Cool -- thanks mfenster ....

Had to call WTVQ again tonight. Why do they always miss this?

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Thanks Chuck,

You're about 10 miles closer than me to WDRB's tower... What type of antenna/amplifier setup do you have?



I have a CM 4228 just above the roof line (2-story house), CM7777 amp and the CM 9521a rotor...

The signal tonight for the NLCS is the same as last night... I love the 5.1 surround sound...

Originally posted by chuckgr
I have a CM 4228 just above the roof line (2-story house), CM7777 amp and the CM 9521a rotor...

The signal tonight for the NLCS is the same as last night... I love the 5.1 surround sound...

hmmm... I'm not even seeing a hint of a signal from WDRB-DT CH:49(remaps to 41) here at Man-O'War and Harrodsburg roads. I have exactly the same setup as you! There must be a cliff somewhere between here and there...

I am seeing WAVE-DT CH:47 in-and-out this evening, seems to be right on the edge.

Is DT-49 on the same rotor azimuth as DT-47 for you? My calculations show DT-49 to be slightly south (by one degree) of DT-47... Are both of these transmitters at the same site?

Originally posted by nuts4scuba
Had to call WTVQ again tonight. Why do they always miss this?

Excellent job there Nuts ... HD @ 08:08pm by my clock, maybe they'll get it right by the end of the season.

Maybe we should we send them an alarm clock with an pointy arrow that says "Primetime Starts Here -----> 20:00 ET ... Have you checked your HD feed today?" ;) :D

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Is DT-49 on the same rotor azimuth as DT-47 for you? My calculations show DT-49 to be slightly south (by one degree) of DT-47... Are both of these transmitters at the same site?

Close enough that it's not going to make a significant difference at our distances. I've gotten everything between the E-town KET transmitter and WAVE at the same azimuth on my 4228.

BTW, nothing but a whiff tonight on WDRB or WFTE DTs here at the cave.

Originally posted by mfenster
Took a couple of photos of the WDKY tower going up.



tancity.net/wdky.html

Cool! Thanks! What's the tower to the right?

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Excellent job there Nuts ... HD @ 08:08pm by my clock, maybe they'll get it right by the end of the season.

Maybe we should we send them an alarm clock with an pointy arrow that says "Primetime Starts Here -----> 20:00 ET ... Have you checked your HD feed today?" ;) :D

http://calendar.yahoo.com can be a wonderful thing. :)

Tower to the right is KET Ch 46, WKLE located at Clay's Ferry

Originally posted by mfenster
Tower to the right is KET Ch 46, WKLE located at Clay's Ferry

Awesome.. 81% signal at my location behind Fayette Mall for WKLE-DT. Hopefully the same on VHF for WDKY-DT.

Originally posted by ragamuffin

Is DT-49 on the same rotor azimuth as DT-47 for you? My calculations show DT-49 to be slightly south (by one degree) of DT-47... Are both of these transmitters at the same site?

I actually had my meter up on my STB and found that if I aim a few notches north of what I had programed the 9521 for the L'ville stations, I could get WDRB. But then again I can get WAVE while pointing to Lexington so my initial accuracy was probably off. I do believe that both are at or near the same location...

Should have taken a shot of the antennas on the WKLE tower.

The DTV is the the 3 section antenna just below the base plate while the ch 46 antenna is the pylon on top. The tower is 805 ft to the baseplate with the antenna making it 846 ft overall.

If there was enough interest, I could even be persuaded to arrange a DTV meeting here at KET, including a tour of the Network Center and the WKLE site..

You guys should definitely take William up on that offer ...

They didn't get a pic of WKLE's Stick, but "tower site of the week" at fybush.com did make it through Lexington a few years back and has some nice pics of WKYT, WLEX+WTVQ, KET studios as well as some of the central KY AM/FM sites :

http://www.fybush.com/site-011226.html

I still like the Blaw-Knox a little farther up the pike best though<g> ... It was a sad sight however while driving to work some years back to see the nearby VOA Bethany towers get(literally) ripped down in a few days ....

They also made the trip to Lousiville, and did get pics of Floyd's knob : towers :

http://www.fybush.com/site-011219.html

There is also a great write-up and pics from a tour of WAVE here:

http://www.dxfm.com/WAVE-TV/WAVE-TV.htm

I visited the WLW site a while back and saw the remains of the 500KW "amplifier" that WLW used in the late 20's and early 30's.. Did you know that WHAS iin Louisville was planning to build a 500KW am plant when the FRC (now FCC) under political pressure from a Congressional representative from Nebraska, ordered WLW to reduce power back to 50KW..

Also little known fact that Paul Jellison (formerly the CE for WLW) ran the 1928 Western Electric 50 KW transmitter from about 23:30 EST on December 31, 1999 till 00:30 on January, 01, 2000... ( Y2K crossover)

William,

Interesting about WHAS, I hadn't heard that bit of history... They get into here during the daytime just fine along with the CKLW's and WJR's/etc ..... My father was a Navy Sonarman/Radio man in WWII, and he has told me they picked up WLW(probably when in "blow torch mode"), and strangely enough, once WCKY - from the Medeterranian ...

I did know about the old WLW transmitter going on line for Y2K ( I think I read about it either here : http://hawkins.pair.com/wlw.shtml#nationstationsect or somewhere here: http://members.aol.com/jeff560/jeff.html ) -- In fact, through a matter of strange happenstance involving the "sleep" button on my clock radio I think I was actually listening at the time ...

Al Kenyon used to have a great pic up on his personal website of him standing in front of that Blaw-Knox, but I can't find the link now ....

Originally posted by William Smith
If there was enough interest, I could even be persuaded to arrange a DTV meeting here at KET, including a tour of the Network Center and the WKLE site..

Count me in! Thanks William!

Originally posted by William Smith
If there was enough interest, I could even be persuaded to arrange a DTV meeting here at KET, including a tour of the Network Center and the WKLE site..

Yep ... I'd still be interested in that too, just been hard to break away from my usual routines ... and the evil HDTV set in the living room, I think it's taken over my life. ;) :D

At long last WDKY-DT has broken out of dead air mode. Came back up sometime before 5:30pm ... Thanks go to anyone here that might have been responsible. ;)

Originally posted by William Smith
If there was enough interest, I could even be persuaded to arrange a DTV meeting here at KET, including a tour of the Network Center and the WKLE site..

I would like to do this also, if my work schedule allows it.

Another little tidbit is that during WWII WLW ran the 500Kw during "experimental hours" (12:00 AM - 6:00 AM) and also ran "digital" communications using FSK (3Hz. shift) for SOMEONE..

Originally posted by William Smith
If there was enough interest, I could even be persuaded to arrange a DTV meeting here at KET, including a tour of the Network Center and the WKLE site..

I'm interested too, but I work a second shift job and my 'weekends' are wednesdays and Thursdays. If you ran a tour those days, I think I could be there. :)

Anybody try this for FOX WDKY?


Originally posted by bfdhe
I tried to get a DTV waiver from WLEX until they are broadcasting HD. Here is the response I recieved:

From: Dave Powell
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: HDTV - DirecTV waiver

I wish we had been on DTV long ago, but we in Lexington had no control over that. Now we have our Construction Permit but we will start out at full power, for which we must exchange our stored low-power transmitter. We expect to hit July 1 next year. The delay is frustrating here, too.

I checked with my boss. I can't issue a waiver.



Dave

Originally posted by Volunteer
Anybody try this for FOX WDKY?

Go ahead try it :D ... My guess is that the response will be 'Not a snowball's chance in ****'

Originally posted by Volunteer
Anybody try this for FOX WDKY?

Yes, back in 1999. I was approved. I think, because I defaulted that way due to WDKY's failure to issue their response within 30 days to E*. Of course there was no digital broadcast then either.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Yes, back in 1999. I was approved. I think, because I defaulted that way due to WDKY's failure to issue their response within 30 days to E*.

Lucky dog ... obviously, somebody was asleep at the wheel ;) I'd bet the odds of it happening now are pretty low since both D* and E* are now providing LiL service.

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Lucky dog ... obviously, somebody was asleep at the wheel ;) I'd bet the odds of it happening now are pretty low since both D* and E* are now providing LiL service.

Yeah.. the first time they instantly approved it and then took it away from me 3 months later, so I had to go through the waiver process. Of course I lived on the utmost north side of Lexington back then in an apartment and really could not get an acceptable signal. I knew I was lucky to have gotten the waiver.

I wonder why E* doesn't include UPN and WB in the local package. If you want those networks through your dish, you have to add the $5.99 superstations package:

LOS ANGELES WB-KTLA
NEW YORK WB-WPIX
DENVER WB-KWGN

NEW YORK UPN-WWOR
BOSTON UPN-WSBK

Now that WKYT has UPN, you'd think E* would add that to the locals like they do in other DMAs. It'd be especially handy if they bundled in WBKI.

Did anyone else notice WTVQ was sleeping at the HD controls again last night? The Growing Pains movie was suppossed to be in HD according to :

http://abc.go.com/movies/GrowingPains.html

It was standard def. Desperate Housewives afterward was in HD though. I often wonder who is controlling the HD switch at this station.

If they show Monsters Inc. in SD a couple weeks from now, I'll be pissed!

Originally posted by BenCJedi
If they show Monsters Inc. in SD a couple weeks from now, I'll be pissed!

that'll make two of us. i've had it programmed to capture for several days now.

later

Originally posted by BenCJedi
I wonder why E* doesn't include UPN and WB in the local package. If you want those networks through your dish, you have to add the $5.99 superstations package:

I thought they had changed that policy and are now including the superstations in with the price of the LiL package (if you qualified for them.) The last time I check the E* site my zip qualified for all. :confused:

Anyhoo, it's doubtful that either D* or E* will pick up "UPN Lexington" under the current rules (since it originates in ATSC land.)

OTOH, There's hope for WBKI if the congresscritters would get off their butts and actually pass 'significantly viewed.'

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
I thought they had changed that policy and are now including the superstations in with the price of the LiL package (if you qualified for them.) The last time I check the E* site my zip qualified for all. :confused:

Yeah I have the Superstations package, but I could save $5.99/month if I were able to pick up a nice signal from WBKI. Basically I am paying the $5.99 to be able to watch Smallville and Grounded for Life since the UPN on the .2 subchannel of WKYT-DT is a step up from dish resolution/bitrate and has AC3 sound. I don't need the UPN stations in the Superstations pack. The Smallville divx AVI's I have downloaded (sourced from HD) actually look better than that off E*. WBLU is listed as UPN/WB at tvradioworld.com, but I never see WB programming on them (not that they have enough power for anyone to really get a nice picture). I suspect there is no real drive for WBKI to upgrade their digital equiptment and broadcast power so we might be able to enjoy WB HD/DTV in Lexington.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
WBLU is listed as UPN/WB at tvradioworld.com, but I never see WB programming on them

tvradioworld.com is REALLY out of date. WBLU used to do UPN/WB a couple of years ago. then WB cut them off. a few weeks later insight cable picked up WBKI to fill the WB gap. and now that UPN has moved to WKYT, WBLU is really SOL.

later

Originally posted by parkay
tvradioworld.com is REALLY out of date. WBLU used to do UPN/WB a couple of years ago. then WB cut them off. a few weeks later insight cable picked up WBKI to fill the WB gap. and now that UPN has moved to WKYT, WBLU is really SOL.

later

Where is the WBLU tower anyway? I am about 1 mile from their office location and the signal has never been great. Considering their power is so low, you'd have to be their next door neighbor to get a nice picture. And now that they don't appear to have any programming, but shop-at-home stuff/court shows and infomercials, they are pretty much useless. Was WBLU originally formed so that Insight could carry a local WB/UPN?

i'm not sure of the other details but WBLU is a low-power station and the tower is just north-east of georgetown. at least that's what i get when i plot the data from http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx . that is a long way from the address listed in the phonebook.

later

edit, now that i re-check the plot, it is more than a little north-east of georgetown. it's about 30 miles north of hamburg place.

WBLU is located on BiG Blue in Downtown Lexington with 4 kW ERP on Channel 62.

See link for details

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state=&call=WBLU&arn=&city=&chan=&cha2=69&serv=&type=0&facid=&list=0&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9

Originally posted by William Smith
WBLU is located on BiG Blue in Downtown Lexington with 4 kW ERP on Channel 62.

thanks for the updated info.

am i reading that page correctly? are they planning to go digital on vhf-10?

that should give them enough bandwidth to broadcast 4 or 5 infomercials at any given time.

later

They have a CP for 10 I believe..

Originally posted by William Smith
They have a CP for 10 I believe..

I think this is still for analog ... I guess they were anticipating the recovery of spectrum above ch 52.

i guess that makes more sense, they can't really fill one channel.

later

Under the latest FCC rules they can go to 10 as NTSC then flash cut to digital operation.

I've been mad all week because I'm missing HD MLB on FOX, so I got out the old rabbit ears and proceeded to the attic. I'm getting nothing here at Clays Mill and Man-o-War. I broke a sweat moving that thing around. Any thoughts before the game or should I just go to bed mad?

19th

Originally posted by the19hole
I've been mad all week because I'm missing HD MLB on FOX, so I got out the old rabbit ears and proceeded to the attic. I'm getting nothing here at Clays Mill and Man-o-War. I broke a sweat moving that thing around. Any thoughts before the game or should I just go to bed mad?

19th

I live in the same area and have never gotten as much as a blip from them. I'm convinced it is technically impossible (at least in an attic) from our area. We're waiting on the new WDKY tower to finish construction. The tower is being errected right next to the KET tower. There's some pictures of it several posts back. Also it was mentioned that WDKY hopes to have their new tower analog/digital going before the Super Bowl.

Anyone else impressed LOST was in HD right from the start tonight on WTVQ? I noticed they are opting to reshow the 2-hour season premier on Saturday now instead of The Princess Diaries in HD.

I live in North Madison county near I-75 and exit 97, this is the first widescreen broadcast I've seen from Fox here with the ALCS. Has this been up for a while? I'm kicking myself for watching Fox via DTV now!! The signal is coming very good, which isn't normal. Have they switched over to the tower by Clays Ferry?

I don't think the new tower is operational. If it were.. all of us in this bubble would be hooting and hollaring over how great the MLB games look in high def.

This is the predicted signal with the new tower:

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/fm_tv_service_areas/maps/DT702393.gif



This is the predicted signal coverage currently with the current crappy tower:

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=DS618151.html

Yeah, my signal quality dumped a couple times, but it's holding up now. Hopefully the #$%#@ Yankees will go down!!

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Anyone else impressed LOST was in HD right from the start tonight on WTVQ? I noticed they are opting to reshow the 2-hour season premier on Saturday now instead of The Princess Diaries in HD.

Quite stunned actually :D Way to go WTVQ!

I'd bet the other networks will probably just put up their B-schedule for the duration of the WS. CBS apparently postponed new eps/premiers last night.

PS: Not to throw gas on the fire, but the MLB LCS's are looking fine in HD on WDKY ... They are still having trouble getting tuned to the right satellite feeds on Sunday afternoons though.

mr. smith, a question or two, if you please.

i am seeing 7 different streams flagged in the KET signal from clays ferry. only 5 of which have names. are you datacasting on the other two?

also my equipment (PC-based accessDTV) takes about 90 seconds to display a picture when i tune to 42. it also takes about 90 seconds to display a new picture when i change to another sub-channel.

all other local stations display in less than 5 seconds for all operations. i would appreciate any comments you have. is there something different about the way your output is structured compared to the other local broadcasters?

thanx

Good evening guys. Long time lurker..first timer poster. Is anyone else having trouble with WTVQ tonight? I've been out of town all weekend and tonight when I tune to 36-1 with my HDTIvo, I get a message saying the signal can't be located. However, 36-2 comes in perfectly. Also, when I do a signal meter, the signal is in the 80-85 range which is usually fine for a perfect picture.

Thanks for the input!

Dave

Originally posted by HDTivoKY
Good evening guys. Long time lurker..first timer poster. Is anyone else having trouble with WTVQ tonight? I've been out of town all weekend and tonight when I tune to 36-1 with my HDTIvo, I get a message saying the signal can't be located. However, 36-2 comes in perfectly. Also, when I do a signal meter, the signal is in the 80-85 range which is usually fine for a perfect picture.

Thanks for the input!

Dave

OK on my Dish 6000 at 09:00 PM. Are you still having problems.

Originally posted by nuts4scuba
OK on my Dish 6000 at 09:00 PM. Are you still having problems.

Yes...still the same at 9:05p

Originally posted by HDTivoKY
Yes...still the same at 9:05p

Have you tried to rescan the channels? I noticed after the storms on Monday night WTVQ isn't mapping to 36-1, but staying at 40-1.

Originally posted by nuts4scuba
Have you tried to rescan the channels? I noticed after the storms on Monday night WTVQ isn't mapping to 36-1, but staying at 40-1.

Got it on 40-1 now. I hope how soon WTVQ gets the PSIP fixed so it will map properly. The Tivo's guide data depends on it. But, in the mean time, at least I can watch MNF in HD tomorrow.

Thanks scuba!

Originally posted by HDTivoKY
Got it on 40-1 now. I hope how soon WTVQ gets the PSIP fixed so it will map properly. The Tivo's guide data depends on it. But, in the mean time, at least I can watch MNF in HD tomorrow.

Thanks scuba!

Glad I could help.

WTVQ is fine on my MyHD card.. though I never bother with channel remapping. I consider it channel 40 digital. I guess the broadcasters do the channel remap to make it easier for folks to know they're watching the same network.

Weekly Report:

The good:
- The digital signal has stabilized this week (for me anyway).
- Gray sidebars on upconverts have been changed to the normal black ones.
- LCS and WS in HD :D

The Bad:
For the 4th (or is it 5th) week in a row, WDKY has failed to get their HD receiver tuned to one or more of the Sunday NFL games - yesterday the late game vanished into dead air land. I guess it's just too much of a bother ;) If I were a D* Sunday Ticket subscriber, I'd be getting pretty angry at this point :D

It looked like WKYT switched to HD on the Colts game late. Game had already started before they switched. Cold Case was not shown in HD last night.

WYMT CBS in Hazard didn't show the colts in HD at all. I called them and the guy tried to switch it. As I was watching, I saw a color bar screen come up which said "HD New York" or something similar but then it switched back to the colts in SD. There must be some extra step to perform when CBS is offering two games at once. WVLT in Knoxville had Titans/Vikings in HD at the same time so obviously there were two simultaneous CBS HD feeds.

WYMT was able to manage Cold Case in HD however. WVLT showed it SD.
Interestingly, the HD version was a few minutes behind the SD.

We are running 6 Feeds with names ( KET1-KET6) starting at DVB Program 3. Most of the tuner cards started out with DVB based firmware and as a result tend to map the program number first then go look for the virtual channel information. As to the channel scan issue, In order to avoid table conflicts I have slowed some of the tables down to allow the receivers time to flush the buffers and allow updated tables to reload. I'll have to check to see if they have slipped too far. The last adjustment I made was just over a year ago.

Originally posted by cpcat
WYMT CBS in Hazard didn't show the colts in HD at all. I called them and the guy tried to switch it. As I was watching, I saw a color bar screen come up which said "HD New York" or something similar but then it switched back to the colts in SD. There must be some extra step to perform when CBS is offering two games at once. WVLT in Knoxville had Titans/Vikings in HD at the same time so obviously there were two simultaneous CBS HD feeds.

WYMT was able to manage Cold Case in HD however. WVLT showed it SD.
Interestingly, the HD version was a few minutes behind the SD.

cpcat, you mention watching WVLT...my parents live in Harlan and are interested in HDTV...how large of an antenna are you using to pull in Knoxville stations?

cpcat, you mention watching WVLT...my parents live in Harlan and are interested in HDTV...how large of an antenna are you using to pull in Knoxville stations?

I'm certain they could manage WYMT without a problem with a decent vhf antenna. I had no problem initially (with WYMT) using a CM Stealthtenna. I now use an Antennacraft Y10 7-13. WYMT is vhf 12.

I was able to tune WATE (ABC, ch 26) as well as WBIR (NBC, ch. 31) back when I used a CM 4228 for the uhf side of things. This was with the CM 7777 preamp which I still use. The setup I have now gets me FOX (WTNZ ch. 34) as well as CBS (WVLT, ch 30) consistently in addition. Obviously, terrain may play a role in comparing Corbin to Harlan but the distance should be comparable.

Here's a pic of my current antenna:

mr. smith,

please see this attachment. i am only seeing KET1-4 and WKLE listed.

thanx

Right now the KET stream is not sending KET5 and KET6 but the tables are still present as they may start up at any time.. It looks like the software isn't parsing the tables correctly. Let me dig up my notes on the access DTV cards as see if I have any new info..

Well, I finally broke down and got myself a low VHF antenna to pick up WDKY (now that they are doing HD). I went with the Antennacraft Y10-2-6 ($22 at Radio electronics)...man is this thing a monster (12 feet long) and put it in the attic (really a storage room on the top floor) pointed toward Danville. I had to run it through a distribution amp since I have such a long run of RG-6 from the top floor to the basement. Then I combine it with my signal from the CM4228 through a CM7777...

I'm now able to get WDKY at full strength (which I should since I'm in Versailles and the plot shows most of Woodford inside the broadcast area). I did notice that It takes my receiver SIR-T165 about 20 seconds to lock onto the signal (doesn't do this with any other DTV station...curious). Anyhow, we'll see how the game is tonight and I'll report back.

19hole, you need to get yours up too and catch some of the game :)

Chuck

Originally posted by chuckgr
Well, I finally broke down and got myself a low VHF antenna to pick up WDKY (now that they are doing HD).

Cool ... now we can tag team'm with complaints about the dead air on Sundays ;)

One day, maybe I'll post a picture of my homemade Ch.4 dipole for you viewing amusement. :D

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Cool ... now we can tag team'm with complaints about the dead air on Sundays ;)


I hope they get their act together..although I have an out since I'm still getting WDRB from L'ville..much better at night than the day but watchable in a pinch...

Thanks Chuckgr, Did you point right at the tower? I just got home so I'm going to have to wait til tomorrow. You can rub in just how great it is tomorrow.

Question? Can someone tell me who in Lexington sells a CM 7777? Better yet who may have on in stock.

Originally posted by the19hole
Thanks Chuckgr, Did you point right at the tower? I just got home so I'm going to have to wait til tomorrow. You can rub in just how great it is tomorrow.

Well, it is in the "general direction" of the tower with the best signal. And yes, it is good ;)

Rather than spend money on equipment I may/may not need, I am holding off for the new WDKY tower (how's that coming along?). If my current rabbit ears are sufficient when the new tower goes online, that'll be sweet. Still.. I would like a nice quiet CM7777 amp to minimize signal burps. I think someone said previously Radio Electronics on Skain Ave in Lex can special order the CM7777, but they didn't ask how much it would cost.

The tower is up to about 650-700ft (eyeball estimate based on our tower). They have an obstruction light on the tower below the gin pole.

Rumor has it they are still planning to be on from there ASAP.

Cool! Thanks for the update William.

Originally posted by chuckgr
man is this thing a monster (12 feet long)
Chuck

Nah, that's paper clip size, as is the teeny 17 foot long paper clip I use for TV ;) ...

Here's a pic of my "medium size" HF antenna when I was putting it up in 1988. For scale, The rear reflector element is a mere ~30 Feet long(for 14MHZ). In 2000, during a storm the wooden insulator(the antenna was used by another Ham for 20 years before I got it -- for free) on the rear element evidently cracked, the rear element fell off, one end of it landing about 6" from my 72 Charger which was parked underneath. And yeah, that's a bit of wind loading(especially when it was full of ice) compared to your average "paper clip" ;)

Was never a big Dx'er, but I did hit Austraillia with 100 watts on 10Meters(28MHZ) in 88 with it, shortly after getting it up ...

Originally posted by William Smith
The tower is up to about 650-700ft (eyeball estimate based on our tower). They have an obstruction light on the tower below the gin pole.

Rumor has it they are still planning to be on from there ASAP.

Maybe they realize if they get this thing going they can get more advertising dollars from Lexington in that several of us with HDTVs and the tuners will be more inclined to tune them in for football. I'm not a fan of football, but if sports means I get to watch more in HD.. bring them on! Unfortunately I read Tru Calling was cancelled on FOX. That was one sci-fi-ish show I really wanted to see in HD. I was hoping the delay on the series would coincide with WDKY going online with the new tower.

How tall is this tower suppossed to be? I'm optimistic weather will be tame enough for them to complete construction and get the equipment moved and setup ASAP. (I just typed this and it started to downpour outside.. LOL)

Originally posted by Nitewatchman


Nah, that's paper clip size, as is the teeny 17 foot long paper clip I use for TV ;) ...



Well, I guess it's all perspective...compared to the 4228 (and since it takes up the attic) it seems large... and for $22 it worth it to me for the few months till they go full power.. plus it's back up for Super Bowl Sunday...:)

Originally posted by BenCJedi
How tall is this tower suppossed to be?

Info sent to FCC/FAA concerning new WDKY tower indicates The antenna for the DTV station should be near top of tower at 318.7 Meters, or 1045 Feet Above ground level, the light on top of the Mast is to be at 352.6 Meters, or 1156FT Above ground level.

I would think the WDKY-DT Channel 4 antenna will be big, and VERY heavy. My medium size HF antenna is of course a paper clip in comparision ...

While you guys are waiting -- you might find this fun to look at --- Last summer, WSYX6/WTTE 28 Columbus Ohio did some tower work. They put a "crossmember" on top, installed 2 BIG masts +new "full power" antennas for WSYX 6, WTTE 28(WTTE previously was on a different tower), as well as WSYX-DT 13, and WTTE-DT 36).

Soon after they switched to the new antenna, I pulled WSYX-DT in while they were running a story with some nice video taken of the tower work -- I took a few screenshots -- Attached below are some of the pics(sorry about the quality) ...

Besides the guys that likely don't get paid enough to do that sort of work, If you notice, you can also see quite a bit of "tilt" to The Channel 6 antenna in top r.h. pic -- They commented on this in the story, this is part of what they did for the antenna pattern in order to help protect WRTV 6 Indianapolis' service area.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
I would like a nice quiet CM7777 amp to minimize signal burps.

Not likely to help much based on my experience. The two things that are going to kill our WDKY signal is impulse noise and multipath ... a preamp may make both problems worse. Try the rabbit ears first and work up from there.

26.5kW is actually a bit insane for ch 4 digital - considering WKYT is running 30kW on ch 13 ;)

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Not likely to help much based on my experience. The two things that are going to kill our WDKY signal is impulse noise and multipath ... a preamp may make both problems worse. Try the rabbit ears first and work up from there.

26.5kW is actually a bit insane for ch 4 digital - considering WKYT is running 30kW on ch 13

I think 25~50KW ERP is a GREAT idea for Low-VHF DTV. At the very least, it Should give you at least approx 5~6db more signal from them, more than that(much more if you are in Lexington) unless you are to the South of their current tower. Remember, impulse noise(or any other interference -- inpulse noise isn't the only problem, especially on lo-VHF) and uncorrectable multipath are just noise to the receiver. For example, As long as the signal stays 16db or so above the noise level, you won't even know any impulse noise spikes/etc. are there.

I think the Max allowed high power for DTV on hi-VHF is something in the range of 160KW ERP -- Of course, there aren't that many DTV stations on hi-VHF that are allowed to run that much currently, probably mostly because of interference protection issues to nearby co-channel stations. I don't recall what the limit for lo-VHF is, but there are some lo-VHF power limits that are based on tower heights.

As for Multipath, in my experience anyway, if anything it's generally more of an issue on UHF than VHF, with simple indoor antennas(i.e. rabbit ears for VHF, UHF "loop" for UHF) at least. The upcoming 5th generation zenith chips reportedly actually USE multipath to improve the signal, by adding the portions of signal to the "main" signal, instead of trying to "correct" for the echoes and treating what can't be "corrected" as noise ....

The problem with preamp is they can be easily overloaded by strong signals(not just signals coming from TV stations - as preamps are very broadband), thus causing them to produce intermod products(basically even more noise). Sometimes they can hurt more than help, sometimes it's the other way around. Where they can help is, in the right circumstances, they can lower the general "noise figure" the front end of receiver sees, and, they can make up for signal loss in the feedline(I.e. via long coax run).

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
For example, As long as the signal stays 16db or so above the noise level, you won't even know any impulse noise spikes/etc. are there.

I can make WDKY-DT "glitch" just by turning on my front porch light :)

As for the overloading on preamps ... yes ... WDKY's analog signal tends to overload everything at my location. I wouldn't be surprised if *part* of earlier WDKY-DT troubles were being caused by the analog signal "saturating" my receiver. I've had ch 56 come through on 55,57,36,41 etc, etc. I'm actually glad that the tower is moving farther away from me, soon I might actually be able to pull in WHAS-DT, which is the only Louisville DT that I've never been able to catch. :)

That might explain a lot ... Such as why you had better results with a INDOOR antenna with WDKY-DT ... Yep, that's intermod when you see a station on a channel it isn't transmitting on .... If it's THAT bad, and especially if you're using a preamp too, I'd guess there is likely added "noise" from the overload issues that is there in places that you DON'T know about as well ....

I wouldn't even be surprised if you are getting such a strong signal from WDKY AND/OR WDKY-DT that it may even be overloading/causing the front end of your receiver to have desense problems -- And -- Just guessing -- but I also wouldn't be surprised if you are getting a lot of multipath from that close as well, making the S/N ratio for 4 still fairly low even though the signal itself is probably really very strong - But you'd probably need a spectrum analyzer to say for sure.

And yeah .. it Sounds like things should get better for you when they move FARTHER away from you ... Otherwise, probably the best thing to at least try first, would probably be to trap out channel 56 ....

Anyhow -- Given that here I'm using my antenna OUTDOORS where it belongs ;) , and that, given I have to add at least 20db or more of attenuation into the feedline JUST to get the signal quality meter to move down for just about all my local stations... I'm probably get something like 40~60db+ of S/N from most of the local DTV stations here(multipath doesn't really seem to be much of a problem here), so therefore it takes a VERY strong source of interference to cause a problem/dropout -- A lightning strike VERY nearby -- probably a couple hundred feet away from the antenna, and in or near the signal path has caused a dropout a couple of times in the past 3 years for me on VHF DT 10 Cincinnati ....

As for Lo-VHF DTV --- So far, the only time I've had a chance to have any experience with it was when I caught The Dayton channel 2 off air one night and almost had a lock on WKYC-DT Cleveland. Granted, it was a weak signal(but very steady signal, even though there were about 3 other weak analog signals in there on 2 at the time) -- What I noticed was, it looked like The RF shielding on the tuner in my STB didn't seem to be working too well, as I noticed if I turned on a PC sitting 5 feet away, the signal quality meter went from showing a steady, "almost locked" signal to nothing at all. Turning on this PC does noise up WAVE 3 here via a NTSC tuner as little, as well, but it's nothing too significant.

Sure, I get a little "static" on weak VHF(and even sometimes UHF) analogs when say a car with a funky igition drives by/etc, , but since it doesn't do much but sometimes add a small bit of static to my STRONG local lo-VHF analogs, I suspect that, pretty much nothing else here besides at least somewhat nearby lightning strikes would cause a dropout to a Strong lo-VHF DTV signal either. Just a guess though, I may never get a chance to actually see ....

The weaker the desired signal(or the more "uncorrectable" the multipath), of course the worse things will get ... I have no doubt that just a bit of impulse noise or other RFI(which for the most part I don't have much problem with here except impulse noise spikes from lightning) will defintely cause dropouts if the SNR is "normally" relatively low(within say 5db or so of the necessary threshold) of , and especially so with lo-VHF ..

Last night I was able to lock in Ch. 32.1 CBS. Does anyone know where that station is located?

Also, will WDKY be located on Ch. 4.1 once their tower is moved to Clays Ferry? Where is WLEX's tower?

Thanks!

Originally posted by pjohnscpa
Last night I was able to lock in Ch. 32.1 CBS. Does anyone know where that station is located?

Also, will WDKY be located on Ch. 4.1 once their tower is moved to Clays Ferry? Where is WLEX's tower?

Thanks!

http://www.louisvillehdtv.com is a good site for local DT stations... Lexington and Bowling Green are listed in addition to the Louisville stations. 32.1 is CBS out of Louisville. WLEX-DT will share the same tower that WTVQ-DT is broadcasting on today.

There is also a spreadsheet available at http://www.dxfm.com/Database/DTV%20USA.zip that will give you every DT station in the USA. If you enter your GPS coordinates at the top of the spreadsheet, you can then sort on distance and find all the stations close to you.

At this point in time WDKY-DT will still be on 4 . WLEX has not constructed their facilities yet as their digital will be co-located with WTVQ-DT on the WTVQ tower.

WLEX's tower is located off Russell Cave Rd behind the North Walmart and beside Lexmark.

Thanks everyone for those quick responses.

I don't know what was up with 32.1 last night. That is the first time I have ever picked it up. It was not a strong signal, but strong enough to be clear anyway. WTVQ is almost as hard to bring in sometimes.

Originally posted by pjohnscpa
Thanks everyone for those quick responses.

I don't know what was up with 32.1 last night. That is the first time I have ever picked it up. It was not a strong signal, but strong enough to be clear anyway. WTVQ is almost as hard to bring in sometimes.

Tropical atmospheric enhancement. Gotta love it!

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
That might explain a lot ... Such as why you had better results with a INDOOR antenna with WDKY-DT ... Yep, that's intermod when you see a station on a channel it isn't transmitting on .... If it's THAT bad, and especially if you're using a preamp too, I'd guess there is likely added "noise" from the overload issues that is there in places that you DON'T know about as well ....

Precisely why I removed the preamp from the antenna(s) pointed at Lexington. I was originally using it to clean up the analogs a bit, but that's no longer "critical." Plus, I was able to find a better spot for the antenna (3 feet away) that gave a better signal anyway ...

Wireless headphones + audible feedback signal meter: Priceless :D

Pjohnscpa,
Here's a link to a good explanation.
http://home.cogeco.ca/~vem3ont22/propagation/tr-modes.htm
This site also provides a useful forecast for tropo conditions.

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Wireless headphones + audible feedback signal meter: Priceless :D

I guess they do come up with some good idears every once in a while ...


Originally posted by cpcat
Pjohnscpa,
Here's a link to a good explanation.
http://home.cogeco.ca/~vem3ont22/pr...on/tr-modes.htm
This site also provides a useful forecast for tropo conditions.


Yes, I agree the Hepburn site+tropo forecast maps are an excellent resource.

The "signal propagation" section at following site(which also has the spreadsheet ragamuffin mentioned) also provides an excellent explanation of the various modes of signal propagation on VHF/UHF, including tropo scatter+ Tropo ducting :

http://www.dxfm.com

In fact, the entire site is an excellent resource, and I'd think especially so for those in Central KY ...

Also, here's a great page of useful and informative links :

http://pages.cthome.net/fmdx/mailroom.html

The signal trouble was back (and particularly ugly) tonight during primetime, possibly due to the frontal boundery moving through the area. However, when I checked during the 10 o'clock news WDKY had gone to stretch-o-vision for the upconverted programs. OTOH, the signal is stable now. One step forward, two steps back. :(

.. and WKYT added two blinking cursors over the top of the news in the upper left and right sides of the screen! I've seen them put the single blinking cursor on the screen before too. Yay

Did anyone notice that during CSI on some of the commercials that the sound for the commercials would come through, but it would show a SD frame of CSI frozen on screen?

yes, i noticed the same thing here. it seemed to be the local insert commercials. the national ones seemed to come through.

later

Yes.. I thought something was wrong with my HDTV card because I had just been messing with new software/drivers.

http://home.insightbb.com/~refuel/pics/makeitstop_WKYT2.jpg

It looks like something is busted on WDKY's splicer system or perhaps the satellite dish needs to be re-aimed. Anyway, the current signal trouble appears to be limited to the network HD feed. At least they managed to get through the WS without any major problems.

I can barely get WKYT today for the Fla.-Georgia game... anyone else seeing this? I would go to WLKY out of L'ville but they are not showing the game in HD :(

seems OK here. but they would probably have to go off the air for me to notice a problem as i am less than 4 miles from the tower.

later

Hey guys, i am in Versailles and have pretty good luck pulling in the lex ington locals with an indoor amplified RCA $30 antenna, but it is very inconsistent. Iam moving to a new house still in Versailles where the directv dish is on the rear peak of the house. I was thiking of putting an outdoor antenna up there with the dish and have heard decent things about the squareshooter. I like the mointing options of going right off the mast of the dish and the small size of the squareshooter satisfies the "wife acceptance factor". Have you guys had any experience or luck with this particular antenna or have any other recomendations?
Kevin

i have no personal experience with that particular antenna, but the manufacturers web site indicates it is only good for channels 7 to 69. that would preclude WDKY-FOX HDTV reception.

you may want to also consider the cm stealthtenna with amplifier http://www.starkelectronic.com/stealth.htm . it is not quite as ugly as a lot of antennas. i used to use one several years ago and i was pleased with its performance.

later

I'm happy about WTVQ starting Monsters Inc in HD last night. It was about 14 minutes late because of a football game, but I think they showed it in its entirety (sans edited for TV). No one was sleeping at the HD switch. The weather was perfect. I have a flawless recording. Awesome!

Here is the antenna setup I installed on Saturday. Used two U-75R's from Radio Shack. Excellent signal strength: WKYT 93, WTVQ 100 and WKLE 100. I'm located near Harrodsburg Rd and Man-o-War.

http://content.onlineagency.com/sites/3879/images/antenna1.jpg
http://content.onlineagency.com/sites/3879/images/antenna2.jpg

anybody out here in the fringe areas have trouble getting WTVQ digital signal?
i lost the signal for WTVQ for a couple of weeks but now seems to be back to some degree with a signal of 44

Originally posted by demonspawn
anybody out here in the fringe areas have trouble getting WTVQ digital signal?
i lost the signal for WTVQ for a couple of weeks but now seems to be back to some degree with a signal of 44

Yep, I had my seasonal fade troubles w/WTVQ about 3-4 weeks ago ... I relocated my antenna and am back up to regular levels ... and I also found a better spot for all of the Lex analogs in the process.

Looks like WTVQ is having troubles yet again on 36-1. (Pic is frozen but audio is playing).

Seems like this sort of thing always happens just in time for Monday Night Football!

David

Has anyone called yet? Still down

Originally posted by the19hole
Has anyone called yet? Still down

Nope...have no idea who to talk to.

Justed called. He said he would tell them. Whoever them is, wait and see.

Originally posted by HDTivoKY
Looks like WTVQ is having troubles yet again on 36-1. (Pic is frozen but audio is playing).

Seems like this sort of thing always happens just in time for Monday Night Football!

David


This blows, I can hear the game but see some goofy picture from home makeover! Man, hopefully they can clear it up!

Anyone see the strobes they put on (I think it's the new Fox) tower by Clays Ferry? They turned them on Friday night and the strobes are ridiculous, I'm 2 miles away and it's lighting up my back yard!

Here is the number, (859) 294-3636
Hit 2, for breaking news, to talk with someone. As far as I'm concerned this is breaking news.

Originally posted by the19hole
Here is the number, (859) 294-3636
Hit 2, for breaking news, to talk with someone. As far as I'm concerned this is breaking news.

Called...said they were aware...no ETA

This is precisly why I've spend $0000's on my home theater...to listen to football like it's 1951

I've always noticed when watching stuff off the primary subchannel for WTVQ, that the audio comes out my front two speakers, but not the center channel. Any idea why their DD5.1 isn't setup to output the audio through the center channel speaker? If I switch to their .2 subchannel, the audio correctly comes out the center channel. Is this common for everyone or is it a problem with the way my MyHD card decodes their signal?

Game on but in SD, progress

Originally posted by BenCJedi
I've always noticed when watching stuff off the primary subchannel for WTVQ, that the audio comes out my front two speakers, but not the center channel. Any idea why their DD5.1 isn't setup to output the audio through the center channel speaker? If I switch to their .2 subchannel, the audio correctly comes out the center channel. Is this common for everyone or is it a problem with the way my MyHD card decodes their signal?

No center channel sound here too.

Originally posted by nuts4scuba
No center channel sound here too.

I wondered why no one ever complained about that here (or has anyone?). I guess it wouldn't be as much an issue for me if my speakers were balanced better (i.e. all from the same manufacturer), but I like most audio coming from the center channel anyway to put the focus right up front where the picture is. WTVQ has always had the audio like this since I first tuned in at the end of last year. I figured it was either my equipment and the way they broadcast or that it was just unversally accepted in Lexington.

It's back!

Originally posted by nuts4scuba
No center channel sound here too.

... or rear surrounds. In fact, there's never been true 5.1 on WTVQ. They are running a stereo (DPL) mix into the front left and front right channels, which would be fine if they would set the dolby flags to indicate 2.0 (like WKYT does.) WTVQ = faux DD5.1

PS: Yes some people have "complained" about it before ;)

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
... or rear surrounds. In fact, there's never been true 5.1 on WTVQ. They are running a stereo (DPL) mix into the front left and front right channels, which would be fine if they would set the dolby flags to indicate 2.0 (like WKYT does.) WTVQ = faux DD5.1

PS: Yes some people have "complained" about it before ;)


You're right.. I did notice that last week while watching LOST with the rear surrounds. If they set it like WKYT, I believe dialog would correctly be sent to my center channel by my receiver. At least that is how is must work for WKYT because I get audio out of my center channel for them. I didn't realize they were only DD2.0.

Maybe with some telephone calling, we could offer their tech some encouragement to correctly flag the audio like WKYT?

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Maybe with some telephone calling, we could offer their tech some encouragement to correctly flag the audio like WKYT?

Something gives me the idea that this may be one of those corporate "home office" mandated things. Perhaps they feel that making the DD5.1 indicator light up on our receivers is more important. ;)

Anyway, the solution I use is to just switch to the analog audio inputs on my receiver ... or disable dolby-digital output on the STB. Either way gets you back to true stereo/DPL which the audio receiver will happily process correctly. This "fix" also takes care of the severe volume level changes between the ABC HD feed and local spots.

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Something gives me the idea that this may be one of those corporate "home office" mandated things. Perhaps they feel that making the DD5.1 indicator light up on our receivers is more important. ;)

Anyway, the solution I use is to just switch to the analog audio inputs on my receiver ... or disable dolby-digital output on the STB. Either way gets you back to true stereo/DPL which the audio receiver will happily process correctly. This "fix" also takes care of the severe volume level changes between the ABC HD feed and local spots.

That would also mean running yet another 30' of cable through the ceiling/floor from the PC upstairs with the MyHD card to the TV downstairs. My wife is not a big fan of running more cables. Though now that I think about it.. wouldn't my soundcard (on motherboard) downmix the audio properly for the receiver to interpret it and channel it through the center channel speaker as dolby surround? I use the coax digital from the MyHD card, but perhaps the digital coax output on the motherboard's sound will mix properly. I guess I won't get out of running another cable unfortunately.

Originally posted by pczarapa
Anyone see the strobes they put on (I think it's the new Fox) tower by Clays Ferry? They turned them on Friday night and the strobes are ridiculous, I'm 2 miles away and it's lighting up my back yard!

Those are construction strobes for the new tower. ( else you might end up with more than just a bright light in your back yard) I don't know if they are planning on running strobes at night permanently or go to reds at night...

Originally posted by William Smith
Those are construction strobes for the new tower. ( else you might end up with more than just a bright light in your back yard) I don't know if they are planning on running strobes at night permanently or go to reds at night...

I say they do something flashy like lasers that spell FOX continuously in the air. :)

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Though now that I think about it.. wouldn't my soundcard (on motherboard) downmix the audio properly for the receiver to interpret it and channel it through the center channel speaker as dolby surround? I use the coax digital from the MyHD card, but perhaps the digital coax output on the motherboard's sound will mix properly.

Check the configuration options on your MyHD software. It may be possible to tell the MyHD card to do the down mix and send it out over your existing hookup.

Edit: Specificaly look at the AV-Setup tab ... looks like there's something useful there in the audio configurations.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
I say they do something flashy like lasers that spell FOX continuously in the air. :)

I'd be happy if they'd just fix their HD receiver ... I'm starting to wonder if FOX swapped out parts with WDKY's splicer to expedite a fix at WDRB.

Here is a photo of the WDKY tower on 2 November 2004. Looks like it is nearly complete :)

http://content.onlineagency.com/sites/3879/images/tower.jpg

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Check the configuration options on your MyHD software. It may be possible to tell the MyHD card to do the down mix and send it out over your existing hookup.

Edit: Specificaly look at the AV-Setup tab ... looks like there's something useful there in the audio configurations.

I didn't have to change anything in the MyHD software. I ran another coax cable through the ceiling/floor to the coax output of my PC's digital coax-out for the soundcard portion of the motherboard. This way I can listen to MP3s and also have sound for watching anything I download. This setup appears to correctly mix the sound from WTVQ, so my center channel is being used now. I would just switch to the MyHD coax digital output for pure digital (and correctly flagged audio). I am not sure what occurs internally on my motherboard to correctly mix the audio before it exits its digital coax connector, but at least it works and nothing funky like the sound breaking up is going on.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
I am not sure what occurs internally on my motherboard to correctly mix the audio before it exits its digital coax connector, but at least it works and nothing funky like the sound breaking up is going on.

Whatever get the job done :)

My guess is that your soundcard/motherboard is only getting a stereo down mix off of the MyHD card.

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Whatever get the job done :)

My guess is that your soundcard/motherboard is only getting a stereo down mix off of the MyHD card.

Yeah it is. I can watch something that would normally indicate DD5.1 on my receiver and it only shows Dolby Surround lit up. If I change the output in the MyHD app to use the coax out from the MyHD card, then my receiver will show the DD5.1 indicator. Since WTVQ is only using stereo anyway, it is better for me to use the analog downmix/digital coax output, so I'll get audio from my center channel speaker. LOST isn't as cinematic-sounding when there is no front or surrounds. It was much more enjoyable tonight using the Dolby Surround from the new connection I made.

Originally posted by mfenster
Here is a photo of the WDKY tower on 2 November 2004. Looks like it is nearly complete :)

http://content.onlineagency.com/sites/3879/images/tower.jpg

That's a great sign. I was going to call WDKY and see if they have a schedule to relocate the equipment and fire that baby up in time for the holidays. I didn't get around to it though.

They are at about 700 -750 ft, a few hundred to go....

Originally posted by BenCJedi
That's a great sign.

Doesn't matter ... their HD reciever/dish is still busted ... it looks like they finally decided to leave it in local (upconversion) mode last night.

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Doesn't matter ... their HD reciever/dish is still busted ... it looks like they finally decided to leave it in local (upconversion) mode last night.

One thing after another..
Did they really give equipment to the Louisville station?

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Did they really give equipment to the Louisville station?

Don't know ... that was just one of my "plausible theories" based on little information. I'm assuming (danger Will) that FOX is retaining ownership and ultimate control over all the splicer equipment. ... It's not inconceivable that they might "borrow" equipment from a DMA #64 station to fix a station in DMA #50, especially given that DMA #50 has cable carriage as well as a much larger potential OTA audience at the moment. But I've been accused of "over-thinking" scenarios in the past ... ;)

OTOH, there were some storms moving through the night after the WS which was when the trouble started on the HD feed; so, it could just be bad luck.

http://www.wlextv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1549052&nav=EQlxJSG5


October 29, 2004

On September 9, we received our long-awaited Construction Permit from the FCC for our DTV transmitter. With ordering the antenna and considerable construction to be done, we hope to be on second quarter of 2005, at our full licensed power of 475 Kilowatts.

DTV (Digital TeleVision) includes, but is not limited to, High Definition. We intend to carry all NBC HD programming.

Dave Powell, Chief Engineer, WLEX-TV/WLEX-DT



I thought they were just going to rent space on the same tower as WTVQ. What do they need to construct? Maybe a clamping mechanism to hold their antenna? I'll dig out dad's old Erector set if that'll help. :)

this is the same guy i have emailed a few times he has been a very nice guy!

if memory serves me right we spoke about where the transmitter would be and i was always under the impression that it would be on the existing tower on russel cave.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
I thought they were just going to rent space on the same tower as WTVQ. What do they need to construct?

Well just about everything but the tower itself ... What they aren't saying is the whole project may require some interuptions of WTVQ's service to complete the work ... I suspect WTVQ would be reluctant to take their DT and possibly the analog off air until the end of the traditional fall/spring TV "season."

Not quite, The new antenna will be the full power antenna for both WTVQ-DT and WLEX-DT. Then you have the transmission line, combiner and both full power transmitter plants to install. The STL to WLEX should be the easiest part. They will probably have to shut down the analog while the antenna is being hung and the DTV as they get close to it.

This doesn't include any work needed to strengthen the tower itself.

Originally posted by William Smith
This doesn't include any work needed to strengthen the tower itself.

Yep ... I was wondering about that part too. According to info on the FCC antenna registration database, WTVQ is apparently still using the original (WBLG?) 1960's vintage tower. I hope it's up to the task.

Yes it was WBLG orignally on Ch 62.

can someone give a consise update of exactly which of the local stations are broadcasting HD in our area. is fox up yet ?

this pretty much sums it up. fox currently depends on how close you are to the tower.

http://www.louisvillehdtv.com/lex.aspx

later

much appreciated

Nice day to work on the WDKY tower. Can you see the two men at the top? Heck, I get nervous just cleaning out my gutters!

http://content.onlineagency.com/sites/3879/images/WDKYantennaNov09.jpg
http://content.onlineagency.com/sites/3879/images/WDKYantennaNov09a.jpg

Does any know when Insight Cable is going to pick the HD programming other then WKYT and KET in Lexington Ky?

I heard Native Americans usually take the high tower building jobs. They have the gonads and like the feeling of being on the top of the world. Whoever those guys are, I'm glad it isn't me. They look to be doing a fine job. I wonder if when they have to pee they just do it. Look out below!!

Originally posted by mrmonsters
Does any know when Insight Cable is going to pick the HD programming other then WKYT and KET in Lexington Ky?

it is my understanding that insight is ready to carry WTVQ at a moments notice. i hear that WTVQ will not allow insight to carry their signal until they agree to also carry the sub-channel.

insight does not really want another news network and the fcc says that there is no must-carry requirement for local sub-channels.

i have not heard anything about WDKY. i assume that since they do not broadcast a strong signal into fayette county that insight has nothing to carry for the time being.

later

My brother has talked with Insight on the phone about why they don't carry WDKY, and their reply was that they don't carry it because WDKY is not broadcasting in HD. He tried to tell them that they are, but to no avail. WDKY will not respond to any e-mails to provide proof to Insight that they are broadcasting in HD. Maybe Insight's attitude will change once the new tower is operational. Things would run much smoother if only the people in charge read this thread!

I'm not in charge but I read the thread....

Originally posted by pbracken
and their reply was that they don't carry it because WDKY is not broadcasting in HD. He tried to tell them that they are, but to no avail.

Actually, as of last night the HD feed at WDKY is still broken (has been since the day after game four of the World Series.) It looked like somebody tried to get it working for the first 1/2 hour of the Branson show, but gave up. Fortunately for me, WDRB-DT and WFTE-DT were booming into the cave last night.

But parkay was right in that both Media General (WTVQ) and Sinclair (WDKY) are playing hardball with their digital signals. According to bitblaze (an Insight fellow), WTVQ was offered the same deal as Insight gave WKYT.

Watching LOST and it started out fine in HD. All of a sudden it just went to standard def! :(

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Watching LOST and it started out fine in HD. All of a sudden it just went to standard def! :(

Back after the next commercial break. I think they had to show us their new big fancy station bug. :D

HD fixed!

I'm new to the HD area so please excuse me if these questions seem dumb to many of you. I recently purchased a Samsung antenna to receive local channels in High Definition. I have Directv, Samsung TS-360 HD receiver and a Sony High Definition TV. I'm only able to get WKYT and some of the KET channels to come in. I get the 'Searching for signal' message on Fox, WTVQ, WYMT and the others. Has anyone else had this problem? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Originally posted by kphart
I'm new to the HD area so please excuse me if these questions seem dumb to many of you. I recently purchased a Samsung antenna to receive local channels in High Definition. I have Directv, Samsung TS-360 HD receiver and a Sony High Definition TV. I'm only able to get WKYT and some of the KET channels to come in. I get the 'Searching for signal' message on Fox, WTVQ, WYMT and the others. Has anyone else had this problem? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Well currently Lexington has 3 HD stations and depending on your location and how strong the signals are , you may or may not get all of them. I'm using a table top Emerson antenna that is wedged in the attic ceiling with a 26db line amp for the long cable runs. I get 100% signal for WKYT, 87% for KET and 82% for WTVQ. I live on the south side of Lexington. Unfortunately most of us in Lexington don't have a chance in hell picking up WDKY right now because they favor the south in Danville and very little signal goes north to Lexington. They are constructing a new tower that is closer and should have a more favorable signal and radiation pattern. HDTVChallenged says though that the current FOX tower has not broadcasted any HD since the end of the World Series. We hope the HD equiptment will be fixed and operational when their new tower is completed. The ETA on that is 'before the Super Bowl' as far as I know. WLEX is not estimated to go live until July 2005. Try moving your antenna up as high as you can get it. The amp made a huge difference for me. It was a cheap, but powerful amp. Most here recommend the Channel Master 7777 amp. I'd like to try one myself. Occassionally my little setup will pick up WAVE in Louisville if the weather conditions are right.

BenCJedi, thanks for the info. I'll have to look into the amp and will try moving my antenna higher.

Depending on time of day and other things KET can have as few as 3 services or as many as 6.

See http://www.ket.org/dtv

William

I have been into home theater for a few years now but just bought my first HDTV receiver, a LG LST-4200A. I live near Turfland Mall and was interested in local opinion about antenna selection. Outdoor vs. Indoor, preamp etc... that sort of thing. I've heard good things about the Zenith Silver Sensor but I wanted to hear what people in the area are getting good results with. Also, just inquiring about any tips the veterans might have for the noobs.

Thanks in advance for your answers.
Charles

Originally posted by jeanbgrenouille
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Charles

Welcome to the asylum ... please beware of the grouchy HDTV starved residents. :D

There should be quite a bit of info to pick from in the thread already. At your location, I'd start off with an indoor TV top antenna perhaps even a combo rabbit-ear/uhf-loop. WLEX/WTVQ/WKYT will be to your ENE and WDKY/WKLE will be to your south. I will defer to actual Lexington residents to advise on specific antenna models since my results are somewhat atypical of folks in the metro area.

Originally posted by jeanbgrenouille
I've heard good things about the Zenith Silver Sensor

i'm doing well with the silver sensor at my location, but i am on the east side within 3 miles of WKYT-DT/WTVQ-DT and 10 from WKLE-DT. WDKY-DT is not an option from this location with their current transmitter.

most area stations are still broadcasting in a fairly low power mode. the exception is WUPX-DT 21 from morehead. i can pick them up with my antenna pointing in almost any direction. they are broadcasting 5 SD signals, mostly infomercials and PAX type programming.

remember, the silver sensor is not a VHF antenna. it picks up WKYT-DT well because it is on VHF 13, the highest VHF station. i doubt it will do very well with WDKY-DT on VHF 4.

later

Originally posted by parkay
most area stations are still broadcasting in a fairly low power mode. the exception is WUPX-DT 21 from morehead. i can pick them up with my antenna pointing in almost any direction. they are broadcasting 5 SD signals, mostly infomercials and PAX type programming.

Yep, My RS Double-Bow pulls UPX in just fine at 60mi (indoors even) ... too bad I never watch PAX :D

yea im 90 miles from pax and get a very good signal just wish the lexington station would give us a little more signal WTVQ is the pits here!!!! and no way to get WDKY i can see the signal bounce but thats about it.

Originally posted by demonspawn
... and no way to get WDKY i can see the signal bounce but thats about it.

Doesn't matter ... as of last night, WDKY's network HD feed is still hosed.

WTVQ is a bit squirrely for me too; since they went on the air, I've had to relocate my antenna at least twice a year as the seasons and tropo conditions change. Hopefully, they'll go full power next summer when WLEX goes online.

Hopefully, they'll go full power next summer when WLEX goes online.

There's an FCC ruling that states the top 100 DMA's need to be operating full power digitally by July '05. Lexington is #65 so it *should* happen.

WTVQ chose to locate their current DTV antenna low on their tower to avoid overshooting Lexington. As close as they are to town the same antenna at the top of their tower may have overshot the city. Interesting enough its a smaller version of the same antenna we use at WKLE-DT but we're farther from town.

yea i have no problems with WKLE at times i get 100 signal on them but most of the time its around 65 to 72 Wkyt has got alot better latetly too it used to be real bad i would have a signal of 52 and still it would do nothing but drop out seems to be alot better now

Since your in Frankfort you also have WKON in Owenton as a source for KET's programming. Its on 44.

Anyone else wish that WLEX was onboard with the HD and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade was in HD? It's a tradition for me to watch the parade as I roast the turkey. I never watch NBC for anything else. I would watch Leno in HD if we had it. I downloaded some transport streams of NBC programming and it warrants a "holy cow". It looks so clear and awesome! I just can't explain why the clarity looks so great, even compared to the best HD we've seen on WKYT or WTVQ. Maybe the sample I downloaded was from an NBC station that was using 100% of the bandwidth on a single subchannel for full bitrate. WLEX analog has never come in breathtakingly clear for me. I hope when they finally go live that they don't add a ton of subchannels and they dedicate much bitrate to their main channel. I'd probably watch NBC programming if they get their act together.

How is WDKY's new tower? I guess their HD encoder is still offline. I hope they are 1) fixing the equipment to be ready when the new tower is ready or 2) receiving new equiptment that will arrive when the new tower is ready. It has been rainy lately, so I hope that doesn't impede the construction workers from finishing the tower. I thought I saw someone post an ETA of December from an article in the Herald Leader awhile back. It'd be really great if WDKY had tower and HD in gear before the holidays ramp up.

Tower is getting there, I think they are waiting on the antennas (DTV on the bottom , analog on top)... But if they don't get the tower lights straghtened out ( its supposed to be strobe day, red at night) they are going to tick off the neighbors.... I don't want many more calls from people who think its our tower...

Originally posted by BenCJedi
How is WDKY's new tower? I guess their HD encoder is still offline. I hope they are 1) fixing the equipment to be ready when the new tower is ready or 2) receiving new equiptment that will arrive when the new tower is ready.

Nah ... their local HD encoder is fine ... upconversions are ok. It's just the 'live' FOX-HD feeds that are screwed up. To the barely knowledgable layman such as myself, it looks like a bad satellite reciever a/o bad LNB a/o satellite dish out of alignment.

Is WKYT down? I used to be able to tune them in no problem on 27.1 but couldn't for CSI Thursday, nor can I know. I hope they get their $hit straight for the NFL tomorrow. It's really frustrating, what would happen if their main signal went down - all hell would brake loose. I guess we need more numbers behind HD before we get customer service.

Originally posted by William Smith
Tower is getting there, I think they are waiting on the antennas (DTV on the bottom , analog on top)... But if they don't get the tower lights straghtened out ( its supposed to be strobe day, red at night) they are going to tick off the neighbors.... I don't want many more calls from people who think its our tower...

The tower is ridiculous when the strobes are going, I live near Clays Ferry. I believe they now have the timer right to switch from strobe to regular red lights at 7pm.

Originally posted by pczarapa
Is WKYT down? I used to be able to tune them in no problem on 27.1...

I too have not been able to get them for a week or two as well here in Versailles... got about 30% signal this morning. Lucky for me I can point my antenna at Louisville and get WLKY 100%...go figure.

My normal 100% WKYT signal has been floating around 81-87% lately. I dunno what they are doing. My antenna has not moved.

Originally posted by chuckgr
I too have not been able to get them for a week or two as well here in Versailles... got about 30% signal this morning. Lucky for me I can point my antenna at Louisville and get WLKY 100%...go figure.

Must be some odd tropo conditions ... there's also the potential for co-channel interference on ch13 (WBKO) ...

FWIW, I don't think there's any CBS-HD football games for us today from either WLKY or WKYT.

OTOH, while I'm sure the UK game drew more viewers than SEC football, I'm a bit disappointed that WKYT would run an SD production on 27.1 when they had access to a CBS HD feed.

Must be some odd tropo conditions ... there's also the potential for co-channel interference on ch13 (WBKO) ...

I've had difficult reception conditions as well. It needs to go away soon as it's becoming annoying. I'm hoping the 5th gen. tuners will make these issues go away or OTA may not be a long term option for me.

Tower lights should change over at dusk and dawn... not on a timer...

Humm ... well the folks at WDKY must have swapped some cables around. They managed to get the FOX-HD feed going this afternoon, but now the local upconverts are hosed - the exact opposite of the previous condition. So, it looks like the problem is probably in their switching equipment.

Not HD related but ....

D* stealthfully started providing regionalized WB feeds (in SD) this morning. Look for the WB on Ch14 if you sub to the LiL package.

Must be Christmas in November ... Finally all 6 nets + KET in the house ... plus WDKY has at least straightened out the FOX-HD feed ... will wonders never cease :D

Has anyone been able to get WKYT on 27.1? I can't get anything from there and used to get a great signal from Clays Ferry.

Originally posted by pczarapa
Has anyone been able to get WKYT on 27.1? I can't get anything from there and used to get a great signal from Clays Ferry.

I live up by Hamburg and haven't had any trouble with WKYT. Are you trying to add is as channel 13? It should remap as 27.1-3.

My directv hd tuner maps it as 27.1 - 27.3, but no signal - i'll have to poke around some with my OTA antenna

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Not HD related but ....

D* stealthfully started providing regionalized WB feeds (in SD) this morning. Look for the WB on Ch14 if you sub to the LiL package.

Must be Christmas in November ... Finally all 6 nets + KET in the house ... plus WDKY has at least straightened out the FOX-HD feed ... will wonders never cease :D

Ut oh.. does this mean Dish Network will follow suit and will pull the Superstations package from my subscription? I don't want them to do that, as I enjoy watching WPIX in NY for my Smallville in widescreen. Also the advantage of multiple timezones for the WB and UPN stations is great, especially with multiple DVRs.. makes Wednesday's easier to record everything.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Ut oh.. does this mean Dish Network will follow suit and will pull the Superstations package from my subscription?

Doubt it ... it looks like D* is just finally utilizing the same loophole that E* has been using. AFAIK, WB and UPN netlets aren't covered by the original DNS provisions and *may* not be in the new/pending SHVIA ... not that it would matter since WBKI forfeited any rights in the Lexington DMA.

Originally posted by pczarapa
My directv hd tuner maps it as 27.1 - 27.3, but no signal - i'll have to poke around some with my OTA antenna

Coming in strong here at the cave ... What reciever do you have?

As mentioned earlier, pczarapa might want to try manually tuning to 13(or 13-1 with some receivers) or rescanning for channels. Sometimes, receivers can "lose" the correct PSIP remapping info(in this case 27-x) if something changes(which can sometimes be "reset" by tuning to the actual RF channel), or if the receiver "hiccups", or, receivers that use EPG guide info via the satellite can become "uncoordinated" with the PSIP/channel remapping info/etc info the station is sending.

Also, on STB's/receivers that do both NTSC analog and ATSC digital, (at least this is the case with a DTC-100), if a co-channel analog signal(such as say via WBKO 13 If say, perhaps you tried tuning to 27-x remap or 13 RF channel when say, WKYT-DT was off air) is received, the ONLY WAY to receive a digital station on that same RF channel again(or to see it via it's PSIP remapped channel - 27-x in this case) may be to do a channel rescan.

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
As mentioned earlier, pczarapa might want to try manually tuning to 13(or 13-1 with some receivers) or rescanning for channels. Sometimes, receivers can "lose" the correct PSIP remapping info(in this case 27-x) if something changes(which can sometimes be "reset" by tuning to the actual RF channel), or if the receiver "hiccups", or, receivers that use EPG guide info via the satellite can become "uncoordinated" with the PSIP/channel remapping info/etc info the station is sending.

Also, on STB's/receivers that do both NTSC analog and ATSC digital, (at least this is the case with a DTC-100), if a co-channel analog signal(such as say via WBKO 13 If say, perhaps you tried tuning to 27-x remap or 13 RF channel when say, WKYT-DT was off air) is received, the ONLY WAY to receive a digital station on that same RF channel again(or to see it via it's PSIP remapped channel - 27-x in this case) may be to do a channel rescan.

Thanks!! Appreciate the help!

Originally posted by pczarapa
Has anyone been able to get WKYT on 27.1? I can't get anything from there and used to get a great signal from Clays Ferry.

I have seen the same thing as well the last couple of weeks, low or no signal at all.. This is not a new setup as I have been getting the signal very strong for the last year without any problems.. no changes in my equipment (STB or antenna)... I noticed that there were a couple of post in the L'ville forum from folks that were seeing the same thing, used to get it - can't now.. Looks like the folks on the fringes are no longer getting a strong signal, those in Lex. don't seem to be having a problem (I happen to be in Versailles area)....as though the power was lowered... Is there anyone outside of Lex. getting a strong signal? (although with my setup I can lock on 32-1 from L'ville at 100%, so I can still get CBS..from a station that is a lot further away..) Later...

Originally posted by cpcat
I've had difficult reception conditions as well. It needs to go away soon as it's becoming annoying. I'm hoping the 5th gen. tuners will make these issues go away or OTA may not be a long term option for me.


Charles,

I have some large dedicated high-band antennas coming in soon,if you need to upgrade your VHF capability.Had to buy 49 of them just to get 2.Maybe work a trade on that low-noise preamp you have >g<.

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

Originally posted by chuckgr
(I happen to be in Versailles area)....as though the power was lowered... Is there anyone outside of Lex. getting a strong signal?

Yes ... neither Versailles nor Clays Ferry should be a problem, both are closer to WKYT than I am. It is possible that your local RF diffraction patterns or other propagation factors have changed with the seasons. In short, you may want to move your antenna around (especially if it's in an attic.) I went through this with WTVQ and moving the antenna a mere two feet brought the signal back up to 90-100%

im also in Versailles , and i just got my hidef directv receiver. what kind of antenna can i use to get lexington ota channels?

Originally posted by all4jo
im also in Versailles , and i just got my hidef directv receiver. what kind of antenna can i use to get lexington ota channels?

I have a channel master 4228 on the roof with a cm rotor and a cm 7777 amp. I can point to Lex or L'ville and get most channels - NBC, CBS, and most of the time Fox for L'ville; ABC, and until recently CBS out of Lex. as well as the PBS stations from each city (and a few other PBSs). I also have a 2-6 VHF antenna for getting Fox out of Danville. Of course YMMV... Have fun

Is WKYT showing this HD today? WYMT can't seem to figure out how to get the feed. WVLT in Knoxville has it, but my reception for them isn't great today. CBS must have switched something because other affiliates are having problems as well.

Originally posted by cpcat
Is WKYT showing this HD today? WYMT can't seem to figure out how to get the feed. WVLT in Knoxville has it, but my reception for them isn't great today. CBS must have switched something because other affiliates are having problems as well.


Yes it's in HD, no problems with WKYT here.

I live in Richmond and have no problem receiving 27-1 or 46-1 but very rarely can I get 36-1. Also do not get 56-1

I know this thread deals with OTA reception, but since everyone here lives in or around Lexington, I thought this would be the best place to ask this question...

Do any of you know when Insight will be rolling our the Motorola 6412? It looks like most of the other cable companies released the box a little over a month ago. I have been hearing good things about the new TV Guide interface, so I hope they utilize it.

Any info would be appreciated. Thanks guys.

Is Fox currently up and running off their new tower? What is their digital channel--is it 4.1??

If not, what are the current estimates to be up and running?

I currently only have the CM4221 which is basically only UHF (I think, even though I am able to pull in WKYT on 13.1 at about 80 or 85%). Will I absolutely have to get another antenna and if so should I buy a combo UHF/VHF, or split the 4221 with another antenna.

Thanks!

Originally posted by pjohnscpa
Is Fox currently up and running off their new tower? What is their digital channel--is it 4.1??

If not, what are the current estimates to be up and running?

I currently only have the CM4221 which is basically only UHF (I think, even though I am able to pull in WKYT on 13.1 at about 80 or 85%). Will I absolutely have to get another antenna and if so should I buy a combo UHF/VHF, or split the 4221 with another antenna.

Thanks!

All Lexingtonians are eagerly awaiting that new FOX tower . Last ETA I heard was "before the next Super Bowl". I've emailed them, but they never respond.

I'm hoping my tabletop antenna in my attic will pick them up when they go live to avoid additional expense. I may have to modify it by using antenna poles cut to the right length for VHF ch4. We'll see. I get a decent signal on all the other major digital channels for Lexington.

HDTVChallenged: how is WDKY tuning these days? 100% HDTV for national programming and 0% for local upconverts still?

Originally posted by BenCJedi
HDTVChallenged: how is WDKY tuning these days? 100% HDTV for national programming and 0% for local upconverts still?

Well at the moment it still looks like only 1/2 of their splicer is operational - they appear to be swapping cables manually at this point depending on the program material. In other words, they can get either the HD feed or the upconverts working, but not both at the same time. Give 'em an A for effort at least :D

For some bizarre reason they swapped cables in the 3rd quarter of the football game yesterday - I went off to CBS at that point ... and so it goes ...

For pjohn*: You'll most likely need some type of LoVHF or combo antenna, the 4221 doesn't work for me. Eventually, I plan on getting a good UHF/VHF combiner to join my 4221 and combo together.

Edit: Well, I spoke too soon. WDKY went back to dead air mode sometime this afternoon ... no HD, no upcon, but there is a steady signal

did anybody catch the report on fox news tonight about the new tower?

at the end of the segment they said the tower would be operational in 3 to 6 weeks!

Originally posted by demonspawn
did anybody catch the report on fox news tonight about the new tower?

at the end of the segment they said the tower would be operational in 3 to 6 weeks!

dang.. hope 3 weeks.. just in time for American Idol. Rumor is that they are going to be shooting the performances in HD. I guess we'd get several weeks of SD anyhow because of the auditions (and no one noticing camera guys on the streets with HD cameras).

If WDKY can get rolling in 3 weeks, we should also be able to enjoy 24 in HD as well.

Originally posted by demonspawn
did anybody catch the report on fox news tonight about the new tower?

at the end of the segment they said the tower would be operational in 3 to 6 weeks!

Just caught the teaser at the end of my UTV recording of House. I'm glad somebody else got the particulars. ...

It would be nice if they could get their splicer and PSIP generator working in the mean time. It's darned annoying to see 100% on the signal meter with no way to access the programming ;) :D

Talked to an actual human at WDKY today (not the engineering staff though) who said that the digital transmitter will be off the air for the next 3-6 weeks while they finish moving equipment to the new site.

Note: As of this time stamp the digital xmitter is still turned on, but there is no programming.

Does anyone know if the Kentucky game will be shown in HD on CBS this Saturnday (4th)? TitanTV doesn't show the HD icon but the description says that it will be shown in 720p... I would really like to see this game in Hidef!

Originally posted by rob_fox
Does anyone know if the Kentucky game will be shown in HD on CBS this Saturday (4th)?
my guess is no... the CBS HD site http://www.cbs.com/info/hdtv/index.php and CBS-SportsLine site http://www.sportsline.com/cbssports don't show this game as being an HD broadcast...

I would suspect that with the SEC championship football game SAT evening and SUN NFL football this weekend in HD... the fleet of CBS equipment is too thin to HD a "regionally" televised game (i.e. NC and KY).

Does anyone know if the Kentucky game will be shown in HD on CBS this Saturnday (4th)? TitanTV doesn't show the HD icon but the description says that it will be shown in 720p... I would really like to see this game in Hidef!

For some reason, TitanTV mentions the upconversion of the program at the end of the description on alot of the programs, i.e., if the station upconverts to 720p for all of it's programming like WKYT does, it mentions that (as if that were terribly significant). It probably says that WYMT will show it in upconverted 1080i but all you'll get is an upconverted SD image.

yea they had some nice shots from the top of the tower.
I wonder who they got to take the camera up there lol!
i think even i would get a bit weezy at that height.

Anyone having trouble with WKYT and WTVQ today? I lost both channels this morning. I am still geting KET but thats it.

I normally get WKYT at about 80-85% or better.

Originally posted by pjohnscpa
Anyone having trouble with WKYT and WTVQ today?

Both have been at their normal levels here at the cave.

I guess it must be the atmospheric conditions? I have just never had it drop off both channels like that. Even tonight I cannot get either one.

The funny thing is, earlier this week I had moved my antenna a little and all week long had been getting WTVQ stronger than I have ever been able to. And now, nothing.

Originally posted by pjohnscpa
I guess it must be the atmospheric conditions?


Probably so, although a marginal antenna location can make the problem worse. FWIW, I've never been able to find an indoor spot for my UHF antenna that will work well all year. I'm now on my third relocation, hopefully this one will do it.

For the most part, if your not near the towers, Indoor antennas preform poorly for UHF transmissions. If you want reliable reception, your probably going to have to get them outside..

I am just learning hdtv and am hooking up a channel master 4228a Monday. I live in Georgetown and pick up channel 36 in hd and 27 half the time. Will the ant. I bought allow me to pick up 27 and fox 56. I was trying to follow earlier reply about 13.1 which I did not understand. I am using amp. rabbit ears today.

Originally posted by uknurse
Will the ant. I bought allow me to pick up 27 and fox 56. I was trying to follow earlier reply about 13.1 which I did not understand.

you will not be able to get fox HDTV until they switch from the current transmitter to the new clays ferry transmitter.

i am not sure which earlier reply you refer to but HDTV signals are not currently broadcast on the 'native' channel. channel 27 broadcasts its HDTV signal on channel 13. 36 broadcasts HDTV on 40. 56 broadcasts HDTV on 4.

many recievers display the 'native' channel number instead of the actual channel number. (after the analog transmitters are shut down, broadcasters will have the option of moving the HDTV signal to the 'native' channel number or remaining on the new channel.)

13.1 is the primary sub-channel of WKYT-DT. if you can almost get it with a poor antenna, a good antenna should bring it in as WTVQ and WKYT have their transmitters located just a stones throw from each other on the east side of lexington. (this should improve as they both are operating at a low power level currently. they will soon be required to increase the power of the transmission.)

hope this helps.

later

Originally posted by parkay
you will not be able to get fox HDTV until they switch from the current transmitter to the new clays ferry transmitter.

Speaking of WDKY: They finally turned off the "old" digital transmitter this morning after a week of transmitting only a digital "carrier" signal. I assume this means "progress" is afoot.

I have a Hitachi 50v715 with dt hdtv box and a tivo box. I bought the tv about 1 month ago. I pick up chn 36 in digital at 36-1 or 36-2. I pick up 27 at 27-1, 27-2 or 27-3. I have 56 at 56-1 but since not transmitting, do not pick anything up. When I mentioned I was confused earlier, it was in reference to the channels 13, 40 or 4 where fox will tx.

Originally posted by uknurse
I have a Hitachi 50v715 with dt hdtv box and a tivo box. I bought the tv about 1 month ago. I pick up chn 36 in digital at 36-1 or 36-2. I pick up 27 at 27-1, 27-2 or 27-3. I have 56 at 56-1 but since not transmitting, do not pick anything up. When I mentioned I was confused earlier, it was in reference to the channels 13, 40 or 4 where fox will tx.

This is why I don't like this business with virtual channels. I like the real physical channel. I don't think of WKYT-DT as ch27, but as the actual ch13 it broadcasts as. I guess many receivers change the actual digital channel designation to the analog channel number for user convenience in associating the network they have always watched to the same channel number they have always been familiar with. It's just a fascade. The thing with WDKY FOX.. their analog channel is 56, which is UHF. It probably isn't well known to the general populous that WDKY-DT is actually channel 4, which is VHF. If you live in a home with only a UHF antenna, you might think you are good to go for FOX when they start transmitting their digital at the new tower, but that won't be the case since it will be broadcasting on low band VHF. You'll need a VHF antenna. I am waiting til the new tower is lit up, so I can ascertain what VHF antenna will be most affordable/sufficient for a rock solid signal. In previous discussions on this it had been commented on that low band VHF is generally strong/powerful, but also very susceptible to interference. Hopefully I live in an area that won't be hampered by interference obstacles. My only real goal will be to get FOX-DT on the VHF band. WKYT-13 works on both VHF and UHF antennas because of where it lies on the spectrum.

I am just learning hdtv and am hooking up a channel master 4228a Monday. I live in Georgetown and pick up channel 36 in hd and 27 half the time. Will the ant. I bought allow me to pick up 27 and fox 56. I was trying to follow earlier reply about 13.1 which I did not understand. I am using amp. rabbit ears today.

UKNurse,
Go to http://www.tvradioworld.com/region1/ky/tv_information.asp?m=lex
to see the Lexington area stations. You'll find the actual digital channel is different than the traditional analog one. The actual channel is what counts for reception in regards to antenna type, etc. VHF is 2-13 while UHF is 14-69. "Low band" refers to 2-6 while "high band" refers to 7-13 on the VHF side of things.

Another site is http://www.2150.com/broadcast/default.asp
There you can punch in your coordinates in decimal form for distances and bearings to local and distant stations in the area. Magnetic variation is usually around -4 in our area.

Finally, http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx can be helpful in antenna selection.

The 4228, although designed as a UHF antenna, also will work to some extent for high band VHF. If you're fairly close in, it will likely get you WKYT which is VHF 13. It's not likely to work for WDKY which is VHF 4.

Good luck and welcome to the club.

thank you cpcat and bencjedi. I thought I had done enough research, but still learning. Too much info and sometimes not enough. The installer was supposed to be here today, could not make it. Will come this weekend. I don't know if I should change ant. or just try 4228. Do either of you have any suggestions?

Originally posted by uknurse
Will come this weekend. I don't know if I should change ant. or just try 4228. Do either of you have any suggestions?

It's a good start ... the 4228 may actually be overkill for the Lexington UHF stations. It is unknown what type of antenna will work best for the new WDKY digital tower - but I have a feeling that your old pair of rabbit ears may be adequate if mounted high enough and tuned to the proper length.

UKnurse,
The simplest thing would be to go with a combo uhf/vhf and put it on a rotor. See http://www.channelmaster.com/home.htm and go to their advantage line. Anything 3017 or above should do fine. These are available at Lowe's BTW.

Winegard makes good combo's as well. See http://www.winegard.com/offair/pdf/hd7080p.pdf
Anything 7080 and up should do fine.

Also from Antennacraft:http://www.antennacraft-tdp.com/pdfs/HD850.pdf

If your cable run is over 75 ft, you might need a preamp (I'd try without first). You shouldn't need alot of gain and you'll need some headroom being somewhat close in, something like the CM 3041 available at Lowe's.
If you use a preamp (again, you may not need it), be sure the FM trap is "in".

The CM 9251 rotor is also available at Lowe's as is rotor wire, RG-6 coax, etc. Make sure to get waterproof connectors and use either silicone or coax-seal (available at Radio Shack). You'll need to ground with #10 or larger solid aluminum or copper wire. Use a grounding block for the coax and ground both coax and mast to the house ground. If your installer uses a grounding rod, you must strap it to the house ground with #6 or larger copper to be within code.

P.S. The good thing about Lowe's is you can return stuff if you need to (keep the receipts).

If you think it's all getting too complicated now, don't worry, it's worth it.
Just be glad you're not in the deep fringe as I am:

The preamp makes a HUGE difference for me inside my apartment. Since I am unable to mount an antenna outside (the Dish was pushing it) it is in the attic. It is litterally 0% signal without the amp and 100% with it (for WKYT anyway). If your antenna is in the attic, the preamp will make all the difference.

I use this amp as a preamp on a 50' run of RG-6:
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/NewarkWebCommerce/mcm/en_US/endecaSearch/partDetail.jsp?SKU=33-290&N=4

Yes, it has a bad noise figure, but it was comparitively cheap to something like CM7777 and gets me the locals (WKYT-DT 100%, WTVQ-DT 68%, WKET-DT 58%, PAX-DT 26%) just fine on a tabletop antenna in the attic. I also bought it when it was only $20 like 6 years ago. Of course reorienting the antenna I can get WKET-DT at 90%, WTVQ at 87% and PAX at 58%. I just found a sweet spot that gives me enough signal to lock onto them all. I move the antenna around every so often to see if I can find a better sweet spot since an attic is not the ideal place for an antenna. I'm curious how much I could improve those signals with a CM7777, but I am never quite ready to shell out more money. What I have now is cheap and works for what I want.

Does anyone know if Insight plans to pick up ESPN2HD? And when? It goes live on Jan 6th.

Hello everyone! I'm a newbie with a few questions. I live in Frankfort(east side) and am thinking about putting up an antenna to receive local channels. I'm hesitant because the antennaweb.org website doesn't predict any available digital channels. I don't want to spend the money if I'm not able to pick up anything.

What channels could I receive? WKYT and WTVQ? How reliably?
Also what are the odds of picking up WAVE in Louisville?
What would be the best antenna? From reading on the forum, it seems the ChannelMaster 4228 would be a good choice.

Any advice would be appreciated--I'm very anxious to check out HD on my new TV!

Where are you in Frankfort??

Unless your in a real RF hole,

KET's WKON ( RF Channel 44- remaps to 52) is in Owenton and it covers Frankfort pretty well.
WKYT-DT (on VHF 13) should be there..

From Frankfort, you should have a shot at all of them from both Louisville and Lexington except for WDKY (ch. 4, FOX). They're supposed to go full power soon and should be receivable after that.

A large yagi/corner reflector on a rotor with a CM 7777 preamp would be my initial advice. Antennasdirect xg91, Winegard PR-9032, CM 4248 would be candidates in descending order of quality IMO. Other somewhat more exotic choices include Blake JBX21, Televes DAT75, Triax Unix 100, Funke 91 element. For vhf, go with a high/low band like a Winegard PR-5030. See http://www.winegard.com/offair/pdf/pr-5030.pdf

You'd mount the VHF at least 60 in. below the uhf. The VHF should easily grab WKYT 13 as well as WDKY 4 (when they go full power) from one position.

You might get away with a large VHF/UHF combo like the Winegard HD8200, CM 3671, 3020 but you give up performance on both bands (esp. UHF) and you'd risk having inconsistent reception on some channels.

The 8-bay bowtie antennas (CM 4228, AD DB8, Winegard 8800) are good antennas but they are too much wind load and weight for a rotor over time.
If you plan to fix it towards Lexington and forego the other directions (which I wouldn't recc.) you could consider an 8-bay which would give you slightly more gain 14-40 than the typical yagi/corner reflector while the latter will win out above ch. 40.

You could start with the Yagi/corner reflector and the CM 7777 (has both vhf and uhf inputs) then add the other one later if you don't want to do it all at once. You might still get WKYT 13 with it (try non-intuitive aiming, even through the back), but 4 (WDKY) will require a VHF antenna.

WLKY (CBS Louisville) has started multicasting a weather radar sub-channel on 26.2(32.2) ... Goodbye HDTV ... we hardly knew ya

Something like a weather channel can be done in under 1 Mb if the encoders are good enough...

Should be plenty of room for a 1080i HD feed in the remaining bandwidth.. I don't know what encoder they are using but if is something of current MPEG generation (Gen 5) then the HD should be very good..

Originally posted by William Smith
Something like a weather channel can be done in under 1 Mb if the encoders are good enough...

Perhaps, but it's obvious that they are giving the wx sub a lot more bandwidth than WKYT is doing. As for the visual results, I would have never thought about checking for a new sub channel if I hadn't have noticed a significant difference on the main HD feed. ;) Unfortunately, WLKY didn't carry an HD football game today, so I haven't seen full ill effect yet.

I was under the impression that WLKY was using early generation Harris equipment, but I could be wrong about that.

Originally posted by dstivo
Hello everyone! I'm a newbie with a few questions. I live in Frankfort(east side) and am thinking about putting up an antenna to receive local channels. I'm hesitant because the antennaweb.org website doesn't predict any available digital channels. I don't want to spend the money if I'm not able to pick up anything.

What channels could I receive? WKYT and WTVQ? How reliably?
Also what are the odds of picking up WAVE in Louisville?
What would be the best antenna? From reading on the forum, it seems the ChannelMaster 4228 would be a good choice.

Any advice would be appreciated--I'm very anxious to check out HD on my new TV!

Hi dstivo!
I to live in frankfort.
depends on what part of frankfort you live in on what kind of reception you get.

I get wkyt and wtvq and ket and pax pretty good with a radio shack ant. with no amp my amp got zapped some how but I can still get em here in northern franklin county but wtvq is spotty without amp. FOX is pretty much non exsistant though! i get good analog siganl but the digital signal is not there. I think when they finally go full power we should have no problems here in frankfort but until then sometimes it gets real spotty. but for the most part reception is ok.

I can sometimes get WAVE even without amp but the amp helped out with that plus my line of site to louisville is sort of blocked so I cannot get louisville very well.

I live on the east side of Frankfort off Lyons Dr. I appreciate everyone's help so far but I think I'm going to go with cable right now. I called the cable co. today and they said they have Fox up already, and should have ABC up within the next couple of weeks. CBS and NBC may not be up until January or February. I figure cable will hold me off until spring or summer when the weather is better for getting up on the roof and I have more money, then I will consider putting up an antenna.

I wonder how the WDKY tower is looking. Is it done? Hopefully the engineers are hooking up the equipment for testing soon.

I'm pretty sure this hasn't been posted yet. I just talked to an Insight CSR and she said that they should have WDKY sometime in January. This should hopefully be in time for the Super Bowl. Now, just ABC and NBC and I'm set.

Don't hold your breath for WDKY from the new site... Unforeseen problems have shown up slowing the project...

Originally posted by William Smith
Don't hold your breath for WDKY from the new site... Unforeseen problems have shown up slowing the project...

Damn it! There goes watching 24 and American Idol in HD! at the start of the season!

I can only hope that DirecTV gets their act together and puts on FoxHD NY/LA feeds by Superbowl time then.

Originally posted by William Smith
Don't hold your breath for WDKY from the new site... Unforeseen problems have shown up slowing the project...

Ack! ... not another episode in a series of unfortunate events :D Could WDRB manage to go full power before WDKY gets it together? Be sure to tune into to next week's episode of 'DTV Bloopers' ...

Not WDKY or Sinclair's fault.....

Originally posted by William Smith
Not WDKY or Sinclair's fault.....

William.. can you state the reason for WDKY's trouble? Did the tower sink in the karst topography/fall over in the big wind a couple weeks ago?

Hey guys,
Just finished hooking up my 5.1 system this weekend and noticed on the ABC programming last night my Denon was picking up D.D. but the sound appeared to be only in stereo. There was nothing from the center and i coudnt pick out anything from the rears as well. I switched on the ESPN football and to PL-II and sounded great. It this an issue with TVQ? are they just sending everything out as DD whether encoded that way or not from the network?
Kevin

Originally posted by volusiacat
Hey guys,
Just finished hooking up my 5.1 system this weekend and noticed on the ABC programming last night my Denon was picking up D.D. but the sound appeared to be only in stereo. There was nothing from the center and i coudnt pick out anything from the rears as well. I switched on the ESPN football and to PL-II and sounded great. It this an issue with TVQ? are they just sending everything out as DD whether encoded that way or not from the network?
Kevin

WTVQ cheats on their DD. It is actually DD2.0, but they have the bit flipped on for 5.1, so your receiver indicates 5.1 when it is actually 2.0.

Interestingly I was reviewing my recording of A Bug's Life from WTVQ last year around this time and it is indeed a 5.1 mix. Did they change the audio mix sometime this year? I had noted earlier in this monstrous thread that WTVQ's audio sounded weird digitally (stereo), but I could switch to the mix coming from the digital port of my soundcard (I have a home theater PC w/ HDTV tuner/capture card) and it would be true stereo and properly mixed for Dolby Surround stereo through my receiver. I dunno how you could mix the sound externally properly to make it sound right in your speakers. I do agree it is annoying and wonder why they just don't pass their network 5.1 stream. LOST has been screwy with the 5.1 fascade of audio all season. I don't like it because my center channels lacks any audio from their digital mix. For WTVQ to sound right, I have to use the mixed version from the SPDIF-out on my sound card in my PC.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
William.. can you state the reason for WDKY's trouble? Did the tower sink in the karst topography/fall over in the big wind a couple weeks ago?

No

Originally posted by William Smith
No

LOL .... Arrrrrgh :D Are you going to make us keep guessing or are you just 'under pain of death' not to reveal your info?

My top guess are:

a) Still waiting for delivery of the antenna(s), or

b) Something to do with the microwave link(s)

Sounds like it is gonna be an ETA closer to the 6 weeks that WDKY mentioned for the 3-6weeks on the 10-o-clock news several weeks ago (3 weeks ago maybe), so if they are committed to that we can safely give them 3 more weeks to get up and going. The holidays will probably prolong it though. Don't they know people are getting HDTVs and HDTV receivers for Christmas around here? We want MORE HD!! :)

guess it does not matter now since fox hd has appeared on directv now! :-)

Originally posted by demonspawn
guess it does not matter now since fox hd has appeared on directv now! :-)

It does matter if you live in an apartment with no direct line of site to DirecTV's satellites. Plus it won't cost extra OTA. :)

I was curious about 'network' channel HD on DirecTV.. isn't it only possible to pick it up if you have a waiver or live in a white area where it is impossible to pick up the channel over the air? I was denied NBC off my dish with E* several years ago because they said I still had an A or B grade signal and even though it was all snowy analog, they would not grant a waiver. Is the SHVA or whatever it is called not in effect anymore?

i was grandfathered in when i got my distant locals i have had directv since feb 1995. plus i did have waivers for nbc and cbs never heard anything from fox and wtvq denied my waiver but after a few phone calls a few years ago i was told i was grandfathered in. yea that sux being in an apt with no line of site!

I do have a waiver for FOX (default 'no response' in 30 days) on E*, but technically since E* now offers Lexington locals I shouldn't have distant nets (that and I physically moved, but sorta never updated my address) . A year ago when I checked the E* website for my waivers it said they were reviewed and denied, but E* hasn't turned them off, so I don't make programming changes. I prefer the NY news over the local variety. :)

I never actually received a waiver 'letter' to show as proof either. E* doesn't have FOX in HD do they?

On another note I had a DirecTV installer come out to survey my balcony and he says this tree is in the way... one that barely misses E*'s line of sight (15' water pipe in bucket of cement mount, by yours truly on my balcony). I think he was too lazy to get up on a ladder and eye it himself because 3 days later the installation company called me back and said I should be able to get DirecTV if I am able to get E* right now. I didn't switch cause of my 'legacy' waivers for distant neworks and also there was no WB available on DirecTV at the time (but I think I heard D* has the WB now?).

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
LOL .... Arrrrrgh :D Are you going to make us keep guessing or are you just 'under pain of death' not to reveal your info?

My top guess are:

a) Still waiting for delivery of the antenna(s), or

b) Something to do with the microwave link(s)

I don't want to get my source in trouble...

a) Still waiting for delivery of the antenna(s), or

I drove by Clay's Ferry a few days ago and it looked like to me that the antenna was installed. It looks like a long spike atop a base about as long that is shaped like a cedar tree.

Originally posted by William Smith
I don't want to get my source in trouble...

Alrighty then ... I figured that was the case. ;)

It would be nice if more stations would at least post status reports on their websites even if they are reluctant to participate on an open forum such as this. Much speculation and sniping could be avoided if they would take a few moments. :)

The spike is the analog antenna the wire fence looking structure under it is the DTV antenna.

I have Dish Network, but with the lack of HD channels now and none coming in the soon future I am looking at Insight Cable. I have some questions if anyone can help.

1: When do they plan on having all of the local HD channels?

2: How is the PQ compared to Dish and OTA HD?

3: What HD DVR box do they use, how good is it and what kind of future models are coming?

4: How is the HD programing and what will they be adding?

I don't know much about Insight besides that I have their Cable iternet and it is good. I just want a good HD DVR box even if I have to wait a couple months. Dish is falling back as far as I am concerned. Also what about price?

Originally posted by mothergoose45
I have Dish Network, but with the lack of HD channels now and none coming in the soon future I am looking at Insight Cable. I have some questions if anyone can help.

1: When do they plan on having all of the local HD channels?


Not entirely sure, but I will pass on what I have heard. Insight has been unsuccessful coming to an agreement with WTVQ which means you won't be watching ABC HD programs on Insight until that happens. (No LOST in HD). I think Insight has been trying for quite awhile to pick up ABC-HD, but no dice. WTVQ wants $$$$. WDKY is having problems with their new tower, so no FOX in HD. Three weeks ago WDKY said 3-6 weeks on the new tower. It sounds like they are not on schedule though based on William Smith's comments in this thread. It would probably be several weeks to months before Insight gets FOX-HD unless they are already working with Insight on the agreement and readying equipment with the tower construction. WDKY doesn't respond to their customers well. I've never gotten a response from their email ever. Does anyone have their phone number?


2: How is the PQ compared to Dish and OTA HD?

OTA HD = much better PQ than Dish (I have both)! Even the UPN standard definition subchannel on WKYT looks better than the UPN channels on the Superstations package on Dish. If you have the local package on Dish, the OTA HD wins, hands down. On a side note..If you are an Enterprise fan, WKYT uses precisely the right bitrate/resolution for Enterprise recordings to fit exactly 3 episodes on DVD without having to re-encode. The UPN subchannel is within DVD-spec parameters, so it makes for a quick, great quality DVD authoring process.


3: What HD DVR box do they use, how good is it and what kind of future models are coming?

It's a Motorola -something or other (not sure of the model.. check http://www.dslreports.com/forum/insight as I think there was discussion there about the receiver and the ability to record to your PC using the firewire port on it).


4: How is the HD programing and what will they be adding?

Can't comment. Only use Insight for broadband.

[B][QUOTE]
I don't know much about Insight besides that I have their Cable iternet and it is good. I just want a good HD DVR box even if I have to wait a couple months. Dish is falling back as far as I am concerned. Also what about price?

It probably is Dish's fault for slipping service. Satellites are not cheap. The reason for degradation in picture quality is that Dish has moved alot of the HD channels to the more common satellites in orbit in order to save themselves and the customer the expense of more dishes/installation. Since most of their customers have a Dish500 setup and they wanted to offer some HD, they moved those channels to the primary satellites that basically left less bitrate for the channels already existing on this 'birds'. So at the expense of picture quality more people could pick up HD off Dish with their existing dishes.

Thanks BenCJedi. You answered about everything I wanted to know. Do they use the new Motorola box Comcast just released or an older one? Also anyone with Insight HD DVR, what is the cost of the monthly bill? My dish runs $52 with all the added fees. Insight is looking like the way to go, since they couldnt drop another wire so I could run my dish 508 with a 811.