wasn’t purely a reception problem: the station’s PSIP data in the OTA stream was incorrect which precluded the Tablo from processing that channel as a DVR.