I tried pointing it everywhere. I can't get anything on 9. I am still open to suggestions.

I've had this effect with the ss. Most houses i line up fox, then tweak for the other channels and they come in fine. For my house i can lineup the ss (and now the antennas direct db4) and i can pull in fox, but everything else goes to hell. Then if i line up everything else i get fox just enough to piss me off.

I think the best bet for him, and for me when i choose to do it, is to get a 2nd 7-13 vhf only antenna and combine it.

Daniel I'm still getting Fox HD with my db4 and I also have it on D*, PQ is the same. My SS never would get Fox.

Daniel, how much would that setup go for, and how big is the antenna?

Anyone have a local source (FWB/P'Cola) for ChannelMaster and Winegard gear? The Rat Shack amp I have bit the dust after a severe thunderstorm and nearby lightning strike. Ivan didn't help my RS VHF/UHF antenna either, I didn't have time to take it down. The elements snapped back into place, but like others this far out (Crestview) I'm having trouble picking up signals from the Wilcox Road antenna farm. The only DT I can get is WTVY DT Dothan if I swing the antenna the other way. Their signal is pretty robust, though. Like everyone else, though I would like to see the Super Bowl in HD.

Richard,
I'm a winegard dealer, i only have 8780 preamps in stock though. I could order you something and have it shipped to you. Email me at daniel@absolutehometheater.net to talk about it.

Denny,
I don't know the price or the size of the antenna. I believe the 7-13 vhf antenna is a channelmaster and i'm not a dealer. Someone else on this thread may know.

Originally posted by Cinder
I've had this effect with the ss. Most houses i line up fox, then tweak for the other channels and they come in fine. For my house i can lineup the ss (and now the antennas direct db4) and i can pull in fox, but everything else goes to hell. Then if i line up everything else i get fox just enough to piss me off.

Yeah, me too. So I tried 2 ss's joined via a reversed-splitter, and that works fine for me. Those goofy little things even yank in 39.1 from Biloxi many/most nights!

really? that's pretty cool, i may have to try that out.

Rick in Baker,

Welcome aboard! Just how high do you have your antenna? I have the advantage of being on high terrain. I live not far from you, north of Bob Sikes Airport. I'm another ten miles east and could still get WKRG-DT off and on at night. WALA-DT OTOH I could never seem to get. I going to try and swap out my Ivan damaged Rat Shack antenna and suspect pre-amp. Of course if our friend in Milton can't get it, there may not be much hope for us.

Originally posted by russdog
Yeah, me too. So I tried 2 ss's joined via a reversed-splitter, and that works fine for me. Those goofy little things even yank in 39.1 from Biloxi many/most nights! Originally posted by Cinder
really? that's pretty cool, i may have to try that out.
The trick is to have them not pointing the same way. I expected to get best results by having them pointing almost-but-not-quite the same direction, e.g., instead of pointing them N, have one a little to the NE and the other to the NW. But what proved to work best for me is one NW and the other SE, almost exactly 180 from each other. I have no clue why that works but it does, at least where I am. Some strength numbers are high, others are middling, but I get enough to see all the available DT without screwing around with the antennas.

I was surprised about how much difference half-an-inch makes. They can be pointing in a given direction, but moving the antenna just a smidgeon on the shelf (without changing its heading) can make a huge difference. Getting it right really tested my patience. Especially with 2 of them. But once I got it right, bingo, haven't touched them since. I use a little amp with them.

Every once in a while during the afternoon, I get repeated interference on 9. The only time I'm watching to find this out is NFL games. The picture and sound will black-out for a couple seconds. When this happens, no change is evident on the signal strength meter. It's repeated on a timed pattern, e.g., every 55 seconds or something like that. It will do it for a while then stop. I have zero idea what that's about. I wonder if it's some kind of automatic radio beacon that interferes only when the conditions are just right ("just wrong"?).

i'll have to try that out, thanks.

Daniel,

Concerning Dave's FOX reception problem:

As a Winegard dealer, can you see if the YA-1713 is available. Its a ch7-13 antenna they made. Ten element with about 10dB gain at channel 9. This is about the same as the Antennacraft high VHF. Couldn't find a Channelmaster high VHF.

Spacewise, these yagi antennas are long suckers, at 10 feet and 3 ft wide, so there is not a real advantage of these vs. VHF/UHF combo. The combo can be even longer.

If Dave was interested in a single channel yagi, Jerrold has a 5 element with 7.5 dB gain thats about 3 ft long. They also have a 10 element with 10 dB gain thats about 7.5 ft long.

Hello everyone. Just wanted to chime in from Mobile. We got Voom installed back in December and finally enjoying some HD. I live in west Mobile and all my locals come in great even WLOX out of Miss. sometimes. We were one of the firsts to get HD service from Mediacom in my area and it was a joke. The DVR was nice but not worth all the pixelation and cutouts we were having with the HD channels, All 5 of them. I'm using the Winegard Stealth II for my OTA setup and it does the job. We also just got upgraded to the 24" dish and it's better for rain fade than the 18" was. So, hello from Mobile.

Welcome to the board.

Rick,

I can't get the 7-13 winegard antenna from winegard for some reason. That 3ft vhf antenna would be an ideal choice given its size.

Hello everyone. Great forum. My first post...

Today I spoke with someone in Engineering at WALA Fox-10. I was given the following information regarding broadcast power:

Analog: 116kW
Digital: 1kW

1kW doesn't sound correct to me, but that's what he said. I asked if they were planning on boosting the signal any time soon and was told "within 5 years". LMAO!

I'm in Pensacola and would like to see the SuperBowl in HD. What is the next closest FOX station? (I'd look it up myself, but Fox.com is maimed at the moment.)

-Thomas

Try antennaweb.org and put in your address. It should come back with the available channels that you should receive at your location. It's not 100% accurate but it will give you what you need. I also noticed WALA is not outputting a strong signal. I can get the station at my location but it's not that great of a picture compared to the other locals in the area.

Thank you. I didn't think about using AntennaWeb.org for such purpose.

Anyone watching NCIS OTA HD tonight? Is it my receiver or did the colors actually fade a couple of times during the show. No, I'm not talking about what they do when they switch to commercial on NCIS...

I saw this the other day during the Steeler's game but wasn't sure if it was my equipment or WKRG.

Thanks,
Steve

Can someone explain to me why I seem to have great signal strength on 17 (83 or better) but I can't get a picture on my TV. When I tune to WEAR (3-1) it says searching for signal. I swear I got this channel before.

I get the same thing here, good signal but no pic.

That's because their transmitter is on but they're not broadcasting anything.

Steve

Well that is wonderful. Are there other stations that do that? Also, Are there any channels that only transmit soemtimes. I would hate to go through the hassel of adjusting my antenna thinking I can't get a channel when actually they are just not transmitting.

Any advice?

Just hold on, they will get it right one day. If you think this is bad you should have been around when WPMI tried to get there HD up and running.

It's just WEAR. They just got their HD transmitter working late last week and are probably fine tuning it. All other stations should be working. (You'll probably see postings in here if any are not working)

Steve

definately just wear, joe said he'd send a mass email when he's up and running 100%. I'm sure they're just fine tuning at steve said.

I found a sub-channel for WEAR last night. There was 17-1 with no picture and 17-2 with standard 4:3, with was working fine. This was at about 7 pm and again at 9 (times I checked).

Disappointing to not see NYPD Blue in HD. Wonder what we get tonight during Lost?

From Joe (WEAR) :)


Hello to all you HDTV viewers...

WEAR-DT17 has been having those pesky "technical difficulties" during the last week. We had some hardware problems and some software problems while trying to get up to full power and passing ABC's HD programming, but we've got MOST of those problems worked out and now we're back on-air the way you want us ... in high definition and high power.

Check out "Lost" and "Alias" tonight beginning at 7PM. And if you're home tomorrow, you can watch a special edition of "Good Morning America" in HD from 7-9AM, and then the "Inauguration 2005" in HD from 9AM-3PM. We have a 30-minute window at approximately 12Noon for our local news (which, unfortunately, will be in standard definition for quite some time to come) but then back to HD coverage of George W.'s 2nd inauguration.

I hope you all enjoy our high definition programming. Please feel free to send comments about our signal strength, quality compared to other local HD stations, and any other comments you may have.

ENJOY!

Joe

Dave Winchester,

Do you use an amp on your antenna? It is essential for me. They're less than $100. If you get one be sure that does both UHF and VHF and has two stages - one up on the mast and one down below. If you still can't get WALA ( 50 miles from Milton? ) then we need to gang up on WALA management to boost they're power. If they were at 29KW that would be almost twice their current power.

Originally posted by rray32539
Rick in Baker,

Welcome aboard! Just how high do you have your antenna? I have the advantage of being on high terrain. I live not far from you, north of Bob Sikes Airport. I'm another ten miles east and could still get WKRG-DT off and on at night. WALA-DT OTOH I could never seem to get. I going to try and swap out my Ivan damaged Rat Shack antenna and suspect pre-amp. Of course if our friend in Milton can't get it, there may not be much hope for us.


Richard,

My antenna is about 25 feet up. One day I raised it another 6 feet but it made no differece in getting WALA or WKRG. I've thought about raising it about 15 more feet on a windless day just as an experiment. Of course, as you said, if Dave can't get them in Milton and their power is only 1KW right now (as per an earlier post) then I'd just be wasting my time. This is soooooo frustrating. I WANT FOX!

Quote Lenbo:
--------------------------------------
You may want to try the Antennacraft's Y10-7-13 Yagi if Fox is that important to you.
--------------------------------------

Thanks for the suggestion but the ugly monster I have now has more gain. BTW, I'm luckier than you in that my wife wouldn't care if I erected 3 monster antennas. Hmmm... that's gives me an idea!

There may be some hope for us Okaloosa County folks for a FOX signal yet. Point your antenna towards Andalusia.

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT422442.html
http://www.wcov.com

WCOV-DT 16 Montgomery is on the air. While we are still out of the projected contour, we are BARELY out of the contour, and when this station is at full power, it will be with a 100 KW signal. A lot better than WALA-DT Mobile. I have sent an e-mail to the chief engineer to find out if they are running at full power or are still testing.

Rick,

I do have an amp which is UHF/VHF. I do not get any signal no matter how I point it (at least as of yet). I believe I have tried all of the positions that I can think of minus the buying a second SS as suggested by Trish. I am going to try some more stuff this weekend too busy til then. I am all for harping on WALA. I just want to understand why they are not using max power. Is it a money thing? I would assume they would want to reach the most customers possible. Can anyone enlighten me?

Originally posted by dnewinchester
Rick,

I do have an amp which is UHF/VHF. I do not get any signal no matter how I point it (at least as of yet). I believe I have tried all of the positions that I can think of minus the buying a second SS as suggested by Trish. I am going to try some more stuff this weekend too busy til then. I am all for harping on WALA. I just want to understand why they are not using max power. Is it a money thing? I would assume they would want to reach the most customers possible. Can anyone enlighten me?

When I spoke with Engineering at WALA this week, NONE of the three different people I talked to seemed to be clued in. The first two didn't know much about digital. The third didn't seem to think digital was particularly important. I tried to explain to them how quickly HDTV-ready TV's are selling as well as how many people were going to be disappointed when they are unable to watch the Superbowl on their new bigscreens. I received silence in response.

FWIW, tonight I finally got WALA tuned in here in southeast Pensacola!

Originally posted by Ricknau
Quote Lenbo:
--------------------------------------
You may want to try the Antennacraft's Y10-7-13 Yagi if Fox is that important to you.
--------------------------------------

Thanks for the suggestion but the ugly monster I have now has more gain. BTW, I'm luckier than you in that my wife wouldn't care if I erected 3 monster antennas. Hmmm... that's gives me an idea!

It's your lucky day.I have in my possesion 49 of the largest,highest gain H/B antennas on the planet.Initial testing is showing 5-10db higher signal strengths[at the tv set] using one of these,compared to a horizontal stack of two Antennacraft YA10-7-13's.Tomorrow,weather permitting,I'll test a one-on-one,and by the weekend do a stack/stack test.


http://community-2.webtv.net/GregBarker/UltraHighGain/

If interested,pm me on pricing.

Greg B

After a number of hours trying to get things right, it finally worked out. WALA works!!!

For anybody who's interested, here's what worked for me...

I purchased a ChannelMaster model 3018 (which is about ten feet long and nearly the same width) from Lowes here in town. I also got the antenna mount and a 5-foot mounting pole, as they did not come with the antenna. From RadioShack I purchased a "High-Gain Signal Amplifier" model 15-1109, though it was on clearance so it may no longer be available.

I installed the mount and the antenna in less than an hour (though assembly of the antenna may have pushed it over an hour). After setting everything up, I still had the same Signal Strength of 41 (out of 100 on my TV). The signal to noise ratio (SNR) was constantly bouncing from 0 to 10 to 12 and back to zero. (For those newbies like me, if you have a Sony HDTV, Signal Strength can be found in the setup menu, Applications sub-menu, Diagnostics section; it is only available when turned to a digital channel.)

From there, I moved the antenna back and forth slowly around the point on the compass that antennaweb.org suggested, but no luck. I decided to play with the gain knob on the amp and hit a "sweet spot" that let the picture come in occasionally. At that point, I turned up the volume on the TV (so I could hear it in the attic) and started rotating the antenna again. I don't have a compass, but it appears to me that I had to aim the antenna about negative 10 degrees from antennaweb's suggestion.

So now all is good. It's in the attic so that it isn't an eyesore. I'd say that it is about 12 feet above ground, and the land here is up to about 30 feet above sea level. Plenty of trees around though.

Here are the channels I receive (with each line of text containing the following data: channel, call letters copied verbatim from what was sent to the TV, range of signal strength, and range of SNR in dB):

3.1, WEAR-HD,87-89,26-27
3.2, WEAR-SD,
10.1, FOX10HD,56-66,15-18
10.2, WB55,(same as 10.1), (ditto)
15.1, WPMI-HD,87-98,26-31
15.2, WPMI-SD,(same as 15.1), (ditto)
23.1, WSRE-HD,78-92,23-28
23.2, WSRESD1,(same as 23.1), (ditto)
23.3, WSRESD2,(same as 23.1), (ditto)
42.1, WEIQ HD,62-67,16-19
42.2, WEIQ D1,(same as 42.1), (ditto)
44.1, WJTC-HD,89-96,28-30

23.3 currently has a black screen

Oh, one other thing. Most, if not all, digital channels have audio-video sync problems.

Happy viewing.
-Thomas

** Begin Update 1 - 2005-01-20 12:46PM CST **
The honeymoon is over. This morning the WALA signal was not strong enough to get a feed. I'm going to keep some signal timings offline to see if I can establish a pattern. I'm going on the supposition it's all about the weather and not about problems at WALA.
** End Update 1 **

Well folks, there's obviously something fundamentally wrong with WALA's xmission if folks in or near Pensacola can't get a clear signal. The engineer to talk to is named Roland Fields. He's the Chief Engineer. I've emailed him several times before and a friend spoke to him on the phone. Friend said he was very friendly and forecoming with info.

Here's his response to my last email to him back in Sept when I asked why the other stations were so much more powerful than WALA.

--------------------------------------------------
Roland:

WALA DTV is transmitted on CH 9 VHF. The other stations in the Mobile/Pensacola Market are all UHF. They have to transmit at a much Higher level to achieve the save coverage. If you take for example WALA TV CH 10 Transmits at an ERP 316 Thousand Watts and WBPG TV CH 55 transmits at an ERP 3.7 Million watts to get the same coverage. Any increase in power has to be approved by the FCC.

When the opportunity arises that we can increase power we will do so, but there are no plans at this time to do so.
-------------------------------------------------


Someone from this forum should call or email him to get the scoop on what's going on right now. I'd do it but he may be tired of me. In that last email I let my distain for WALA's performance be evident and I may have worn out my welcome. (Bad me! Didn't my mommie teach me any manners?! ) But I'm dying to know. Are they really way down on power right now like someone there told tlunsf. Like below the 16KW that is supposed to be their "full power"? Is he aware that people in Pensacola can't view their digital xmission for crying out loud!? And what's with that FCC link that RickRS provided that shows their power allowance to be 29KW?

His address is Rfields@wala.emmis.com

I'm giving up trying to get these guys until you P'cola guys can pull them in "loud and clear".

Originally posted by rray32539
There may be some hope for us Okaloosa County folks for a FOX signal yet. Point your antenna towards Andalusia.

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT422442.html
http://www.wcov.com

WCOV-DT 16 Montgomery is on the air. While we are still out of the projected contour, we are BARELY out of the contour, and when this station is at full power, it will be with a 100 KW signal. A lot better than WALA-DT Mobile. I have sent an e-mail to the chief engineer to find out if they are running at full power or are still testing.

Ray,

Sorry to be the gloom and doom guy but I've tried to get WCOV with no luck. I emailed them too. (I think I've emailed every station within 150 miles! :D ) The engineer said they are reeeeal low power on their digital transmitter right now. Just enough to comply with the law which says they have to transmit something digitally. When they go full power the tower (which is real high because it's on a hill) will be a little ways south of Montgomery (that's promising) but they are going to focus their signal northward to cover Montgomery. (Whaaaaa! ) And 100KW is only 1/10 the power of the Mobile/Pensacola UHF stations. But maybe we'll get lucky. Hope springs eternal.

I was looking at the data on the FCC page a little closer. Turns out they have a temporary permit to operate at 29KW, until 5/2005. They are only operating based on their original permit for 16.5KW. The map is based on the 29 KW. I wonder why they are not up to 29KW. Probably an oversight I would guess. I am sure if we start hitting up the Chief eng., and maybe some higher station management, we will get some attention. I like the idea about mentioning the Superbowl. Even if we can only get a temporary increase until May.

Anybody getting WEar 17-1 tonight ?

I just reread the comment from Roland. Maybe I am mistaken, but according to the FCC website they do have permission to transmit at higher power.

WEAR is on 3.1 right now in HD.

I got my wife to check for a brief moment, and it looks like it is working fine here. Couldn't watch too long because she is watching the apprentice.

It seems like Fox would care if that there are huge gaps in their coverage beacuse their affiliates don't want to fork out the $ to bring themselves up to full HD power.

I wish I knew how to contact WALA management. That last email that Roland replied to was not sent to him directly. I went to the WALA website and used "contact us", but the choices of who to send an enail to did not include the anyone like a general manager. I sent it to Programming and they just forwarded it to Engineering. :rolleyes:

Now this is wierd. i'm getting fox,cbs.nbc, but not abc over the air, I must be doing somthing wrong. i had it the other night when they were working on it.

The FCC thing is hard to interpret. The entries aren't dated. Maybe Roland could comment if it was pasted into an email or he was linked to it.

What he did tell me last fall though was that they were at 16KW and that was the max at that time that they could use. I responded to Programming that that was "pitiful" and they forwarded my email back to Roland which elicited the lecture that I pasted above.

But I think he doesn't mind answering questions. Maybe just not mine anymore. :(

A shame about WCOV. Their analog antenna is on the tallest tower in south Alabama. Just goes to show you don't believe everything you read in the FCC files. :(

With over the air (OTA) DTV, audio/video synchronization seems to be offset by different delay time for each channel. If the audio comes before the video (I'll call this "positive delay"), I am able to correct the delay with my receiver's "A/V Sync Delay" feature. The receiver simply offsets the audio by a specified number of milliseconds. (For those who are interested, the receiver is a Harman Kardon DPR 1005, and I know that several other HK models have the same feature. My guess is that
other manufacturers have the same functionality.)

Thus far, with the TV shows on tonight, I am able to correct the sync issue by watching people's mouths and listening and adjusting. This method is imprecise, but it's close.

When I started typing this, it appeared that each channel had a different delay. Now, it appears that each SHOW is different. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

The values for A/V Sync Delay that I've tested so far are as follows:

WEAR-HD 3.1: Negative delay on show 1, but close to zero on show 2.
WALA-HD 10.1: About 80ms on show 1, but close to zero on show 2.
WPMI-HD 15.1: About 15ms.
WSRE-HD 23.1: Too close close to determine with current TV show.
WJTC-HD 44.1: Delay not noticable.

One other thing to consider is that additional delays may be added if you are far away from your speaker, as sound travels about one foot per millisecond (so, if you're 15 feet away from your speaker, you're audio is delayed by about 15 milliseconds just because sound travels so much slower than light). My receiver also takes care of distance delays, so the numbers above should be close (at least for the shows I watched tonight).

-Thomas

Originally posted by tlunsf
The values for A/V Sync Delay that I've tested so far are as follows:

WEAR-HD 3.1: Negative delay on show 1, but close to zero on show 2.
WALA-HD 10.1: About 80ms on show 1, but close to zero on show 2.
WPMI-HD 15.1: About 15ms.
WSRE-HD 23.1: Too close close to determine with current TV show.
WJTC-HD 44.1: Delay not noticable.
-Thomas

The only A/V sync problem I've noticed is 3.1. My receiver may correct the others automatically but I don't notice a problem on the other channels. Anyway, 3.1 seems very out of sync to me.

Steve

While we're at it, twisting the arms of low-power stations, one thing to consider with station power is the nature of power decrease in relation to distance. Power at the receiver is inversely proportional to the SQUARE of the distance from the source. So, in order to double distance, you have to quadruple the power.

-Thomas

Thomas,

Using your audio receiver's delay function to correct an out-of-sync HD broadcast is a pretty creative work-around. Let's hope that WEAR will fix this so we don't have to continue that for very long.

I have an email from Joe Smith at WEAR. He has his own HD set and sees the same sync problem we see, so WEAR is not unaware of this. Will take time to work out.

Ok, since I brought the FCC into this, let me straighten up things so you guys will have a better idea of what to look for.

First, the FCC database will give you number of things with a single station. They will be grouped as "Analog" and "Digital". Analog of course will be the standard broadcast, digital is DTV. The possible groups for DTV will include "Construction Permit" (CP), "Special Temporary Authority" (STA), and "Licensed".

CP is what the FCC has authorized that station to do. Their "full power" target. These have been in the FCC database for years now. Sometimes you will be "Modification of Construction Permit". This is when a station asked for a change in the CP, for example, to change the authorized DTV channel to a different frequency. Panama City's NBC station (WJHG) is ch 7 analog, and originally they got assigned DTV ch 42 at 1 megawatt. They complained and asked the FCC to modify the permit and got reassigned channel 8 at 52 kilowatts. WJHG is still not on the air and a search will show only the CP. No "Licensed", no "Special Temporary Authority"

If a station builds the authorized transmitter and tower and powers it up, within a week the FCC will change the CP to "Licensed". End of story.

If the station builds a lower power transmitter, or a shorter tower, or both, when they ready to power up the FCC grants a STA. The FCC database will still show CP along with the STA data. I have no idea how long an STA can be used, maybe indefinitely. WSRE, our first DTV station in this area is STA, as well as WKRG and WALA.

Richard's mistake on WCOV was to use the CP data, instead of the STA. Right now STA said they are using 1.1kW instead of 1 MW and a stub antenna sitting on the ground on top of a hill instead of a 497 meter tower. Their STA coverage plot looks like this: http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DS619620.html When they go to full power then coverage increases to what Richard posted. But they still just reach the AL/FL border. People IN Crestview won't likely get them.

And Thomas has a point, increasing power by twice doesn't double the distance. In fact, WALA coverage plots between their STA at 16kW vs. CP at 29 kW will show a very slight increase in coverage. If you have nothing at all from WALA now, you will likely have nothing at all when they are full power. Things can improve if you increase your antenna gain or receiver sensitivity so its not hopeless. Just don't expect miracles.

So how do I see the 16kw plot for WALA?

Yes Rick, actually going to their website and seeing they were on the air with a digital signal is what threw me. Reading the FCC filings for extra time because they didn't have the money to put ANY digital signal out, then seeing their website that they indeed were broadcasting a digital signal, made me wonder if I missed something. Seeing as they are co-located with WSFA and their tall tower, I would have thought they could have just gone ahead and mounted their antenna there as their final authority assigned them. How is digital TV and HDTV going to get off the dime unless the FCC holds broadcasters feet to the fire and make them do what they were assigned to do or give up their licence to another business that will?

BTW, would 14 miles make all that much difference? Or does the signal just give out at that projected point. And if WSRE is broadcasting from their rooftop, that is amazing, because they come in here booming.

Originally posted by rray32539
BTW, would 14 miles make all that much difference? Or does the signal just give out at that projected point. And if WSRE is broadcasting from their rooftop, that is amazing, because they come in here booming.

Good question. It's been a while since I did any EMag calcs, so somebody should check me here. I just used the inverse square rule and started with my house's distance from WALA, say 40 miles. I then added 14 miles to it. Here's what I got:

Power Distance Power/Distance^2
16000 40 10
16000 54 5.5
16000 30 17.8

These values don't show raw receiving power, as there's more to the formula, but the proportionate power drop should be correct. So, you're receiving at just at "5.5 strength" relative to my "10". You could carry the calculation out for other distances. Someone at 30 miles would be at "17.8".

Also, the initial power (16000) is irrelevant as long as it's constant across calculations for the same source, but it helped illustrate the point.

Once again, feel free to check my assumptions, as it's been a while.

-Thomas

RickRs,

Thanks for interpreting the FFC data. So when WALA engineering says 16KW is all they are allowed to radiate, that means according to the STA. I'm guessing they would have to request permission to go to their "target" power originally authorized in the CP. The good news is they have been authorized to use 29KW when they are ready (or the STA runs out if it has a time limit). The bad news is there seems to be no urgency on their part to upgrade.

Thomas' statement that the transmitted power would have to quadruple in order to receive the same signal strength at twice the distance is spot on. I have to wonder though about the statement that the received power will not double at any particular distance if the transmitted power is doubled. I'm thinking if the distance doesn't change then the change in received signal strength will be directly proportionally to the change in the transmitted power. Granted it will have fallen of by 1/d^2 for any power radiated but the increase (or decrease) in received signal will be directly proportional. (At least in free space.)

I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure. I work with a PhD physicist. I'll ask him on Monday. :)

Is it coming in tonight guys ? i guess i'm going to have to go up in the attick and reaim my antenna . I hate doing this because I am getting all the other channels and I was getting 3 earlier this week, it was coming in on 17-1 on my Mitsubishi 62" DLP. I am using the stealth antenna with the amplifier.

Its not on tonight.

Did anyone receive Enterprise on OTA HD tonight (44-1)? I didn't have a signal and I've always had one in the past.

Thanks,
Steve

Its down also.

argh, i missed enterprise as well, went to watch it on my hd tivo and it wasn't there, investigated and no upn... oh well, at least they replay it on sunday

Originally posted by jrfsu1
Is it coming in tonight guys ? i guess i'm going to have to go up in the attick and reaim my antenna . I hate doing this because I am getting all the other channels and I was getting 3 earlier this week, it was coming in on 17-1 on my Mitsubishi 62" DLP. I am using the stealth antenna with the amplifier.

Don't move the antenna just yet, I'm not getting it either.

J C

David,

I called Winegard yesterday afternoon. Their engineer tells me that the SquareShooter has less than unity gain at chennel 9. That means it is worst than a standard dipole antenna, which is a reference to which other antennas are compared. Unity gain is 1. And a dipole antenna is simply two wires of length tuned to the wavelength of the frequency of interest. Regular rabbit ears are dipoles.

SquareShooter does have gain in the UHF channels and it is directional, more so than a dipole. It is intended for use in a area with multipath interference, but is not intended for fringe or near fringe use. I suggest you try a standard VHF/UHF combo antenna. A trip to Radio Shack or Lowes (they carry Channel Master antenna), or call to Daniel about Winegard would be in order.

EDIT:

If you have not checked, a starting place is http://antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx for antenna recommendations. I tend to go up from what they recommend, as more gain out here in the boondocks of Ft. Walton is never a bad thing.

Richard,

In 2003 WSRE was on a hell of a tall tower, about 1700-1800 feet. They are authorized for about 900kW but run STA at 290kW. So if they increase to full power, that would be about a 5 dB gain. But they already have good power and good height, so Roland Phillips, their engineer, told me about two year back that they saw no reason to do that. Money, you know.

As for WCOV, you might be able to get it. But DTV is unforgiving on signal strength. Talking signal strength, on the edge of the reception, you will have pixalations big time. Just below the edge, nothing. DTV's all or nothing characteristics. The worst thing is that Crestview and Ft. Walton will be just ouside of all the FOX stations coverage surrounding here.

Now those coverage map assume a certain reception setup. Can't remember but I think is was something like an antenna 20 or 30 off the ground and a gain of 12. THAT'S MY RECOLLECTION, ok. I may be off by a bit. If your setup is some super hi-gain deal, like a cable company's, then you can do better.

David,
WALA coverage at 16.5 kW: http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DS1022736.html
WALA coverage at 29 kW: http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT1022454.html
If you check, the out edge of coverage at Milton increases from just outside the east of town to just touching the edge of Eglin.

Rick, I had a SS and it never got FOX- never. Now my new DB-4 [uhf] will but it is not suppose to. I dont know why but it does. Of all the antennas that I have tried, about 6 or 8, the DB4 is by far the best and its sooooo small. There is someone on our board that has a DB-8 that lives in NW Florida, maybe he will chime in and let us know if he is getting FOX with it.

upn info:
Mr. Henderson,

The RF system that combines the 44/45 RF transmissions had a cooling system failure on the 45 side and for safety purposes the RF system interlocks will not allow us to apply the channel 45 RF signal to the combiner until the faults are cleared. Unfortunately since it happened late Friday we were not able to order parts for overnight delivery and they will not be on site until Tuesday or if we are lucky maybe Monday.

Tim Reid

A question for the FWB folks:

What type of antenna should be used in mid FWB near Beal and Memorial. I've volunteered to help a co-worker pull in some OTA stations and would like to do it just once. What can she expect to see? Will she need a rotor?

WEAR-DT

Saturday afternoon: Strong signal on Channel 17 but no audio/video on 3-1, 3-2, 17-1, 17-2. I have two ATSC tuners: one built-in the Mitsubishi TV, and one in the Hughes Sat/OTA tuner. I have been rescanning both on a daily basis. Apparently neither is able to translate correctly the PSIP data that (presumably) WEAR is transmitting. I did get WEAR-DT a few times when they first begin sending out HD, but nothing for a week now. Is anyone having any success with them?

Ricknau,

I'm within 2 miles of the Beal/Memorial intersection. Reception of WEAR, WSRE, WPMI, and WJTC DTV is good. WKRG and WALA are non-starters for me. I have a rotor but its not necessary as all Mobile/Pensacola tower are in a narrow angle. Can't get WTVY at all, can on rare nights get WMBB, but that's not necessary now WEAR is HD.

Using a Channel Master 8 bowtie antenna, the CM4228, with preamp and about 25 feet mast. Had hope for WKRG when I got it, but no luck.

If your friend is going for all signals, analog and digital, I would look at the Winegard HD8200 top-of-line with preamp to get VHF from Mobile, and a minimum of 30 feet for mast/tower. That would pull in WTVY-4 and WKRG-5 for CBS and WPBG-56 for WB. WALA-10 was a little weak and fade-prone but its at least can be watched sometimes.


beachrez,
Watched Wednesday night shows on WEAR with my Samsung STB no problem. Just checked and they are fine right now. Tuesday they didn't have anytime on 17-1, only 17-2. Signal is always strong now. Lack of info and strong strength has alway met PSIP problems for me in the past.

Let WEAR know your problem, as that's the only way to get it resolved.

beachrez, I have a Hughes and two sonys and they all are getting 3.1and 3.2 , its 8:15 pm.

Another hickup at WEAR? Aladdin was not in HD last night. On HD Programming forum everybody was raving about OAR and clarity, so they have HD.

Bobby,
Maybe beachrez has done a channel scan. If there are new PSIP problems you may not have issues until a channel scan resets some of the PSIP data stored in the box.

RickRS,

Thanks for the advise. Since she has locals in SD on Cox and is reluctant to pay a higher cable bill for the few HDs they offer the goal will be to just pull in the digital signals. That way she can at least get some HD on a few major networks. I should have been more specific in my original post. She is buying and HDTV but has no idea of what HD really is. She's had a big screen SD for years and in her mind she just wants a big screen. The model she's looking at has a built in OTA tuner so for the price of an antenna, mast and amp she can cross the threshold into the HD world.

Was anybody but me experiencing drop outs on WPMI-DT last night (Saturday night). For me the picture was cutting out for a few seconds at a time every minute or two. It was almost like I had a bad cable flipping in the high wind (I'd made made a cable swap that day at the top of my mast) but all other OTA channels were stable.

Yes, a lot of drop-outs but the wind here was real bad last night.

Rick,
For a few days WEAR was only on 17.1 and nothing on 3.1. Now its 3.1 and nothing on 17.1 so it could have been a PSIP problem.

For all the new people on this board, these problems have always occured with new HD start up. Some times it will last for weeks but in the end they will get it fix Rick worked a long time with the engineer at WPMI in getting the PSIP working on all STBs back when they went HD.

Ricknau,

Thoughts of this antenna setup:

How about at Winegard UHF yagi? They have two lines, their Platinum HD and their ProStar. Pace Electronics in Pensacola is a dealer. A goood Internet dealer would be Starkelectronic.com

Platinum HD is better built, but more expensive. HD9095P is available at Stark for $84.91. http://www.starkelectronic.com/wca9095.htm
ProStar is good and very reasonable. PR9032 is available at Stark for $35.89. http://www.starkelectronic.com/wpr9032.htm If you do mailorder there is a UPS oversize charge, so expect an additional $30 for shipping (at least thats what I remember getting socked with).

Lowes have a 30 foot mast for $44.83.
A preamp will be in the $50-75. Channel Master 7777 VHF/UHF is a favorite and Stark has a sale price of $49 right now. Or a Winegard AP4800 UHF only, which Stark has on sale for $44.95.
Next will be miscellous items such as downlead cable, lightening arrestor, guy wires, etc. Guessing about $50.

So,
$35.89 PR9032 Ant.
$44.95 AP4800 Preamp
$30 shipping, approx.
$47.52 mast + tax
$50 misc. avg.

Totals
208.36

She ready for that?

If she can get those prices in Pensacola and save shipping that's $178. I have a Channel Master Spartan preamp from Lowe that fine. Would let it go for $20 which could save her another $25 for a total of $153. Rat Shack has mast, not sure of prices, something to check.

I have not been able to receive WEAR for over a week. I am using Dish's model 6000 made by JVC. Since I live on Dauphin Island I can get the ABC affiliate from Mississippi. The folks at WEAR know of the problem and will get it correct eventually.

Is anyone watching the NFC championship on Fox? I'm still having the same issues I had with Fox back in week 1.

Literally any program outside of sports comes in fine and dandy on WALA, but when it comes to the NFL or even the World Series, every few seconds there seems to be what I call a "digital fart".

Come on WALA, after 16 weeks of broadcasting the NFL, you should have this problem fixed.

I though you "moved" coming in good on D* channel 88

Originally posted by trich
I though you "moved" coming in good on D* channel 88


Since ABC went HD, I moved back to my standard def Tivo's could record locals.

I'm going to "move" back when WEAR gets the bugs out.

Just called Fox, he indicated there "is no one here that can address your problem". He said the engineers are only there from mon - fri. I guess i'll just have to call back tomorrow. Does anyone know the name and email of the engineer at fox?

beachrez,

This topic suggest there is some FCC deadlines for PSIP info that could be causing stations to redo their PSIP datastream. Some are suggesting a quick fix for problem STB is to rescan.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=495173

Thanks for the advice and help. I had noted the Feb 1 FCC deadline for changes in PSIP data stream. Perhaps everything will get sorted out by then. Right now, I tend to believe that WEAR has some error in their PSIP data stream (but I can't prove it!) I'm doing frequent rescans hoping that the problem will be solved. But since I got out of the habit of watching WEAR for the past few years when they refused to even attempt HDTV, I don't feel that I'm missing very much.

No one here that can address your problem with an engineering question on a weekend? Boy, that must be a change from the old days when the FCC required a First Class Operator on duty whenever the transmitter was on. I know that they dropped the requirement for constant physical presence at the transmitter site when the newer transmitters came on line, they are more stable and can be operated even remotely without much engineer or operator attention. I think now the station groups even share a single chief engineer among several stations, very interesting if the stuff hits the fan!

Definately a wala related problem as directv's fox hd was flawless.

Originally posted by crimsonblake
Is anyone watching the NFC championship on Fox? I'm still having the same issues I had with Fox back in week 1.

Literally any program outside of sports comes in fine and dandy on WALA, but when it comes to the NFL or even the World Series, every few seconds there seems to be what I call a "digital fart".

Come on WALA, after 16 weeks of broadcasting the NFL, you should have this problem fixed.

I'm getting the exact same thing. CBS OTA is flawless. Wear 3 still not coming in either. I'm in west Mobile at Airport and Snow Rd. Joe says they are still working on things.

What are the options for getting the networks over satellite? I don't care so much about getting local channels as I do about getting the network feeds.

-Thomas

Thomas,

It use to be you had to get a waiver from the each of the local stations for a distant HD network feed, i.e. WKRG grants CBS waivers, WALA grants FOX, etc. And that was almost impossible in Pensacola.

David Winchester ran up against a new one when checking on FOX-HD from D*. As a new subscriber, D* will not allow him distant network feed because he has access to local stations programming via D*'s local network. Even if he got a waiver D* won't give him FOX-HD. That is their word based on new FCC rules that went into effect in Dec.

I suggest you call them yourself for the straight scoop. I don't think you are allow to "op out" of the local networks just to get distant network feed unless your in a O&O area, which Mobile/Pensacola isn't. But check for yourself.

E* has only CBS, no other networks.

And they wonder why so many people use hacked satellite cards.

Does anyone know how to file a complaint with the FCC concerning crap broadcast like WALA??

I'm tired of contacting Joe and Fields over and over for the same problems.

Thanks J C

Originally posted by JC West
Does anyone know how to file a complaint with the FCC concerning crap broadcast like WALA??

I'm tired of contacting Joe and Fields over and over for the same problems.

Thanks J C

http://www.fcc.gov

Don't expect much. Unless they can make political hay out of it (like Howard Stern's foul mouth or Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction"), you'll probably get the standard reply from the commission's public affairs section....we'll bring this to the licencee's attention and have them look into it.

I talked to Fields up at WALA. He said that the source of the audio/video breaksups is in their fiber optic connection to Orlando. Evidently they don't have the required bandwith to stream both Analog Fox, HD Fox, Digital WB (he said WB-HD, i kept correcting him but he didn't respond to it) and Analog WB. He said that to either remedy the problem for the Super Bowl, or possibly for the long run, of taking digital WB off the air. This is still in discussion, honestly I don't think this will happen, but you never know. Anyway he said he would stay in contact with me via email til the problem was resolved.

I'm not going to trust WALA to have this fixed for the Super Bowl, I'm anticipating having to "move" to watch the Super Bowl error free.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but is anybody in the GulfBreeze area getting
wear 3-hd yet, again? Also, what is the email address for the tech there.

Originally posted by crimsonblake
He said that to either remedy the problem for the Super Bowl, or possibly for the long run, of taking digital WB off the air. This is still in discussion, honestly I don't think this will happen, but you never know.

I would hope they could atleast temporarily suspend dig WB for the SB, I'm not sure about others but I never watch that channel anyways.

I am not getting any signal for WKRG, does anyone else have this prob? I am getting WEAR great. Am I missing something?

jrfsu1.

WEAR email is Joe Smith <JoeSmith@wear.sbgnet.com>

Cox also offering "Universal HD" channel as well. I'm also getting Discovery HD, though I originally did not sign up for it (extra $), but now getting it... wonder if it's a mistake, a promo, or now just part of the regular HD line-up.

Still waiting for FOX, ABC, CBS... how frustrating not to see these in Hi-Def!!!!!

dne,

That is weird because i get fox,cbs,nbc,pbs,upn, and wb all solid, but no abc (wear).

Originally posted by jrfsu1
dne,

That is weird because i get fox,cbs,nbc,pbs,upn, and wb all solid, but no abc (wear).

Same here. I corresponded with Joe Smith at wear and he told me to scan the channels and maybe that would work. That did not work and I let him know it but he has not replied. It (wear) came in great when they first brought it online but when they "fixed their problem" I lost their signal. I am lucky living on DI since I can watch ABC Miss.

Originally posted by docrings
Cox also offering "Universal HD" channel as well. I'm also getting Discovery HD, though I originally did not sign up for it (extra $), but now getting it... wonder if it's a mistake, a promo, or now just part of the regular HD line-up.

Still waiting for FOX, ABC, CBS... how frustrating not to see these in Hi-Def!!!!!

Cox started providing Discovery HD and ESPN HD for free back in December. Here is the Cox HD Pricing Page (http://www.cox.com/gulfcoast/DigitalCable/HDTV/HD_Pricing.asp)

Steve

Does anyone have, or know where i can get a 3 meter or longer HD15 to Component cable. I'm doing an install monday and all of my distributors are backordered for this cable. The customer has an rca dtc 100 hd box.

Thanks,
Daniel

Originally posted by docrings
Cox also offering "Universal HD" channel as well. I'm also getting Discovery HD, though I originally did not sign up for it (extra $), but now getting it... wonder if it's a mistake, a promo, or now just part of the regular HD line-up.

Still waiting for FOX, ABC, CBS... how frustrating not to see these in Hi-Def!!!!!

I'm a Cox HDTV customer in Crestview. Discovery HD is part of their free HD tier when you rent their HD digital box. I get Discovery HD, WPMI-HD, Universal HD, IN-HD 1 and 2, WSRE-HD, and ESPN-HD. If I subscribed to Showtime and HBO I would get their HD channels as well.

I love that IN-HD channel, watched a Chicago / Earth, Wind and Fire concert at the Greek Theatre, my teenage son was amazed at the picture. I told him you have your toys, I have mine. the difference is I share...

Wow! I'm watching my first Enterprise HDTV episode. Unbelievable!

Newbie here, I live in the west Pensacola area, can aynone tell me which is the best antenna to use, I do so want to watch the Superbowl & the Daytona 500 in hidef. Thanks

Welcome Doug. Since I live about 40 miles east of P'cola some my requirements are far different than yours. But west Pensacola should put you in a very good zone for picking up all the P'cola/Mobile stations. All the towers are between the two cities. I'll let others closer to you give specific recommendations based on their experience but in my view you should be able to use almost any antenna with reasonable gain. Since you want to get it up before the Super Bowl then mail order might be risky. But many fine antennas are at available at local retailers. Radio Shack antennas do well for a lot of people. I used one for years. I think I've read that Channel Master (or some other major brand) is sold at Lowes. I would say either of these brands will do well for you. Just buy one with decent gain (~ 10db). If they don't list the gain (most don't) get one that is rated for a range greater than you really are from the towers. I've never trusted those "mileage ratings" on antennas. If not for WALA-DT being VHF ch9 you could get by with a UHF only antenna. So get a vhf/uhf combo. I use an amp on my mast because I'm "deep fringe". You may not need one. I'll let other address that. Hope I've helped. Good luck. Can I come over to your house to watch the Super Bowl?? J/K

Originally posted by dkbraden
Newbie here, I live in the west Pensacola area, can aynone tell me which is the best antenna to use, I do so want to watch the Superbowl & the Daytona 500 in hidef. Thanks

Doug,

I'm only a few weeks ahead of you. I'm on the east side of Pensacola, but this may be of help to you...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=5022825#post5022825

The most difficult part for me was tweaking the antenna direction to get WALA 10.1 (which is showing both the Superbowl and the Daytona 500). I used a high-gain signal amplifier, but I may not have needed it if I had installed the antenna outside and at a greater height instead of in the attic. Tweaking the gain on the signal amplifier also helped me a lot.

Because you're on the west side, your signal should be a lot stronger than mine, so tweaking may not be an issue for you.

A couple other things that may help. AntennaWeb.org is rather useful for selecting an antenna and determining which direction to aim your antenna. CheckHD.com and TitanTV.com (the first ends up redirecting you to the second) give pretty good info on which stations are in the area as well as their scheduling info.

Good luck.
-Thomas

Rick & Thomas, Thank you for your inputs. I will let you all know how it turns out.

Ive been playing around in the attic , has anyone been able to get wkrg-DT over the weekend ? Also still no wear DT, but FOX, nbc,upn,and WB are strong as ever here in the Breeze. Hopefully FOX will hold thru next weekend for the big game. I just wish the local stations and the local cable companies would get it together.

Having a hard time picking up WPMI NBC. Anyone else having similar problems?

getting it here ok in the breeze, just watched law and order.

Everything except WEAR is coming in strong in West Mobile.

Isn't it amazing, although not surprising based on past history, that after 2 or more weeks, WEAR-DT can't figure out how to put out a signal that can be received and decoded by the viewing public? They did it on one or two occasions for a few hours at a time so it can be done!

Great,
Its CSI Miami night and WKRG-DT isn't coming in . Can't they get it right ?

anyone having audio issues on cbs and abc? I have a customer that has the new dish hd dvr and the audio on abc and cbs is really weird, very lowand only through the front speakers. fox comes in fine, when i switch her system to voom everything is fine, but she wants to be able to record the shows etc. Anyone have any ideas?

Daniel

Originally posted by Cinder
anyone having audio issues on cbs and abc? I have a customer that has the new dish hd dvr and the audio on abc and cbs is really weird, very lowand only through the front speakers. fox comes in fine, when i switch her system to voom everything is fine, but she wants to be able to record the shows etc. Anyone have any ideas?

Daniel

Must be the signal from the stations. I can not even receive a picture from WEAR. It might help if WEAR would send a few trainable people to their sister station in Biloxi that has been broadcasting a viewable signal for some time now. CBS is coming in fine currently with my Dish 6000 on D.I., although I lost their signal for part of the summer.

You might want to call Dish for tech support---might get lucky as I did this summer and get a technician truly interested in my problem.

Originally posted by jrfsu1
Great,
Its CSI Miami night and WKRG-DT isn't coming in . Can't they get it right ?

I didn't watch "CSI: Miami" but I did watch "Still Standing" and "Listen Up" without any problems.

Steve

cool, thanks for the tip.

Hello Mobile / Panama,

Im from the Omaha NE thread. Looks like we have the same problem. Emmis owns one of your stations in the area and they will not let them put there HD Channel on Cable as they want Money for a Free over the air channel.

Please help and Email Emmis and let them know what you think.

===============Pasted from the thread==============

Looks like over in the Omaha-Lincoln Ne Thread the Cox Cable Emmis issue is still alive.

Emmis pulled there CBS HD from Cox cable one year again demanding money for the free over the air channel.


Here is the thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/show...&pagenumber=130


Here is some info on who to Email- pated from the thread

Here are the EMAIL Addresses for the Top VPs at Emmis Corp (the ones who own KM3 and the ones who made them pull the HD).

Cut and Past Comma delimited:

rmena@emmis.com,desayian@emmis.com,kate@emmis.com,staffingde partment@emmis.com,ir@emmis.com,wzberger@emmis.com,rcummings @emmis.com

(below is a line by line list)

Please Email them weekly and ask for the free HD channel to be put back on.



KM3 and Emmis one year ago said they pulled there HD Feed because cox was charging for it and making money on it.

Things have changed in the last year.

Now all cable systems in a Emmis area offer the Local HD channels FREE unscrambled via free QAM channels.

This means the Emmis reasoning is no longer valid. They have no reason to demand money for a FREE OVER THE AIR HD Signal.

After all the Government, our tax money gave them the channel. We should be able to watch it free over the air and free on cable.

It is time for Emmis to add KM3 HD back to Cox.



rmena@emmis.com
desayian@emmis.com
kate@emmis.com
staffingdepartment@emmis.com
ir@emmis.com
wzberger@emmis.com
rcummings@emmis.com

I own a business, and as much as I don't like it, I have an opinion as to why this problem exists. It's a simple business question: "How will this action make me money?"

The local station isn't inclined to add even a DTV OTA feed at all, because it's redundant to analog and will not make them any more advertising money (unless they were to have different commercials targeted at the early-adopter demographic, but that's wishful thinking). Without the FCC we would still be JUST TALKING about digital (every once in a while government intervention is a good thing).

The cable company is making no additional money by showing the station, once again because it's a redundant feed and costs them bandwidth, so they need to charge a fee. They MAY gain a few more DTV subscribers because they have network DTV, but most people will not let lack of network stations stop them from subscribing.

So where does that leave us? Unfortunately, we need a third party (ahem, the government) who can tell the stations and the cable companies to get their [stuff] together. Eventually, a fair price will have to be worked out that the stations will pay the cable companies.

-Thomas

Originally posted by jrfsu1
Great,
Its CSI Miami night and WKRG-DT isn't coming in . Can't they get it right ?

Thomas, Gulf Breeze is just over the line for WKRG's DTV -41 dBu service contour, so your reception will be spotty. Just think, you could be in FWB and WKRG-HD would be non-existance :)

Jim Richardson at WKRG is still saying they are on-schedule for full power in July 05. When that happens, coverage goes from now (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DS593820.html) to July (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT499365.html)

Also, Jim said WKRG will stay at ch 27 when the day analog is switched off, so WALA will remain the only VHF channel from Mobile.

Did anyone else lose Fox's broadcast of "24" last nite during the show? About 15 minutes into the program, I lost signal. Immediately after the show was over, the signal came back at full strength. Btw, during this period, all my other HD's came in fine. Is this a common occurance for Fox? If this happens during my Super Bowl party, I will be mortified. :eek: :D .

This may be a little late, but does someone want to notify the News Journal that Fox will be broadcasting the SuperBowl in HD? This may put them on the spot to deliver a quality broadcast.

Just ordered the ATI HDTV card... will let everyone know how it picks up in the Perdido Bay Golf Course area.

Still need to order a DirectX 9.0 videocard and a decent antenna that will also work when we move to Gulf Breeze next Summer....

Anyone else have a similar ATI HTPC setup?

Doc Rings

Originally posted by DennyH
Did anyone else lose Fox's broadcast of "24" last nite during the show? About 15 minutes into the program, I lost signal. Immediately after the show was over, the signal came back at full strength. Btw, during this period, all my other HD's came in fine. Is this a common occurance for Fox? If this happens during my Super Bowl party, I will be mortified. :eek: :D .

Came in fine on D.I.

DennyH, where are you located?

WEAR-DT

I'm still receiving a strong signal on Channel 17 but no audio/no video for 3-1, 3-2, 17-1 or 17-2 using either a Hughes HIRD-E86 tuner, or the tuner built-in to a new Mitsubishi. I have been rescanning/resetting once or twice a day on both tuners but no programming is received. (I'm also getting no responses from Joe Smith at WEAR.) Are there any people in the area who are properly receiving the WEAR broadcasts? If so, what equipment are you using?

Originally posted by docrings
Just ordered the ATI HDTV card... will let everyone know how it picks up in the Perdido Bay Golf Course area.

Still need to order a DirectX 9.0 videocard and a decent antenna that will also work when we move to Gulf Breeze next Summer....

Anyone else have a similar ATI HTPC setup?

Doc Rings

Talked to Robert at Pace Electronics in Pensacola. He recommended the SS-2000 "Square shooter" due to the built-in amp and aesthetics/WAF. He said if it didn't work, I'd have 30 days to return it (good for an outdoor antenna!)

Anyone use this antenna to good effect in Pensacola/Gulf Breeze area?

I haven't used the ss 2000 in your area, but i've used it in some applications. Having the amp built in is very nice and it's mated well. My only reason for using the ss1000 and antennas direct db4 instead is because the ss 2000 limits your ability to try it without a preamp which can work better in some locations. Food for thought.

Beach, I have no problem getting WEAR [3.1-3.2] with a Hughes HTL-HD and my Sony HD200. You do know that by years end D* is going to MPEG-4 so all of these boxes will be obsolete. Lets hope that D* will replace them free. I can tell you this, over the last 4 years I have bough Three HD STBs TWO of them were $800 a piece [Sony] and the other one was $250, I will not pay D* for a new box. If its free I will stay. Foley cable is going HD sometimes this year so I'll have to see what they offer...price and content.........

Originally posted by beachrez
WEAR-DT

I'm still receiving a strong signal on Channel 17 but no audio/no video for 3-1, 3-2, 17-1 or 17-2 using either a Hughes HIRD-E86 tuner, or the tuner built-in to a new Mitsubishi. I have been rescanning/resetting once or twice a day on both tuners but no programming is received. (I'm also getting no responses from Joe Smith at WEAR.) Are there any people in the area who are properly receiving the WEAR broadcasts? If so, what equipment are you using?

I'm in Theodore which is South of Mobile. I'm using the Samsung TS-160 & the TS-360.
Both of these boxes get 3-1 crystal clear, 100% signal.
After a couple of weeks the 17-1 & 17-2 got dropped frpom my menu, thought they changed something @ WEAR.

The SD audio is in sync but the HD is still about 2 seconds off.

J C

I'm having serious issues with NBC HD, am i the only one?

Alright, just for grins I bought the USDigital HDTV set-top receiver from Wal-Mart and an RCA #1250 "amplified" indoor antenna.

Hooked it all up, and got seven UHF stations with four in HD and great pictures right off the bat! And that was with the antenna sitting on the floor and "kinda" pointing to the Northwest...tower farm about 24 miles away from my Perdido Bay/Key location.

WEAR-HD and SD , ABC, though "off the air" was displayed
WPMI-HD and SD , NBC
WSRE-HD, SD 1 & 2 , PBS
WJTC-HD, UPN

Missing WALA (Fox), WKRG (CBS), WMPV (TBN), WHBR (Religous)

All rock steady pictures and sound on a 50" Pioneer CMX-503 plasma, and Yamaha 5.1 system.

So far, for $198 bucks, this little tuner is pretty nice...

Mini-Review:
-Quick setup menu... Channel scan and option to repeat if your not happy with the channels it found.
-Time zone selection with auto clock from a digital TV station
-quick channel changes
-Nice remote
-I didn't realize, but HD channels also broadcast an "info" on each program and a "program guide" for all their HD AND SD content... kinda like "guide" on Tivo or DirecTV.... nice!
-Each time you change, you get a little info box with title of show, info on the show, and a signal strength meter.
-Nice blue colored menus.
-Component, S-video, composite video out
-menu selection of video output mode: Composite/S-vid, or 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i. If you make a mistake and select a mode that doesn't work, it will revert to the last working mode. If does this by having you "confirm" that the new mode is working (if it isn't you won't see the "confirm" screen)
-Optical digital sound out
-RCA Right/Left sound out
-USB input jack (firmware upgrades???)
-Closed caption options (lots)
-alternate language tracks
-parental controls & ratings
-manual channel selection and strength display for antenna pointing
-rescan of channels and "adding" to previous saved stations (or) option to overwrite all on re-scan.

Can't wait to see what a "fringe" [MD] antenna will do in the attic for the other channels... fingers-crossed for FOX...33 miles away and VHF...

More avsforum threads on this unit:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=479882&highlight=usdigital

manufacturer: http://www.usdigitalhdtv.com/

A San Diego user: http://hdtv.forsandiego.com/messages/1/1850.html?1095143642

Good review and comparison to Samsung tuner: http://www.satelliteguys.us/archive/index.php/t-32514.html

Another article:
http://technology360.typepad.com/technology360/2004/06/usdigital_dtv_s_1.html

Originally posted by docrings
Talked to Robert at Pace Electronics in Pensacola. He recommended the SS-2000 "Square shooter" due to the built-in amp and aesthetics/WAF. He said if it didn't work, I'd have 30 days to return it (good for an outdoor antenna!)

Anyone use this antenna to good effect in Pensacola/Gulf Breeze area?

Doc, if Robert at Pace gives you a 30 day return policy, go for it. However, I have done a little snooping in an attempt to help out a AVS member in Milton having problems with a SquareShooter he got from BestBuy. He can't get WALA.

Bobby Ray, aka Trich, has tried the SquareShooter and couldn't get WALA. I forgot exactly where Bobby Ray is at, but its somewhere in Penscola area.

I called Winegard and talked with their engineers. They confim, the SquareShooter is really a UHF only antenna. WALA is VHF (CH 9).
Here (http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/comparing.html) is some comparions of antennas. Check the plot on the bottom of the page and you will see it is the poorest antenna you could use for channel 9 (negative 22dB gain). Checking the second plot from the top, you will see that its the weakest of the outdoor antennas but better than an indoor antenna.

Its pretty pricy for its performance, but if it appearance is what you want and it works in your locality...

Alternates could be any brand of VHF/UHF combo. If that is too much antenna in appearance and you can get a "try and return" agreement, I would suggest the CM4228 (http://www.channelmaster.com/images/4228.jpg) from Channel Master. Its really a UHF 8 bowtie configuration, but does get high VHF channels. You will see it on the same VHF plot were the SquareShooter's shortcomings are shown. Its not as noticable as the standard combo antennas. Bobby Ray is reporting he get WALA with the DB4 (http://www.antennasdirect.com/db4_bow.htm) but I would try the CM4228 first.

If I remember, you are moving to Gulf Breeze, which is farther away from the transmitter, so if the SquareShooter works where you are now, it maybe too weak when you do that move.

Guys, I'm on the east side of pensacola.

I have a channel master 3018 up in the attic.

Depending on where I hook the wires to the antenna, I can get WEAR & PBS and nothing else. If I hook the wires to a different spot I get WALA (90%) & PBS. I had a Silver Sensor in the living room and was able to get NBC, but nothing else.

I have never been able to get WKRG.

Any ideas or suggestions?

The ones I really want are the following:

CBS/NBC/ABC

Should I just get a new UHF antenna and stick it in the attic?

I have the national FOX feed from D*, so it isn't a priority.

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions

Thanks

Hook the wires to?

Are you talking about wires to support the antenna? If so, maybe fishing line would be better than wires (non-conductive, won't screwup the antenna tuning).

And you should get better reception than what you do get. WMPI is one of the strongest station, along with WEAR now. Why can you only get that with a indoor antenna? Are you sure you're pointing in the right direction?

I know it sounds strange, but on the antenna there are two parts, one which is smaller and round, and has two spots to attach the wire which goes to the coax.

I currently have the wire attached to the top part and the bottom part. I am getting 15-1, 10-1, 23-1, 44-1, all with 80-90% strength. I have no clue why I'm not getting WEAR. Earlier in the evening, I wasn't even getting a signal for 10-1, and now after changing the stinking wire position on the antenna, I get 90% strength.

I didn't know if this situation would obviously describe something I'm doing wrong, or something I could easily do to fix this. If I could just get WEAR, I'd be happy.

I hate antennas.

Daphatman,

Here (http://www.channelmaster.com/pdf/3014_20manual.pdf) is the assembly instructions for the Advantage series antennas from Channel Master. Look at figure after "Transmission Line" and Fig. 6. Is this how you are connecting?

Also, are you getting signal strenght but no picture or sound? Sometimes there are problems with the PSIP info transmitted by the station that affects some receivers and not others. Problem will be a strong signal but receiver can't figure out what to do so you see/hear nothing. Beachrez is reporting this very problem with his setup now. What are you using for DTV receiver?

Rick,

Thanks for your help.

It is just a strange situation. I initially had them connected both to the folded UHF diapole. As of right now I have one connected to the UHF dipole, and there are other phasing rods that attach at the top...to more of the "main" antenna. The only channel I know I should be getting is WEAR, but I'm not.

Everything else (besides CBS) is coming in fine.

I am thinking about getting an amp, but I can't find any diplexers locally that pass power.

Thanks for all the information... I'll probably end up trying the DB4 or the 4228 due to your recommendations... thanks for the input!

Doc


Originally posted by RickRS
Doc, if Robert at Pace gives you a 30 day return policy, go for it. However, I have done a little snooping in an attempt to help out a AVS member in Milton having problems with a SquareShooter he got from BestBuy. He can't get WALA.

Bobby Ray, aka Trich, has tried the SquareShooter and couldn't get WALA. I forgot exactly where Bobby Ray is at, but its somewhere in Penscola area.

I called Winegard and talked with their engineers. They confim, the SquareShooter is really a UHF only antenna. WALA is VHF (CH 9).
Here (http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/comparing.html) is some comparions of antennas. Check the plot on the bottom of the page and you will see it is the poorest antenna you could use for channel 9 (negative 22dB gain). Checking the second plot from the top, you will see that its the weakest of the outdoor antennas but better than an indoor antenna.

Its pretty pricy for its performance, but if it appearance is what you want and it works in your locality...

Alternates could be any brand of VHF/UHF combo. If that is too much antenna in appearance and you can get a "try and return" agreement, I would suggest the CM4228 (http://www.channelmaster.com/images/4228.jpg) from Channel Master. Its really a UHF 8 bowtie configuration, but does get high VHF channels. You will see it on the same VHF plot were the SquareShooter's shortcomings are shown. Its not as noticable as the standard combo antennas. Bobby Ray is reporting he get WALA with the DB4 (http://www.antennasdirect.com/db4_bow.htm) but I would try the CM4228 first.

If I remember, you are moving to Gulf Breeze, which is farther away from the transmitter, so if the SquareShooter works where you are now, it maybe too weak when you do that move.

I am so happy, Just got my antenna up, and got all of the channels. Superbowl here I come.

Originally posted by dkbraden
I am so happy, Just got my antenna up, and got all of the channels. Superbowl here I come.

Details, details!

Which antenna(s)?
How long is your antenna cable?
Any pre-amps/amps?
Attic or roof or pole?
Orientation/heading?
What is your location exactly?

What are you using for a digital tuner?

Thanks!

Doc

Doc,
I got the antenna from radio shack, Model: VU-90 XR, My cable is 50 ft , no pre amps, its attached to the side of the house on a 20 foot pole, aimed approx. nw

I'm using the dish HD reciever, and I am located in west Pensacola. (Montclair)

Originally posted by dkbraden
Doc,
I got the antenna from radio shack, Model: VU-90 XR, My cable is 50 ft , no pre amps, its attached to the side of the house on a 20 foot pole, aimed approx. nw

I'm using the dish HD reciever, and I am located in west Pensacola. (Montclair)

Gracias! That information is helpful, and I'll look into the RS antenna for future use.

I just started picking up FOX HD last night while idealizing placement of my indoor antenna... the RCA #1025. It's mounted on top of the book case, and is "looking" through an open window to the Northwest. Strength about 60% but locks well.

Doc

Originally posted by docrings
Thanks for all the information... I'll probably end up trying the DB4 or the 4228 due to your recommendations... thanks for the input!

Doc

I hope you can get a return agreement with whatever you try. The worst thing about this is that you can only find out how much antenna you need by trial and error. Understand that I'm recommanding the CM4228 if you don't like the idea of a big VHF/UHF combo antenna. They can outperform the CM4228 on WALA, CM4228 can outperform them on everything else. When WKRG goes full power this summer, WALA will be the weakest of the available networks.

How much is enough? Short of a actual field strength test performed by a knowledgeable technician at the location where the antenna will be located, trial and error.

In about the last hour or so, my signal went from around 70 for WALA down to around 40. I am getting no picture or sound whatsoever. Has anybody else lost signal?

-Thomas

I am getting some break up on Fox

Originally posted by mtchd
I am getting some break up on Fox

Me too. Just called Directv and moved back to Brooklyn to get the Super Bowl.

If you have Directv, you might want to do this now, to assure you get the Super Bowl in crystal clear HDTV.

Originally posted by mtchd
I am getting some break up on Fox

I'm also getting breakup. If it continues through the game, I'll probably email my displeasure to the Pensacola News Journal "letters to the editor", WALA, and FOX headquarters.

Steve

Originally posted by mtchd
I am getting some break up on Fox

Mtchd,

You're in Mary Esther. What's your antenna setup to get WALA-FOX?

I've already sent my comments to WALA. PNJ sounds good too. If they use the FCC's expected coverage map to sell commercials, then they're close to commiting fraud. Though I don't expect that they're selling commercials based on DTV yet.

Originally posted by rute
I'm also getting breakup. If it continues through the game, I'll probably email my displeasure to the Pensacola News Journal "letters to the editor", WALA, and FOX headquarters.

Steve

It actually turned out to be better than I expected. There were a couple of minor breakups but nothing that really interfered with watching the game. I was satisfied.

Steve

I wasn't interested in the Super Bowl so I was watching NCIS and Cold Case instead. Conditions were just right and WKRG on ch 27 was clear and steady for those two hours. This is the first time this has happened in several months (8+) for me. Normally I get nothing from WKRG. Love that tropospheric skip! Wonder if it could have messed up close reception for those reports of dropout on WALA?

WALA came in great in West Mobile. Only a few breakups on the really congested parts. D* sure was plugging their HD future last night...

If you have had trouble receiving WEAR, you might want to try again. I am receiving it tonight for the first time in several weeks.

I just got home and found 3-1 and 3-2 (WEAR-HD and SD) on both of my tuners. It has taken them a month to get this straightened. Maybe they will leave well enough alone for awhile. I haven't watched WEAR/ABC for several years now (as a personal protest!). I'll have to see if there anything worthwhile on the station now that I can receive it.

Originally posted by beachrez
I just got home and found 3-1 and 3-2 (WEAR-HD and SD) on both of my tuners. It has taken them a month to get this straightened. Maybe they will leave well enough alone for awhile. I haven't watched WEAR/ABC for several years now (as a personal protest!). I'll have to see if there anything worthwhile on the station now that I can receive it.

Turned WEAR-HD and it featured a show called "wife sharing" or "wife swapping"... I passed on this trash in HD...

hello to the pensacola and area folks somewaht of a newbe was fooling around tonight and had an old 9 dollar rca antenna put it up in the attic and picked up quite a few stations wear upn wpmi( ithink) i found this site from hdtvoice and man there is a lot more people from pensacola here than i thought

i have a sony kd34xs955 and man its great with what i can pull in from a cheap antenna!!! what funny about the antenna is i bought a house on aug31 and moved in 2 days before ivan i hooked up the antenna outside to the main cable block comming into the house and forgot to take it down before ivan it lasted throught the storm and still works great!!!!

what good local source for antennas are there in pcola ive snooped the forums tonight and picked up on pace electronics and (s)lowes but i want to get it right ill need uhf and vhf for all th local ota dt's

i hope to pick up a lot of good info from everyone and i want to thank you all for any help

thanks

chad

I am still without WALA. Up until two hours before the Superbowl, it came in on 10.1. Now, I ALMOST get it on 9.3. I say "almost" because it will come in for about one second every two minutes.

Fellow Sony owners who have purchased their TV's in the past year, what channel does WALA come on for you?

Fellow Sony owners who have purchased their TV's in the past year, what channel does WALA come on for you? [/B]

still learning here what antenna are you using im off creighton rd betewwn 9th and scenic hwy

chad

I have a Channel Master. Full details in my post on Jan 29. For what it's worth, I'm betting your altitude is a few feet higher than mine.

yeah im gonna chek out lowes i just noticed a few min ago that my neighbor has an antenna on her roof but im not sure if she is using it ill have to ask her, i might be able to use at least the mounting pole if not anything elese

as far as the height ill have to check out the gps to get the rough elev...............

chad

Greetings:

I watched Alias last evening on 3-1 HD and it appears that they have the lip-sync issus fixed. 3-1 came online with a perfect picture, I have yet to see a pixelation on it. They are either on or off.

J C

Voom updated our DMA mapping yesterday and when I got home we had 3-1 HD and 3-2 SD and they worked great. The HD was perfect with no breakups. I'm finally in HD bliss and freakin Voom's going away. I would hate to go back to Mediacom HD.

Originally posted by joverstr2
Voom updated our DMA mapping yesterday and when I got home we had 3-1 HD and 3-2 SD and they worked great. The HD was perfect with no breakups. I'm finally in HD bliss and freakin Voom's going away. I would hate to go back to Mediacom HD.


Can you describe what you like and dislike about Medicacom HD? We are moving to Gulf Breeze this Summer, and talking to their operators is pointless concerning HD...

I have done a search but not much came up.

Please give alot of details (what HD channels, any local HD content, HD-PVR equipment [if any]...)

ANY and all details are desired!!!!

Thanks!

Doc Rings

Hey Doc,

I'll try my best from memory.
We loved the DVR but we did have problems. On the HD channels we had a lot of pixelation breakups and audio dropouts. We could not watch an entire show without a pixelation or audio problem. HD channels were Discovery HD Theater, HDNET, HDNET Movies, ESPN-HD and Bravo HD. No local HD content. We had the Motorolla 6408 DVR box and we had it hooked up by DVI to a Hitachi 51" RPTV. It is a sigle tuner DVR so you have to stay on the channel that you are recording. You could set a future recording and it would auto go to that channel and start recording. They are now on the 6412 and in the future will support dual tuners by software upgrade. More info here....http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,12562043~mode=flat
I hope this was enough information for you, the above link will have more on Mediacom from areas around the country.

Well guys if anyone is in the daphne area tomorrow we're going to have a booth at the daphne civic center for the business expo. We're going very low key with no products to show, but brochures and lit, if anyone wants to stop by and chat feel free.

Daniel

Comcast (in Panama City) is a thief!!!!
Last night they removed ESPNHD,DSCHD,INHD,INHD2 & PBSHD from my cablecard service. No notice - nothing - I had to call to find out what was happening. I am left with network HD form NBC,ABC,CBS & Fox. They want to charge me 14.95$ for what I have been receiving for 5$ since Oct/04
They said they made a mistake when I signed up for their service. - BS!!!

Are they doing this to any of you?

Originally posted by scannerman
Comcast (in Panama City) is a thief!!!!
Last night they removed ESPNHD,DSCHD,INHD,INHD2 & PBSHD from my cablecard service. No notice - nothing - I had to call to find out what was happening. I am left with network HD form NBC,ABC,CBS & Fox. They want to charge me 14.95$ for what I have been receiving for 5$ since Oct/04
They said they made a mistake when I signed up for their service. - BS!!!

Are they doing this to any of you?

Makes me glad I have Cox Cable. I get all of those channels free as part of the High Definition services. I hope they don't get any ideas from Comcast. I could understand them charging for the premium HD services, but I think they are out of line by charging for the network (NBC / ABC /CBS/ FOX / PBS) HD network signals. They're cherry picking them out of the air. I'd question the cable company and put a bug in the ear of the local station manager for each network. Sounds like they're ripping the affiliate and the cable customer off.

Originally posted by rray32539
... I could understand them charging for the premium HD services, but I think they are out of line by charging for the network (NBC / ABC /CBS/ FOX / PBS) HD network signals. They're cherry picking them out of the air. ....

I thought the reason Cox only had PBS and NBC in the Gulf Coast area was because they were having to pay the stations for their signal and they hadn't worked out an agreement yet?

Originally posted by joverstr2
Hey Doc,

I'll try my best from memory.
We loved the DVR but we did have problems. On the HD channels we had a lot of pixelation breakups and audio dropouts. .....the above link will have more on Mediacom from areas around the country.


Thanks for the information.
We'll give medicacom one chance, and if they blow it, we're gone.
I saw the DirecTV HD PVR at Best Buy, with dual-tuners, and hopefully prices will come down... will also be able to get Over-The-Air off that unit as well. The downside is the tuner at each TV, even for SDTV...not great WAF.

Decisions, decisions...

rray:

For 5$ I get network HD (ABCHD/NBCHD/CBSHD & FOXHD). Are you getting network HD in addition to ESPNHD,PBSHD,DSCHD,INHD & INHD2 for an additional fee? Exactly what is your bundle and what is your fee.

At the core does'nt this paticular episode of pulling the plug abruptly seem illegal or at least reportable to FCC and BBB?

I am talking to the GM monday and am strongly considering pulling the plug on them and get my services elsewhere.

Any experiences with local satelite?

Thanks

This is my first post here. I was thinking of getting set up with an antenna to get the over the air stuff in the area. I live across Airport from Providence hospital. I want to get the best possible recption for HDTV.
I was thinking about a Channel Master 3671B or Wineguard HD8200p antenna, CM 7777 pre amp or the Wineguard 8275, rotater CM9521A with any antenna I get. As far as HDTV reciver I have no idea? Any help for the new guy would be great.

Mark

Originally posted by 99LSFM2
This is my first post here. I was thinking of getting set up with an antenna to get the over the air stuff in the area. I live across Airport from Providence hospital. I want to get the best possible recption for HDTV.
I was thinking about a Channel Master 3671B or Wineguard HD8200p antenna, CM 7777 pre amp or the Wineguard 8275, rotater CM9521A with any antenna I get. As far as HDTV reciver I have no idea? Any help for the new guy would be great.

Mark

Who is your provider? Comcast? Directv? Dish?

I personally have a squareshooter in my attic, but that probably won't work for you. My grandmother lives off Gov't at Azaela. We put up a Channel Master 4228 and receive all the channels with almost no problem at all. I have NO pre-amp on it.

http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/cm4228.html

I have Comcast and did a 90 day 39.99 Hdtv thing with them and was not impressed. If I can get 5 to 8 HD channels for free I will like it better. I considered VOOM but Comcast still wants $50 for the modem.

Mark

Originally posted by 99LSFM2
I have Comcast and did a 90 day 39.99 Hdtv thing with them and was not impressed. If I can get 5 to 8 HD channels for free I will like it better. I considered VOOM but Comcast still wants $50 for the modem.

Mark

UPN
CBS
ABC
NBC
PBS
FOX

Is what you'll currently get for free OTA here in Mobile.

I have no idea I have not tried an antenna other than rabbit ears after Ivan. The only channel I got worth watching was 5. The signal was not good enough to watch on my big TV. I ended up hooking them to my 32" to get a picture worth watching. I will keep my cable for normal TV I just want some HDTV at a good price. I have talked with Cinder and may have him come out and take a look at my stuff and see what he thinks.

Mark

I'm generally a happy early adopter, but at this point, all I can say about HDTV in this area of the country is, "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here". The signals arre just too weak and station configuration is still in flux.

If you do decide to pursue HDTV, just be ready to have a signal one day and nothing the next, and sometimes the channel numbers even change from time to time. Just be warned.

Originally posted by tlunsf
I'm generally a happy early adopter, but at this point, all I can say about HDTV in this area of the country is, "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here". The signals arre just too weak and station configuration is still in flux.

If you do decide to pursue HDTV, just be ready to have a signal one day and nothing the next, and sometimes the channel numbers even change from time to time. Just be warned.

Speak for yourself. Most that post here live in Pensacola, for us that live in the Mobile, area... we generally don't have the problems that those east of Mobile do (including the eastern shore).

I've had issues with local channels, but 99 percent of the time it is a local affiliate's problem, not mine.

tlunsf,

this what I am looking for, I am willing to spend about a grand $1000 to get started if I can get five or so channels in HDTV that work most of the time, even if it is only prime time.

Mark

Mark,

I don't think you will need to drop a grand to get OTA DTV if you're in Mobile. The setup you are suggesting is top of the line, deep fringe stuff. If you were here in Ft Walton, I would suggest that at the drop of hat, but you are a lot closer than me.

Check AntennaWeb (http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx) for their suggested rig first. It should help get you started. Let us know what results you get and we can offer some suggestions. Its not the final word on what to get, as it doesn't even return NBC, ABC, or UPN DTV for me, all which I get just fine here in Ft. Walton.

The Mobile members will have good info on what works. You may not need a preamp or a rotor at all.

Originally posted by tlunsf
I'm generally a happy early adopter, but at this point, all I can say about HDTV in this area of the country is, "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here". The signals arre just too weak and station configuration is still in flux.

Actually, this area is coming along fine. We got all the major networks in HD, and half are at full strength. WKRG will go to 1 megawatts this July. WALA is actually close to its full strength, as is WSRE. All channels are strong enought to cover Mobile/Pensacola. WEAR-ABC just got their HD gear working and finally appears to have the bugs worked out. Everybody else has been doing HD for some time now.

Us deep fringers in Ft Walton/Crestview will likely never get WALA-DTV, but that's just our sour luck. At some point Cox will start carrying them and we will stop complaining and sign up for cable again.

Originally posted by scannerman
rray:

For 5$ I get network HD (ABCHD/NBCHD/CBSHD & FOXHD). Are you getting network HD in addition to ESPNHD,PBSHD,DSCHD,INHD & INHD2 for an additional fee? Exactly what is your bundle and what is your fee.

At the core does'nt this paticular episode of pulling the plug abruptly seem illegal or at least reportable to FCC and BBB?

I am talking to the GM monday and am strongly considering pulling the plug on them and get my services elsewhere.

Any experiences with local satelite?

Thanks

To answer your question, yes. For the cost of the Cox's HD converter box ($5, which gives me access to ALL digital services, SD and HD) I get one digital service tier free of charge. I chose the information tier, and get Weatherscan Local, Bloomberg, and the Discovery digital services. With their free HD tier I get Discovery HD, NBC, PBS, Universal HD, InHD 1 and 2, and ESPN HD. If I ordered additonal premium services such as HBO or Showitme, I would get their HD service free of charge as well. My wife works for DirecTV and we had the chance to take the locals. We kept the distant signals. Now, if you are in a station's DMA, even if you cannot receive them, DirecTV cannot sell you distant signals and must sell you the local services. If you're looking to get DirecTV for HD, the inside story (not so secret really) is to wait. New things on the horizon.

As for why this mess is the way it is, don't blame the FCC or the BBS, blame Fox networks and a federal court judge in south Florida. Don't be surpised if the station GM really doesn't care about you taking your business elsewhere. They're the guys holding the cable and satellite providers hostage with demands for obscene amounts of cash and payments in kind for retransmission rights.

Originally posted by RickRS
Us deep fringers in Ft Walton/Crestview will likely never get WALA-DTV, but that's just our sour luck. At some point Cox will start carrying them and we will stop complaining and sign up for cable again.

Yeah, with a 300' tower on Old Bethel Road, Cox may be our saving grace. WALA comes in great, clear and sharp on the cable in Crestview. But with cable, big satellite dishes and a OTA antenna, people suspect that I run a cable headend! :D

RickRS,

After spending most of the weekend on the forum and a phone call with Warren Electronics I will be scraping the pre-amp idea. With a CM 3671B coupled with a rotator I may pickup stuff from the East and West. If any one from the Mobile area has tried this and has knowledge I would love to know. If not myself and my boss are going to give it a try. If I was smart I would let him try it first and see how it works! I am also thinking of the LG LST-4200A for my receiver.

Mark

Mark I dont see why you would need a rotator. Ever thing you need is east of you.

I was thinking I may get about four or so more channels out of the Biloxi/ Gulfport area.

Mark

But CBS,NBC,ABC,FOX, UPN and PBS is east of you, all in HD. Gulfport [ABC] is the only HD that you will get west of you. I just think you are wasting a lot of $$$$ for a rotator.

Originally posted by RickRS
Actually, this area is coming along fine. We got all the major networks in HD, and half are at full strength. WKRG will go to 1 megawatts this July. WALA is actually close to its full strength, as is WSRE. All channels are strong enought to cover Mobile/Pensacola. WEAR-ABC just got their HD gear working and finally appears to have the bugs worked out. Everybody else has been doing HD for some time now.

Us deep fringers in Ft Walton/Crestview will likely never get WALA-DTV, but that's just our sour luck. At some point Cox will start carrying them and we will stop complaining and sign up for cable again.

Why do I have such a negative message? Because I want people in the east-of-Mobile area who are considering purchasing a multi-thousand dollar setup to know the truth first. Circuit City and Best Buy certainly aren't telling the truth. There's a good chance I would have waited if I had known about the inconsistencies with station signal and configuration. For example, WALA-DT's signal was GONE for me for over a week, starting two hours before the Superbowl. After that, it showed up for a few days as 9.3 with an unwatchable signal strength. At the moment it's back on 10.1.

I understand your point, but I'm not on board until things are consistent on all the networks for a solid month, which means that I'm pretty much going to stay off this message board until after July or August when WKRG may or may not show its face on my screen.

Originally posted by trich
But CBS,NBC,ABC,FOX, UPN and PBS is east of you, all in HD. Gulfport [ABC] is the only HD that you will get west of you. I just think you are wasting a lot of $$$$ for a rotator.


I completely agree, but something tells me Mark isn't listening to any of our advice.

I am listening and taking in all that is said. The stuff to the West may not be HD yet but at some point will go HD. I am a humble new guy that wants to make the OTA move one time and live with the choices I have made for many years. I have tried Comcast HD and it was great, I would love to do Voom but comcast still wants $50 a month for the modem and I am not willing to pay that. I like the speed of a cable modem and spend alot of my time on the computer. Basic cable and an antenna that will give me the most channels is what I am after. I do not want to upgrade at a latter point that is why I may go a bit overboard in the start. The cost of a rotater is about 60 bucks, To me that is not a big sum if in the end it gives me a few more HD channels. With the rotator if I am getting a few ghost's I may be able to fine tune and work the bugs out! I may be off my rocker with all of my ideas and that is why I have made post's here to get some direction. I am a new guy and looking for some help and who knows , when I get set up I may be able to give some direction's to the next new guy!

Mark

Originally posted by tlunsf
Why do I have such a negative message? Because I want people in the east-of-Mobile area who are considering purchasing a multi-thousand dollar setup to know the truth first. Circuit City and Best Buy certainly aren't telling the truth. There's a good chance I would have waited if I had known about the inconsistencies with station signal and configuration. For example, WALA-DT's signal was GONE for me for over a week, starting two hours before the Superbowl. After that, it showed up for a few days as 9.3 with an unwatchable signal strength. At the moment it's back on 10.1.

I understand your point, but I'm not on board until things are consistent on all the networks for a solid month, which means that I'm pretty much going to stay off this message board until after July or August when WKRG may or may not show its face on my screen.

That's strange because I live East of Mobile and watched the SuperBowl on WALA HD OTA as well as friends of mine that live out in Gulf Breeze. I do have an external antenna that is 20 Ft above the ground (10 FT above the roof line)

As far as buying a multi-thousand dollar system based exclusively on what a salesperson tells me at Best Buy or Circuit City, I would never do that. I did quite a bit of research prior to spending that kind of money and knew what I was getting in to. This is the price we pay for being on the cutting edge.

Lastly if you want a guaranteed stable HD signal then you'll have to wait until after 2006 when the FCC has mandated it.

Steve

Are there any Panama City/Bay county HDTV users out there??
Are we in a black hole here in Bay County??
Anyone out there? Am I alone? Hello! Hello!

Hello again guys, sorry I don't get to post very often. We lost our hd8200P during Ivan, we did however keep satellite throughout! I finally just ordered new antenna today, will let you know how it works ...ordered from antennas direct their deep fringe XG 91. It sounded great for the price and the reviews. Anyone using one currently?

Scannerman,

I think you are the only Panama City member, or at least the only one I remember posting. There has been a small number from the Walton county area.

The reason for the wide area of coverage, Mobile to Panama City, has been on account of us people from Ft. Walton/Crestview in Okaloosa county. We are almost dead center between the two markets. I have been posting info on Panama City reception for some time. For a while, the only option for ABC-HD was WMBB, which would at least reach FWB when atmospheric conditions were right. Parts of Okaloosa county can get get WMBB, WFSU, and WTVY of Dothan just fine OTA.

Feel free to post. And if you want, you could see if the moderator will let you start a thread just for Panama City. I was surpriced to see you have HD for all networks. Since the other Panama City stations were so late getting on the air I thought it would be ages before they sprung for the HD equipment.

If you do start a Panama City only thread, post a note so any one here interested can check it out.

Mark,

If you want as many channels as possible, go for it. Biloxi has two, with coverage for WMAH (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT668658.html) and WLOX (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT626093.html) as shown. If you go for them, a pre-amp might be a good idea, because Mobile is fringe area for them.

You can use FCC's TV Query (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/audio2?x=tvq.html) search engine to see what stations are within a certain radius of your location. Use the "Service Contour" link on the individual station's data to get a coverage map.

However, Mobile has all the networks in HD sitting in easy reach to your east.

Linda,

Sorry to hear you have to go through setting up an antenna again. Do post your results with the XG-91, I think you will be our first with that in this area.

I'm using a CM4228 with preamp and have perfect signal from WEAR, WPMI, WSRE, WHJG. Waiting for WKRG (1 megawattts this summer), given up on WALA.

Originally posted by tlunsf
Why do I have such a negative message? Because I want people in the east-of-Mobile area who are considering purchasing a multi-thousand dollar setup to know the truth first. Circuit City and Best Buy certainly aren't telling the truth. There's a good chance I would have waited if I had known about the inconsistencies with station signal and configuration. For example, WALA-DT's signal was GONE for me for over a week, starting two hours before the Superbowl. After that, it showed up for a few days as 9.3 with an unwatchable signal strength. At the moment it's back on 10.1.

Understand your frusrations. Antenna setups are sometimes a crapshoot.

I checked back on your earlier postings. Your setup is a CM3018 VHF/UHF combo antenna and a RS preamp located in your attic of a one story house, correct?

I would suggest using the antenna without the preamp. Radio Shack's preamp are known to be noisy and some are unstable. This would screw up your weaker channels.

A better preamp would be Channel Masters 7777. However, if your are not using multiple tv, you may not need a preamp in you situation. Check without the preamp first.

Also, an attic setup drops 4-6 db of gain, so relocating your antenna to an outside mast would help alot.

Don't give up, as you are in an area that typically has good reception of all channels, when your setup is right.

Originally posted by RickRS
Understand your frusrations. Antenna setups are sometimes a crapshoot...


Rick,

Thanks for the info. I'll try again without the preamp, but initially I got nothing on WALA without it. I'll also lookinto the CM 7777.

As far as the attic goes, I refuse to put such an eyesore outside. I understand the consequences of having the antenna in the attic, but that should not cause the inconsistencies in station configuration and signal strength. That was my main point earlier, that I'm done worrying about this until there is some CONSISTENCY. >:-(

-Thomas

Originally posted by rute
That's strange because I live East of Mobile and watched the SuperBowl on WALA HD OTA as well as friends of mine that live out in Gulf Breeze. I do have an external antenna that is 20 Ft above the ground (10 FT above the roof line)

As far as buying a multi-thousand dollar system based exclusively on what a salesperson tells me at Best Buy or Circuit City, I would never do that. I did quite a bit of research prior to spending that kind of money and knew what I was getting in to. This is the price we pay for being on the cutting edge.

Lastly if you want a guaranteed stable HD signal then you'll have to wait until after 2006 when the FCC has mandated it.

Steve

I should clarify my "East of Mobile" comment earlier. It seems that there is a cutoff distance for practical antenna configurations somewhere on the far west side of Pensacola. By "practical", I mean not having to install a huge antenna on a tall pole.

Also, I did do a quite a bit of research before purchasing the TV. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of detail on OTA reception. The little info I found, combined with comments at the store, led me to believe that DTV was ready for prime time (literally and figuratively). I'm simply trying to set expectations for others like me.

Originally posted by tlunsf
By "practical", I mean not having to install a huge antenna on a tall pole.

Also, I did do a quite a bit of research before purchasing the TV. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of detail on OTA reception. The little info I found, combined with comments at the store, led me to believe that DTV was ready for prime time (literally and figuratively). I'm simply trying to set expectations for others like me.

OK. It's not that huge an antenna.:) I just got a regular TV antenna from Home Depot and put it on a 20 foot pole. Stuck it in the ground and attached it with a clamp to my roof line. It works. Of course, I am on the west side of Pensacola.

As far as the research goes, if someone researching OTA HD in this area finds this thread it should provide them with more than enough info on what to expect. The thread's been going for a couple of years and all one needs to do is go back the last 4 or 5 months to get an idea of what to expect. That's what I did. But, I knew I wanted cutting edge and would have to deal with problems here and there in the process. The other thing I did was purchase my OTA receiver and an indoor antenna first. I then hooked them up and tried them the same day I purchsed them so I could return the whole mess if I wasn't happy. After seeing the setup pick up a number of channels I decided to return just the antenna and get the outdoor antenna. I've never looked back. Again, this is the process I took researching and deciding to stick with this setup in this area.

Steve

It seems that WEAR-DT17 has been off the air for the past two days (2/14 and 2/15). Has anyone heard anything about this?

Same here in W. Mobile, no WEAR again.

Got this reply when I complained to Mr. Fields about the guality of both channels.
Asked why they couldn't broadcast on separate channels.

Hello,

We would like to have a channel assigned for WBPG. WBPG was not assigned a Digital Channel so we will have to wait until a channel can be assigned by the FCC.

We do have a solution in the works to correct the digital breakup on WALA and improve the picture quality of WBPG. Equipment is on order that will allow us to move our data services to a different path. This will free up sufficient bandwidth to resolve the digital breakup for WALA and improve picture quality on WBPG. Equipment is scheduled to be installed middle of March.

Thanks for Watching WALA and WBPG,


Roland Fields

Please don't take this that I'm being smug, but the three posts previous to this message perfectly illustrate my point from last week. The consistency is just not there yet for OTA viewing.

It's really very relative whether the consistency for ota viewing is there and very subjective to the indivicual. I've had HD for 3 years now and have loved every minute of it. And, i fool with my antenna much less than i ever had. I make sure every customer i have knows the pros and cons of ota viewing in our area. By giving them the knowledge before they make a financial committment i so far have had zero complaints.

The reality is money is different to everyone. I have customers that didn't want to put up with it so we went a different route. HD Cable is perfect for those not willing to deal with OTA broadcasts, and most will agree even having a few hd broadcasts is better than none. I have some customers that have ota hd, most have better scenarios than me.

But it's definately clear it's not worth it to you. That's not to say anything is wrong with this at all. In your situation you should follow the thread and sit on the sidelines until everything is clear. It is also a smart thing for you to tell anyone else that isn't willing to deal with the problems now that they should wait now.

Personally i've spent a lot of money (subjective to me) on my system and i couldn't live without it, and it's extremely rare that i miss an HD broadcast ota, except with the hicups abc is having and the fact that i can't get fox hd ota (i'm ok with this, i get the network feeds in hd on directv.) I have customers that have spent over 100k and love their hd and live with the problems that occur. I also have customers that have spent a lot of money and only want a dvd theater, because they want HD ota to be perfect and they don't like the quality of regular cable broadcasts. There really is no wrong answer. I even sell the occasional jvc d theater hd vcr for customers that want something better than hd broadcasts at their conveniance.

The fact is we're on the razor's edge of new technology, and it's quickly morphing into mainstream technology, but it's not there yet. It's still nicer than the bleeding edge of technology which we were on 3 years ago :)

As a side note if you want to see something scary and uninformed, go to the bose outlet in foley and sit through a demo. I went to check it out to match their price for a customer (i ended up quite a bit lower, couldn't justify their margins) and i felt dirty sitting there :)

Well said Daniel. You and I got hooked about the same time and I never looked back. I can remember when we only had one HD demo ch:, that was it. Well we have come a long way from that. If any one is not happy with the problems of start up then they should set on the side line and wait. Daniel you know nobody has tried as many antennas as I have,but I never gave up because I love HD. But saying that I can understand if it is not that big a deal with some. Hell I got D* and would get V* if this big tree was not in the way. Well ya'll have a nice day......................

Thought i'd throw out one more thing. For those embracing the ups and downs of ota reception, this board is invaluable. I have an hd tivo and i have season passes for all my shows. If no one had mentioned that abc went down monday i would have missed lost and alias today. I greatly appreciate everyone keeping everyone appraised on what is going on with the local stations.

Thanks.

If I may chime in, we researched long and hard before we went hd. Originally went with Winegard HD8200P antenna (monstrous!), no preamp, a rotor and an RCA 38" tube HDTV built in and included Directv built in! We loved every minute of it! We were disapponted that we couldn't get Fox and that WEAR was not HD, but oh well! It is still new to us. We spent less than $2500.00 total which I don't think is all that much and were thrilled. We have been without HD since Ivan, and as I said in an earlier post I just ordered new equipment. The antenna arrived today, very interesting looking, and I had to overnight preamp and new parts for rotor. Our goal is to try to see the Daytona 500 in HD. This time we went with Antennas Direct for an XG91 (70+ miles) and ordered the Winegard AP 8275 preamp (highest db gain I could find). Total for all this was under $200. Plus the new Sony 50", which is awesome, that only cost us $900 after insurance reimbursement for other tv, which was able to be fixed under warranty! I will never go back to cable even if they do go HD. And I think if you research hard enough it is not very expensive.

Oh and Rick, if you are interested in helping us put this one up, let me know!!! We are going to put up 2 - 20' galvanized pipes for the mast with a hinge in the middle, but this new antenna is much smaller so I hope it is not as difficult to raise as the 8200 was. Also, if this antenna doesn't work as well as the old one did, we will reorder another 8200, the only reason we didn't stick with that one is this one looks even better (on paper at least!). Possibly run them in tandem. We WILL get Fox one way or another!!! ;)

Ditto what Daniel said:

I'd rather have extremely good quality 99% of the time than a crappy picture 100% of the time.

I've had HD for ~ three years now and compared to the early days it is much more solid and getting better continuously.

J C

Originally posted by Linda F
Oh and Rick, if you are interested in helping us put this one up, let me know!!! We are going to put up 2 - 20' galvanized pipes for the mast with a hinge in the middle, but this new antenna is much smaller so I hope it is not as difficult to raise as the 8200 was. Also, if this antenna doesn't work as well as the old one did, we will reorder another 8200, the only reason we didn't stick with that one is this one looks even better (on paper at least!). Possibly run them in tandem. We WILL get Fox one way or another!!! ;)

The XG91 will probably work a little better than the 8200 for UHF,but if you're looking for WALA DT-9 it likely won't see any signal at all.I would suggest a Highband 7-13 antenna along with the XG91.The 8275 preamp will work,but you'll need a V/U combiner(RS) to combine antennas before the amp.

The Highband antennas I use are probably the best available anywhere.Have some for sale.You may need to used stacked arrays if you're intent on receiving WALA-DT.

I also use a hinged mast for a UHF stack/Lowband setup.Pretty handy,especially for making tweaks.

http://community-2.webtv.net/GregBarker/UltraHighGain/

Word from Joe Smith at WEAR:

Hi Rick,

Yes, we have a problem with our transmission line. Our engineers were on the tower doing some tests last night and night before. We hope to have it back on-air before Sunday night. We apologize for the inconvenience, and will work as hard as possible to get it back on-air quickly.

Thanks for your patience.

Joe


So no ABC HD for a little while.

tlunsf,
The Channel Master CM7777 is not a guaranteed fix. It might help, it might not. Unfortunately, you have ruled out what some things I feel could help alot; an outside antenna, 20 feet or more off the ground.

If you really wanted to get WALA and are willing to spend more money for antennas, there are higher gain antennas than the CM3018 in Channel Master's line. The CM3671B would increase your gain at Ch 9 about 4 dB over the CM3018, offsetting the loss you get from placement in the attic. Winegard's HD8200 would be about the same. The rule for a weak signal is to alway go for maximum signal at the antenna before trying to boost it with a pre-amp.

Before going that route, some questions: What is the downlead cable and length that you're using? Do you have any signal splitters in use?

If you do have a splitter, try removing it and run cable from antenna straight to the TV. Splitters eat up your signal level; a simple 1-in/2-out splitter drops the signal by 4 dB.

LindaF;
Interested in your setup and would be willing to lend a hand to see how it works out. Would PM you my phone number but you don't have PM activated. I'm in the phone book.

Rick, do you know any one in FWB that is getting Fox from Mobile?

I know very few people with HD. No report of OTA WALA-DT in Ft. Walton.

any body having trouble in the gulf breeze, p'cola area getting WKRG ?
i have not been getting it for awhile but i can get fox and nbc great .

Trich,

I live north of FWB about the same distance to the towers (maybe slightly closer) and I get no WALA-DT. My antenna has 12.5dbd gain at channel 9.

Had I first read all the posts regarding the reception of (or lack of) WALA-DT in regions muuuuch closer to the tower than me (and the FWB people) I could have saved some $ by just buying a cheaper UHF antenna. As I said in an old post, WALA needs to understand that regardless of what theory says, their power output is totally inadequate. Mr. Fields says that because digital transmissions have, by design, a flat power spread (i.e. the signal power is spread evenly over the entire 6mhz spectrum with no power wasting spikes at any single frequencies) and because they transmit in the VHF band, they need far less power than a UHF station. While I'm sure his thoery is correct, experience shows that 18KW just don't cut it. Come on WALA, boost you friggin' power!!

FWIW though, I get all the other Moblie/Pensacola stations clear and strong except for WKRG. But I get CBS clear and strong out of Dothan so I'm happy. And it bothers me not that any station in transition has a few problems until they get it right. It's a temporary inconvenience that is worth the benifit of HD quality when they're finally up and running. I could never make myself do without OTA HD just because sometimes there are problems.

Quoting Cinder (Daniel) :

"i get the network feeds in hd on directv"

Daniel, I presume you got waivers from the locals in order for Directv to give you this feed. If that's true, how hard was it to get the waivers? Do you think there is a way to get a promise of a waiver before one signs up for Directv? Otherwise it's a gamble. I only lack FOX but might consider swithing from Voom to Directv if I could get a HD FOX feed.

Originally posted by Ricknau
Come on WALA, boost you friggin' power!!

It ain't gona help.

WALA will go from 16.5 kW to 29 kW if they go full power, a 2.5 dB gain. If you're marginal now, it will help, otherwise, not. FCC coverage indicates current coverage at
16.5 kW map (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DS1022736.html) and future coverage at 29 kW map (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT1022454.html) Can't see the difference? It's there, just very minor (note coverage gets to Brewton AL in 29 kW map). Still a long ways short of Crestview and Ft. Walton.

When I say boost your friggin' power I mean boost it to whatever it needs to be to reach the same area as all of their competitors. I agree 29KW probably won't help. How about 100KW. They need to get there heads out of their engineering handbooks (I could have said worse!! ) and get out into the field to see what's going on. Or maybe they just don't care. Nobody's going to drive 60-70 miles to Mobile to buy a carpet from Bubba's Carpet Outlet no matter how cheap he advertises it on WALA.

And to tell the truth, I have trouble believing those maps. The power almost doubles and the radius goes from 48 to 55 miles? I don't know what a 36 dbu contour is but WALA isn't reaching parts of Pensacola right now let alone Milton. The maps have to be some theoretical BS.

Yes i received waivers for fox and nbc. It wasn't hard at all. That said my understanding is that because of the recent law (ruling?) that directv is not granting any waivers, even if you get the station to grant them. If you have an RV or a boat and can prove it, then that could change. I have two customers with large boats and rv's and they got every network feed in hd at their homes, as well as the regular digital stations. I should be a directv dealer in about 6 weeks, once i'm on board i'll find out exactly what the process is and if there are any loopholes.

As a side note, i've been receiving fox and wb locally without incident for over a week, not sure what changed.

Anyone getting abc now?

Anyone getting abc now?
______________________________

yes

cool )

thank you WEAR DT3 and WKRG DT5 , now am once again getting all digital HD channels here in Grand Point in Gulf Breeze. Daytona 500 looked nice on Fox DT10 today.

Boy I really hope WALA gets it together soon. Yesterday, I watched all of the pre-race festivities for the Daytona 500 with no problems. When the green flag waived and Darrel Waltrip said "Boogity Boogity Boogity", the signal took off as fast as the cars. I missed the first 3 laps. I mean NO SIGNAL AT ALL.

I stuck with it though. I tried to switch over to directv but that picture was horrible compared to HD. I have become spoiled and hooked at the same time. Oh well, it seems to get better every month so I'll just be patient.

By the way, I live in a hole (EL 30 with EL 100 all around) and there is a FM station nearby that just steps all over everything in my immediate area. Gonna go higher soon and wait for full power.

Oh yeah, this is my first post....

Later...

Chris

Originally posted by auburnce98
Boy I really hope WALA gets it together soon. Yesterday, I watched all of the pre-race festivities for the Daytona 500 with no problems. When the green flag waived and Darrel Waltrip said "Boogity Boogity Boogity", the signal took off as fast as the cars. I missed the first 3 laps. I mean NO SIGNAL AT ALL.

I stuck with it though. I tried to switch over to directv but that picture was horrible compared to HD. I have become spoiled and hooked at the same time. Oh well, it seems to get better every month so I'll just be patient.

By the way, I live in a hole (EL 30 with EL 100 all around) and there is a FM station nearby that just steps all over everything in my immediate area. Gonna go higher soon and wait for full power.

Oh yeah, this is my first post....

Later...

Chris

Welcome to the board. Roll Tide ;)

Originally posted by crimsonblake
. Roll Tide ;)

:rolleyes: There's one in every crowd.

I guess I'm a killer, a thread killer that is... :D

Originally posted by auburnce98
I guess I'm a killer, a thread killer that is... :D

Don't blame yourself, we go days without a post on this thread (like we just did:) ).

What kind of antenna rig are you using, Chris?


WALA still a problem channel for you? I would suggest you write the station engineer, he can tell you when (if ever) they are going to step up the power a notch.

is everybody else not seeing wpmi in widescreen ? L&O was not in HD, at 7:00 pm , are they having a problem ?

I'm getting fox and wb consistently for about 2 weeks now, very strange. I didn't move the antenna or do anything, but i'll take it. Does anyone know if WB has been broadcasting smallville in widescreen 480P like they did last year?

Originally posted by Cinder
Does anyone know if WB has been broadcasting smallville in widescreen 480P like they did last year?

Not sure what they are using but the quality is crap. I have the DirecTV local WB in SD and it is much better quality than 10-2.

J C

Originally posted by jrfsu1
is everybody else not seeing wpmi in widescreen ? L&O was not in HD, at 7:00 pm , are they having a problem ?

Didn't see any TV until 8:30 last night and then it was NYPD Blue for me. ABC was running an Amber Alert last night. Our stations don't have the capability to do HD and a text crawl at the same time so the start of NYPD Blue at 9:00 was SD. After the Amber Alert they switched to HD (about two minutes into the show). Could that be was going on with L&O?

Originally posted by RickRS
Don't blame yourself, we go days without a post on this thread (like we just did:) ).

What kind of antenna rig are you using, Chris?


WALA still a problem channel for you? I would suggest you write the station engineer, he can tell you when (if ever) they are going to step up the power a notch.

Got a RadioShack antenna and a preamp. WALA must have fixed their bandwidth problem as 24 and American Idol were fine. The race was good Sunday as well.

Noticed audio sync problem on WEAR 3-1 last night. Watched NYPD Blue on 3-2. I can't get WKRG until they go full power.

I flipped wb on last night just to go back and forth. Wow, our local digital wb is crap as you mentioned. Big huge blocks comprising of pictures, vs a servicable sd digital picture on directv's wb. They must have sacrificed some serious bandwidth from wb to make fox stable, fine by me i only watch smallville, but wow, what a tradeoff.

As a side note, anybody have any suggestions on an outdoor am antenna, or a way to rig one up? I'm doing a job in a cpl weeks and it has a metal roof. No am inside or in the attic at all. As it is i'm putting the uhf antenna a good distance from the roof, problem is he loves am, doesn't listen to much fm and can't get the person he wants to listen to on sirius or xm. Any help? I appreciate it.

Originally posted by Cinder
As a side note, anybody have any suggestions on an outdoor am antenna, or a way to rig one up? I'm doing a job in a cpl weeks and it has a metal roof. No am inside or in the attic at all. As it is i'm putting the uhf antenna a good distance from the roof, problem is he loves am, doesn't listen to much fm and can't get the person he wants to listen to on sirius or xm. Any help? I appreciate it.
I don't know what I'm talking about, but a radio-freak friend of mine did this years ago, and he had invisible thin wires strung up in the trees... he didn't do it to be cheap... something about AM wavelength calling for a whole lot of antenna wire. (Does this make any sense?)

Sounds about right, i ended up going with a C Crane am antenna, and basically it has a long wire that goes outside and they recommend mounting under an eave or around a tree. Inside it's amplified and hooks up to your receiver. Supposedly increases distance 300% as well as improving quality of the signal. We'll see...

Cinder,

Regarding WB: I'm a fan of Gilmore Girls and would be so disappointed if I had such poor quality DTV as you describe. The point being that WB has more HD than Smallville:D

The situation is the result of very bad management decisions by the WB station. They chose not to get a DTV channel assignment when the FCC was allotting them. They were going to just ignore DTV and hope that it would go away. When ownership changed hands so both FOX and WB stations were owned by the same company, the new owners at least got WB on the air as a DTV by using the WALA subchannel back when FOX was SD widescreen.

Now that FOX is true HD, its time for WB to have its own channel and transmitter.

I agree, andi also agree they have a lot more HD than smallville, just that smallville is all i watch , so thus the only important show on their channel :) kidding :)

Yeh, they definately need their own transmitter. Especially if they get any nfl in 2006 which they're trying to do...

WBPG (WB)

I was surprised a week or so ago when Fields from WALA was quoted in a post as saying:


We would like to have a channel assigned for WBPG. WBPG was not assigned a Digital Channel so we will have to wait until a channel can be assigned by the FCC.

I have not found any evidence on the FCC website that they have ever applied for a digital channel. Pegasus, the earlier owner, had not requested a digital (on loan) like the other stations. Now that it is owned by WALA's owners, they are without a digital channel. But, as I said, there is no published evidence that they have asked for a digital channel assignment-- as least not that I have found.

If analog was shut off, would cable companies in Pensacola, Daphne, Gulf Shores, Milton, Gulf Breeze, Navarre, Crestview, Ft. Walton, etc. have only the crappy DTV subchannel to broadcast? I image that Mobile's cable companies would get a direct link from the station, but I'm just guessing. Would anyone outside of Mobile watch WB in that situation?

Of course I believe the earliest day of the analog shutdown is end of 2006, almost 2 years away.

Beachrez,
It was discussed way. way back in 2002 that Pegasus' business plan was to just go out of business if they had to upgrade to DTV. They never wanted to go to DTV and so they never did the paperwork to get a channel assignment.

It may be possible that Channel 55 could be shutdown as a analog and converted to DTV on ch 55 at the change over, but I don't think that was what the FCC had in mind when they start down the road to DTV.

All stations do have the option of using their analog channel frequency or the new assigned DTV frequency, except for those with channels over 69.

About time for a thread bump.

I have worked out most of my previous issues, but I'm getting antzy about March Madness and the Masters. Can anyone in Eastern P-cola get CBS? I'm practically on Scenic Highway, and was wondering if I mounted the antenna "temporarily" for the next few months outside if I could get CBS.
Let me know.

If not, anyone have a good place I could 'move'?

Originally posted by daphatman
About time for a thread bump.

I have worked out most of my previous issues, but I'm getting antzy about March Madness and the Masters. Can anyone in Eastern P-cola get CBS? I'm practically on Scenic Highway, and was wondering if I mounted the antenna "temporarily" for the next few months outside if I could get CBS.
Let me know.

If not, anyone have a good place I could 'move'?

If you are on Directv, 'move' to somewhere in the NYC metro area. Worked for me.

I'm on the other side of Panama City about 40 miles and I have my Antenna up about 25 ft and I'm getting CBS from Dothan Al. a 100 miles away. I thing if you get it up high enough you should be able to get CBS in Penn. I also added a Radio Shack 2 part antenna booster, it helped allot. Good Luck

crimsonblake - I do have D*, and I have thought about doing that, I just don't have a physical address that I know of in NYC that I could 'move' to. That's all. Any suggestions?

Audioman1 - I might try and put it up outside this weekend, I can't really go higher than 20 ft though. I'll let you know my results.

Originally posted by daphatman
crimsonblake - I do have D*, and I have thought about doing that, I just don't have a physical address that I know of in NYC that I could 'move' to. That's all. Any suggestions?

Audioman1 - I might try and put it up outside this weekend, I can't really go higher than 20 ft though. I'll let you know my results.


Go to yellowpages.com just use any random buisness address.

WKRG-DT

I'm temporarily living near PNS airport, and I have an antenna which I estimate to be about 25' above the ground. I can watch CBS about 40-45% of the time. I did better when I was living on the beach! I'll be much happier when they increase their tower height and power which I understand will be prior to July 1.

Originally posted by beachrez
WKRG-DT

I'm temporarily living near PNS airport, and I have an antenna which I estimate to be about 25' above the ground. I can watch CBS about 40-45% of the time. I did better when I was living on the beach! I'll be much happier when they increase their tower height and power which I understand will be prior to July 1.

What town does your CBS come from, I was told by Dish that Panama City was getting a local CBS instead of Dothan's broadcast. Of coarse they didn't know when.....;)

Originally posted by Audioman1
I'm on the other side of Panama City about 40 miles and I have my Antenna up about 25 ft and I'm getting CBS from Dothan Al. a 100 miles away.

Welcome to the forum Audioman.

Actually, WTVY's tower is about 10 miles north of Bonifay, FL, so you're closer than 100 miles. It's also very high, at 1800 feet. Here's the coverage map (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DS989152.html) of WTVY's DTV channel 36 at it's current 100kW level. If you're in Port St. Joe, you are doing super on reception.

I'm just outside of the coverage line, on the west side of Ft. Walton but still in the yellow blob of Ft. Walton on the map. Can't get WTVY at all! Nor can I get WKRG-CBS from Mobile, which is about 60 miles.


daphatman:
Moving the antenna out of the attic temporarly will likely increase the signal about 4dB. A good improvement. But if you want a sure thing, moving to NY would be better.

On Beachrez's comments, the airport is actually closer to the hairy edge of the coverage than beach west of the Penscola Bay as shown here (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DS593820.html).

Jim at WKRG told me that IN July, not prior to July, they go to full power and max tower height. And then coverage go out to here (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DT499365.html)

Thanks For the Great Place to share knowledge on TV Reception.

I ordered a Rotor for my antenna too get a few other channels that come in bad now. I get a couple of NBC's I noticed last night , not sure where the other comes from. I was told that Florida is so flat that the higher you can get your antenna the better the reception will be. I think I'm going to take it up another 10 ft this weekend when I connect the rotator. My Voom box will only receive digital broadcasts so i ran a separate line direct to my TV, If this rotator works as good as i think it will I'll cancel cable and save another 45 bucks. I'll let everyone know how it works out on Monday and all the equipment I used.

Just tried to watch alias and had no audio. Thank you wear. Anyone else not have audio with wear's hd broadcast last night?