Tvheadend

OK I got the Virtual 10's working with 545028615. It failed at first and then a few seconds later it said OK, mapped the channels and it's updating the guide.

I set the 17's to 593028615 for center and it's still failing...Will leave it overnight and see what happens.

OK, so this morning still no 17's (RF 34). So I did a force scan on all muxes and I lost the 10's (rf 26)

I got a signal meter App on Android for HDHomeRun and those channels are in the mid 40' for strength but SNR Quality is 70+

I live on the edge of the broadcast region for the transmitter I'm trying to pickup.

I'm wondering if TVHeadEnd is just too picky with signal strength because if I watch the scan on the Status/Stream page I do see a signal strength for both center frequencies. It just doesn't seem enough to lock the mux and allow it to tune a channel.

Now mind you I can still watch these perfectly find through Windows or Android using the HDHomeRun App.

Is there a way to adjust the TVHeadEnd settings to allow it to lock a weak channel? It's either that or buy an amplifier for the antenna.

So I pretty much confirmed that I need the Pre-Amp.

1) I have a long run of RG-6 from the antenna (on top of another building of my property and ran thru conduit).

2) I live on the edge of the broadcast area for the transmitter i'm trying to pull the signal from so even though I have good SNR the signal is already low to begin with. (Note: You can't amplify a weak signal, but I can pre-amp the loss of my long RG-6 run).

3) I have a splitter just before it goes into the HDHR and the other end goes to an FM Receiver. When I bypassed the splitter for the HDHR TVHeadEnd pulled the Muxes and found services RIGHT AWAY.

I am using a premium "Monster" brand splitter with quality terminated ends and still had a loss of about 8-9dB compared to running it straight into the HDHR.

So looks like I resolved my problem myself, I hope this helps somebody in the future!

The HDHR tuners are notoriously picky about signal levels. The Gen5 devices (Quatro and new Duos) have different hardware than previous models that are supposed to improve this, but anecdotal evidence seems to be a mixed bag in the real world.

The way the software works is that Tvheadend cannot receive the stream from the tuner until the tuner claims it has a lock. Unfortunately, the code that signals a lock has been achieved by the tuner is opaque and not able to be changed. Therefore, you are at the mercy of Silicon Dust and what they have decided is adequate for a minimal signal, regardless of what might actually work for you.