Is wpbf-dt 25 up ? (10/4/04) I get no signal , wtvx is up and I thought they shared the same tower.

I have seen them up and down after Jeanne but now I just dont know if they are transmitting or not....

same location, but not same tower. I would think WPBF would have power back by now, they came on just for the MNF game last week, so I wouldn't think there's any thing technically broken.

Anyone know the status of WPBFDT (25.1)? Are you ready for football? Apparently NOT WPBFDT.

I was just about to get on my roof. Oh well:(

Bummer. Im glad its not a game i REALLY wanted to see

I just put up a Radio Shack VU-90XR and connected it to the VHF input of my CM-7777 and now I get the WPLG-DT and WSVN-DT. I lost WPEC-DT, is it up? If so, could it be overload?

Boy has the state of WPECDT gone backwards since hurricane Jeanne. I tried watching part of the CBS HD lineup tonight between 9 - 10pm and it's unwatchable. The pixelization is just terrible!

Once again, PEC absolutely blows...it's a poor poor state of affairs. Haven't touched my antennas or anything else...how could it get so bad?

I was once a huge proponent for OTA here in West Palm, but now it's hard to try and turn anyone on to it anymore, it's just so inconsistent and unreliable.

Back to poor adelphia for my CBS and ABC feeds. After spending all this money on an HD theater and HD bedroom set up and all I get to really enjoy on a regular, reliable basis is my DVD collection....

Dave, dont bother climbing up on your roof, it's most likely not your equipment thats the problem.

After more than two years experience you'd think they'd have worked the "bugs" out by now...damn if the software apps my team and I develop had bugs for this long we'd have all lost our jobs a long time ago....

Originally posted by debsman
Once again, PEC absolutely blows...it's a poor poor state of affairs. Haven't touched my antennas or anything else...how could it get so bad?

I was once a huge proponent for OTA here in West Palm, but now it's hard to try and turn anyone on to it anymore, it's just so inconsistent and unreliable.

Back to poor adelphia for my CBS and ABC feeds. After spending all this money on an HD theater and HD bedroom set up and all I get to really enjoy on a regular, reliable basis is my DVD collection....

Dave, dont bother climbing up on your roof, it's most likely not your equipment thats the problem.

After more than two years experience you'd think they'd have worked the "bugs" out by now...damn if the software apps my team and I develop had bugs for this long we'd have all lost our jobs a long time ago....

I understand your frustration but we have to cut WPEC and WPBF some slack given that we just had a hurricane a week ago. Dave said they had some damage to one of their transmitters and I am sure they are working on fixing the issue.

I just wish WPEC would shut off the substation during HD broadcasts.

Yes, really why are you being so hard on WPEC. Heh, that was driving me nuts ;)

This problem is deffinetly releated to the hurricane and they have some equipment probs. As you said their broadcast has been the best, so it isn't a result of two years of bugs.

I agree. WPEC-DT has consistently been one of the best stations in this market. So they are having a few problems right now after just getting equipment damaged by a hurricane. I think WPEC-DT deserves some slack here. I am certain that they are working to get their issues solved. All this harshness will do is just just make it so David McRoy will dread coming to this forum - and possibly stop visiting to provide updates and to listen to our input. I for one think it would be a shame for that to happen. It would be best if we do provide David McRoy with updates about what we are seeing in a constructive way - without attacking WPEC-DT or David.

Yes, I find the dropouts annoying. Yes, I too spent lots of $$ for HD gear. Yes, I do get frustrated by the current conditions of the broadcasts. So what. I still have a roof on my house and I still have a source of income. For now I will make do with this one minor inconvenience.

Of course, if we still have issues with these broadcasts in a couple weeks...

Can you guys up there in the WPB area pull in Miami affiliates ? I tell you, they seem to be much more on the ball, notwithstanding the fact that for the last 2 days 7.1 has been showing 10.1 signal.

I discovered two odd things at home yesterday. First, I have a remote-controlled antenna A/B switch. Antenna A points SSW and antenna B points NNW. But now the antennas are reversed on the switch. So I was using the wrong antenna for any given station! I can only conclude that a power bump during the storms must have affected the switching logic chip in the switch. By selecting the appropriate antenna for a given station, most of the DTV stations came back.

The second weird thing is that I now have to aim the SSW-facing antenna differently to get WTVJ-DT. All of the WPB and Miami stations are receivable from a SSW orientation except WTVJ-DT, which needs a SSE orientation now.

WPBF-DT is apparently still off the air. WFLX-DT seems to be operating at reduced power. I get a stable signal from them but it doesn't peg the meter anymore. I'm having a heck of a time with WPTV-DT, too, so I'm watching WTVJ-DT for NBC programming instead for now. And I, too continue to experience frequent disruptions on WPEC-DT, even though the BER meter is at 100 until a disruption occurs, an issue that I will take up with Engineering today.

In response to David's "second weird thing" (i.e. changing orientation on the antenna), that's probably not that unusual, based on what little I know about this. My Dad was an Officer in the Army Signal Corps (i.e. transmitting and receiving all military signals in the field) in Germany, and has commented that the underlying landscape can affect signal reception almost as much as the location of the transmitter and receiver. With the dramatic change of landscape after the hurricane, signals may bounce at our antennas differently than they used to, so some "tweaking" of antennas should be expected. (Dad tells stories of aiming antennas on the ground at railroad tracks to pick up signals from beyond neighboring mountain ranges and all kinds of crazy stuff.)

I wish the stations (wpbf , wpec , wptv , wflx ...) would actually put the status of their signal on their website. Especially when its down or power is decreased , I know digital takes a backseat to the analog signal but its annoying to have to post hear and ask "Hows the signal where you live..." Its sure gonna be nice when the switchover is complete and the signal gets all the attention, how many times has a program in hd been aired in sd cause no ones at the switch.....

okay now that I ranted , I feel better....

On Adelphia cable, I notice that my DD blue light no longer lights on any channel. Has anyone else noticed that?

Also, ch 701 is still blank.

OK, I've been called out and I know I did rant and rave like a spoiled little child. For that I apologize, I surely do not want to lose the one good guy who graces us with his presence.

It is frustrating and I understand what these guys must be going through to get things right again...I know I'm in the thick of disaster recovery efforts at my place of work and it is no fun - certainly less so when, for all your hard work, you just seem to have to take punch after punch from people who have no idea of the effort involved.

I do wish all the stations (and their hard working engineers) the best of luck in getting things back up to normal. I'll just keep this in mind when I get breakups and audio dropouts over the next few weeks or months.

I hope you all accept my apology.

GT

WPECs picture at our house has been fine - its the audio dropouts that forces us to take the feed from the bird. Another curious thing. I installed a SqS back when David did and have been very happy. Took it down for the last storm and got 5 and 12 no problem. Now its back up and I get less signal from those two than I did before. Nothing at all from 25. Good luck to all the engineering departments.

Has anyone noticed if wplg-dt ch 10 in miami has lowered it power ? I had to re-aim my antenna from a position that has always been fine, when I look at the sig meter on the tivo the best I can get from them is an 80-83 here in Coral Springs while the other stations are in the 89-92 range. This move causes me to lose wptv-dt ch 5, it was always fine where I had it but noticed screen freezes yesterday ... wpec seemed fine , still no wpbf ... Just curious if anyone noticed any recent problems with wplg...

tia

Anyone catch the segment after the football game last night that WPBF did about digital tv? It made me laugh since their digital transmitter is off the air. :p

I know this is a little off topic, but do any of you folks have your FM connected to you TV antennas? I have an amplifier, is that a problem? It would be nice to get the radio announcers while watching the Fins.

Many VHF/UHF TV antennas can give you decent FM reception as well. The broadcast FM band is between TV channels 6 and 7. Just make sure there is no "FM trap" switch turned-on on your antenna amplifier.

I used to have an FM tuner feed from one of my VHF/UHF/FM antennas but I only listen to XM Satellite Radio or WJNO-AM these days.

tia - I have also noticed 10-1 seemingly being lower in power. I also see 7-1 showing portions of its signal, at least on my system. I am going to try yet another antenna this weekend to see if it helps.

hey guys,

i live near downtown ft lauderdale.

i can get 29-1 and 12-1 really good from here. i get signals in the upper 70's on my ota signal meter -- hd tivo. i cant get nbc or abc up there. do they operate at lower powers or something?

i have a winegard sensar multi directional antenna on my roof. 2nd floor apt.


greg

Originally posted by dolphan
I know this is a little off topic, but do any of you folks have your FM connected to you TV antennas? I have an amplifier, is that a problem? It would be nice to get the radio announcers while watching the Fins. I used to use an FM dipole in my attic. I needed the cable for my TV antennas and get just as good FM reception using my antenna for 12.1 ( 5 element channel 13 yagi). I use a standard UHF/VHF splitter at the tuner. Even Vero Beach stations from the back of the antenna are OK.

Originally posted by gregftlaud
i live near downtown ft lauderdale.

i can get 29-1 and 12-1 really good from here. i get signals in the upper 70's on my ota signal meter -- hd tivo. i cant get nbc or abc up there. do they operate at lower powers or something?

i have a winegard sensar multi directional antenna on my roof. 2nd floor apt.
For ABC you are looking for channel 25-1 which broadcasts on channel 16. So you will want to manually try 16-1 if auto-scan doesn't find it. I am not sure when you last checked for 25-1, but they only came back on the air recently after being down for a bit after the hurricane. Also 25-1 broadcasts from a location near the Palm Beach/Martin county line which is roughly 40 miles north of where 29-1 and 12-1 broadcast from. This is also where our UPN station 34-1 transmits from. It may take a lot of tweaking and possibly some upgrades to your antenna setup to get 25-1 or 34-1.

In fact I think 25-1 and 34-1 are likely out of range for that antenna.

For NBC you are looking for channel 5-1 which broadcasts on channel 55. 5-1 broadcasts from the same location as 12-1 and 29-1.

I still receive WPLG fine and the FCC website, http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?list=0&facid=53113, still has them at 15.8kw.

They might be on lower power but I haven't noticed.

Looks like WPBF-DT is finally back.

Did anyone loose power on WPTV, I can't recieve it anymore. Also is anyone having problems with the analog signal as well. On E* WPTV is breaking up with sound pops, picture freezing up.

WPTV stopped coming in for me when I had to redirect the antenna slightly south due to wplg giving me problems, they seem to be on lower power but not sure...

I finally started getting 25-1 again last night, just in time to watch that new "Lost" in HD. Very nice, first time I have had a stable 25.1 signal since Jeanne.

Hey, Greg - how do you like that Sensar ? I have the amplified one being delivered today, last step for me before I go to a full blown 120" monster. I have high hopes for it, since I get all Miami and WPP stations with a clip-on, with some dropouts on the more distant stations.....

Dragonbait , put a rotator and a RS HD antenna on your rig and tweak it due south nd you should be able to get the stations in just fine. I cant stress the use of a rotator enough... a slight change in direction can make all the difference in the world.

Yes, Lost looked fantastic. This is probably the best film-to-720p HD I've seen since ABC ran Disney's 101 Dalmations (the live-action version) in HD four years ago.

Jhillestad - one reason I don't run a rotor is the difficulty in getting the wires to/from the antenna, and down my wall into the house by the TV. How did you do it ? I have CBS construction, an attic that has only 2-3 ft vertical clearance, metal ducting all over the place, and a truss system that does not allow free movement, breaking the house up into 3 sections...... Inside I have plaster and lathe walls, terrible to work with.

WPTV-DT lip sync problem again....

Watching WPTV-DT with horrible lip sync problem again when all of a sudden it made that "NBC tune sound" where they usually show lottery numbers on the screen etc... no numbers were shown which led me to the possible theory:

Could they be feeding the digital channel with the audio from the analog channel?

I don't understand why the f*ck they can't fix this!

WPECDT (12-1) still experiencing pixelization and audio dropouts every few seconds. Still unwatchable.

Originally posted by avmike
Could they be feeding the digital channel with the audio from the analog channel?
Yup, that's exactly what they do...

They were able to seperate the audio for the olympics, so I dunno why they doing this now.

Originally posted by lwhitefl
WPECDT (12-1) still experiencing pixelization and audio dropouts every few seconds. Still unwatchable. Len I have seen typical CBS motion artifacts during football, but no unusual dropouts. Why don't you give me call when you are experiencing problems so we can make a comparison.

I had problems last night as well with 12-1. I now have a Sensar antenna mounted on a pole outside. From Boca I am getting 2-1 out of Miami, and 25-1 from the Martin County line. So, since I get these two stations at the extremes from my location, I sure as heck should not be seeing dropouts with 12 ( and 5 - man, 5 went black like clockwork last night - 92% signal to 0 and back again).

I too am getting the 12.1 dropouts, not as bad a last week, but still
makes the various shows too unbearable to watch.

Same here. I've notified Engineering that this is a widespread problem.

I was watching CSI and Without a Trace on 12-1 last night, and except for a few sound and/or video dropouts, the programs were definitely watchable. It almost appears that much of the problems might be experienced closer to the transmitter. I live in Margate and have a RS broadband pointed north and a Channel Master Stealthtenna pointed south on a RS remote control co-ax swwitcher.

Tony

I had dropouts as well while watching CSI and Without a Trace. Sometimes there would be long stretches with out any issue and then it would start breaking up for a minute or two then stabilize again. Nothing regular though like the 77 second issue we have seen in the past.

Jeff, for the rotator you do not need to put it in the same room with the tv. Mine is actually in the garage, the wires for the rotator are small , the idea of the rotator is to be able to fine tune the antenna without the need to go on the roof / pole , it takes a lot of hassle out of moving the antenna, once its set you usually dont need to play with it, so you can place it wherever its easiest for you. You said your using a silver sensor on a pole outside ? Is it on the roof ? If so you can surely use a better antenna (the RS HD outdoor ) is a great replacement plus its vhf. The silver sensor is uhf only and will give you problems with ch 7 and 10.

No, not the Silver Sensor, the Winegard Sensar 2000 - it is a bidirectional wing type antenna. I am giving it a shot before I go directional with a rotor. It's nice to get both Miami and WPB without worrying about large antennas and rotors. So far, after only a single evening with a rigged mount, it appears to fit my bill. If it continues like this, I won't need to worry about a rotor. Thanks for your feedback, I will keep it in mind.

Arrrggghhhh. I put that antenna 3 feet above the peak of my roof, STILL dropouts. Miami 7 is coming in all messed up (yet Miami 2-1 is great). WPEC is missing completely, except for a brief moment. Frustrating.

I live in Wellington in a new community near the mall. I have an indoor antenna in my single-story home and receive channel 12 with virtually no drop-out etc. Everything else is hit or miss at best.

I'll sometimes pick up NBC (5), but most often not. I'll sometimes pick up Fox (28) but even then it's spotty. I'll often get Public Television (27). I never get ABC, ever.

I purchased a Terk55, and a traditional mess of aluminum antenna and did temporary setups of both in a crawl space and didn't really get better performance than the little indoor job.

DirecTV is due out in a week to install an OTA antenna (along with DTV HD receiver etc.). Any idea if what they bring and professional setup will make a difference. I'd be in heaven if I could receive NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX with regularity. THANKS!

Jeff both of those antenna's are uhf only, wpec-dt and wsvn-dt are both vhf . Your dropouts could be related to that as well as multipath... I have a spot where my antenna multipaths on wtvj but if I move it just a little one way or the other its perfect. Multipath is the achilles heal of digital tv , since it drops the signal rather than ghosts it. I must have bought 5 different antenna's since embarking on dtv and I finally settled on the radio shack hd (the wing) antenna , it really works well, its not that big even though the box is big, and its not an eye soar, it is an omni directional but the direction of the wings is where you get your best tune. Most importantly it vhf and uhf. My silver sensor will not pick up ch 7 or 10 no matter what I try.... its a uhf antenna trying to pickup vhf....

Danny , I can tell you right away that the Terk55 is total junk, take it back right away... I owned one for a day then took it right back. For a $100 you can do a lot better!

I hope the directv installer is putting either a clip antenna or a wing style hooked to your dish pipe... In either case be sure to get it installed outside dont settle for your attic mount also you may want to pre purchase or have him also put an antenna rotator on it if its a non clip mount style. A decent antenna with a rotator will make your life a lot easier. Rotator's are about $80 (Radio Shack). I use an hd-tivo and its awesome , pricey but awesome!

I'm researching different antenna's to pick up the Miami stations. I notice on the spec's for the different antennas a spec for turning radius. What is that?

The Winegard GS2000A is a VHF/UHF bidirectional wing type antenna. With it I pick up 10-1 out of Miami quite well - 10-1 is VHF channel 9. If I can get 10-1 like I was sitting next to the station, what's with the 12 and 7 ? Well, over on the Miami forum, it looks to me like 7 is having some problems at the moment. Channel 12, well, channel 12 has not been a good station to test against lately..... Odd thing - I now get a 16.1 my old Terk would not even think about - this station does not appear to be listed anywhere. Who is it ?

My hopes for it was that multipath would not be a problem since it was bi-direction and not omni-directional. However, since I have now taken the time to put a short mast on the peak of my roof, and run a new cable, I may just get a big obnoxious silver monster of a real antenna, and see if by pointing that thing halfway between 330 and 200 I can pick up Miami and WPB better.

Danny - I agree the Terk55 is not very good. The Terk42 and 44 worked for me on the closer stations, but some more remote Miami and WPB stations dropped out occasionally. Terk in general is only a solution for someone who doesn't want to mess with running a wire and mounting a proper antenna (which described me up until yesterday afternoon).

Turning radius is how much space you will need when it is on a rotor, to clear any obstacles as it rotates.

16-1 is WPBF the Palm Beach ABC affliate which remaps to 25-1.

Wonder why both show up on my system... I am now getting 7-1 again. I give up. You know - I don't watch that much TV, this is far too much effort for the return.

Jeff, thinking of a square shooter didnt realize the winegard was vhf as well ....

I have not used a winegard so cannot vouch for its effectiveness.... If you are seeing high signal then nothing then high again , its multipath... 16.1 is abc wpbf out of Jupitor.

I know this may sound dumb but are you aiming the antenna in the direction you think ? The wing antenna's direction is the open side (spread eagle side) at first glance I thought the wings pointed in the direction but its the opposite....

I currently aim at about 60 deg due south , I used to aim at 25 deg northeast . At 45 deg I got multipath and low signals , the key is to try and let the antenna wing pick it up at the front side as well as the backside in the middle seems to not work well...

I get both ch 7 and wflx 29 in Palm beach this way...

The Winegard is a straight wing, I have the wings aimed roughly North and South. I've asked the supplier if it should be reversed of that (no response yet) - are you saying I should have the wing tips pointed roughly East and West instead ? Your description sure sounds like I have a multi-path problem, thanks for the heads-up.

Trying to watch the Tennessee vs. Georgia game on WPECDT (12-1) and still getting quite a bit of pixelization and some audio dropouts. This situation is similar to the period of time months ago before the storm. The HD signal had become pretty stable before the last storm, but it seems to have regressed to the original problems. I certainly hope the WPEC engineering department can get this fixed soon.

Originally posted by Sport73
I live in Wellington in a new community near the mall. I have an indoor antenna in my single-story home and receive channel 12 with virtually no drop-out etc. Everything else is hit or miss at best.

I'll sometimes pick up NBC (5), but most often not. I'll sometimes pick up Fox (28) but even then it's spotty. I'll often get Public Television (27). I never get ABC, ever.

I purchased a Terk55, and a traditional mess of aluminum antenna and did temporary setups of both in a crawl space and didn't really get better performance than the little indoor job.

DirecTV is due out in a week to install an OTA antenna (along with DTV HD receiver etc.). Any idea if what they bring and professional setup will make a difference. I'd be in heaven if I could receive NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX with regularity. THANKS! Rotators are very popular. For my situation a rotator would be some what of a disadvantage. If I had to use a rotator I would not be able to take advantage of my HD TiVo for all stations. I use three antennas in my attic connected to a CM7777 amplifier. I have a Silver Sensor and RS 15-2152 (VU90XR) pointed south and a RS 15-2160 pointed north. The Silver Sensor and RS 15-2160 go into a combiner and then are plugged in to the UHF input of the CM7777. The RS 15-2152 goes through a UHF filter and then is plugged into the VHF input of the CM7777. With this setup I get WPEC-DT, WPBF-DT, WPTV-DT, WXEL-DT, WPTV-DT, WBFS-DT, WBZL-DT, WFOR-DT, WPLG-DT, WSVN-DT, WPBT-DT, and all of the Spanish stations. All stations have signal strengths above 70 on my HD TiVo and well into the "Normal" range on my HD200. It takes some tweaking but once you have all stations worked out you never have to touch it again.

I prefer this method to a rotator because I do not have to change the antenna orientation to view any given channel. I also found the cost to be about the same as (if not less than) purchasing one the better rotators with remote control. The beauty of using a rotator is you can maximize the signal strength for each station but when you think about how DTV works all you need is better than 50% signal strength. Unlike analog TV the stronger signal strength does not improve picture quality. You either get a picture or you don't. This is just another option for you to consider.

Thanks Ansek, I appreciate the input. I went and bough a hand compass today. I discover my idea off west is not quite what I thought it was. Back up tomorrow for some repointing.

Originally posted by lwhitefl
Trying to watch the Tennessee vs. Georgia game on WPECDT (12-1) and still getting quite a bit of pixelization and some audio dropouts.
I observed similar problems on this broadcast.

Originally posted by ANSEK
I use three antennas in my attic connected to a CM7777 amplifier. I have a Silver Sensor and RS 15-2152 (VU90XR) pointed south and a RS 15-2160 pointed north. The Silver Sensor and RS 15-2160 go into a combiner and then are plugged in to the UHF input of the CM7777. The RS 15-2152 goes through a UHF filter and then is plugged into the VHF input of the CM7777. With this setup I get WPEC-DT, WPBF-DT, WPTV-DT, WXEL-DT, WPTV-DT, WBFS-DT, WBZL-DT, WFOR-DT, WPLG-DT, WSVN-DT, WPBT-DT, and all of the Spanish stations.
Nice work Ansek, persistance and a little experimentation pays off.

Ansek , very nice ... I'm amazed it works that well via the attic. I have 2 of the 3 antenna's you mentioned and cannot get palm beach stations easily through the attic. Your in north palm beach you should also be picking up wtvx-dt (34) .

I'm also amazed you dont have multipath issues , every antenna site I have seen warns against too many antenna's but if it works i say hell ya.

The uhf filter you used was that the RS antenna splitter that has vhf and uhf labeled on each side ? Does that filter out the uhf on the 2152 ?

Also did you put the 2152 in the middle and the two uhf onlys on each side ? The 2160 pointed further north didnt yield any further northern cities ?... Did you experiment with other types to get this result ? I would have been tempted to put 2 silver's north and south , the 2160 is a nice uhf antenna , a little big but nice.

Jeff , yes the wings to need pickup the signal either on the front side or rear , you should have the tips aimed more east / west , the wings on my unit are aimed southeast about 65 degrees (if north florida was perfectly 0 deg)... so my tips would be about 50 and 85 deg..

I'm a donkey's ass. I had the cables in my attic mixed up, and never had the new antenna hooked up to my main TV (I have 9 cable outlest up there). I was so pissed I wasn't getting the 'fins in HD, I went to the attic to double check my wiring. Lo and behold, wrong cable to the wrong antenna. I switched them, and now I get every digital channel from Miami to WPB. Steady and stable (so far). Jeez - at least I now own a pocket compass.

Still getting lots of pixelization here on the WPECDT (12-1) HD broadcast of the Dolphins vs. Pats.

Me too, I ended up switching to 4-1 out of Miami.

Originally posted by JeffBowser
Me too, I ended up switching to 4-1 out of Miami.

Wish I could do that - too far north.

Originally posted by jhillestad
Ansek , very nice ... I'm amazed it works that well via the attic. I have 2 of the 3 antenna's you mentioned and cannot get palm beach stations easily through the attic. Your in north palm beach you should also be picking up wtvx-dt (34) .


I attribute some of my attic success to the orientation of my house. My attic is above the garage and the garage faces due south. There are no barrel title roof in front of my attic just wood and stucco. If my house faced east and I had to go through the barrel tile roof I am not sure I would have the same level of success.

WTVX-DT is the weakest of my stations. It comes in at night but during the day it is iffy.


I'm also amazed you don't have multipath issues , every antenna site I have seen warns against too many antenna's but if it works i say hell ya.


I have gone through six different antennas and three amplifiers to make this work. I originally had multipath issues but I found using highly directional antennas with high front to back ratios eliminated this problem. In essence my setup is two UHF antennas and a VHF antenna. I removed the UHF element of the RS 15-2152 so it is strictly VHF.


The uhf filter you used was that the RS antenna splitter that has vhf and uhf labeled on each side ? Does that filter out the uhf on the 2152 ?


Yes, I am using the RS 15-1237 which is the splitter combiner that has the VHF and UHF labels on each side. It works really well.


Also did you put the 2152 in the middle and the two uhf onlys on each side ? The 2160 pointed further north didnt yield any further northern cities ?... Did you experiment with other types to get this result ? I would have been tempted to put 2 silver's north and south , the 2160 is a nice uhf antenna , a little big but nice.

I have the Silver Sensor pointed south east, the 2160 pointed due north, and the 2152 pointed just east of due south. The 2152 is on a beam six inches above the 2160 and the Silver Sensor is about six to eight feet away from the other antennas.

I experimented with several antennas. I tried two Silver Sensors one pointed north and another pointed south. This worked but didn't allow me to receive WPBF-DT consistently or WSVN-DT or WPLG-DT. I also tried using a Stealthtenna and Silver Sensor with marginal success. I also tried using two 2160's but the 2160 didn't do as well with the Miami stations as the Silver Sensor. I also tried using the RS Double Bowtie with great success when used by itself but little success when combined with any other antenna. This is when I got the idea to use very directional antennas to eliminate multipathing. I wasn't able to successfully add the 2152 to the combination until I bought the CM7777. It took several months and considerable help from my fiancee' to get it perfect. The HR10-250's OTA strength meter made it easy to tweak the antenna array for all stations. I would make a change based on the channel with the lowest reading and she would cycle through the channels on the OTA signal strength meter.

Originally posted by lwhitefl
Still getting lots of pixelization here on the WPECDT (12-1) HD broadcast of the Dolphins vs. Pats.


I am gettting the audio dropouts today as well , I have read all these threads on multipathing, but I honestly do not think that's the case with this signal.

Originally posted by av8torfl
I am gettting the audio dropouts today as well , I have read all these threads on multipathing, but I honestly do not think that's the case with this signal.


There is a problem at the the source. Dave has alerted the engineers. If you have the ability you should watch WFOR until it is fixed. I intend on watching WFOR until WPEC turns off the substation during HD broadcasts.

yay dolphins

lmao...

Hey they're working on another perfect season ;)

Maybe that's what we need - a top draft pick for a change.

My local installer, Mastec has now scheduled to come out to my house 4 times and not shown up.

First time: Called at 4:45 and tech asked where I lived. I gave him the intersection (Hypoluxo and Haverhill) and he said I lived too far away and told me to reschedule and hung up.

Second, third and today, no call, no show.

I spoke to Directv and they told me I could have a local guy install my OTA antenna and they would reimburse me for a portion.

I now need to get a local installer to install an antenna that will bring in the locals from Miami and WPB (Hopefully).

I am looking for your guidance and assistance:
- The name of a great antenna installer
- The antenna and other required equipment to get the desired stations

All input is appreciated.

THanks in advance

Dan
AKA Captain Frustration

Originally posted by dc321
My local installer, Mastec has now scheduled to come out to my house 4 times and not shown up.

First time: Called at 4:45 and tech asked where I lived. I gave him the intersection (Hypoluxo and Haverhill) and he said I lived too far away and told me to reschedule and hung up.

Second, third and today, no call, no show.

I spoke to Directv and they told me I could have a local guy install my OTA antenna and they would reimburse me for a portion.

I now need to get a local installer to install an antenna that will bring in the locals from Miami and WPB (Hopefully).

I am looking for your guidance and assistance:
- The name of a great antenna installer
- The antenna and other required equipment to get the desired stations

All input is appreciated.

THanks in advance

Dan
AKA Captain Frustration


I would try Audio Advisors at 561.478.3100 in West Palm Beach. The owner Jeff Hoover is the former president of CEDIA. If you don't know CEDIA is the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association.

I live in Delray Beach and am only to get one HD channel (w virtually no interuptions), thats NBC 5.01. I'm using a Silver Sensor hooked up to my HD and pointed in a general direction of N. I sometimes can get Fox 29.01 and CBS 12.01 (pointed NW). I'd like to obviously get more HD channels and was wondering what you guys suggest. I have an apartment so I can't put anything outside, but I do have a deck that I can get a S direction. Is there anything I can try (in terms of an indoor antenna, or something to put on my deck)? I'm thinking of trying the RS UHF Dual HDTV Indoor Antenna. Would that help me out any better? I'm still pretty new at this, so please bare with me. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks. :)

Originally posted by yanksno1
I live in Delray Beach and am only to get one HD channel (w virtually no interuptions), thats NBC 5.01. I'm using a Silver Sensor hooked up to my HD and pointed in a general direction of N. I sometimes can get Fox 29.01 and CBS 12.01 (pointed NW). I'd like to obviously get more HD channels and was wondering what you guys suggest. I have an apartment so I can't put anything outside, but I do have a deck that I can get a S direction. Is there anything I can try (in terms of an indoor antenna, or something to put on my deck)? I'm thinking of trying the RS UHF Dual HDTV Indoor Antenna. Would that help me out any better? I'm still pretty new at this, so please bare with me. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks. :)

yanksno1,

I live on the Boynton / Delray border so you are not far from me. Given your situation in a apartment with a southern exposure you are going to have to experiment with several antennas. I would first try adding an amplifier to your Silver Sensor. Since you have to point northwest to get West Palm Beach stations and you have a southern exposure you probably have to go through thick walls and more than one apartment. If the Silver Sensor doesn't work for WPB stations try pointing it south for Miami stations. If that doesn't work try buying a CM3021 4 bay bowtie antenna. It is inexpensive at $22 from solidsignal.com and has high gain. You can place this antenna on you deck and experiment with getting WPB stations and Miami stations. Do not buy a Terk HD55 this is waste of time and money.

Below is a list of stations you should try to receive.

Call Sign: Virtual Channel Number (Actual Channel Number)

West Palm Beach
WPTV-DT: 5-1 (55)
WPEC-DT: 12-1 (13) - VHF but so close and powerful you should receive it
WPBF-DT: 25-1 (16)
WFLX-DT: 29-1 (28)
WTVX-DT: 34-1 (50)
WXEL-DT: 42-1 (27)

Miami
WPBT-DT: 2-1 (18)
WFOR-DT: 4-1 (22)
WTVJ-DT: 6-1 (55)
WSVN-DT: 7-1 (8) - VHF probably can't receive without VHF antenna
WPLG-DT: 10-1 (9) - VHF probably can't receive without VHF antenna
WBFS-DT: 33-1 (32)
WBZL-DT: 39-1 (19)

Originally posted by ANSEK
I would try Audio Advisors at 561.478.3100 in West Palm Beach. The owner Jeff Hoover is the former president of CEDIA. If you don't know CEDIA is the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association.

Ansek,

Thanks for the info. Do you recommend any specific antenna?

I can have an antenna mounted off of my dish mast on the roof.

I would like to get Miami and WPB stations.

Thanks again,
DC

Originally posted by dc321
Ansek,

Thanks for the info. Do you recommend any specific antenna?

I can have an antenna mounted off of my dish mast on teh roof.

I would like to get Miami and WPB stations.

Thanks again,
DC

If you want to get both Miami and WPB stations without a rotator I would recommend the CM3021 4 bay bowtie antenna or its big brother the CM4228 8 bay bowtie antenna. Both antennas will allow you to receive signal from the front and back.

Thanks Ansek.

You are on your game!

DC

dc321 ,

If your mounting an antenna directly onto the dish you need a special dish pipe, its a pipe that holds your dish then extrudes out and up to hold an antenna (hopefully he installer has this) and an antenna that can mount on it.

Look at :

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?CAT=Antennas%20TV&PROD=ANWGS2000

The bow tie channel masters are extremely large especially the 4228 ( I have one) , Its not only large but heavy too.... The RS hd outdoor would probably mount fine on the pipe too.... If you can see if your installer will put a rotator on it ....

good luck

I have the 4228 as well with a CM Spartan 3 pre-amp and it is way to heavy to mount to a dish mast.

Does any know if WFLXDT (29.1) is broadcasting at lower power than WPECDT (5.1)? I'm only getting half the digital signal strength for WFLXDT as compared to other WPB digital stations. I've checked the antenna positioning and made sure it's pointed at 182 degrees as directed by anntenna.org.

You mean as compared to WPTV? which is 5.1

I have no problems receiving the channels, but others have noticed a drop in signal

Yes I meant WPTVDT (5.1). Has anyone received any information from the station regarding the situation?

something wrong with it? It's been fine for me...

All I know is the FCC reported data, don't know any post storm data

WFLX 28 - 630kw
WPTV 55 - 900kw

I am getting bad tiling on both FOX stations tonight, is it only me ?

dc321 - I have a Sensar GS2000, bidirectional "wing-type"antenna mounted on a short mast on my roof. With it I am getting every digital channel except for 25-1 (it's too far from me without re-aiming the antenna and losing other channels). Seems to be a great solution if you don't want a bigger antenna or mess with a rotor.

OK, tiling on Fox 7-1 is gone, but Fox 29-1 is so bad it almost locks my receiver up.

WPB HD is certainly frustrating! Unable to watch the ALCS on WFLXDT tonight because the pixelization and audio dropouts are so bad.

Tiling is a term I haven't heard before. Regardless, I can't get 29-1 at all tonight for the Sox-Yankee game. I have Voom and I think the newest software is very finicky regarding a low power signal. I'm not getting a "no signal" message. Just a black screen. With the newest software, it requires a signal strength of 85 (by Voom's scale) and I'm bouncing between 80 and 83. Great signal for the football game on Sunday. Anyone know what has changed with 29-1? Are they on low power or something. This is so frustrating and points out the impediment to DT/HD for the masses. Why put up with all of these frequent problems on virtually all stations? Fortunately, I still have cable so I'm not shut out of the game. But, I sure would like to see it in HD. (It is in HD isn't it?)

Anyway, I'm interested in knowing who else can't get it at all and, if so, what receiver you are using?

No Fox 29-1 here in Pompano on eithier antenna. This stincks no ALCS game in hi def for me tonight. I can't get miami station because of building in the way. I'm not even sure they are transmitting HD yet maybe someone from miami can chime in on that one. Hope we get FOX on DTV tomorrow.

Originally posted by ANSEK
yanksno1,

I live on the Boynton / Delray border so you are not far from me. Given your situation in a apartment with a southern exposure you are going to have to experiment with several antennas. I would first try adding an amplifier to your Silver Sensor. Since you have to point northwest to get West Palm Beach stations and you have a southern exposure you probably have to go through thick walls and more than one apartment. If the Silver Sensor doesn't work for WPB stations try pointing it south for Miami stations. If that doesn't work try buying a CM3021 4 bay bowtie antenna. It is inexpensive at $22 from solidsignal.com and has high gain. You can place this antenna on you deck and experiment with getting WPB stations and Miami stations. Do not buy a Terk HD55 this is waste of time and money.
Thanks for the reply ANSEK. I've heard nothing but bad reviews (for the most part) about the Terk HD55. The product you mentioned was right on the money in terms of cost and performance (and what I was looking for). I think I'll buy it and let you know later after I get it.

I tried repositioning my atenna and had a little success going direct East (tried S, SE in addition to N, NW). I'm now able to get CBS 4-1 and NBC's 5-1. NW I sometimes would get Fox 29-1 (I got it Sun in fact) but not tonight. I'd like to try an amp for the Silver Sensor, I think that would help out a bit. Have any that you'd suggest that would work well with it? I'm also thinking of picking up that antenna you suggested and just see what I get. I'll keep you posted. Hopefully I'll be able to get better results with the amp.

Originally posted by lwhitefl
WPB HD is certainly frustrating! Unable to watch the ALCS on WFLXDT tonight because the pixelization and audio dropouts are so bad. I watched the first two and the last two innings. The Red Sox were bad, but the reception was good with no drop-outs. Signal strength was normal.

I did notice that the WXELDT signal was much lower than normal, but the picture was reliable for the few minutes that I watched.

Originally posted by yanksno1
Thanks for the reply ANSEK. I've heard nothing but bad reviews (for the most part) about the Terk HD55. The product you mentioned was right on the money in terms of cost and performance (and what I was looking for). I think I'll buy it and let you know later after I get it.

I tried repositioning my atenna and had a little success going direct East (tried S, SE in addition to N, NW). I'm now able to get CBS 4-1 and NBC's 5-1. NW I sometimes would get Fox 29-1 (I got it Sun in fact) but not tonight. I'd like to try an amp for the Silver Sensor, I think that would help out a bit. Have any that you'd suggest that would work well with it? I'm also thinking of picking up that antenna you suggested and just see what I get. I'll keep you posted. Hopefully I'll be able to get better results with the amp.


Amp wise I am a fan of the Channel Master 7777. You can get it at solidsignal.com or any other online retailer. The CM7777 has a low signal to noise ratio and is the amp of choice for many forum participants.

Originally posted by jhillestad
dc321 ,

If your mounting an antenna directly onto the dish you need a special dish pipe, its a pipe that holds your dish then extrudes out and up to hold an antenna (hopefully he installer has this) and an antenna that can mount on it.

Look at :

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?CAT=Antennas%20TV&PROD=ANWGS2000

The bow tie channel masters are extremely large especially the 4228 ( I have one) , Its not only large but heavy too.... The RS hd outdoor would probably mount fine on the pipe too.... If you can see if your installer will put a rotator on it ....

good luck

Yes, the 4228 is to heavy to mount of the sat mast but the 3021 is not much heavier than the STEALTHtenna which is frequently mounted on sat masts. The installer will recommend the best mounting option.

Originally posted by ANSEK
Yes, the 4228 is to heavy to mount of the sat mast but the 3021 is not much heavier than the STEALTHtenna which is frequently mounted on sat masts. The installer will recommend the best mounting option.

Thanks to everyone for the replies and information.

I really would like to get the Winegard Sensar II Amplified Antenna (GS-2000A) that jhillestad recommended, due to it's relatively small size, and the fact that not 40 feet away, my neighbor has one mounted and says he gets all the Miami and Palm Beach stations.

I would like to get the emplified model, but I do not know how or where to run the electrical, and the installer that was recommended is unable to commit to an install date less than a month away.

Any other installers out there?

Thanks,
DC

DC - the electric is inserted into the antenna cable via an adapter inside. The only cable you need to run is the antenna cable itself. I even used the power provided by the satellite cable, via a passive diplexer until I was able to properly run a separate antenna cable into the house. This worked fine for me. I am quite impressed with the GS2000 performance so far.
Rick - tiling is also called pixelation. I call it tiling when it is not bad enough to ruin the whole picture, but just parts of it periodically. I watched parts of the ALCS game on 7-1 last night, it was in HD. Being a Braves fan from long ago, I lost interest pretty fast, though

Originally posted by Joel Graffman
I watched the first two and the last two innings. The Red Sox were bad, but the reception was good with no drop-outs. Signal strength was normal.

I did notice that the WXELDT signal was much lower than normal, but the picture was reliable for the few minutes that I watched.

Something must have changed since last weekend because I watched the NFL game on FOX in HD and the picture was stable. I hadn't made any chances to the antenna until I noticed the frequent pixelization on Tuesday during the ALCS. I guess I'm going to try adding an amplifier again although something must be going on at WFLX that's changed the signal since last Sunday.

I agree, something has changed. At my lunch hour, I went and monkeyed with my antenna - did not matter, Fox 29 is not behaving like it did just last week even. Same to a lesser degree for 7, though, makes me wonder....

I was able to get a signal between 75-80 but couldn't get a picture to come in.

Originally posted by bgall
I was able to get a signal between 75-80 but couldn't get a picture to come in. The problem may affect only some tuners. I checked 29.1 again at mid-day. I was getting my usual strong signal with no drop-outs(about 85% on my HD-200). WXELDT was still unusually weak (about 50%), all other channels were normal.

I was getting a steady 93% on Fox 29, yet massive pixelation, and this was at 12:20p

Hey guys,

Newbie here. Got a question for anyone in Boca/Pompano/Deerfield.

Here's the situation. DirecTV user in the area, east of I95. 3 LNB Dish, Samsung HD Box, Hughes HD Box, and RCA Tivo. My dish is mounted at near ground level and I get near 100% signal on Sat's A/B/C.

Recently, with the addition of the HD sets and boxes I put up a Square Shooter aimed pretty much dead south. I've tried southwest without much luck. The Square Shooter is mounted on a 4ft high decorative piling and is stable. I'm running the signal through a diplexer on to the RG6 cable for the satellite. In its current position I cannot aim the Square Shooter toward WPB since my house blocks the way and the antenna doesn't have a sight line.

The problem is, in the current state I pretty much only get CBS4 (WFOR-DT) out of Miami and not much else. Sometimes WFLX 29, and a bad signal on analog WPEC.

I would really like to get Fox/ABC/UPN/CBS out of Miami or WPB. I already get CBS out of Miami on the current setup. I don't care about NBC because I get a national HD feed from Directv.

Anyone have any ideas on an equipment change or directional change for my setup to get a few more channels from WPB or Miami?

I have a Winegard Sensar GS2000 wing antenna with the front face aimed at 265 degrees (just shy of dead west) up on my roof, and I get all of WPB and Miami (except for 25.1, which is a tad far north of me with the current antenna orientation). My opinion on your situation is that the Square Shooter is just a tad too directional to get both Miami and WPB without a rotor, and probably too low. Try aiming your SS at 200 degrees (west of south) and see if that helps. You can also go to antennaweb.org for more info on aiming and antennas in general.

Thanks for the information Jeff. Do you get Miami or WPB better, I would assume WPB?

I'm just wondering if it might be better to mount the Square Shooter in another location to receive WPB if they are better?

Well, in my opinion, the Miami stations are better at delivering a stable signal. I get both Miami and WPB equally well, but I have biased my antenna towards Miami for the reason above. In doing so, I lost channel 25, but I get channel 7 Miami to replace it, and I like their pic quality better. I don't think you can get both Miami and WPB with the SS(without a rotor), frankly, because the avg beamwidth of the SS is 63 degrees, and the two main tower clusters are about 130 degrees apart. In theory, according to Winegard, you should be able to aim the SS at a reflection of the signals and get the channels. Maybe that is an option for you with WPB.

Originally posted by Joel Graffman
The problem may affect only some tuners. I checked 29.1 again at mid-day. I was getting my usual strong signal with no drop-outs(about 85% on my HD-200). WXELDT was still unusually weak (about 50%), all other channels were normal.

I added a CM3042 preamp which has 13Db gain and if anything it made WFLXDT worse. It did improve the signal strength on WPTVDT and WPECDT slightly. So I'm more convinced than ever that something rotten in Denmark is going on at WFLXDT. Since I'm using a Hughes E86 receiver which is a first generation receiver, the problem probably is receiver dependent. I guess I'll have to watch the ALCS in analog again tonight - sure wish I could get the Miami HD stations.

Originally posted by lwhitefl
I added a CM3042 preamp which has 13Db gain and if anything it made WFLXDT worse. It did improve the signal strength on WPTVDT and WPECDT slightly. So I'm more convinced than ever that something rotten in Denmark is going on at WFLXDT. Since I'm using a Hughes E86 receiver which is a first generation receiver, the problem probably is receiver dependent. I guess I'll have to watch the ALCS in analog again tonight - sure wish I could get the Miami HD stations.

My friends E86 receivers OTA tuners went bad months ago. His analog stations would not tune in. Then recently the "C" band satellite would not pull in over 50 percent no matter what he did to tune it. He ended up getting a Samsung HD Receiver, hooked it up, and gets almost 100 percent signals. I too have a Mitsubishi receiver that is an E86 clone. I replaced it because the OTA tuners were just "flakey" if you know what I mean. Do you know someone that can bring over a different receiver and try it with your setup? That way you can rule out the E86. :D

Originally posted by lwhitefl
I'm using a Hughes E86 receiver which is a first generation receiver, the problem probably is receiver dependent. Len, the evidence is pretty strong, I watched most of the ALCS game last night with nary a problem.

I have 2 E86 receivers. One of them is hardly ever used, but exhibits the same problems as the one in the FR. So I doubt it's a case of the receiver developing technical problems. But it's also fairly evident that this is a receiver dependent problem.

What frustrates me is that I believe WPECDT had a similar problem several months before the hurricanes. Many were saying it was receiver dependent, but WPECDT finally did become stable. That is until after the storms - now that station is also exhibiting pixelization, or at least was last weekend.

Apparently some digital stations have much more trouble generating a signal first generation receivers can properly display. I'm receiving WPTVDT and WPLGDT just fine which tends to suggest it is possible for a first generation receiver to work. But it must require the signal to be much cleaner and for some reason some of the WPB stations either can't or don't try hard enough to get it right.

In the end I guess I won't have any other choice but to buy another receiver.

I have a Samsung TS160, Fox is flaking out on me pretty good.

FYI, we are seeing frequent pixelation and dropouts on all of our receivers here. The engineers are aware of the problem but I don't know what the status on fixing it is.

Great, thanks for the feedback, David. Maybe that will help ease the tremendous urge I keep fighting to climb up on the roof and make endless micro-adjustments on my antenna !

Thanks for the update Dave - at least WPECDT communicates and works at fixing the problems. I don't know what WFLXDT engeering personal are doing to fix their stations obvious problems.

I see that WFLXDT (29.1) is off the air tonight. Hopefully that's a good sign that they're working on the pixelization problems. I sent them three emails over the past couple of days with no response. But perhaps they now realize they have a transmission problem. I urge all of you to send emails to the stations that accept them every time we have problems of this nature. Perhaps that way we can emphasize to station management there is a sizable contingent of HD enthusiasts.

Odd thing - Fox 7-1 in Miami is out for me as well.

Oh, Oh. That may be a bad sign because it may indicate a FOX network problem. Maybe the folks at WFLXDT still don't realize they have a problem.

Channel 7 coming in fine for me.

Originally posted by David McRoy
FYI, we are seeing frequent pixelation and dropouts on all of our receivers here. The engineers are aware of the problem but I don't know what the status on fixing it is.
Looks to me like the engineers fixed the problem. Survivor, CSI, and Without a Trace were pretty much perfect tonight. Didn't notice any pixelation. Much better than last week. Great Job!

Only one problem. During the last few minutes of Without a Trace the audio was funky. There was a static/clipping effect occurring on the dialog and background music - soft dialog and notes didn't seem to have this effect. It stopped as soon as the commercials started and wasn't present for the teaser or the beginning of the news cast.

Survivor and CSI on 12-1 were very nice last night. I had some very minor tiling and audio interrupts during CSI, but they were barely noticeable and very infrequent, could have been just my setup.

Fox 7-1 - I took a closer look and I am only getting a 35-40% signal. 2 weeks ago I was getting a smooth 77. With that and Fox 29's unknown issues, it's been a wasteland on Fox OTA this week.

WFLXDT (29.1) is back on the air tonight, but regrettably still shows signs the problem hasn't been fully fixed. Still getting pixelization although not nearly as bad as earlier this week. The digital signal strength appears to be steady at 51 on my E86 which showed drops to 44 earlier. But the signal strength is still much weaker than all the other WPB HD stations. I tried sending email via the WFLX web site which says they will respond, but I haven't had any response so far. I certainly hope they fix this before the NFL games on Sunday, but I have to admit I'm not optimistic.

Still seeing quite a lot of pixelization on WPECDT (12.1) during the NCAA HD football game (Alburn vs. Arkansas) and again tonight even though the digital signal strength is pegged. WFLXDT (29.1) seems pretty stable tonight during the ALCS game (digital signal strength 58 - 65).

Originally posted by lwhitefl
Still seeing quite a lot of pixelization on WPECDT (12.1) during the NCAA HD football game (Alburn vs. Arkansas) and again tonight even though the digital signal strength is pegged. WFLXDT (29.1) seems pretty stable tonight during the ALCS game (digital signal strength 58 - 65).

If memory serves, you were about the only one that could get anything halfway decent on WFLX. I finally got a weak signal and picture with a lot of pixelization yesterday during the Cards/Astros game. I fiddled with my antenna (Square Shooter) and ended up improving the signal just enough to get rid of the pixelization by pointing a little further south than I did prior to the storms. Quite possible that the terrain has changed enough to warrant those that are still having problems to try playing with their antenna a little. Still, WFLX's signal is very weak - far and away the weakest of the local WPB stations.

Originally posted by ricksm3
If memory serves, you were about the only one that could get anything halfway decent on WFLX. I get an excellent signal from this station. About the same as WPTV and WPEC. Stronger than WXEL and WPXP. If you are not gettting a good signal, perhaps you need a different antenna.

Hello all,

Just bought an HDTV with internal tuner. I live in the acreage and was wondering if any of the posters live out my way and what you utilize for an antenna out here to get the OTA stations.

Have seen some comments on the CM3021 4 bay bowtie and the DB4 and from what I see they look very similar. I was hoping to get away with an internal antenna from radio shack but it does not work very well and everytime I change the channel i've got to readjust the antenna.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

your not going to get alot of luck with an internal antenna out here. I have the Channel Master 4228 on my roof and a pre-amp and I pickup all local channels from West Palm and Miami.

Originally posted by Joel Graffman
I get an excellent signal from this station. About the same as WPTV and WPEC. Stronger than WXEL and WPXP. If you are not gettting a good signal, perhaps you need a different antenna.

Don't think so. Signal used to be fine with the same antenna. WFLX is having some unknown issues over the past week, as evidenced by the numerous posts here of other people having trouble receiving their broadcast.

Originally posted by Joel Graffman
I get an excellent signal from this station. About the same as WPTV and WPEC. Stronger than WXEL and WPXP. If you are not gettting a good signal, perhaps you need a different antenna.



or perhaps they need a better transmitter.....

Originally posted by lwhitefl
Still seeing quite a lot of pixelization on WPECDT (12.1) during the NCAA HD football game (Alburn vs. Arkansas) and again tonight even though the digital signal strength is pegged. WFLXDT (29.1) seems pretty stable tonight during the ALCS game (digital signal strength 58 - 65).

I tried watching WPEC-DT for the first time in a couple of weeks because WFOR-DT didn't flip the switch on the Dallas game and the pixelization on WPEC is unbearable. I am getting rock solid signal strength on my HD-TiVo but constant pixelization with a consistent pattern..... Ooh, WFOR-DT just flipped the switch. I hope WPEC gets the problem fixed soon, I need a back up when WFOR forgets to flip the switch.

Wow, I go away for the weekend, come back, and discover that Fox29 is now at 93-100% signal. Whatever the problem was, they sure fixed it good. I never got that strong of a signal from them prior.

Originally posted by JeffBowser
Wow, I go away for the weekend, come back, and discover that Fox29 is now at 93-100% signal. Whatever the problem was, they sure fixed it good. I never got that strong of a signal from them prior.
I've been able to get a decent signal from them before, but it's always been inconsistant. Keep in mind I'm using just a silver sensor and I think buying an amp for that would help and plan to do that soon. I just have to find the sweet spot (when they're going good) and I'm good to go. I'd say I got the same results watching the game last night (maybe 85-100% though) as at some points during the game it got pretty bad.

Just curious, does everybody get a really strong singal from NBC 5-1? Where ever I point my silver sensor I get a 100% awesome pic from them w no problems. I sometimes can get Fox 29-1 and CBS 4-1 if I can find the sweet spots to point my antenna. I wish all the channels had as strong signal as 5-1 does for me and all the stations do whatever they're doing.

yeah, 5.1 pegs at 100% for me. So strong, in fact, that I have to be careful where I aim the antenna, or I get bad multipath. Tough thing for me is, the best position for 5.1 is the worst positin for Miami 7.1. 3 degrees either way, and 7.1 is great, but 5.1 starts blanking periodically.

Hey,

Why no posts for a couple days? All the stations are up and running and everyone is fat and happy? If I put up a Miami antenna, will I get Smallville and some of the other shows that 34.1 does not show in HD? Thanks in advance!

Dolphan

Originally posted by dolphan
Hey,

Why no posts for a couple days? All the stations are up and running and everyone is fat and happy? If I put up a Miami antenna, will I get Smallville and some of the other shows that 34.1 does not show in HD? Thanks in advance!

Dolphan
Fat and Happy...actually tired and disgusted from it all.

Well it appears I'm getting a 100% strong signal from 29.1 probably in anticipation for tonights game. Hopefully it'll stay like this from now on and we won't have any problems in the future. :) One can only dream, can't I?

dolphan,

I get Smallville and all the WB HD shows from WB39-1 out of miami using a Channel Master 4228. The WB actually has quite a few shows in HD.

Is 7.1 and 10.1 transmitting tonight? I'm getting all the other Miami stations except those two.

Originally posted by NitroMan
Is 7.1 and 10.1 transmitting tonight? I'm getting all the other Miami stations except those two.

WSVN-DT physical channel 8, virtual channel 7.1 is on air. WPLG-DT physical channel 9, virtual channel 10.1 is of the air right now.

Originally posted by ANSEK
WSVN-DT physical channel 8, virtual channel 7.1 is on air. WPLG-DT physical channel 9, virtual channel 10.1 is of the air right now.

Thanks for the info. I must be getting overload of some sort. I put up a VU-190XR yesterday and get all the local and Miami UHF fine, but not the VHF.

The local antenna farm is only 8 miles from me at 247 degrees and the Miami is 46 miles at 192 degrees. Has to be overloading I think.

I don't get any VHF from Miami but I do locally. Time to look for a filter of some sort.

Originally posted by NitroMan
Thanks for the info. I must be getting overload of some sort. I put up a VU-190XR yesterday and get all the local and Miami UHF fine, but not the VHF.

The local antenna farm is only 8 miles from me at 247 degrees and the Miami is 46 miles at 192 degrees. Has to be overloading I think.

I don't get any VHF from Miami but I do locally. Time to look for a filter of some sort.

I have the VU-90XR in my attic and I have found adjusting the pitch of the VHF antenna up or down by 5 degrees makes a big difference.

Originally posted by ANSEK
I have the VU-90XR in my attic and I have found adjusting the pitch of the VHF antenna up or down by 5 degrees makes a big difference.

Yes, tilting the front of the antenna up 4 or 5 degrees can help on distant signals.

Originally posted by David McRoy
Yes, tilting the front of the antenna up 4 or 5 degrees can help on distant signals.

Still no luck with the VHF side. Local VHF is fine but Miami is no signal. I had the same antenna up before the hurricane and it pulled them in fine before the storm blew down the antenna. I never had to use an amp at all. It's up around 30'. This is a new one pointing in the same direction. No signal on 7.1 or 10.1.

They didn't move those antennas after the storm did they? I'm pointing to a bearing of 192 degerees, just west of due south.

Couple question for you guys. Jeff, you suggested I try an amp for my silver sensor. Will an amp really increase my signal by a lot or should I just try to buy a better antenna? Just trying to get an idea of what improvements I'll be able to get with an amp.

Has anyone tried Adelphia HD? Do you know if the locals are pulled through the cable or like DirecTV pulled with an OTA antenna? Adelphia would seem to be the way to go (free equipment vs paying w DTV) and probably will do that once my contract expires with DTV.

ughh, stay away from Adelphia...

they only have ABC and NBC.

You've already paid for the DTV equipment so use it :)

No HD DTV equipment. Only standard. Any idea when they'll be getting more locals?

Nope. But if you don't want to pay for hD equipment you can go the track I went with and lease from Dish. They're equipment might have some flukes that are being worked on, but it's fine with me vs. shelling out $300 for a D* HD receiver...

Following ansek's advice, I put in my attic a Silver Sensor pointed north and Radio Shack 15-2160 pointed north, combined with a simple all purpose splitter/combiner and fed through a Channel Master 7777 amp. I now get very good signals from:

Miami's PBS, CBS, NBC, WB, UPN
West Palm Beach's NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, UPN, PBS

An Unamplified Silver Sensor pointing north or south got some channels but not all of them. Amplifying the same silver sensor and pointing it north got most of the channels I wanted but not all of them (Miami's NBC has less sync issues than WPB's NBC). The Terk HDTVi was a total waste of time..even amplified it had horrible performance in UHF or VHF. A stealthtenna through the amplifier did a so-so job on getting Miami's VHF ABC and FOX channels but the FOX in particular kept breaking up. Adding in the radio shack antenna to the silver sensor seemed to finally give me the network coverage I was looking for. Since both can be had locally for around $20, I think it's a no brainer to go with them since you can always return them if you're unhappy with the outcome.

I'm in downtown delray 3 blocks north of atlantic avenue, and my attic is about 35' off the ground. Hope this helps save people the both of trying some of the combinations I tried.

Oops, that's Silver Sensor south and Radio Shack UHF Antenna north as my final combination.

Originally posted by bmetz
Following ansek's advice, I put in my attic a Silver Sensor pointed north and Radio Shack 15-2160 pointed north, combined with a simple all purpose splitter/combiner and fed through a Channel Master 7777 amp. I now get very good signals from:

Miami's PBS, CBS, NBC, WB, UPN
West Palm Beach's NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, UPN, PBS

An Unamplified Silver Sensor pointing north or south got some channels but not all of them. Amplifying the same silver sensor and pointing it north got most of the channels I wanted but not all of them (Miami's NBC has less sync issues than WPB's NBC). The Terk HDTVi was a total waste of time..even amplified it had horrible performance in UHF or VHF. A stealthtenna through the amplifier did a so-so job on getting Miami's VHF ABC and FOX channels but the FOX in particular kept breaking up. Adding in the radio shack antenna to the silver sensor seemed to finally give me the network coverage I was looking for. Since both can be had locally for around $20, I think it's a no brainer to go with them since you can always return them if you're unhappy with the outcome.

I'm in downtown delray 3 blocks north of atlantic avenue, and my attic is about 35' off the ground. Hope this helps save people the both of trying some of the combinations I tried.


I'm glad it worked. Your success is what this board is all about. Each of us sharing our successes and failures in order to help each other.

Hello Dave,

Any word from the engineering department as to when/if they are going to try and test some SEC/NFL games without the sub-channel? The signal was stable this weekend, but the pixelization (different than the breakups that started after the storm , but now seem to be fixed) during the replays, or any camera shots that include red or a lot of motion are really bad.


Thanks,


John

Originally posted by jmck407
Hello Dave,

Any word from the engineering department as to when/if they are going to try and test some SEC/NFL games without the sub-channel? The signal was stable this weekend, but the pixelization (different than the breakups that started after the storm , but now seem to be fixed) during the replays, or any camera shots that include red or a lot of motion are really bad.


Thanks,


John

I watched the NFL HD telecast Sunday and concur the artifacts during replays, particularly closeups showed a lot of what I would call video smearing. The overall telecast was good - there was some pixelization, but I'm not sure whether that was the network or WPECDT.

The same comments I just posted for WPECDT also apply to WFLXDT.

Does WPTV-DT look like garbage to anyone else in the area? I've been watching Third Watch tonight and the grain is just terible. At first I thought it was a problem with the show, but the commericals look bad as well. Also they've been having some sound crackling on both the analog and digital stations.

WPTV Dave, are you aware of anything going on?

Thanks

Originally posted by bgall
Does WPTV-DT look like garbage to anyone else in the area? I've been watching Third Watch tonight and the grain is just terible. At first I thought it was a problem with the show, but the commericals look bad as well. Also they've been having some sound crackling on both the analog and digital stations.

WPTV Dave, are you aware of anything going on?

Thanks
Here in Delray I get it 100% perfect where ever I point my silversensor. This is the best channel I get. Could it be your antenna is bad or pointing it in the wrong direction?

I get a good signal as well, remeber with digitial the signal doesn't affect the picture. So basically do you see grain (not macroblocking or anything) but like what they call mosquito noise in WPTV-DT's picutre.

Well now I'm taking a look at Medical Investigation and it is much better, but with Third Watch it was like there was a billion bugs on the screen, it must've been a very bad episode.

There is still an audio pop between commericals and the HD feed.

I too have been noticing the "crackle" on WPTV-DT's audio. It's been happening since the storms. PQ has been good though.

WPTV DT We have been down to 1/2 power, due to storm damage to one of the transmitter cabinets. We have a tech from factory coming in next Thursday. I am interested in any of the "1st gen boxes" folks are still out there and if they still cannot get us, while the tech is here we can do more intensive setups. Please post if you can monitor for next Thurs - Sat. Thanks Dave

Thanks for the update Dave.
I did notice about a 10% drop in my signal strength. But no other major problems from here.

I was talking to others nationwide in the main HD forum that said that the particular Third Watch show was really bad in quality as well, so no problems from WPTV.

Ahhh!
WPEC-DT Please drop the subchannel.
The macro-blocking is killing me.
Thanks

Watching the Breeders Cup today on WPTVDT (5-1) and the audio sync is just terrible. Also experiencing some relatively minor pixelization, but the audio sync is what's driving me crazy. This problem has been ongoing now ever since WPTVDT went on the air. There have been times where the audio sync problem seems to have been solved and then it rears it's ugly head again. I'm beginning to wonder if WPTVDT will ever get the audio straight.

WPTVDT (5-1) has always had big audio sync issues for me. I went out of my way to get the Miami NBC to try and avoid the sync issues. Am I the only one?

No you are not the only one - I go to the Miami channels reguarly, as they just seem more stable to me.

Originally posted by JeffBowser
No you are not the only one - I go to the Miami channels reguarly, as they just seem more stable to me.

With the exception of WXEL, I use the Miami channel exclusively. The only time I switch to WPB channels is when the Miami channels are having a problem. The Miami channels experience one fifth the problems that the WPB channels experience. Plus, WFOR has better picture quality than WPEC. If WPEC would just drop the substation during HD broadcast I would watch them.

Hey guys, I have switched away from D* and have a Zenith DTV1080 D* receiver for sale. It is one of the best and does a great job with the local channels. I have everything that goes with it (manuals, box, remote, etc.) as well as the 3LNB D* dish if you need it. I was motivated to buy it (new) because of its high ratings and it was one of the very few that offered a VGA-out port (along with the usual complement of video/audio ports). It is a very good HD receiver.

The best offer I see online is $449, so I'm asking $350. If you can find one for lower send me the link and I'll likely beat their price (if they actually have it in stock, etc.). I can also help you hook it up (if needed).

Where did WPBF & WFLX go?

I had an external antenna installed 2 weeks ago and I've had no problems recieving all the major affiliates in my area (NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS)...

Tonight Fox and ABC disappeared.

I'm in Wellington.

Anyone else having a problem or is the 'air' just wierd tonight? Really wanted to watch my first Monday Night Footbal HD game...This stinks...

I've noticed that ABC has been a bit directional since the hurricanes. I have a rotor on the antenna and I have to rotate the antenna to very specific points to get 25-1. 29-1 has not been much of a problem though (maybe it just seems better because of the HD content-- at last!!!).

Originally posted by Sport73
Where did WPBF & WFLX go? WPBFDT was on the air for MNF, apparently WFLXDT was not transmitting Monday night.

I'm looking for any suggestions for a rooftop antenna in Stuart. I live off E. Ocean Blvd. near the airport.

Is anyone using the Winegard Square Shooter SS2000 with good results from this area.

Originally posted by RodWorks
I'm looking for any suggestions for a rooftop antenna in Stuart. I live off E. Ocean Blvd. near the airport.

Is anyone using the Winegard Square Shooter SS2000 with good results from this area. I use a Radio Shack UHF yagi in my attic and get good results on the UHF channels. I expect that on your roof 12.1 would fine also as they have a very strong signal in this area. This antenna is not designed for VHF, but it is small and not expensive.

If you have an attic, you might try an attic installation, the antennas won't blow away unless you lose your roof.

RodWorks, I'm using a Blake JBX-21 on a rotor with a preamp and attenuator. The differnce between inexpensive and expensive is not that great in the antenna business. You'll use an antenna for years and years, so an extra $100-250 for a quality setup spread over the time you may use it can turn price into a somewhat moot point.

From Hobe Sound, with my setup, I can often pull stations from Orlando. Orlando broadcasts a good number of duplicate networks (and redundency is always good), but it also has more than the average number of independent networks. If you are a WB fan (Smallville, etc.), channel 18-1 out of Orlando is one of the networks that I can pull (a fair amount of the time).

In the local market 34-1 is the source for WB, but they are also a UPN network too. They delay the national broadcast of Smallville to 10pm and though it is billed as HD, i'm not so sure. I can pull 39-1 out of Miami some of the time, and it's Smallville broadcast is beautiful HD. 34-1 has black borders all around a widescreen picture. 18-1 out of Orlando can be an option some of the time for me. Since you are probably 8-20 miles closer, it is favorable to be a stronger option for you.

On the other hand, Orlando is a long way away, so a bigger directional UHF antenna is a must if you want to go for those channels. The Blake is a very long UHF antenna (but not so long as those "classic" VHF/UHF antennas you see at Radio Shack). I'd guess that it is about 10 feet long.

Also, the rotor is essential for me- even with the local channels. But I think that is tied to the very narrow focus of the antenna (that I must rotate the antenna to get it where it needs to be). Other antennas are not so focused. My exact setup: Blake JBX-21 (about $170), Channel Master 9521A rotor (about $60), Winegard AP4700 preamp (about $45), and a Radio Shack atennuator (about $12). Antenna is mounted outside.

Hope this is helpful.

34-1 does not show any of the WB shows in HD that have been time shifted. I know an engineer from the station stated so in the south florida thread and I have experienced it as well. If you want WB shows in HD you have to go to Miami or Orlando as stated by Darryl.

I appreciate the recomendations guys. My attic is really tight but is an option, however, I may be getting a new metal roof so that would probably not work if I did. I already have a dish on the roof so having an antenna as well won't really bother me.

I would like to stay away from a directional antenna if I can because I want to be able to hook it up to a HD Tivo. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the antenna has to be moved to pick up different stations than it won't work with Tivo.

Also, I'm only really interested in ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX so I believe I should be able to pick these up with a medium range multi-directional such as the DB4 from antennasdirect.com or a square shooter SS2000. Is anyone using a multidirectional antenna in this area? If so what kind?

Originally posted by RodWorks
I Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the antenna has to be moved to pick up different stations than it won't work with Tivo. Normally this would be a correct statement, but in this area you are wrong. A good directional antenna is required for the WPalm transmitters, fortunately they are in the same area. The two Martin County transmitters (ABC and UPN) are close enough so that almost any antenna pointed in almost any direction is adequate. You should be able to get good reception with a good directional antenna pointed toward WPalm Beach. I do.

Joel pretty much covered the bases. With a metal roof coming, it would definately be better to mount it outside, as high as you can. Relative to specific antenna recommendations, you can always try different ones until you find your ideal. My own ideal is that Blake, but my aim was to be able to pull in as many "local" (and not so local) DTV channels as possible. If you are truly interested in only the "big 4" networks from the WPB market, then the possibilities for a suitable antenna are much more broad.

Originally posted by HobeSoundDarryl
Joel pretty much covered the bases. Darryl, how high is your mast?

Is Fox 29-1 not broadcasting tonight? Not getting a signal here.

Fox 29-1 is on here in Margate

Originally posted by Joel Graffman
A good directional antenna is required for the WPalm transmitters, fortunately they are in the same area. The two Martin County transmitters (ABC and UPN) are close enough so that almost any antenna pointed in almost any direction is adequate. You should be able to get good reception with a good directional antenna pointed toward WPalm Beach. I do.

Thanks guys, that makes sense. So, basically a good medium size directional antenna should work great if it's mounted on the roof. Also Joel, I noticed that you had a separate VHF antenna for CBS. Is that going to be necessary for me? I read that most UHF antennas will pick up high band VHF signals or is it just going to depend of the specific antenna I choose.

Originally posted by RodWorks
Thanks guys, that makes sense. So, basically a good medium size directional antenna should work great if it's mounted on the roof. Also Joel, I noticed that you had a separate VHF antenna for CBS. Is that going to be necessary for me? I read that most UHF antennas will pick up high band VHF signals or is it just going to depend of the specific antenna I choose. Size has nothing to do with it, even the R/S UHF yagi is a high gain antenna. UHF only antennas are comparatively small. If you are going to install the antenna yourself I suggest you try the R/S yagi. If it doesn't work you can return it. As is I said before, there is a good chance it will be satisfactory for 12.1, although this channel is more susceptible to lightning breakup than the UHF stations.

Joel, the mast is actually very tall because it is secured in the ground and supported by brackets mounted into the side of my house. I'd say 30-35 feet. However, the antenna is only about 8 feet above my roofline (highest point).

Rodworks, that Blake is a UHF-only and I get 12-1 great, all the time. It's signal is as strong as any of the others. I have a friend in Lake Worth who has the JBX-14 (slightly smaller) and he gets the 2 lower-band Miami VHF DTV stations with it.

As is implied, it probably works best to just experiment until you hit the ideal. Your requirements are not that high, so I suspect many options are going to work well.

Hey guys, I picked up a Silver Sensor the other day but I'm not able to get WPEC-DT. I know it's only a UHF antenna but some of you folks around here have said they've been able to get it. But I think those folks are only somewhere like 10 miles from the tower where as I am 20 miles. So will the Silver Sensor not pick up WPEC then, or do you have any other tips for picking it up. Those that use it, have you been using it vertically or horizontal?

Originally posted by bgall
Hey guys, I picked up a Silver Sensor the other day but I'm not able to get WPEC-DT. I know it's only a UHF antenna but some of you folks around here have said they've been able to get it. But I think those folks are only somewhere like 10 miles from the tower where as I am 20 miles. So will the Silver Sensor not pick up WPEC then, or do you have any other tips for picking it up. Those that use it, have you been using it vertically or horizontal?

I get all the WPB H/DTV stations including WPEC-DT with my Zenith SS antenna, but I am very close to the towers...about 4 mi. away so I don't know if that's why I get the VHF channel as well as all the UHF channels. I have my SS sitting horizontally, pointing North/NorthWest.

bgall, I don't have one, but I've read so much about it. Experiment with different heights and different positions. Most people think the SS is fantastic and it is generally praised in most messages. The only constructive crits I tend to see is finding the "sweet spot".

Was anyone else getting popping in the audio on 34-1 during Enterprise tonight?

Originally posted by HobeSoundDarryl
bgall, I don't have one, but I've read so much about it. Experiment with different heights and different positions. Most people think the SS is fantastic and it is generally praised in most messages. The only constructive crits I tend to see is finding the "sweet spot".

I second this with major emphasis. I use the SS indoors to get WPBF and have a Square Shooter outside for the rest. I live in a townhouse community so I can't easily go with some huge outside antenna - would like to find a discrete antenna that would pick up Miami better.

I digressed. I have found that literally moving the Silver Sensor one inch away from the sweet spot makes a huge difference in reception. It involves a lot of trial and error, but once you find the spot, the SS works superbly.

Enterprise had a ton of weird audio effects for me when I watched my HDTivo's recording off of 33-1. Normally it comes in fine, must've been the feed's fault, not the station's. It seemed to subside near the end.

Does the Fox channel come on in time for football or are they having a problem.

What's up with fox 29-1, I haven't been able to pick it up since yesterday? No HD fins game? arrrrrgggghhhhh!

Same problem here. I am watching it on WSVN-DT out of Miami but they subchannel is stealing all of the bandwidth and the picture it terrible.

Anyone have the number to FOX 29 Engineering? No signal here in West Palm ...

If you can't get a signal, I doubt there's anything engineering can do in the studio

Wow I just realized WTVX will indeed be showing the LOTR tonight at the WB time, when they normally show UPN content. I sure hope they will be passing the HD feed...

Season premier of arrested development, did i mention no 29-1? aaaaaarrrrggghhh! LOTR is not in HD on my set.

I haven't seen WFLX-DT for a few days now, either.

Same here, Fox 29-1 just seemed to disappear about a week ago...

While I'm here, can anyone tell me the best way to connect 2 antennas? I have an OTA outdoor antenna from DirecTV, but it seems that I can't get ABC/Fox simultaneously in any position. Rather than a rotor, I'd prefer to add a second indoor/outdoor antenna to the setup and point it for the missing station...

Is it as easy as using a splitter? Thanks!

I think a splitter requires that the cables be equal in length. so you'd probably need a combiner

I was picking up 29-1 tonight once I got the projector up and running. So it should be going for all as this was on a Hughes HTL-HD.

Originally posted by Sport73
Same here, Fox 29-1 just seemed to disappear about a week ago...
That's what seems to happen to me too. Don't know what happened. Worked great during the world series and then it just seemed to vanish. Hope they get it back once 24 gets going again. :)

Although it was not "officially" listed as one of the ABC affiliates "too scared" to air the full, uncut version of Saving Private Ryan this evening, it appears as if WPBF has also bowed down to the pressures of the FCC and imo, the gov't since we are hard at war in Iraq (and specifically, the American/Iraqi offensive operation in Falluja). Gee - we wouldn't want to see what war is really like, now do we (although our fathers and grandfathers fought and so many died in WWII)? Oh, wait a minute -- wasn't Saving Private Ryan aired uncut a couple times in the past already without a big controversy????

Im sorry, but this movie is a classic and should be allowed to be seen on tv uncut as it was in the past twice. Yes, it's rough, gory and violent with some less than politically correct language, but isn't all that the reality of war? I think WPBF and WPBF-DT should be ashamed of themselves for not showing this phenomenal movie tonight. Plus, it would have looked and sounded damn nice in HDTV and in DD 5.1...shame on WPBF!

What's next?...a ban on showing Schindler's List? What is this nation coming to? :mad:

Originally posted by bsgoren
I think WPBF and WPBF-DT should be ashamed of themselves for not showing this phenomenal movie tonight. I agree, it's difficult to understand why they would not show this film considering some of the trash they carry on a regular basis.

WPLG in Miami carried it last night. It was not OAR, but the sound and picture were good. The commercials after the first 30min became to unbearable for me to watch. Waiting for HD-Tivo to come donw in price.

Interesting Sunday. For a change, the WPB stations outshone the Miami stations. Channel 4 forgot to go HD, while channel 12 did go HD. I could not get Fox 7-1, but Fox 29-1 made a miraculous come back for me.

Originally posted by JeffBowser
Interesting Sunday. For a change, the WPB stations outshone the Miami stations. Channel 4 forgot to go HD, while channel 12 did go HD. I could not get Fox 7-1, but Fox 29-1 made a miraculous come back for me.
29-1 seemed to come back for me as well Sun. Didn't have it for like a week or so after the world series and then it came back. I hope they stick around going strong once Jan roles around and 24 comes back on. I can't wait to watch that show in HD. :)

Originally posted by JeffBowser
Interesting Sunday. For a change, the WPB stations outshone the Miami stations. Channel 4 forgot to go HD, while channel 12 did go HD. I could not get Fox 7-1, but Fox 29-1 made a miraculous come back for me. Agree, thanks to WFLX for resurrecting their digital signal in time for Sunday football. Also kudos to WXEL for starting HiDef telecasts again, even though they are apparently still having problems with their digital signal. (they are relaying HiDef on 41.1 vice 41.2)

I have had my Adelphia HD DVR for 3 weeks. I continue to have problems with WPTV (NBC) having audio dropouts and pixelization. It is so bad that you really can't watch the shows. I have read about lots of folks having problems with WPTV since the hurricanes. Has it been fixed yet? I would expect the cable feed to be fairly representative of what is being broadcast. But I don't want to rule out that the STB could be the problem.

Originally posted by MVPinBoynton
I have had my Adelphia HD DVR for 3 weeks. I continue to have problems with WPTV (NBC) having audio dropouts and pixelization. It is so bad that you really can't watch the shows. I have read about lots of folks having problems with WPTV since the hurricanes. Has it been fixed yet? I would expect the cable feed to be fairly representative of what is being broadcast. But I don't want to rule out that the STB could be the problem. I frequently watch the news on 5.1 (via antenna). I don't recall ever having a dropout or video problems. I would complain to Adelphia.

Joel Griffin,
That is what I worried about. I just got a new box yesterday and it did the same thing. It is strange since the rest of the HD channels are just great. This is the only channel that has a bad audio synch issue too. Thanks for your reply.

Last night when scanning the channels I noticed Channel
1.01 showing up, with the name "Hidden". Any idea
who is using this channel?

Originally posted by av8torfl
Last night when scanning the channels I noticed Channel
1.01 showing up, with the name "Hidden". Any idea
who is using this channel? I believe it is WXEL. They may have something mis-configured.

I found it this weekend when doing a channel scan. Channel 6's new weather sub channel was coming in on 6-1 for me. Doing the channel scan straightened that out. And as a result found channels 7-2 and 10-2. I had no idea they had sub-channels since I hadn't scanned in so long.

Dragonbait - ditto for me.

you guys made me curious so I did a rescan tonight and a number of channels did show up. No 6-2 but I did get the mysterious 1-1. What was more interesting to me is that i picked up 20-1, 20-2 (NBC) and 46-1 from Fort Myers.

I haven't been able to get NBC 5-1 for a while. Is it just me? I used to get it with varying degrees of success. Sometimes it was just fine, other times it was just constant pixelation and unwatchable and lately it's just gone completely. I have an omnidirectional antenna and nothings changed with it.

5-1 continues to come in fine for me, except very recently I have noticed a audio delay. At my location, at least, 5-1 is the only station to peg my meter at 100%. In fact, I have to be very careful how I aim the antenna, or I get multipath so bad it blacks out periodically. Possibly your issue ?

If you don't get 6-2, try 31-2. That's the only way I can get it. It doesn't remap to 6-2 on my Mitsubishi tuner.

Originally posted by JeffBowser
5-1 continues to come in fine for me, except very recently I have noticed a audio delay.

The 5-1 audio delay has been a common fluke for a while now. The cause for the delay is because they are using the stations analog signal audio and feeding it to the digital. Dave has said they are working on implementing 5.1, so hopefully the problem will go away.

Thanks bgall, I never noticed before, but perhaps only bacause I have just recently started watching the news on 5-1 instead of via the satellite feed.

Adelphia hdtv -

I had Adelphia installed about two weeks ago and noticed terrible picture quality and audio dropout on ABC only. Every other (few that there are) HD was fine. After 3 visits, they diagnosed it as a dirty fiber optic in a box down the street.

Might be your problem.

I like the Adelphia DVR but miss my CBS and FOX I had with Voom. Luckily Voom only wanted the reciever back when I cancelled and left the dish and OTA on the roof so I might pickup a HDTV wonder and try it out.

Pohnl,
Why did you cancel Voom? If I get tired of Adelphia not carrying CBS and Fox, I might switch to it.

I cancelled voom because while I liked the service and the hdtv I really need a recorder. Having 30 hdtv channels available does no good if I'm only at the tv for 4 hours at night and the stuff I wanted to see if on during the day. I went with Adelphia because of DVR and less money, knew I wasn't getting CBS but the rep didn't mention not getting FOX. After having the DVR with 7 HDTV channels I wouldn't go back to 30 channels without the dvr. But, I'll have my HTPC setup done before Thanksgiving with a HDTV tuner card and then I'll decide if INHD1/2, HDNET1/2, ESPNHD are worth the monthly to adelphia.

pohnl, how do you like the Adelphia service? How many channels do you get with it? What locals? Does anyone know if they are planning to add any more later? I'm thinking of switching to Adelphia when my current DTV contract runs out, so I'm just trying to get a feal for the service. Thanks, much appreciated.

I have Adelphia for HD only and on one tv. I asked for the SA-3250 with active firewire but they gave me the new SA-8300 instead. The box is real nice. One input, will record two hd at once. All I use it for is HD. The other channels look good but I have Directv and SD Tivo on that tv and use that for all non-hd programming. As far as channels I get: ABC, NBC, INHD1, INHD2, HDNET, HDNETMOVIE, ESPNHD and HBO, Showtime, Stars (don't subscribe but in guide). DVR works great and recordings are perfect, I'm going to try and get a HTPC setup and capturing the locals and if I do then I'll decide if I'm going to keep it.

BTW... anyone watch Third Watch on NBC friday night. I know it wasn't HD but I had some lipsync toward the middle of the program when I watched it recorded this morning and just wondering if it was the source or the dvr (guessing the source).

pohnl,
I am glad to hear that Adelphia now has the 8300. I am currently on my second 8000 and am looking forward to getting the 8300, since it is supposed to be better and will hopefully get rid of some of my minor complaints. I couldn't agree with you more about the benefits of having a DVR. INHD and HDNET are awesome channels but I would like CBS and FOX. I emailed Adelphia about CBS and FOX and their response was


"Thank you for contacting Adelphia. We are currently working on adding High
Definition channels to your cable service as quickly as possible. At this
time, we do not know when the service will be available. We apologize for
any inconvenience and appreciate your patience in this matter."

It sounds like it will be awhile.

Ah, OMG, I can't believe what I'm hearing!! How on earth can you people subscribe to Adelphia!!! The are the plague, the most vile cable co on earth! :) I feel pitty on every poor fool that just continues to pay their outrageous cable bill without doing anything about it. There are choices.

Ok, done :)

Bgall,
Since I have basic cable provided through my development and I am using the Adelphia cable internet service, using Adelphia for HD is a pretty cheap addition to an already expensive service. I would like to find a better alternative that has all of the major local HD channels, but I don't know that it would be worth the extra cost. Voom sounds good, but it appears to be pretty pricey. What do you recommend for Palm Beach County. I would like some other options.

bgall - I have to admit that I think most opinions up here are very over done ("unwatchable" on an actually reasonable picture comes up very frequently). However, I agree with your Adelphia opinion 100%, no reservations.

Yeah, I knew I was making a pretty strong statement, so i was cringing after I made it, but I figured most would agree :)

"The are the plague, the most vile cable co on earth!"

Well, that might be a little biased. As for my experience with them for a short time. I had an install, immediate problem with ABC HD. They setup a service call for the next day to check it. All the lines were ok. Scheduled a second on the lines the next day (checked the line at the pole too). Two days later another tech showed up at the door and told me to check the tv. I turned it to ABC HD and it was perfect, he said he had cleaned the fiber optic line down the street. I'm impressed with the service so far. As far paying for service, I'm paying less with DVR than with Voom but once I get a HD PCI card and get my HD OTA I might cancel the monthly bill.

What outputs does the Adelphia HD DVR have?

Adelphia SA8000HD DVR outputs at 1080i, 720P, 480i & 480P. You can select which one you want.

I think he's talking about connections. Which I think are Component, DVI, and 1394 (though probably not active)

the sa-8300 has component, HDMI, and 1394 (didn't appear active hooked to my hp laptop).

The AFC Dolphins vs. Seahawks NFL HD game on WPECDT (12-1) contained quite a bit of pixelization yesterday. Perhaps much of it was attributable to the atmospheric conditions or the VHF band. WFLXDT (29-1) was very stable during their transmission of the NFC games.

The football games have always been pixelated on WPEC, nothing new there.

I am curious...what exactly does the picture do when you have "multipath?"

I am in PB Gardens and have two of the same antennas in my attic (Radio Shack 15-2160)--one facing South and the other facing NW. When I only had the southern one, I got all the WPB Stations except UPN-34. I added the NW one and ran them through a simple RF combiner and now I get UPN-34 great, but CBS-12 and FOX-29 drop in and out. Nothing seems to phase NBC-5, I get that in great.

Thanks.

The "picture quality" doesnt do anything. When you have multipath, the signal will bounce around like crazy and you won't get a lock.

I've been adujsting my antenna tonight and I've run into about a dozen crazy scenerios that change the signal on my stations. Tuning DTV is crazy!! I even loose certain channels depending on how the cable is even laying!!!

Yes. I have a rotor on my antenna and I have used it to identify ideal directional points for each channel. Then, I found that some channels seemed to be too strong, so I used it to find less than ideal directional points. For some channels I know the antenna does not point anywhere close to the broadcast tower. But that's what works. Isn't local HDTV channel tuning wonderful?

Are the component outputs on the Adelphia HD DVR the progressive (RGB - one audio, three video cables) standard (one audio, one video cable), or both?

Aye, pointing the antenna is crazy - my situation is this - if I point my antenna so that I get Fox 29 and Fox 4 without black-outs, channel 5 starts blacking out. If I point for channel 5, I also lose channel 7. I am about to give up on 5 and start watching NBC 6 instead. I already gave up on 25 - if I point the antenna to pick up 25, I lose most of the Miami stations. As you can tell from this, I have a bi-directional antenna, and no rotor.

Originally posted by baylorgator
Are the component outputs on the Adelphia HD DVR the progressive (RGB - one audio, three video cables) standard (one audio, one video cable), or both?

The component cable is the 3 cable YPrPb. You have separate audio options.

Anyone else having an issue with 25-1 (ABC) in West Palm?

I'm in Wellington, the odd thing about it is that I can get 25-1 everyday of the week with no problem. Monday night rolls around and I'm hoping to watch HD MNF, and it's gone. Happened 3 weeks in a row now. It's back by Tuesday but gone the next Monday.

Are they doing something to alter the signal to reach a wider audience for MNF which is dropping me out? It's really odd.

Signal is perfect in Palm Beach Gardens, MNF was fine.

Based on recommendations I have purchased a channel master 4228 antenna. My question is where might I find mounting brackets for the pole that this will go on? The soffits (eaves) on my house extend 24 inches out from the wall. I have seen on the channel master website that they only make mounts that go out to 18". I am mounting it on my 2nd story so a ground mount is not viable.

gog8rs, are you not wanting to use a telescoping pole mounted in the ground? That 's what I've got and I'm probably up 25-30 feet. This seems to work well. If you are wanting to hook up into the house, I'd do some searches. Does the one shown at www.tvantenna.com/products/ tvreception/mounting/eavemounts.html look like it will work? A google search for "TV antenna brackets" comes back with all kinds of sources. Good luck

Originally posted by gog8ors
Based on recommendations I have purchased a channel master 4228 antenna. My question is where might I find mounting brackets for the pole that this will go on? The soffits (eaves) on my house extend 24 inches out from the wall. I have seen on the channel master website that they only make mounts that go out to 18". I am mounting it on my 2nd story so a ground mount is not viable.


Lowes has a good antenna section.

:( :( Is anyone else's multi-path crazy today. I'm getting drop out on basically all my stations, so much for HD football :(

Sweet, I am invincible!!! It's all better :)

So did everyone leave town?

WPTV is dropping the ball on the Seinfeld HD special :(

If anyone's still here call the newsroom at 561-653-5700

If you are looking for WXEL on 42.1 or 42.2 and can't find it, try 27.3 that's were it appeared for me on Friday night.

WXEL was always on 42.1 42.2 and 42.3 the whole time this weekend.

They dropped PBS You during the day, so they're down to three channels during the day, which looks better. And at night they dropped the WXEL SD simulcast and only have the single HD channel on 42.1 in place of the WXEL simulcast.