ATSC Reception: What's going on with this!?

[kichigaimentat]

I'm taking an internship in Mankato, MN, with KEYC, and am subletting an apartment. So here's the story: I'm trying to tune in KEYC (Channel 12, frequency 207 MHz), and I can't seem to pull down a reliable signal.

I'm using a Hauppauge WinTV HVR-950Q NTSC/ATSC/ClearQAM receiver attached to a GE model 24700 amplified indoor antenna, attempting to aim my antenna on my MacBook Pro running EyeTV. I'm in an apartment building, on the first floor (about 8' above ground level, perhaps?). The place doesn't seem to be too much of a faraday cage, since I can get a strong EDGE signal on my cell (in fact, that's the only way I can get on the Internet here), and even GPS, but ATSC seems spotty.

There's really only one TV station in town: KEYC (A CBS/Fox affiliate), though there are some low-power stations.

I get a strong signal, but low signal quality. According to TV Fool, the KEYC transmitter is at Azimuth 233º (magnetic). I'm using a standard dumb-as-rocks needle-points-north navigation compass. No fancy digital magnetometers here. Typically I get 10% signal, but 70-90% signal strength. I can get a high enough signal to pull in the SD subchannel, and even the HD subchannel, but it's unreliable. When I get a signal, and nothing moves in the room, there's a 40% change in quality all the time. Then when something does move (me, my BlackBerry, rotate my laptop 45º), it ruins the signal and drops be back to 10%.

I'm rather tired of playing radio-wave Feng Shui. What am I doing wrong? How can I improve my reception? How the hell can I have a strong signal strength, but crappy signal quality? Is my receiver crappy, or did I buy a poor quality antenna?

Thanks for any help anyone can render!

[revision3fan]

Moving around the room changes the capacitance just like a Theremin.

See if there is a clear line-of-sight between the television transmitter and your antenna. You may have to move the antenna closer to a window or another spot in the room to take care of this.

Use longer cables to keep the antenna in this best position.

In short wave radio, a signal carrier can travel farther than the audio wave it's carrying. When tuned in, this will be indicated by a particular "silence" - no static but the signal strength indicators will look good. This could be happening to the TV signal.

Anyway, tell the engineering department at KEYC about your measurements at your location and with your hardware. They need to know this especially if they just recently converted to digital broadcasts only recently.

The EDGE frequencies are on the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands. Something could be effecting the 207 MHz channel but not be effecting the EDGE bands. But this would probably show up as low signal strength not high strength but with a low signal.

Good Luck.