This is a picture from the top of the Madisonville analog antenna ( 997 ft)

The climber is standing on the analog pylon, the triangle shape is the baseplate from the top. The DTV antenna is the silver antenna just below the baseplate.

The red car is a Jeep Liberty..

Originally posted by William Smith
This is a picture from the top of the Madisonville analog antenna ( 997 ft)

The climber is standing on the analog pylon, the triangle shape is the baseplate from the top. The DTV antenna is the silver antenna just below the baseplate.

The red car is a Jeep Liberty..

Nice picture. That guy has alot bigger ones than I do. :D
He is probably 987 feet higher than I would want to be. :D

Originally posted by BdoUK
Well with our local Fox affiliate being owned by Sinclair, I wouldn't hold my breath. It seems Sinclair is trying to get more money out of the cable companies to carry their HD feed. I hope I am wrong, but I am not expecting it to show up before Super Bowl Sunday :(


You sure... that is sort of crazy. Louisville already carries FOX in HD...
ESPN2 is broadcasting in HD as well... Will we ever get that as well?
I guess I need to plunk down $200.00 for an HD Tuner...

Originally posted by phenderson
You sure... that is sort of crazy. Louisville already carries FOX in HD...
ESPN2 is broadcasting in HD as well... Will we ever get that as well?
I guess I need to plunk down $200.00 for an HD Tuner...

It looks like Fox out of Louisville isn't owned by Sinclair. This is probably why they are already on Insight cable there.

I just found this interesting link off the WDKY homepage. It makes the prospect of Fox showing up on Insight look pretty grim...

http://www.sbgi.net/misc/cable_resale_local_tv.pdf

Well, I am going to call insight and stick em at their word. Their website says that the carry the most local HDTV channels then any other provider.

Well we only get CBS and that is just plain terrible.

I live in georgetown and have placed this ant. in my attic. I have been getting a 80-90% signal on fox. I have not had any problems since they started transmitting. antennasdirect.com


V15 High Gain VHF/UHF antenna
VHF channels 2-13

UHF channels 14-69

15 elements
10.8 dB gain
Element width 95"
Boom length 43"
All weather transformer included



Description: V15 High Gain UHF/VHF antenna
Price: $59.00

What are the chances of receiving WDKY-DT (VHF 4) on an Channel Master
4 bay (4221) or 8 bay UHF antenna? Attic and/or outdoor?

Originally posted by tspires
What are the chances of receiving WDKY-DT (VHF 4) on an Channel Master
4 bay (4221) or 8 bay UHF antenna? Attic and/or outdoor?

Nearly zero

Originally posted by William Smith
No they are not,,, the DTV is tied to the analog license.. ( you can't seperate the two they are two stations covered by the one license.

But then how do we explain WAVE analog on Ch3 vs. WAVE-DT on Ch47? Last time I checked the FCC database, they were nowhere near each other. :confused:

I do get that the analog and digital stations are tied at the hip wrt coverage/replication/maximization areas.

Do a TV query for the analog call sign... you will find if you scroll down the data for the DTV.

Its the facility number that the FCC uses to tie them together..

WDKY'-DT's facility started out co-locatd with the analog now both the analog and digital are moving so all of the parameters have changed. They also have to cover a percentage of their existing analog coverage before being allowed to transmit from a different site. The FCC has to okay it before they could light it up.


WAVE-DT never came up on thier analog site so they didn't have that issue.

Well I just got off the phone with Insight. They seem pretty confident (80 percent confident) that they will have Fox HD up and running in time for the Super Bowl. Maybe they have already struck a deal with Sinclair for this market and are just waiting for everything to fall into place. Only time will tell...

Originally posted by William Smith
Its the facility number that the FCC uses to tie them together..

Alrighty then, I'll concede that point ... Nevertheless, the analog and digital towers are still many miles apart, which is point I think I was trying to make ;)

see my previous post, I was editing it for clarity..

Originally posted by BdoUK
Well I just got off the phone with Insight. They seem pretty confident (80 percent confident) that they will have Fox HD up and running in time for the Super Bowl. Maybe they have already struck a deal with Sinclair for this market and are just waiting for everything to fall into place. Only time will tell...

AWESOME... good deal man. I am glad to hear someone besides me is interested in the Superbowl being broadcast in HD...

I wish there was like a forum on Insight that discusses HD...
Where is NBC HD, where is ABC HD, where is ESPN2 HD
Where is TNT HD?
Insight, I am beginning to realise, is sort of like junk..

Speaking of NBC HD, I went out to WLEX's website and saw that they updated their "Why LEX 18 Doesn't Yet Offer HDTV...." page.
That's right, they just changed the post date at the top of the page. The note from their engineer is the same as before. :D :rolleyes: :mad:

Originally posted by nuts4scuba
Speaking of NBC HD, I went out to WLEX's website and saw that they updated their "Why LEX 18 Doesn't Yet Offer HDTV...." page.
That's right, they just changed the post date at the top of the page. The note from their engineer is the same as before. :D :rolleyes: :mad:

Not much I watch on NBC anyway...
Maybe a few Notre Dame football games...
No bowl games, no basketball....
Every now and then I watch 'parts' of Will and Grace...other than that... what else comes on?

So I am not in a big rush to watch NBC...
Now According to Jim and Rodney on ABC, those I watch and love...
King of Queens on CBS... that I watch.
Outside of that and Basketball and Football, I watch very little TV....

I want TNT HD...

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
I'm not sure they believed me when I tried to tell them that something was wrong ... and at this point I'm tired of trying ;) :D


I know the feeling ...

Anyway ... WDKY-DT still in here at noon -- nary a dropped frame or missed pixel to be found - DTC-100 currently shows "75" on the meter, Zenith HDV420 shows 75~80.

attached are a few screenshots from between 10:40~11:40am this morning of a few of the stations that are coming in for a seats of pants comparison of how well WDKY-DT is getting out .... :

Top left - WDKY-DT 4 (az. 178 - 118 miles)
Top Middle - WCMH 4 - Columbus (az 70 - 78 miles)
Top right - WRTV 6 - Indy ( az 284 - 97 miles)
middle left - WDKY 56 (az 187 - 125 Miles) - Note This is the best UHF
signal I have from beyond 40 miles currently --
middle middle - WTHR 13 - Indy - (az 285 - 97 Miles)
middle right - WHAS 11 - Lou - (az 223 - 115 miles)
Bottom left - WAVE 3 - Lou - (az 196 - 95 miles)
Bottom middle - WISH 8 - Indy - (Az 285 - 97 Miles)
Bottom Right - WSYX-DT 13 - Col (az 71 - 78 Miles)

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
I know the feeling ...

Anyway ... WDKY-DT still in here at noon -- nary a dropped frame or missed pixel to be found - DTC-100 currently shows "75" on the meter, Zenith HDV420 shows 75~80.

attached are a few screenshots from between 10:40~11:40am this morning of a few of the stations that are coming in for a seats of pants comparison of how well WDKY-DT is getting out .... :

Top left - WDKY-DT 4 (az. 178 - 118 miles)
Top Middle - WCMH 4 - Columbus (az 70 - 78 miles)
Top right - WRTV 6 - Indy ( az 284 - 97 miles)
middle left - WDKY 56 (az 187 - 125 Miles) - Note This is the best UHF
signal I have from beyond 40 miles currently --
middle middle - WTHR 13 - Indy - (az 285 - 97 Miles)
middle right - WHAS 11 - Lou - (az 223 - 115 miles)
Bottom left - WAVE 3 - Lou - (az 196 - 95 miles)
Bottom middle - WISH 8 - Indy - (Az 285 - 97 Miles)
Bottom Right - WSYX-DT 13 - Col (az 71 - 78 Miles)


I live in Boone's Trace a stones throw from the tower and cannot tune in WDKY right now. ARGGHHH!!

Scratch that, I am getting it - full signal strength!

oh well i at least i had one night of a good signal from them.
nothing but break up now signal is bouncing everywhere

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
attached are a few screenshots from between 10:40~11:40am this morning of a few of the stations that are coming in for a seats of pants comparison of how well WDKY-DT is getting out .... :


Ironically, it looks like my concerns wrt to coverage of the COL are coming true.

Old tower ~ 3.83kW from ~10mi

New tower ~4.55kW from ~30mi

My signal strength does indeed reflect the feared net drop in actual RF bathing the cave. It looks like I may finally have to go outside to get a consistant signal.

I guess they do have a bit of a null towards the SW now, which is probably a good idea to protect service area of "other" channel 4 in that direction ..

I didn't check the relative field value towards Danville itself, but it should still be plenty of power for lo-VHF to cover the COL with more than just the "required" amount of signal ... FCC would not have let them do it if it didn't ...

Still solid reception+approx. 60% at 2:15pm on HDV420 signal quality meter here ...

I went from 250watts ERP being sent in my direction(some directions towards the north of their old tower used to get as little as 4 watts ERP sent in their direction) from the old site with their 7.5 KW ERP STA - To (assuming they are at full power presently - 26.4KW ERP CP) approx. 18.7KW ERP should be being sent in my direction(.840 relative field value for their antenna pattern according to FCC site) now... That's a 27db+ increase over what it used to be, but it's only about 7db more than what they are sending towards you ... and obviously, over 118 miles distance it's going to loose more(much much more) than just 7db along the way ... Although I'm pretty sure I am getting a little help(but not much) from slightly enhanced band condtions presently ... It's currently probably about "normal" "over=the-horizon" reception conditions for spring/summer/Fall months ..

What's the chance that the bugs are worked out for some HD tonight?

Originally posted by N.REED
What's the chance that the bugs are worked out for some HD tonight?
Don't know, but I'd like to see some 24 in HD. :D

Originally posted by William Smith
see my previous post, I was editing it for clarity..

OK, that makes sense now. I was just confused by your original post.

We should consider it a 'good thing' that the digital plant is being given the priority, I expected "Murphy" to demand the opposite. :)

Originally posted by phenderson
Not much I watch on NBC anyway...

hopefully they will be up on schedule. the firecracker 400 is the first weekend in july.

later

Has anyone tried the Square Shooter SS2000 antenna?

Hmm, this is kind of interesting to me. Just flipped over to 56-1 to check and see if there were any primetime problems similar to last night. Trading Spouses is on right now, and everything looks pretty good in standard def. The neat thing is that Fox also has another logo off on the bottom right into the widescreen part that normal viewers wouldn't be able to see.

I'm hoping this means that they've got everything figured out, and we shall be watching some 24 in HD in about 50 minutes :D.

Originally posted by blurredvision
The neat thing is that Fox also has another logo off on the bottom right into the widescreen part that normal viewers wouldn't be able to see.


They dropped below a lock here a bit earlier, but if you're seeing that, they Should be set for HD .... That's the Bug inserted by the splicer ... It's only there on the FOX HD feed, Fox Upconverts all their SD to 720p at network level .... I've heard that Fox affiliates usually have it set up so if they switch to net for analog station, for the digital station it autiomatically switches to the "HD" feed from the splicer ....

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
They dropped below a lock here a bit earlier, but if you're seeing that, they Should be set for HD .... That's the Bug inserted by the splicer ... It's only there on the FOX HD feed, Fox Upconverts all their SD to 720p at network level .... I've heard that Fox affiliates usually have it set up so if they switch to net for analog station, for the digital station it autiomatically switches to the "HD" feed from the splicer ....
Hmmm, you seem to know a little bit about this. So let me ask you a question, will we be able to hear 24 in DD5.1 tonight as well? Is WDKY set up for this?

Not sure if you'll know or not, and worst case senario is that I have to wait another 40 minutes to find out :D. Thanks.

I have a question guys...

I am having no luck getting a lock from the tower. I have a Mits 55613 with a built-in tuner and no matter what I do I can't lock onto the signal. I have two antennas that I am using...one is a Silver Sensor and the other is an amplified VHF/UHF Phillips that I purchased at Wal-Mart.

My question is what channel should I be typing into my tuner for Fox? I have seen some people say 004.1, 004.3, and 056.1. I can't believe I am not picking up the signal being only about 4 miles from downtown Lexington on Nicholasville Rd.

Any help would be appreciated :).

Originally posted by BdoUK
I have a question guys...

I am having no luck getting a lock from the tower. I have a Mits 55613 with a built-in tuner and no matter what I do I can't lock onto the signal. I have two antennas that I am using...one is a Silver Sensor and the other is an amplified VHF/UHF Phillips that I purchased at Wal-Mart.

My question is what channel should I be typing into my tuner for Fox? I have seen some people say 004.1, 004.3, and 056.1. I can't believe I am not picking up the signal being only about 4 miles from downtown Lexington on Nicholasville Rd.

Any help would be appreciated :).

On my tuner I just type in 04. It should remap to 56-1.

Originally posted by blurredvision
So let me ask you a question, will we be able to hear 24 in DD5.1 tonight as well?

Yes, it should be .. I suppose you never know for sure until it happens though ... It is of course probably possible(but hopefully unlikely) for them to switch to SD feed from fox that's feeding the analog ...

The way Fox HD splicer system works, when they are switched to the Network programming coming through the splicer, it "bypasses" the encoder at the station(hence it "splices in" the stream from the network) ... MPEG2/AC-3(DD 2.0 or DD 5.1) stream is encoded at the Network, and isn't decoded again until it reaches your receiver ... So, the station doesn't even have to have the capability to "do" DD 5.1 in order to pass it ...

That's my understanding from talking+listening to engineers at Fox affiliates+reading about it anyway ... That's also how it seems to work up here with Dayton+Cincinnati Fox HD affiliates ... although it's been a while, somehow the Dayton affiliate ended up sending the Fox SD feed(same one that feeds their analog) on a few occasons(sometimes lasting a few days, usually fixed when someone called them about it) ...

No HD or DD5.1 upon the opening intro of 24 tonight. Hopefully they switch it over soon and aren't having problems.

I'm doing a little better tonight -- I can get *this* close to a lock if I set up the antenna in an extremely obnoxious position (almost completely blocking the set) and stand in exactly the right place, but not enough to make it watchable. (It's straddling the "Bad"/"Normal" line on my Sony 200.)

Is this the best it's going to get? Because this doesn't at all mesh with the promises of being able to pick it up with rabbit ears. I'm going to be quite disappointed if I waited all this time and can't receive the signal (when I get a perfectly watchable analog signal off of 56 and can get VHF digital 13 without much headache).

Ryan

Originally posted by tspires
What are the chances of receiving WDKY-DT (VHF 4) on an Channel Master
4 bay (4221) or 8 bay UHF antenna? Attic and/or outdoor?



Just to let everyone know. I am picking up FOX with a CM4221 mounted in my attic!!!!!!!!!!!

I live just off exit 87 in Richmond. I am getting a signal right now fluctuating between 60-70%!!!!

Yes baby!!!!!

Although it does not appear to be a HD signal. Guess they forgot to "flip the switch"!

Originally posted by BdoUK
no matter what I do I can't lock onto the signal. I have two antennas that I am using...one is a Silver Sensor and the other is an amplified VHF/UHF Phillips that I purchased at Wal-Mart.
the word for antennas is location. i am using a silver sensor and a non-amplified vhf/uhf phillips purchased from wal-mart.

i have only found one hot-spot in the 2nd floor of my condo. i have seven foot tall tower of plastic buckets in the middle of my upper hallway that is holding my rabbit ears just a few inches from the ceiling. it took about 30 minutes to find this spot. i am near MOW/palumbo about 10 miles from the transmitter.

so get a long piece of coax, tune to channel 4/56 and start waving the antenna around.

good luck

Why doesn't Fox digital broadcast 24 in widescreen?

well after alot of patience and moving things around I am able to lock onto FOX with a 70-80% signal. I have a piece of coax running across the living room floor all the way to the other side of the townhouse. Geeze i am addicted to HD. lol. I may go get some diplexors at radio shack and run the signal through my sat coax then into another diplexor behind the receiver then into the HD box. I have to say though the picture on the SD signal is outstanding! The sound is great as well. Like someone earlier said, they must have forgotten to flip the switch.

Anybody wanna give them a call before 24 is over? I'd like to atleast get a glimpse..... :D

whats the number??? Anyone?

Originally posted by BdoUK
I have a question guys...

I am having no luck getting a lock from the tower. I have a Mits 55613 with a built-in tuner and no matter what I do I can't lock onto the signal. I have two antennas that I am using...one is a Silver Sensor and the other is an amplified VHF/UHF Phillips that I purchased at Wal-Mart.

My question is what channel should I be typing into my tuner for Fox? I have seen some people say 004.1, 004.3, and 056.1. I can't believe I am not picking up the signal being only about 4 miles from downtown Lexington on Nicholasville Rd.

Any help would be appreciated :).

How high are your antennas? If you have an attic, I recommend going as high as you can go. I rent and unfortunately don't have a convenient spot outside my apartment that is allowable to mount an antenna. I have a sat dish on a 10' water pipe in a 5-gallon bucket of cement for Dish Network that is barely able to get signal through a very narrow area of open tree space. I don't have a good spot to laterally put my rabbit ears outside (not as high as in the attic). As soon as I found a spot in my computer room where I had about 9-11% signal, I lifted the antenna higher and higher until it got to around 21% and no lock. I went even higher in the attic in the same spot until I couldn't go up anymore. I'm around 36-44% at this spot. I tried several other areas and directions in the attic and this is the only one that really gets anything 'substantial'.

What also helped me was getting rid of the coax cables I had been using. I am using some Acoustic Research double shielded F cables now (25' for $4.95 at mcmelectronics.com, $40 at Best Buy.. bleh). I tried the antenna in the same 'sweet spot' position with the older cabling and the signal was much worse (down to 21%). Of course the antenna, amp and PC are somewhere around 35' away from each other too. I feel the double shielding/low-noise cabling is making a difference in my situation.

It also helped me find this sweet spot because I could use a mirror just below the attic hatch to reflect an image of the PC monitor showing the signal strength from my HD card.

We don't live too far from each other, so you should be able to get signal (I'm hoping for you). Go as high as you can with the antenna. I don't think I would have a chance in hell getting any WDKY-DT signal downstairs in my apartment.

Originally posted by pczarapa
Why doesn't Fox digital broadcast 24 in widescreen?
at the beginning of the show, a caption indicated it was available in widescreen. my guess is that the engineers still have a bug to squash or maybe someone just forgot to 'switch it to glide'.

later

From their site: 859-269-5656

I'd call, but the woman is talking to her mother, which could take a while.

That murphy guy MUST be watching us ;)

I did get just enough from them at about 8:45pm to get a PSIP lock again ... and, at that time, just like last night during Fox programming it remapped to 4-3 on my Zenith receiver instead of 56-1 as was the case the last time I saw them earlier this evening(and everytime I've been able to check it today) before they went to Fox programming ... it "stayed" 4-3 remap on DTC-100 all day today, though(video/audio was fine however) - it probably needs a "rescan" ...

The following is speculation ... But I wonder if the splicer has to "know" about(be setup for) the values in the PSIP tables which the station is sending, and I wonder if perhaps that isn't the case .... I'm not getting enough from them presently to see where they remap now, but they certianly wouldn't be going through the splicer presently if it isn't HD (24 is HD+DD 5.1 up here from Dayton/Cincinnati Fox affiliates, BTW) ....

I did forget, I *have*, strangely enough seen the splicer inserted bug outside(far lower right) of the 4x3 area get "stuck" on the Dayton fox affiliate before, and stay there during local programming/etc ... But, I'd guess(hope anyway) they may have been using the HD feed through the splicer at some point between 8+9 and then changed it, perhaps because of the 4-3 remap issue ... If that's the case, then I assume they've now noticed something ain't quite right and that they will hopefully soon be able to address the issue ...

Update: 10:25pm - Back to solid reception(80% on meter) and remapping to 56-1 ...

update 2: 11:12pm - Weird ... They're back to sending remapping info to 4-3 now according to Zenith receiver. Probably blows my "splicer+PSIP" issue theory ... The zenith receiver here seems to pretty much "update" for whatever they are sending for PSIP channel remapping Whenever you tune to a station, so if you change channels+then go back, it will show whatever PSIP they are currently sending -- or if you lose a lock then it comes back later. If you just stay tuned to that station(presuming you don't lose the lock)however, it doesn't "update" anything until you tune off that channel and then back ...

You'd think It should be getting the info from VCT Major+minor channel number fields, which you wouldn't THINK would change from hour to hour.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
How high are your antennas? If you have an attic, I recommend going as high as you can go. I rent and unfortunately don't have a convenient spot outside my apartment that is allowable to mount an antenna. I have a sat dish on a 10' water pipe in a 5-gallon bucket of cement for Dish Network that is barely able to get signal through a very narrow area of open tree space. I don't have a good spot to laterally put my rabbit ears outside (not as high as in the attic). As soon as I found a spot in my computer room where I had about 9-11% signal, I lifted the antenna higher and higher until it got to around 21% and no lock. I went even higher in the attic in the same spot until I couldn't go up anymore. I'm around 36-44% at this spot. I tried several other areas and directions in the attic and this is the only one that really gets anything 'substantial'.

What also helped me was getting rid of the coax cables I had been using. I am using some Acoustic Research double shielded F cables now (25' for $4.95 at mcmelectronics.com, $40 at Best Buy.. bleh). I tried the antenna in the same 'sweet spot' position with the older cabling and the signal was much worse (down to 21%). Of course the antenna, amp and PC are somewhere around 35' away from each other too. I feel the double shielding/low-noise cabling is making a difference in my situation.

It also helped me find this sweet spot because I could use a mirror just below the attic hatch to reflect an image of the PC monitor showing the signal strength from my HD card.

We don't live too far from each other, so you should be able to get signal (I'm hoping for you). Go as high as you can with the antenna. I don't think I would have a chance in hell getting any WDKY-DT signal downstairs in my apartment.

Ben,

Once again thanks for the advice. I am experimenting as we speak. I do have an attic, but it is only over my garage and running a coax from there wouldn't be feasible. I do have a overhang that seperates my kitchen and living room however so I am going to do some experimenting there.

Like I said earlier I really hope Fox isn't at full power. We shouldn't have to go to all this trouble to pull the signal in. I guess there is still hope that Insight might put FoxHD on their cable system before Sunday too.

Originally posted by BdoUK
Ben,

Once again thanks for the advice. I am experimenting as we speak. I do have an attic, but it is only over my garage and running a coax from there wouldn't be feasible. I do have a overhang that seperates my kitchen and living room however so I am going to do some experimenting there.

Like I said earlier I really hope Fox isn't at full power. We shouldn't have to go to all this trouble to pull the signal in. I guess there is still hope that Insight might put FoxHD on their cable system before Sunday too.

No problem. I know it is frustrating as heck to find the magic spot. I easily spent 6 hours saturday and sunday messing around with the antenna. I'm not too comfortable with my signal strength cause it bounces alot, so I will continue trying to optimize also. The twinlead antenna is something I want to try since it is cheap. I just need some twinlead. I could have ordered a spool for all of Lexington from MCM, as I think they had some on clearance for really cheap, but I didn't consider it at the time of order. Those AR cables are top notch though. I even cut one in half and used a screw-on F-connector for a couple 12' cables just fine. I have one split like that from the antenna to the amp and then a 25' one to my PC-HD card.

Check everywhere for a signal. I hope you find one. I hope WDKY can crank up the power and get the HD going. It would be pretty crappy of them to get the HD going on Insight first over their free-off-the-air since they make a big deal with including that in their FAQ. It seems like anyone in Lexington is jumping through hoops to find their digital signal.

Well I did some more testing and I was able to lock onto channel 004, but I didn't get a picture at all. My tuner locked on during the channel scan. I am starting to wonder if the huge power lines that run down the railroad track near here might be causing interference with the weak signal. I think I am just going to wait this out and see what happens. I can't really afford to spend all week trying to get this to work.

I put in a call to WDKY today asking about power but I haven't received a call back yet. Hopefully they will get back to me soon and let me know what the situation is.

Originally posted by BdoUK
Well I did some more testing and I was able to lock onto channel 004, but I didn't get a picture at all. My tuner locked on during the channel scan. I am starting to wonder if the huge power lines that run down the railroad track near here might be causing interference with the weak signal. I think I am just going to wait this out and see what happens. I can't really afford to spend all week trying to get this to work.

I put in a call to WDKY today asking about power but I haven't received a call back yet. Hopefully they will get back to me soon and let me know what the situation is.

Please let us know any info you receive.

I have also attempted to contact WDKY about the absence of HD for 24 tonight via email, and I will let you guys know if I hear anything.

Originally posted by blurredvision
I have also attempted to contact WDKY about the absence of HD for 24 tonight via email, and I will let you guys know if I hear anything.

Looks like they left the splicer set to local mode, which probably means the thing is still messed up ...

FYI, if the splicer had been working properly you would not have seen the white network "FOX" bug in the 4:3 area on primetime programming.

Give 'em a few days before launching a full assault ... I'd be willing to bet that they'll have someone babysitting the thing for the SB

Just curious, on my tv the bug that WDKY put on the screen FOX56 is cut off. I just see FOX5 on my tv. I don't see a problem with anything being cut off WKYT or WTVQ. Does anyone see this also?

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
FYI, if the splicer had been working properly you would not have seen the white network "FOX" bug in the 4:3 area on primetime programming.


Yep .. I didn't realize you were getting that one as well around 8pm when blurredvision reported seeing the splicer inserted bug(the one in far R.H. lower corner of 16x9 area) during fox programming ... Come to think of it, I have seen the splicer inserted bug show up here from Fox Cincinnati even if they are running local programming(UC BB game) instead of Fox programming during prime time ....

Originally posted by nuts4scuba
Just curious, on my tv the bug that WDKY put on the screen FOX56 is cut off. I just see FOX5 on my tv.

That's where Fox places it(The splicer inserted bug) ... If it was the "Default" Blue FOX bug inserted by the splicer(Cincinnati affiliate still is using the default bug) instead of a bug for the local station, it would be at exactly the lower Right Edges, and your display would have to be set for 0% overscan in order to see the whole thing. The "Fox56" splicer inserted bug at WDKY-DT may be a little smaller than that, and might not reach all the way to the edges of the frame. That's the way Dayton(Sinclair, BTW) Fox affiliate's "Fox45" splicer inserted bug works.

Originally posted by BdoUK
Well I just got off the phone with Insight. They seem pretty confident (80 percent confident) that they will have Fox HD up and running in time for the Super Bowl. Maybe they have already struck a deal with Sinclair for this market and are just waiting for everything to fall into place. Only time will tell...

I wouldn't hold your breath.... There is a link on WDKY56's site (bottom right corner) that talks about their holdout with cable companies. I'm a newbie on this forum, so I don't have the right to post URL yets...sorry!

Originally posted by nuts4scuba
Just curious, on my tv the bug that WDKY put on the screen FOX56 is cut off. I just see FOX5 on my tv. I don't see a problem with anything being cut off WKYT or WTVQ. Does anyone see this also?

Sounds like you have a bit too much horizontal overscan ...

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Sounds like you have a bit too much horizontal overscan ...

That's one way to look at it ... Personally, I think Fox is making an error in their splicer bug placement, as some CRT based displays(some direct-View CRT's especially) require as much as 4~5% of overscan or more because of geometry issues.

The splicer bug "placement" is the same for all Fox HD affiliates, however, from what I can tell the Bug seems to be "left/top" justified, so if a affiliate sends fox a "smaller" bug to use with their splicer, more of it will show up on displays with more overscan than would be the case if a larger bug were used . The default Fox splicer bug is quite large - goes right to the very edge of frame - you would have to have both Horizontal and vertical overscan set to 0% to see it all from WXIX Cincinnati, which evidently hasn't yet sent Fox the bug the local bug they want to use for their splicer, which if they ever do will probably be worse than the default bug ...

--------------------------------------

Update: I'm not sure if this was the case previously or not, but, I just did a check on DTC-100 here and noticed that WDKY-DT is currently sending EPG info via PSIP OTA ...

They're also back to remapping to 56-1 on both receivers, although I had to do a rescan on DTC-100 to see them at 56-1 instead of 4-3. On the 4-3 vs. 56.1 issue, I'm beginning to think I just wasn't getting the "full" PSIP info from them at times, and it just wasn't showing any remapping info. Seems odd though that they were decoding just fine otherwise on those occasions, but maybe when the receiver got the PSIP lock at first, the signal wasn't as great and it didn't get quite everything .... Either that, or murphy is occasionally crawling around in their PSIP generator, encoder/multiplexer/etc .. :-)

Well I got an amplified antenna and it seems to work alot better than my other non-amplified rabbit ears. I sure hope they are tweaking the settings so that people in Lexington specifically can receive the signal. Being this close to the tower I would think that people in this area would have no problem locking onto the signal. Time will tell I guess. Can anyone confirm if they are working on it or turning up the power?

Just got off the phone with a tech at FOX56 and they did indeed confirm that as of right now, they are broadcasting at full power and he said they are pretty much done with the installation of the transmitter. He did say that they MAY bring it down after the superbowl to replace a dish. I also asked about the show "24" and he said it was not in HD. The guide says it is, but the show is not in HD. Just some info.

Originally posted by Brinkley
I also asked about the show "24" and he said it was not in HD. The guide says it is, but the show is not in HD. Just some info.

Hmmm..... I could of sworn I saw a banner at the beginning that said
"presented in fox high definition widescreen". ;)

As I said earlier, 24 was HD+DD 5.1 from Fox Dayton and Cincinnati affiliates last night, as is the case every week ...

About the only programming Fox DOESN'T send in HD are the animated shows(simpsons, King of the hill), some reality shows (AI is HD though), the 70's show, and MadTV. this season of "cops" is SD widescreen but upconverted to 720p at network level, "Fox News Sunday" is also done the same way ...

If they have it set up like most fox affiliates do(as Fox recommends as I understand it), when they switch to "net" for analog master control, it should also automatically switch the digital station to the feed from the splicer, which should be HD whenever Fox is sending HD, or SD upconvert sent by Fox for anything else .... Now, I did hear somewhere that they may need to occasionally switch between SD+HD feeds from Fox to get the splicer in Sync .. I thought that was just a "one time setup" thing, but I could be wrong ...

Lots of great info on how it works can be found in following thread in AVSarchive. There were a bunch of other threads between about early last year to about september with details on how Fox HD splicer system works+is implemented as well, including some excellent posts/info from engineers who work at Fox affiliates. :

http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=359708

If contacting WDKY about the missing FOX HD doesn't work, you can also contact MrDTV(email address on http://www.sbgi.net/business/dtv/ website, he is also a member here) at Sinclair concerning this sort of thing .... He should be able to help out if necessary ...

Originally posted by Brinkley
I also asked about the show "24" and he said it was not in HD.
the foxtv corporate website indicates ' (TWF-407) (TV-14; V) CC-HDTV 720p-Dolby Digital 5.1' for 24.

Okay, I am having a debate about which channel WDKY is actually broadcasting their digital signal on. For instance, WKYT is supposed to be 13.1, correct? Which means it is a "high" VHF channel. Right?

Now, I thought WDKY was broadcasting on 4.1, which would make it a "low" VHF channel. Or is their digital also on 56 - which would be a UHF channel?

Help settle a debate, please!!

WDKY-DT broadcasts on Channel 4, which is low VHF channel. However, they(and most stations) send channel remapping info , so most receivers should show it on 56.1, so that it shows up "next" to their analog station, even though that's not where the signal is actually being transmitted. (they wouldn't be able to "actually" transmit on 56 as long as the analog is transmitting there). Most, but not all receivers will let you either punch in "4" or "56.1" to "tune" to it, although it should show up on the "screen" as 56.1 ...

If WKYT-DT is sending proper channel remapping info, it should show up as 27.x. last time I saw them it did. Some receivers, however may require a channel rescan whenever they change the channel remapping info they are sending. WTVQ-DT 40 shows up as 36.x, WKLE-DT 42 as 46-x, WUPX-DT 21 as 67-X, etc/etc/etc ... This is supposed to make things "less confusing" for viewers, and also allow stations to keep their existing channel branding(logos, news sets/etc), not only during the DTV transistion but afterwards as well, no matter what channel they "actually" transmit their signal on ...

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
That's one way to look at it ... Personally, I think Fox is making an error in their splicer bug placement, as some CRT based displays(some direct-View CRT's especially) require as much as 4~5% of overscan or more because of geometry issues.


They're also back to remapping to 56-1 on both receivers, although I had to do a rescan on DTC-100 to see them at 56-1 instead of 4-3. On the 4-3 vs. 56.1 issue, I'm beginning to think I just wasn't getting the "full" PSIP info from them at times, and it just wasn't showing any remapping info.

Re: overscan ... I should clarify my earlier remark ... I saw all of the new FOX56 bug on my set (with about ~4.5% overscan)

Re: PSIP issue ... I think your original theory that it's related to the splicer setup was probably correct ... If you tried hard enough, you might even find a pattern to when it goes wacky ;)

The splicer system at WDKY only worked 100% "correctly" for about two to three weeks after it was installed. As I've stated before, it's been mostly fouled up (one way or the other) ever since the last game of the World Series signed off. Hopefully, now that more people can see the DT, WDKY will take steps to fix the problem(s) ;)

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
As I've stated before, it's been mostly fouled up (one way or the other) ever since the last game of the World Series signed off. Hopefully, now that more people can see the DT, WDKY will take steps to fix the problem(s) ;)

I do remember that :)

... I seem to be seeing them solidly about 75% of the time that I've checked the past couple of days so I suppose at least I can pester them about it to some extent now as well ... Should probably give them some time to work it out first, as well as THANK them first for putting such a fine, hi-powered lo-VHF DTV signal on the air, and getting it together quite quickly given that it hasn't been that long ago that their CP for 4 for Clays Ferry was granted by FCC ...

I just hope they can get HD splicer working before the Superbowl for you guys ...

I have just about given up trying to pull in the WDKY signal. I have moved my antenna all over my house. I have placed it at the highest possible point and still nothing. This is really frustrating as I live inside Lexington. I never imagined that I would have any trouble receiving the signal due to my location. All the other local channels come OTA just fine.

Are there any products that I might be able to add to my indoor antenna to possibly pull in the signal? Putting up an outdoor antenna isn't feasible on my rental property.

Unless Insight comes through with a miracle, I will be watching the Super Bowl in SD yet again. I just can't help but think that something isn't right with their signal if I can't pick it up in Lexington with my "rabbit ears" (like their site boasts). Oh well :(.

Originally posted by BdoUK
I have just about given up trying to pull in the WDKY signal. I have moved my antenna all over my house. I have placed it at the highest possible point and still nothing. This is really frustrating as I live inside Lexington. I never imagined that I would have any trouble receiving the signal due to my location. All the other local channels come OTA just fine.

Are there any products that I might be able to add to my indoor antenna to possibly pull in the signal? Putting up an outdoor antenna isn't feasible on my rental property.

Unless Insight comes through with a miracle, I will be watching the Super Bowl in SD yet again. I just can't help but think that something isn't right with their signal if I can't pick it up in Lexington with my "rabbit ears" (like their site boasts). Oh well :(.

I had the same problem as you. I went out to Walmart and bought an RCA UHF/VHF amplied rabbit ear antenna and I finally can pick it up with a 60-80% lock. Every once in while it will pixelate and sound drops out. I thought I was out of hope, but with a little more patience I got it. Not realiably, but its a picture. Where are you located? I am off of Tatescreek and Redding Road.

Brinkley,

I am located off Pasadena Dr. about a half-mile from Nicholasville Rd. Not exactly the boonies which is why I don't understand my struggles in picking up the signal.

I have already tried two antennas and I hate to go buy another one but I might give the RCA a shot. Currently I have a Phillips amplified VHF/UHF and a Silver Sensor.

Is anyone in Georgetown having any luck pulling in WDKY-DT? I have an indoor terk VHF/UHF antenna that picks up WKYT, WTVQ, WKON, and WUPX without any problems using my HD Tivo. I have moved my antenna all of the house (and attic) and can't even get 1% signal. Just curious what others in the area are doing.

If FOX is indeed broadcasting at full power right now, the signal is horrible. It's pretty sad that people in lexington, not 15 miles from the tower and can't pull in a strong signal.

I too can not get any signal at all. I am located almost directly across from central baptist hospital on nicholasville road. I have a roof mounted terk 55 amplified antenna, and have no trouble getting WTVQ, WKYT, and sometimes KET, but can't get even a 1 on my signal meter for 56. My antenna isn't the best, i know that, but it is mounted on a rotor that i can control perfectly, and is mounted on my chimney with a 8 foot mast that gets it up in the air pretty well. Any thoughts on what to try? thanks, sleddogn

Originally posted by BdoUK
Brinkley,

I am located off Pasadena Dr. about a half-mile from Nicholasville Rd. Not exactly the boonies which is why I don't understand my struggles in picking up the signal.

I have already tried two antennas and I hate to go buy another one but I might give the RCA a shot. Currently I have a Phillips amplified VHF/UHF and a Silver Sensor.

I'm exactly 1 mile from Meijer (on Reynolds Rd). Maybe the antenna makes all the difference in our area for reception? I actually took mine apart some time ago to see what was inside the circle part (for UHF). It was just thin 'sheet metal' in a spiral. The 'ears' are relevant to VHF (and in our case WDKY-DT) . With the good ear side and busted ear side the antenna would only stretch out around 60" and could not get WDKY-DT. I changed out the ears and now extend to 83" and have reception.

Let's try the twinlead makeshift VHF antenna mentioned in several posts back and see if we can see any improvement (and hopefully reception in your case). Without the amp (both the MCM one and Channel Master) my antenna is only ringing about 9-11% signal. With the amp it is ringing in 28-44% with alot of frunctuation between 32-36-40%, but more importantly is locked.

Originally posted by Brinkley
If FOX is indeed broadcasting at full power right now, the signal is horrible. It's pretty sad that people in lexington, not 15 miles from the tower and can't pull in a strong signal.

I agree. It's a 3-ring circus in Lexington to get the digital signal. Easily 6 hours of trial and error in my case with antenna placement and equipment. I thought WDKY was committed to serving Lexington. The surrounding areas and even Middletown Ohio get 75% signal! What the!? Maybe the broadcasting antenna needs to be pointed a little differently. Is anyone in Danville even able to pick up WDKY-DT?

Maybe there's an evil scientist with a huge magnet/Telsa coil (whatever would be disruptive) underneath Lexington shielding the area from FOX-DT. Or maybe too many people cooking microwave popcorn over here. :)

I have had good luck thus far with this RCA amplified rabit ears. I couldn't get any signal whatsoever until today. It was almost instant getting "a" signal after arriving home. Been tweaking all afternoon. It's not a good sign that after getting confirmation that FOX is broadcasting at full power right now.

Another thing to try:

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but some of you might want to try using the Ratshack variable RF attenuator ... Recently, dialing in a bit of attenuation has been helping my reception on WKYT-DT and WDKY-DT (not to mention WLKY-DT) ... in WDKY's case it's helping a lot.

Part #: 15-678

Originally posted by Brinkley
Just got off the phone with a tech at FOX56 and they did indeed confirm that as of right now, they are broadcasting at full power and he said they are pretty much done with the installation of the transmitter. He did say that they MAY bring it down after the superbowl to replace a dish. I also asked about the show "24" and he said it was not in HD. The guide says it is, but the show is not in HD. Just some info.

There's no doubt the show was in HD. It appears the station just doesn't know what they are talking about/doing. We'll see if they have their act together tonight.

Isn't American Idol "suppose" to be in HD tonight?

Originally posted by Brinkley
Isn't American Idol "suppose" to be in HD tonight?

It is in HD, but WDKY still hasn't gotten it right. Same SD broadcast with "Fox56" logo on lower right of a 16:9 screen. We need to bombard them with calls, especially since an engineer told another poster that 24 wasn't in HD. It doesn't seem to me that they even acknowledge they have a problem.

What the Heck!!!!! Everyone on the phone now, WDKY needs to get their act together. Yes, 24 is broadcast in HD and so is American Idol. We in the Greater Lexington area are still not able to enjoy Fox in HD at this point, and that really tees me off knowing the Super Bowl is only 5 days away. Call them and let them know you want your HD now.

859-269-5656 is the number. Going to call right now.......

EDIT: Well, as expected, no one answers the phone. But the recording says to call the news line at 268-1234. Haven't called it, though, but I'm assuming someone will answer.

yea its HD on channel 89 on directv but when i switch to 56 its not.
Bad WDKY bad.
and just when the signal started locking sort of good lol

Just so everyone knows, here's the lineup of HD for the rest of the week for testing purposes:

Tonight: American Idol and House @ 8 and 9
Wednesday: American Idol again @ 8
Thursday: OC and Point Pleasant @ 8 and 9
Friday: Bernie Mac (the one @ 8, not the one @ 8:30) and Johnny Zero @ 9

Originally posted by JRock21
What the Heck!!!!! Everyone on the phone now, WDKY needs to get their act together. Yes, 24 is broadcast in HD and so is American Idol. We in the Greater Lexington area are still not able to enjoy Fox in HD at this point, and that really tees me off knowing the Super Bowl is only 5 days away. Call them and let them know you want your HD now.

I wouldn't get my hopes up on the SuperBowl. It seems that WDKY is clueless.

Well yet again another show not in HD. Will someone tell the tech dudes to flip the damn switch already!! Pardon the curse. This is so frustrating.

Originally posted by Brinkley
Well yet again another show not in HD. Will someone tell the tech dudes to flip the damn switch already!! Pardon the curse. This is so frustrating.

I just don't think they know what they're doing. The "FOX56" logo on the bottom of a 16:9 screen indicates that someone realizes that the show should be HD. Are they having equipment trouble or just brain trouble?

well signal went to $#@& again!
weird to cause i get a solid lock on ket from the tower right next to wdky i never have any issues with ket

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Re: overscan ... I should clarify my earlier remark ... I saw all of the new FOX56 bug on my set (with about ~4.5% overscan)


I've got it all too. That's about where I have one of my displays set, the other is at about 3% overscan or so. Next three posts shows screenshots from a few minutes ago during AI from the display I have set at about 4~5% overscan that show the splicer inserted bug for WDKY-DT, WXIX-DT Cincinnati, and WRGT-DT Dayton. Sorry about the quality - I didn't mess around with focusing to get rid of Moire pattern, nor did I take the time to Level the camera or mess around with editing the images much(I cut too cropped too much off left side of WDKY-DT's, my "black bars" really are same size on both sides ;) ...

WDKY-DT's SD upconvert+splicer inserted bug :

Fox HD+ WRGT-DT Fox Dayton Splicer inserted bug :

Fox HD and WXIX-DT Splicer inserted bug - The default one from Fox :

P.s. - in addition to moire I didn't "focus" out, it Looks like the camera shutter was open on a frame with a transistion to another camera/etc :

Make sure your not trying to combine a VCR output into thesame RF line as the antenna.. if the home consumer device outputs on CH 4 it will wipe out WDKY's signal.

Did someone at FOX flip the switch to make "House" HD or my eyes playing tricks on me?

Ah, the "pirate" QRP TV station setup ;)

-------------------------

Hope I wasn't the only one that saw it, but noticed WDKY-DT was actually sending Fox HD when I looked at 9:53 PM ....

So my eyes weren't playing tricks then? It was HD?

Is it me or did anyone else loose their programming? I am getting 70% on signal, but a black screen.

brinkley,

Sorry didn't see your post earlier before I posted ... It wasn't your eyes ..

I had antenna aimed elswhere, but just "reaimed" and checked it at 10:21~10:24pm and it's fine here with local news+a PSA about their license renewal(2nd time I've seen that today....) ... If you're getting them now, My guess is perhaps they were temporarily not sending anything "decodable" when you saw them go to blank screen because they were having "technical diffiulities", perhaps involving switching from net feed to local feed ....

Same thing here Brinkley and Nitewatchman. The last 15 minutes of House were in HD and then at 10:00 the 56.1 channel goes blank. I understand the "testing" process, but it is 9:00 and 10:00 at night, who would be working or "testing" the system at those hours? I just hope things get straightened out. It would be embarassing and frustrating to host a Super Bowl party and lose the HD signal or worse, not get it at all.

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
brinkley,

Sorry didn't see your post earlier before I posted ... It wasn't your eyes ..

I had antenna aimed elswhere, but just "reaimed" and checked it at 10:21~10:24pm and it's fine here with local news+a PSA about their license renewal(2nd time I've seen that today....) ... If you're getting them now, My guess is perhaps they were temporarily not sending anything "decodable" when you saw them go to blank screen because they were having "technical diffiulities", perhaps involving switching from net feed to local feed ....

I just caught the last part of the licence renewal thing. Exactly what is this? Please explain on what this is all about.

I called WDKY to complain about the lack of HD during Idol. I left a message (of course). I wasn't around to check on House, so if they got the HD working in the last 15 minutes of House, maybe tomorrow American Idol will be proper HD.

Originally posted by JRock21
but it is 9:00 and 10:00 at night, who would be working or "testing" the system at those hours?

Hard working, underpaid Broadcast Engineers or the tech on duty perhaps :)

Don't take this the wrong way, as I realize you aren't "complaining" about it --- but IMO, I'd be thankful they are working "overtime" for FOX HD (and for us ...),.. at least currently, you can also allways tune to the analog station when there are "technical difficulties" ...

Well, I'm sad that I missed the 15 minutes of HD during House, but I was watching Rodney in proper HD (even though it looked a little soft). I'll give WDKY a couple of nights to get it working, but they need to understand when to "flip the switch" right the first time, then switch it back when necessary.

Refer to my earlier post guys to get the remainder of Fox's weekly HD lineup.

Originally posted by Brinkley
I just caught the last part of the licence renewal thing. Exactly what is this? Please explain on what this is all about.

They are just making a public service announcement basically saying that, as required they are filing with FCC for renewal of their license, the current "term" which they said expires in August. It's a little different, but we Ham radio guys have to do the same thing every 10 years .....

Just "paperwork" sort of stuff I'd imagine ...

I am still dissappointed in the signal quality FOX is transmitting. I am just about to give up. Minor issues throughout the day today, but this evening was horrible! Pixelation like crazy. 70% signal and still crappy. Guess i will have to wait till Directv offers my DMA on the HD locals on satellite.

Don't take this the wrong way, as I realize you aren't "complaining" about it --- but IMO, I'd be thankful they are working "overtime" for FOX HD (and for us ...),.. at least currently, you can also allways tune to the analog station when there are "technical difficulties" ...

No offense taken Nitewatchman I know it is a process, but it is frustrating. My dad, who lives in Tennessee, has had ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX in HD for over six months now. Knoxville and Lexington are very similar markets. How can one city or state have things rolling so much quicker when they are not that different or that far apart?

Originally posted by JRock21
but it is 9:00 and 10:00 at night, who would be working or "testing" the system at those hours?



Hard working, underpaid Broadcast Engineers or the tech on duty perhaps

LIKE ME...

Originally posted by William Smith
Originally posted by JRock21
but it is 9:00 and 10:00 at night, who would be working or "testing" the system at those hours?



Hard working, underpaid Broadcast Engineers or the tech on duty perhaps

LIKE ME...

So what is up with the signal with FOX? The website claims that people, especially in Lexington would have no problems getting signal with rabbit ears. Well I have amplified rabbit ears, but I get huge pixelation problems. I have around the 70% signal on FOX. All of the other local stations , CBS, ABC, KET, etc. are crystal clear with 100% signal from all. It is just frustrating knowing the superbowl is coming up and I have to explain to my guests why the picture signal sucks.

Originally posted by Brinkley
The website claims that people, especially in Lexington would have no problems getting signal with rabbit ears.

as with any claim, your mileage may vary.

Originally posted by Brinkley
Did someone at FOX flip the switch to make "House" HD or my eyes playing tricks on me?

Even if this is true, I still recommend everyone call WDKY and tell them about it. Getting 15 minutes out of 2 hours of HD programming right is not acceptable.

For all you folks having trouble with FOX's signal, and assuming you're using some form of amplifier, consider trying an inline FM trap. It has helped me. There's a cheap one at RS and Winegard makes a better one.

If your signal is unamplified, it's less likely to help, but you could still try the cheap RS model at little risk.

Hmm.. My WDKY-DT signal is only 18-21% this morning from the previous 28-44% range. I haven't moved the antenna or anything. What would cause the signal to be weaker today than yesterday? Is it the gloomy weather outside?

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Hmm.. My WDKY-DT signal is only 18-21% this morning from the previous 28-44% range. I haven't moved the antenna or anything. What would cause the signal to be weaker today than yesterday? Is it the gloomy weather outside?

BenC,

Get the RadioShack variable RF attenuator I mentioned a few posts back and see if it helps ... You might be surprised at the results ;)

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
BenC,

Get the RadioShack variable RF attenuator I mentioned a few posts back and see if it helps ... You might be surprised at the results ;)

This one?

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=15-678

Follows are just Some thoughts for folks who are having problems receiving WDKY-DT, in case they help :

It occurs to me that, without a spectrum analyzer and the knowledge to use it, it's probably quite difficult for folks to try to diagnose the reception issues some folks are having with WDKY. Especially as there isn't a lo-VHF (ch 2-6) analog station(none on 7-13 either for that matter) that is broadcasting from Lexington area, and our DTV receivers don't usually have good tools to to show you what might be wrong, unlike analog TV where you can just look at the screen and see interference and multipath(ghosting), and weak signal(snowy picture) issues. At least you can check WKYT-DT with your VHF antenna to make sure it's "working", though ...

The best thing you do have nearby that might tell you a little about what *may* be going on is WAVE 3, Louisville. Since its broadcasting from a different spot alltogether, it isn't going to help you diagnose multipath or weak signal issues, or interference issues that may be specific to channel 4(and not 3). But, you should be able to diagnose impulse noise issues, and to some extent other RFI issues or preamp/tuner Overload issues by seeing if you are getting any interference(lots of static, sparkles/etc) on WAVE 3, assuming you can get enough signal from them to tell, which might be difficult it you are using rabbit ears and a TV that "blanks" the screen with blue or black/etc instead of showing weak signals/snow.

I think Ben C Jedi has the right idea. In addition to adjusting the antenna itself, move the antenna around. Get a little extra coax/feedline if necessary and Try to find a "sweet spot" for best reception - It's probably generally unlikely that spot is going to be on top of your TV, or, say in your basement. Oftentimes, from what I've seen, from indoors, near a window facing the tower often works out to be a good spot. If you are combining seperate VHF/UHF antennas, don't just use a splitter turned backwards ... Use a VHF/UHF combiner such as CM#0549(RS has one too, can't recall the part #)

Don't assume you aren't getting a strong signal from WDKY-DT at your location just because you aren't getting "high readings"(or any sort of readings) off your receiver's meter. Those things aren't "signal strength" meters, at least none of them I've seen are, even one that I have that says "strength" right on the screen . They can show high readings when a fairly weak signal just a few db over the threshold required(about 16db S/N) for perfect DTV reception, or low readings, or readings that "bounce around" with strong signals when other "Factors"(interference, multipath/etc).. There are quite a number of factors that could be involved concerning why you aren't having better luck .. What are some of those factors :

a). Interference issues. "Impulse noise"(also caused naturally by lightning) and other RFI from home appliances - Pc's, electric motors, "faulty" vehicle ignition systems, Power lines, etc/etc is much more of a problem on lo-VHF(ch 2-6 - 54~88MHZ) frequencies than is the case with higher frequencies of hi-VHF TV(ch 7-13 - 174~216MHZ) and UHF(ch 14~69 - 470~806MHZ) . If your antenna is indoors, it can be really bad. But -- assuming you can get enough signal, you CAN look at WAVE 3, Lousiville and see if you are getting a lot of "static" or "sparkles", which is a sure sign of impulse noise/RFI .... If so, that's going to be effecting channel 4 reception as well. Best thing you can do here is to try to get antenna in a spot where it isn't "picking up" that interference, or, turn off appliances which use Electric motors, or are a suspected "source" of RFI like Computers. Check to see if when say, the furnance kicks on if the reception degrades. Unplug light dimmers/etc. As William mentioned, make sure there are no VCR's or other RF modulators set to send RF out to antenna ....

b.) Multipath issues. Best you can probably do here is move antenna around/adjust(slowly) and try to get a "steadier" reading off your receiver's meter,since multipath is usually quite frequency specific, and you don't have a analog VHF station broadcasting from Clay's ferry to look at to try to eliminate Ghosting(multipath) via antenna "adjustments".

c.) Co-channel interference from other stations - If you are well within the coverage area of the station, I'd think this shouldn't be a problem for you as for the most part 4 is a fairly "clean" channel in Central KY. On, or beyond the "fringe area" however, it's probably more of an issue. If you are working with a weak signal from WDKY-DT, then any little increase in "noise" from a more distant station via enhanced signal propagation conditions that sometimes occur is likely to be more of an issue.

Relates to either/or/and a/b/c above, as well as "preamp/tuner overload issues" described farther below : If your signal meter is "bouncing around" like crazy, it it most likely a sign of either a interference or multipath issue, or perhaps that you are getting "too much" signal and preamp and or front end of receiver is overloading. The latter is *probably* unlikely on it's own(without preamp), but who knows if you've got "super strong" signal(s) present.

d.) Potentailly poor performance on Lo-VHF band from your receiver, as compared to Hi-VHF(ch 7-13) or UHF. I know some folks who have done some side by side comparisons of various receivers(sorry, don't have any model#'s handy), and they reported some of them seemed to perform quite a bit worse on lo-VHF than other receivers.

"Amplified" antennas or preamps are usually not a good idea for indoor antennas. Just keep that in mind, doesn't mean in every case that you won't get better results with an "amplified" indoor antenna.

"Amplifed" antennas or preamps are generally not a good idea if you are fairly close to the stations or other strong sources of RF, unless you specifically trap out/knock down ONLY the strong signals in a frequency specific fashion before they get to the preamp. This is because preamps can easily be overloaded by strong signal. An preamp that is overloaded will create intermodulation distortion and spread noise all over the place, including on the channels you want to receive. Just about ANY sort of strong signal(s) can overload a preamp - Not just from TV stations on the TV channels you are using it for -- It could be from strong FM signals from FM broadcast stations, a nearby transmitter at a police station or in a police car/etc/etc , as preamps are usually very broadband.

If you are using a preamp that has a built-in FM Trap, make sure it's engaged(usually a Trap "IN" setting). Or, purchase a FM trap as CPcat mentioned and, if you aren't using a preamp put it just before the receiver. Put FM trap Between antenna+preamp if your preamp doesn't have a "built in" FM trap(most of them do however). The RS FM trap doesn't do much much on the lower end of FM band(88-92mhz) So that channel 6 is not effected by the filter, it does quite a bit between 92~108 MHZ. If you like "projects", You can also make a 1/4 wave coax stub filter. Cutting one for about 98.1 MHZ(mid-band, and also where probably your strongest FM signal in Central KY resides) would probably be a good idea, but keep in mind, the stub filter effects certian harmonics as well, and you probably don't want to use one on the "UHF side" of a feed from antenna, since certian UHF channels on frequencies that have certian harmonic relationships to the "fundamental" frequency the filter is cut for would be delitioursly effected. Anyhow, more info, including very "basic" Info on how to make a 1/4 wave coax stub filter is here : http://www.kyes.com/antenna/coaxfilter.html - Note: In the one step he mentions - you divide 300 BY the frequency btw, not the other way around.

WDKY-DT is the highest power digital station on Lo-VHF in U.S. currently, probably anywhere else as well. It's the highest power lo-VHF digital station that has ever made it to the airwaves AFAIK, unless there's been some testing I didn't know about ... While I can't think of any reason why that should be a "problem" --- still -- It looks like the next "highest power" DTV station on lo-VHF in U.S. currently is running about 7KW ERP ... so if there are any "issues" with that, we probably don't know about it yet ... One wouldn't think there would be, since it's just 4x more power(about 5~6db power increase) than 7KW ERP, but who knows for sure at this point ...

Although one wouldn't think it, or other nearby strong signals would cause front end of receiver to overload with receivers hooked up to rabbit ears(or any other antenna without preamp), again ... adding a preamp when you are in a "strong signal area" isn't going to help if you've got too much signal(s) to begin with. And as HDC mentioned earlier, preamp or no, it might be worth a shot to try a atteunator to see if it helps or not, same deal with the FM trap CPcat mentioned. An atteunator in line after the preamp isn't going to keep the preamp from overloading and creating intermod, however. Radio shack has a decent variable attenuator(up to 20db) for around 9 bucks(update: Wrote this up last night, this is the one HDC+BencJedi are talking about). Or, if you are very close to Clay's ferry, I suppse you could try another method, and try a short wire or a "paper clip" as an antenna ... yes, I'm pretty much joking about that, but I'd be surprised if a short piece of wire WOULDN'T work in many circumstances within say, 4-5 miles of WDKY tower or so...

In most cases, by all means, If you can, Get a "conventional", directional multi-element VHF/UHF (or seperate VHF+UHF antennas with proper VHf/UHF combining) and put it up outdoors - With rotor if necessary. If it *has* to go in the attic, then put it there(you might get excellent results, judging by what some folks get, but especially watch that impulse noise issue, especially if you've got a lot of "wiring" in your attic), but it's likely to work much better outside ... If it turns out you're getting "too much" signal off it(I don't see anyone that is using a outdoor antenna reporting anything like that happening, however), then add an attenuator .....

Lots of great info which might help you out can be found here : http://www.kyes.com/antenna/antennadex.html -- Check out Section #14 the "interference" section for a better explanation of various interference issues. The "Overhead power lines, Neon Signs and Small motors" section talks about what we often call "Impulse noise", Lightning is also a natural source of this sort of interference that is especially an issue on lo-VHF and lower frequencies ... "Amplifier/Front end overload" is another section you might especially want to check out ...

Hope some of this helps, good luck ...

Originally posted by BenCJedi
This one?

Yep ... I don't know for sure if it will help in your case as I'm not exactly sure what it's knocking out of my signal ... Results may also depend on your receiver.

If you are combining seperate VHF/UHF antennas, don't just use a splitter turned backwards ... Use a VHF/UHF combiner such as CM#0549(RS has one too, can't recall the part #)

Excellent post, Nitewatchmen.

One of the Ratshack combiner part #s is 150-1237 (or 15-1237.) However, it wasn't listed on the www site. You might have to scour your local Ratshack to find one.

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Yep ... I don't know for sure if it will help in your case as I'm not exactly sure what it's knocking out of my signal ... Results may also depend on your receiver.

Which is a highly sensitive MyHD PC HDTV tuner/capture card. This is why the antenna is in the attic, as far away as possible because i realize the PC itself could be causing interferance.

I was in lowes last night and they had a diplexer, but it said it was for combining a VHF/UHF/FM antenna with a satellite dish output. Would this work for combining a UHF and a VHF antenna by connecting the VHF to the antenna input and the UHF to the satellite input (or vice versa)? Or would I need one that is specifically made for combining a VHF and UHF (like the CM 0549)? I saw a similar satellite/antenna diplexer at my local rat shack.

Originally posted by pbracken
Or would I need one that is specifically made for combining a VHF and UHF (like the CM 0549)?

Yes, that's what you need. The diplexer you mentioned isn't going to work. I know the CM0549 is a good one, as it is low insertion loss(.5db) and provides High isolation between VHF+UHF.

That's not to say a 2 way splitter used backwards won't "work" in some circumstances. It might if you get lucky but it's just as likely to cause "problems" as well, as you would in effect be using both your VHF and UHF antennas for both VHF and UHF reception and the two antennas are likely to "effect" one another in at least some cases(on some channels/etc) since there is nothing providing any isolation between them, which can mainly increase multipath ...

You can also use a VHF/UHF band "seperator" "backwards" which RS and stores like even Meijer(here anyway) have for seperating VHF/UHF if you have seperate VHF/UHF inputs on your Old TV/VCR ... But, #1). Those things don't seem to have the highest isolation between VHF+UHF(but it's probably good enough in many circumstances), #2)they probably have more insertion loss than A CM0549 or similar, and you'll probably only find one with 75ohm lead for VHF/300ohm lead for UHF side, or 300 ohm for both ... Which is fine if you're using 300 ohm twinlead between the antenna+"combiner"(or between UHF input terminal on "old" TV and "seperator" if you use it as a seperator), but you probably aren't going to want to add a balun(more insertion loss) there if, say the feed from antenna is 75 ohm. 300 ohm twinlead is low loss, but it also easily picks up "interference". You can put a full twist in 300 ohm twinlead every couple of feet and it will help that problem a little ...

Some preamps have seperate VHF/UHF inputs, and fairly high isolation between the two, but I wouldn't get a preamp just for that especially if you have a lot of nearby strong signals that might cause overload problems ...

Of course, if you want, and if VHF antenna is working well "by itself"(it's not going to work any better than that for VHF reception in any case), until you can get what you need so you can properly combine use both VHF+UHF antennas, you might want to "temorarily" (such as for HD superbowl),just attach the VHF only antenna to your receiver ...

Originally posted by pbracken
I was in lowes last night and they had a diplexer, but it said it was for combining a VHF/UHF/FM antenna with a satellite dish output. Would this work for combining a UHF and a VHF antenna by connecting the VHF to the antenna input and the UHF to the satellite input (or vice versa)? Or would I need one that is specifically made for combining a VHF and UHF (like the CM 0549)? I saw a similar satellite/antenna diplexer at my local rat shack.

CM0549 at Starkelectronics.com http://www.starkelectronic.com/cmjoiner.htm

Another good one UVSJ from Pico http://www.picomacom.com/specs/pico/C/C24.pdf

Those out there with Insight Cable might want to tune to channel 772 :).

Time to rejoice!!!!

For Insight Customers in Lexington, we just launched WDKY's Digital Channel and you can tune to it on Channel 772. It was launched right around 5:00 PM this afternoon.
Thanks,
Winston Boggs
Technical Operations Manager
Insight of Lexington

Winston,

I want to take a moment to thank you and all those at Insight that worked so hard to get WDKY-DT to us. I was pulling my hair out trying to get reception in the heart of Lexington with an antenna. I guess I can now put those Super Bowl party plans back in motion!

Thanks again!

Happy days are here again!

Originally posted by BdoUK
Winston,

I want to take a moment to thank you and all those at Insight that worked so hard to get WDKY-DT to us. I was pulling my hair out trying to get reception in the heart of Lexington with an antenna. I guess I can now put those Super Bowl party plans back in motion!

Thanks again!

Now, if WDKY can only get the HD part right.

Originally posted by bitblaze
For Insight Customers in Lexington, we just launched WDKY's Digital Channel and you can tune to it on Channel 772. It was launched right around 5:00 PM this afternoon.
Thanks,
Winston Boggs
Technical Operations Manager
Insight of Lexington

Pretty impressive. I'm still working on my signal down here. I guess some cable guys do know what they're doing.;)

Originally posted by cpcat
Pretty impressive. I'm still working on my signal down here. I guess some cable guys do know what they're doing.;)

Oh yeah! Winston is THE MAN! :)

I wonder if FOX did any tweaking today? Tonight after I got home, I decided to play around some more with my antenna. I am blown away with what I found. I put my antenna where yesterday I couldn't even get a blip of a signal, now I am getting 80%!!! It will occasionaly have micro blocking, but overall I am just blown away. I currently have my dish washer going and MAYBE thats what causing some of the microblocking, OR I need to run my dishwasher all day to keep a signal. lmao. I also noticed I turned down the gain on my amplified rabbit ears as well. Totally confused, but totally rejoicing along with all the insight customers! Never thought I would ever say that. No offense to you guys. :)

Originally posted by Brinkley
I wonder if FOX did any tweaking today? Tonight after I got home, I decided to play around some more with my antenna. I am blown away with what I found. I put my antenna where yesterday I couldn't even get a blip of a signal, now I am getting 80%!!! It will occasionaly have micro blocking, but overall I am just blown away. I currently have my dish washer going and MAYBE thats what causing some of the microblocking, OR I need to run my dishwasher all day to keep a signal. lmao. I also noticed I turned down the gain on my amplified rabbit ears as well. Totally confused, but totally rejoicing along with all the insight customers! Never thought I would ever say that. No offense to you guys. :)

Mine is now down from 44% to 18-21%. Something changed. Now I gotta spend hopefully not much time finding a better spot for my antenna.

Originally posted by CentralKY05
Now, if WDKY can only get the HD part right.

LOL ... I just got the monthly flyer from WDKY that screams, 'Superbowl In HDTV only on FOX56, Feb 6th' ... They'd best have somebody swapping cables manually at the very least. ;)

Well, like reported last night, the last 15 minutes of House was switched to HD. American Idol is in HD tonight, so let's hope they get it going to prove to us it's working.

And great news for the Insight people in Lexington! I'm happy for you guys after so many of you thought there was no chance of this happening before the Super Bowl, let alone the end of the year.

Originally posted by Brinkley
I wonder if FOX did any tweaking today? Tonight after I got home, I decided to play around some more with my antenna. I am blown away with what I found. I put my antenna where yesterday I couldn't even get a blip of a signal, now I am getting 80%!!! It will occasionaly have micro blocking, but overall I am just blown away. I currently have my dish washer going and MAYBE thats what causing some of the microblocking, OR I need to run my dishwasher all day to keep a signal. lmao. I also noticed I turned down the gain on my amplified rabbit ears as well. Totally confused, but totally rejoicing along with all the insight customers! Never thought I would ever say that. No offense to you guys. :)

Mine seems better, too. Reception is strange, though. I'd put odds on conditions changing over them doing something. Conditions seem pretty "dead band" right now which is usually good for local reception.

OTOH, now that Insight is on board that's actually great for us in the OTA world. If Insight has problems with the signal, that's a squeaky wheel that'll likely get greased.

Nice analogy cpcat. I sure hope FOX is on the ball tonight and flips the switch "ontime" for American Idol.

yea must be the snow i am getting it tuned in pretty good tonight with a little drop off but the signal went to 75 here

Did anyone go black a few minutes ago?? I am still getting 70% signal, but nothing but black screen.

not black just lost the lock yet again nothing but a jarbbled mess here now :mad:
thank goodness i get it on directv!

Originally posted by Brinkley
Did anyone go black a few minutes ago?? I am still getting 70% signal, but nothing but black screen.

good signal frozen picture at 07:58

FOX SD is having issues on Directv. Not watchable. ANyone else having issues?

I had issues on my HD receiver, but switched over to the Tivo and it looks fine. The D* HD receiver seems to have issues when the OTA signal has issues. Not sure why it's like this.

Hopefully you have another receiver Brinkley to watch it on.

PSIP is messed up again ( showing 4-3 instead of 56-1)

They were doing some testing between 7:30 and 8:00pm ... FoxNews was up on the DT for a couple of minutes.

THis blows me away. Why in the sam h*ll do they do testing right before primetime shows?? Geeze!

Black screen on Directv FOX as well.

Originally posted by Brinkley
THis blows me away. Why in the sam h*ll do they do testing right before primetime shows?? Geeze!

Actually, I was hoping they were setting it to the HD feed manually ... apparently something has gone astray again ...

Could be worse ... I've had to endure this Lucy/Charlie Brown teasing since the end of the World Series. Eventually, I'm just going to stop trying to get WDKY at all ;) :D

First off, I want to say thanks to Insight for getting Fox on board :D :D

But..

As of right now, 8:14PM, 772 is unwatchable :p

Just a big jarbled mess.

However, I'm waiting patiently for the techs to do their job :)

Gfly1

Unfortunately, unless the Union address is being shown in HD tonight by Fox, this is the only HD show on tonight. It will suck to have to wait another night to see if they can figure it out. Still 45 minutes left in the show, let's hope they are working on it as we type.

Our Headend Engineer spoke with their Engineer and there is a piece of equipment that broke in Columbus and someone is working on it.
Winston

I HAD the perfect spot. Now I can't get a good signal anywhere. If WDKY-DT did something to better the signal for Insight, I'm gonna really be pissed, only because it took me 6 hours to find the original spot

Originally posted by bitblaze
Our Headend Engineer spoke with their Engineer and there is a piece of equipment that broke in Columbus and someone is working on it.
Winston
Awesome, thanks for the info.

Did he say what broke??

Screwed again.

If you believe this bunch will bring us the Super Bowl in HD, I have some ocean front property in Arizona I will sell you.

looks like it just cleared...
Winston

anyone else seeing this FOX screen saver looking thing?

AI is in HD!

wow it is working good!!
now if it would just stay like this it will be worth watching!!

Just got my first glimpse of Fox HD.......for about 4 second before the screen froze while I was turning up the volume because there was silence. :D But atleast I've seen the light for a second.

Woot! Looking good right now. AI looks great in HD!! Thanks WDKY.

I'm having trouble maintaining lock :(

But I occassionally can see it like this:

http://home.insightbb.com/~refuel/pics/HDTV/WDKY_AI01.jpg

Wow, awsome screen shot. That looks better than my TV does!

Someone tell the local affiliates to flip the switch on the State of the Union

Originally posted by cpcat
Wow, awsome screen shot. That looks better than my TV does!

And that's only half the resolution too and only that clear about 22% of the time.

I guess I need to try the attenuator next. I can't believe I had a cool 44% signal upper bound and today that gain is just gone. It WAS perfect for me, but something obviously changed today at WDKY. I can't find any other sweet spots in my apartment. I may need to construct reflectors and whatnot to improve at this point because I am running out of options. I could always go to Insight I supposse (just use them for broadband).

Wow, awesome screenshot. The picture was damn good on AI. Definitely in the top that I've seen since I've had my HD since the beginning of January. Only better I've seen is the ABC and CBS NFL playoff games.

I think all the networks forgot to flip the switch. I called WKYT and had them flip it. THey were like....uhhhhhh....ok.

Originally posted by blurredvision
Woot! Looking good right now. AI looks great in HD!! Thanks WDKY.

LOL, They'll tease you like this ;) ... The presence of the spinning FOX cube can only mean that the splicer is still not working the way it should ... but at least they got the network HD feed up which means hope for Sunday.

Looks like FOX is downconverting the the State o' U to 480p then re-upconverting to 720p ... :eek:

Noticed that as well..somethings not quite right about the picture ;)

Gfly1

Originally posted by cpcat
I'd put odds on conditions changing over them doing something. Conditions seem pretty "dead band" right now which is usually good for local reception.


WDKY-DT has been mostly below a lock here today/tonight. I'm also getting quite a bit more from Columbus 4 off the side of antenna than was the case the past few days. Getting generally more from other Columbus VHF's and Toledo VHF's as well(NE/E), and WTTV 4 Bloomington as well today than was the case the previous 3 days for the most part. Lex/Lou seems pretty "dead band" here, with the UHF analogs just continously popping in and out above the "snow", WAVE 3 Louisville is as normal under dead band conditions, Solid but not all that pretty ...

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Looks like FOX is downconverting the the State o' U to 480p then re-upconverting to 720p ...


I don't know what is going on with that but it sure is ugly+even looks worse than that should .. Way soft, and I'm even getting what looks like NTSC composite video artifacts, just like what happened with some shots when they did MLB All-Star game production in HD last year, but it went out as Fox WS to the affiliates. Cincy/Dayton and most Fox WS affiliates anyway, If I remember right a couple of affiliates were set up to get HD(but not via the splicer) via a sat link, but everyone saw the "ugliness" if I recall that thread/posts on it correctly ...

Yea I was flipping back and forth between the other networks and FOX's HD transmission was certainly less than worthy calling it HD.

WDKY versus WKYT right now:

WDKY:

http://home.insightbb.com/~refuel/pics/HDTV/WDKY_HD01.jpg

WKYT:

http://home.insightbb.com/~refuel/pics/HDTV/WKYT_HD01.jpg

You can certainly see the difference there!

WDKY is black for me now.. time for the local news I guess. The signal is weaker for me all of a sudden too.

I am ringing around 21-25% signal now, but don't have a lock (I should). Anyone have a lock right now? I'm thinking the splicer is still nuts.

Originally posted by Brinkley
You can certainly see the difference there!

Even look how much more excited the woman was in HD! Smiles and all! :)

Black here too! I think they still are having issues with their splicer and how to use the darn thing. They need to figure out to integrate the signal or at least a transistion. The other networks have no problem doing it.

ahhhhhhhhh, I have Insight. New HD channel is 772. Unfortunately, all I see is black.

Splicer issues?
At least I will get to watch the Superbowl in HD!!!

Geeze...still black.

Originally posted by phenderson
ahhhhhhhhh, I have Insight. New HD channel is 772. Unfortunately, all I see is black.

I was able to watch all but the first few minutes on AI on Insight 772 (without the local commercials spliced in of course.) Once stable, it stayed solid without so much of a glitch. Then I saw how bad the State of the Union looked an flipped it over to CBS.

Well I was off in KET4 land after 9 tonight, but it doesn't surprise me that WDKY would have gone blank @ 10pm ... This is consistant with post World Series patterns. Still dead air now (1:27am), but at least it looks like the PSIP info is correct.

For all you newcomers, let me once again welcome you to my WDKY-DT nightmares ... Misery loves company ;)

My new antenna should be in today.. hopefully at 28 miles from the tower here in Frankfort Ill be able to get the signal pretty good... wish me luck. If this doesnt work Im gonna go buy a huge VHF/UHF/FM antenna ($100), a preamp, and a FM trap.

Oh well... will report in when installed... if the roof is dry enough today.

Hey Shadow, let me know how the FM trap works. Last night I got a great signal of 70-80% then occasionaly drop down to 60%. This morning before work its was relatively the same. NO more "searching for signal" like I was a couple of days ago. What else works fellas? I see the FM trap, wasn't there another gismo that helped out? If so, what are the part numbers, I may do some MacGyver type of work this weekend! :)

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Well I was off in KET4 land after 9 tonight, but it doesn't surprise me that WDKY would have gone blank @ 10pm ... This is consistant with post World Series patterns. Still dead air now (1:27am), but at least it looks like the PSIP info is correct.

For all you newcomers, let me once again welcome you to my WDKY-DT nightmares ... Misery loves company ;)

Did you catch the KET4 IDs???

KET's PSIP data is horrible. It is hardly ever accurate. There was a great show on the other night dealing with credit card debt and how the companies are reacting to public outcry. Interesting show though. Was on PBS-HD. Not too bad.

Anyone having trouble with WKYT PSIP & remapping? At 5p I cannot tune 27-1, but can receive 13-1. I tried a re-scan with no avail.

Originally posted by HDTivoKY
Anyone having trouble with WKYT PSIP & remapping? At 5p I cannot tune 27-1, but can receive 13-1. I tried a re-scan with no avail.
must be something on wkyt's end. i am not seeing any psip data at all.

later

Originally posted by HDTivoKY
Anyone having trouble with WKYT PSIP & remapping? At 5p I cannot tune 27-1, but can receive 13-1. I tried a re-scan with no avail.

i wondered if it was me,... no wkyt shows up as 13-1 13-2 and 13-3 (blank) but no data.

Originally posted by Brinkley
KET's PSIP data is horrible. It is hardly ever accurate. There was a great show on the other night dealing with credit card debt and how the companies are reacting to public outcry. Interesting show though. Was on PBS-HD. Not too bad.

Our PSIP is closer than you think.. I check our data against the web schedule almost daily..

What kind of receiver do you have?

Tell me date time and service and I will try to chase down the problem.

Our PSIP data for KET1,2,3,and the SD 4 are generated and managed in house. Not real sure about the source of the PBS-HD data.


I try to look at the PSIP every day and keep it accurate.

To make sure its not on your end:

1. Make sure the station you are using for time lock is outputing the correct time.
2. make sure you have set the time zone.

All EPG information is referenced to local time and the time signal is GMT.

Originally posted by William Smith
Did you catch the KET4 IDs???

Yep ... I was going to PM you about that ... It looked like it switched over the HD feed for about 30 sec or so ~10:00pm with a stretched "KET4" card. Was that intentional or an accident?

Originally posted by ShadowEKU
i wondered if it was me,... no wkyt shows up as 13-1 13-2 and 13-3 (blank) but no data.

Yep, it looks like their PSIP mapper locked up sometime this morning.

Hey fellas. Ok here's the deal. I went out and bought one of the RF attenuator's and I have two words to describe it, "Holy Cow" ! This thing is a life savor! I have watched 2 straight programs on FOX and I haven't had a single audio dropout or pixelation! I went from an average of 60-70% signal strength to a constant 80-90% signal strength. People that have had any problems with their signal, locking on, etc. Buy this thing for $9.99 at Radio Shack. Model number 15-678. I can't remember who recommended it, but whomever you are, you too are a life saver!

Originally posted by Brinkley
Hey fellas. Ok here's the deal. I went out and bought one of the RF attenuator's and I have two words to describe it, "Holy Cow" ! This thing is a life savor! I have watched 2 straight programs on FOX and I haven't had a single audio dropout or pixelation! I went from an average of 60-70% signal strength to a constant 80-90% signal strength. People that have had any problems with their signal, locking on, etc. Buy this thing for $9.99 at Radio Shack. Model number 15-678. I can't remember who recommended it, but whomever you are, you too are a life saver!

It doesn't do a dang thing for me, but lower my signal even more. As you might guess I had a very frustrating afternoon. :(

BenC Jedi....check your personal messages.

The OC is not in HD at the moment! And I have to sit with my hands behind my head like I am being arrested while leaving in my office chair beneath the antenna for the signal to lock better. Can't I just get another 10% signal? I created a wireloop today.. a little better.

Oh great! Now the screen froze with Marissa taking off her shirt and I'm stuck on that frame.

Hey BenCJedi...check your PM's.

I'm going to guess splicer issues.. I saw HD for a second. Then froze again.

Same here. Im getting the sound, but no picture.

Hope they get it fixed by Point Pleasant.

Originally posted by Brinkley
Hey BenCJedi...check your PM's.

Yes, I sent you a reply :)

That splicer apparatus must be some tricky stuff!

Isn't OC suppose to be in HD?

Just returned from Rat Shack where I purchased the aformentioned attenuator. Plugged in up and got the same result as BenCJedi. It reduced my signals on WKYT, WTVQ, WUPX, WKON. Of course, my WDKY signal went from 0 all the way to 0. Looks like I'm going to have to buy a big antenna and attic mount it this weekend. It just pisses me off that I need anything other than an indoor ant since all the rest of the locals come in fine with it.

Basically I constructed the 300Ohm VHF antenna with flat twinlead today and tried it all over the attic. At one point I had it pinned up for a max of 36% signal and that's the most I have seen since Insight picked up WDKY. I lost that spot and went back to the original spot and can only get a max of 28% signal and very frequent breakups. The wire loop antenna is a tiny bit more stable for me. Not sure why the attenuator only weakened my signal. Maybe I have it plugged in wrong? The good thing is that the wire loop works even better than what I was using for all the other digital channels in our area.

Oh.. OC is back to standard def. :(

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Oh.. OC is back to standard def. :(
Well, someone tell me when it's showing HD and staying there. My girlfriend just about killed me when it froze earlier, but luckily I thought ahead of myself and had the Tivo on the same channel. :D

Originally posted by HDTivoKY
Just returned from Rat Shack where I purchased the aformentioned attenuator. Plugged in up and got the same result as BenCJedi. It reduced my signals on WKYT, WTVQ, WUPX, WKON. Of course, my WDKY signal went from 0 all the way to 0. Looks like I'm going to have to buy a big antenna and attic mount it this weekend. It just pisses me off that I need anything other than an indoor ant since all the rest of the locals come in fine with it.

Try to make a wire loop antenna. It is easier to play around with than your set top antenna because you can pin it all over the attic. I get a tiny bit more signal for WDKY with it. It's only $4.99 for 40-feet at RatShack.

God love those D* tivo's!!! Man...the time that having HD in a particular scene was so ever needed!!!

So, Brinkley, you are telling me that I should definately Tivo the west coast HD version huh?

Seeing that you have a HD tivo....yes without a doubt! The bedroom scene....the dude soooo chickened out!

I live a stones throw from central baptist hospital, and have a ROOF mounted terk tv-55 antenna on a rotor, and for the last couple of days, the best signal i can get is around 24-29 on my receiver. I just about burnt the motor out spinning the thing so many times, any ideas short of buying a different antenna? thanks, sleddogn

Are you guys saying that simply having DirecTV, you are allowed to access the distant FOX network in HD? When did this happen? I thought you needed to be waivered and all that mess.

HDtivoKy probably can. Us Lextonians can't since none of the affiliates here are O&O.

I have a DNS waiver that dates back several years. Now that NY/LA HD signals are available, I'll never give it up since you can't get them anymore.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Are you guys saying that simply having DirecTV, you are allowed to access the distant FOX network in HD? When did this happen? I thought you needed to be waivered and all that mess.
Sounds like someone is residing in central Kentucky, but D* thinks otherwise ;).

Man...if WDKY doesn't get their act together getting HD on, the superbowl may be in trouble for us! lol

Originally posted by blurredvision
Sounds like someone is residing in central Kentucky, but D* thinks otherwise ;).

I have Dish Network and am waivered for FOX5 and FOX11 (though they were reviewed and denied, but DIsh hasn't removed them because I don't make programming changes), but to my knowledge they don't have HD FOX, nor do I have an HD-capable receiver for Dish Network.

I want HD FOX. I'm dissappointed that WDKY isn't pouring more signal towards Lexington.

Directv will soon have everyone equiped with HD locals once they launch their Spaceway 1 & 2 satellites.

Back a couple years ago WDKY was really bad at denying waivers within the permitted time period. I got one at that time. Now, I am grandfathered. You are correct BenCJedi, Dish does not offer FOX HD. Since Rupert Murdoch is now involved with Directv, I think he's held Dish hostage on the HD signal.

Man that Jetta commercial cracks me up! That dude's laugh is hilarious. I find myself laughing each time i watch it.

Originally posted by HDTivoKY
Back a couple years ago WDKY was really bad at denying waivers within the permitted time period. I got one at that time. Now, I am grandfathered. You are correct BenCJedi, Dish does not offer FOX HD. Since Rupert Murdoch is now involved with Directv, I think he's held Dish hostage on the HD signal.

That's when I got mine.... back in 1999 or so. I know the waiver was reviewed and denied a couple years later too. Of course I wish I had DirecTV instead cause this really doesn't help me.

Man once you get a Directivo you will ask yourself, why I waited so long! I sure as heck did. I was with Dish Network for 3 years and I am so glad I did.

My oh my that blonde bartender is HOT!

Originally posted by Brinkley
My oh my that blonde bartender is HOT!
That she is my friend, that she is.

Originally posted by Brinkley
Man once you get a Directivo you will ask yourself, why I waited so long! I sure as heck did. I was with Dish Network for 3 years and I am so glad I did.

I wish I could. I do have a standalone TiVo and it is great, but the DirecTiVo is even superior to that. I had a guy from Bluegrass Satellite come out to survey last year and he said I just couldn't do it since I'm not able to hack limbs off trees on the apartment property. He said I was barely siting Dish Network at my location. I been here 4+ years and that ice storm a couple February's ago bought me a little more time before the trees encroach the open sky.

Originally posted by William Smith
Our PSIP is closer than you think.. I check our data against the web schedule almost daily..


I've never had any problems with KET's PSIP here. For a long time, in fact, it(WCVN, and some of the other KET stations when I see them) was the only station up here with EIT's full of EPG info and proper STT info ... Even said "Off air" for KET6 last week when KET5 was active+KET6 wasn't ..

New TOH ID for KET4 looks good here .. Don't suppose there is much you can do about it cutting in when the programming is a 2hr block, like "American Experience" tonight.

---------------------------------------------------


Notice that WRGT-DT Fox Dayton(Sinclair operated via LMA, its co-located With Sinclair O&O WKEF-DT ABC HD) is strangely missing Fox HD tonight ..that hasn't happened in a long time .... probably just a coincidence but, one does have to "wonder" ..... .... WTTE-DT Fox HD Columbus is Sinclair operated via LMA as well, btw - it has a co-located "sister" station as well, WSYX-DT ABC HD Columbus, Sinclair O&O ...

The KET4 HD ID is still a work in progress.. not done yet but legal...

WOO HOO!!!!! Max 58% signal WDKY-DT!!! Solid LOCK!

I made a 81" 300Ohm dipole with twinlead.
I put it in the best spot in the attic.

The signal was craptastic, but a little better than rabbit ears (see previous posts).

I mentioned earlier how I could recline in my chair and fold my arms behind my head and sit in a certain area in the room beneath the attic and improve my signal.

Then it hit me that my own body was somehow focusing the signal. It dawned on me.. I needed...

A REFLECTOR!!!

I grabbed some nice thick grounding wire and cut off 86" and mounted it on the next beam parallel to my makeshift dipole antenna.

As soon as I got the reflector wire close to my dipole It was like turning lead into gold. The signal shot up to from 25% to 58% and hasn't gone lower than 53% since. I'm locked baby!

Here are the instructions:

http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/dipole.html

For WDKY-DT, use 81" of twinlead. I soldered on 12' or so of twinlead to run to my channel master amp. I used a 300-75Ohm converter on the end of the twinlead to run normal coax to the amp. I clipped the spade connectors off the converter and soldered it directly to the twinlead.
The reflector was made out of grounding wire.. normally used to ground satellite dishes to a grounding rod. I made that 86" and hung it parallel to the mounted dipole.. 18" or something from the dipole.

Science truly does work. I am blown away by the improvement from the reflector.

BenCjedi,

Excellent :) Just for fun, you might want to try adding a director element or two ...

See how much fun you can have ... You should see my homemade 15 element UHF Yagi made out of PVC pipe and copper tubing ...

Update: Oh -- If it's working -- no need to mess with it, but I'd probably solder the leads from 300ohm-75ohm converter(this is called a "balun" or matching transformer) -- directily to you "driven element" -- which is your 81" of twinlead in this case. Then use coax between the balun and the preamp, making the coax as short as possible. Twinlead as feedline is low loss, but it easily picks up "interference".

I wonder what happened tonight regarding the HD, or lack there of?

Unfortunately I can't try the director unless I can move the whole setup closer to the middle of the attic, since I am using the west-most wall and can't add directors in the direction I have it all setup at. I knew I had a hot spot for signals where I set this all up. I did originally try the dipole in the middle (and everywhere else, you name it) and the signal was weaker everywhere else.

I'm thrilled I have a lock with my diabolical creation. The reflector is a magic wand.

I'm tired of fooling around with the antenna and WDKY-DT. Now I leave it in their hands to figure out how their HD splicer is suppossed to work. I do feel inclined to mess around some more though (directors), but I will leave that for another day.

I just tried that attenuator with the new dipole/reflector setup and as before it only weakened my signal. I have a comfortable lock now, so I guess I will be returning the attenuator.

If it's working and you're getting dropout free reception -- no need to mess with it, but I'd probably solder the 300ohm leads from 300ohm-75ohm converter(this is called a "balun" or matching transformer) -- directily to you "driven element"(which is a center fed "folded" dipole) -- which is your 81" of twinlead in this case. Then use coax between the balun and the preamp as well, making the coax as short as possible. Twinlead as feedline is low loss, but it easily picks up "interference" as it's unshielded. Coax is shielded and helps keep interference from the motor in your washing machine/etc "out" ....

Originally posted by Nitewatchman
BenCjedi,

Excellent :) Just for fun, you might want to try adding a director element or two ...

See how much fun you can have ... You should see my homemade 15 element UHF Yagi made out of PVC pipe and copper tubing ...

Update: Oh -- If it's working -- no need to mess with it, but I'd probably solder the leads from 300ohm-75ohm converter(this is called a "balun" or matching transformer) -- directily to you "driven element" -- which is your 81" of twinlead in this case. Then use coax between the balun and the preamp, making the coax as short as possible. Twinlead as feedline is low loss, but it easily picks up "interference".

Any pics of your YAGI? I'm intrigued

Yeah.. I thought about doing it that way, but was trying to follow those directions verbatim, as I hadn't constructed an antenna before. I did notice the coiled twinlead 12' length could be moved around to alter the signal strength a little. I have enough extra baluns and twin lead to try a version 2 as you suggest. The coax I am using is awesome. It's really heavy cabling and the double shielding is solid. I don't know if MCM is still running the sale for the Acoustic Research F-cable (25' for $4.95) anymore, but if they are, I definitely recommend it. It works really nice as component cable by replacing the ends with the appropriate connectors.

The WDKY 10-o-clock news said they would be broadcasting the Superbowl in HD. Let's hope they figure out what HD is by then.

Originally posted by William Smith
The KET4 HD ID is still a work in progress.. not done yet but legal...

It looked ok, the only real problem was PBS started the second half of the program at 9:55pm then the KET ID interstitial kicked in from ~9:58-9:59pm (according to the Tivo timebar.) So I lost a minute or so of actual program. Usually that timing would have been ok, but I guess PBS didn't want to fill for another 5 minutes.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
I just tried that attenuator with the new dipole/reflector setup and as before it only weakened my signal. I have a comfortable lock now, so I guess I will be returning the attenuator.

Well it was a long shot, but worth the try anyway ... I wind up using mine quite a bit, depending on weather conditions, although it didn't have much of an effect either way yesterday.

FWIW, my homemade dipole experiment isn't working any better than your original rabbit-ear rig.

At this point, I'm not spending any more money or effort until WDKY demonstrates that they can actually get the HD feed up consistantly.

WDKY did update their HDTV FAQ on their site. From someone reading that doesn't know anything about this stuff, you'd think everything was working fine.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Any pics of your YAGI? I'm intrigued


Dug it up and took a pic(attached). I noticed I "lied". It's 11 elements, not 15. It's for Channel 38. I am not actually using it, It was mainly just for fun wheras what you are doing actually makes a lot of sense if someone is interested in making a better antenna than rabbit ears to improve reception on a single channel lo-VHF channel. I chose ch 38 as, at the time as there was a low power analog local station on 38(which since has increased power), and I also wanted to make it for a "near UHF TV mid-band" frequency to see how well it might also work across the rest of the UHF TV band.

I looked at several different basic "designs" for cheap, homemade yagis on various websites(dunno if there still there or not this was 2 years ago). It's a 75 ohm antenna(or should be), but there may be a bit of an impedence mismatch. It does work, mainly best right around channel 38, as you might guess. Although, If I recall correctly it did actually end up working fairly well on about channels 14~41 or so. The higher you got above 41, the worse the performance.

The PVC pipe worked great, as after the holes were drilled the right distance apart, it was easy to add/remove elements and directly see the results. I also experiemented with "extra" elements, by "holding them" in several spots a bit above and below the Horizontal "axis" of the other elements. If I recall correctly, placing another reflector element a couple inches above, and slightly in front of the reflector element as seen seemed to have made it work a bit better.

That's pretty cool Nitewatchman

WDKY-DT is currently black with ~44% signal here. Looks like they have taken the splicer down to work with it, perhaps.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
WDKY-DT is currently black with ~44% signal here. Looks like they have taken the splicer down to work with it, perhaps.
wheeew, i thought i might be going blind. i had just started trying to locate a new sweet-spot and almost freaked out when i couldn't re-locate the old one.

thanx

Originally posted by parkay
wheeew, i thought i might be going blind. i had just started trying to locate a new sweet-spot and almost freaked out when i couldn't re-locate the old one.

thanx

Yeah, it is doing that weird thing where you see the last video frame from the previous digital channel visited and it just sits there. I have a good enough signal, so it must be them working on the splicer.

I feel your pain looking for a sweet spot and revisiting the earlier one and not able to find as good a signal there.

HDTVChallenged had said this splicer had been bad since game 4 of the World Series. I thought I read Louisville's FOX station also had a splicer issue at the same time. What are the chances WDKY-DT sent them their splicer and received the one with issues from Louisville?

Originally posted by BenCJedi
HDTVChallenged had said this splicer had been bad since game 4 of the World Series. I thought I read Louisville's FOX station also had a splicer issue at the same time. What are the chances WDKY-DT sent them their splicer and received the one with issues from Louisville?
oh i hope not.

do you know anything, good or bad, about this antenna.
RCA HDTV-Ready Folding Antenna, ANT706 (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2684092&cat=4536&type=19&dept=101831&path=0%3A101831%3A101839%3A179887)
i know specialty antennas are generally crap but everybody has to have dreams. (and yes, i recognize that being advertized as 'HDTV-Ready' is just marketing. all tv antennas are HDTV-Ready.)

later

Parkay, I don't know anything about the manufacturered antennas. My Emerson tabletop antenna does nice on UHF, but not VHF (WDKY) which is why I lost some hair off the top of my head this week.

I believe Brinkley purchased this one:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2153142&cat=4536&type=19&dept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A172479%3A3996%3A124631%3A179887
And he told me last night his signal was very decent. He's in the Tates Creek area. That particular antenna was going to be my next try if the dipole and reflector I crafted flopped. I'm over on the Nicholas Rd side of town btw and just thankful (so far) the dipole/reflector is yielding good signal for me. If it goes to crap.. RCA antenna it is!

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Parkay, I don't know anything about the manufacturered antennas. My Emerson tabletop antenna does nice on UHF, but not VHF (WDKY) which is why I lost some hair off the top of my head this week.

I believe Brinkley purchased this one:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2153142&cat=4536&type=19&dept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A172479%3A3996%3A124631%3A179887
And he told me last night his signal was very decent. He's in the Tates Creek area. That particular antenna was going to be my next try if the dipole and reflector I crafted flopped. I'm over on the Nicholas Rd side of town btw and just thankful (so far) the dipole/reflector is yielding good signal for me. If it goes to crap.. RCA antenna it is!

Yes that is the antenna I purchased. So far, so good.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
HDTVChallenged had said this splicer had been bad since game 4 of the World Series. I thought I read Louisville's FOX station also had a splicer issue at the same time. What are the chances WDKY-DT sent them their splicer and received the one with issues from Louisville?

Heh, heh ... sounds like one of my wild 'conspiracy' theories from a few months back :)

I ran into this site and thought it might be helpful. There is some good info on indoor and outdoor antennas, plus more..
Winston

http://hdtvexpert.com/

So if their splicer is bad, why were we able to view about 20 minutes worth of AI on Wed night? If they cannot fix this by Sunday afternoon, will they be able to rig something up to keep the entire SuperBowl in HD?

Sorry guys, I still don't understand how all this TV stuff works :D.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
Parkay, I don't know anything about the manufacturered antennas. My Emerson tabletop antenna does nice on UHF, but not VHF (WDKY) which is why I lost some hair off the top of my head this week.
i've been using the silver sensor that came with my accessDTV card with no problems at all. i am near MOW/palumbo, so i am less than 4 miles from wkyt/wtvq and about 10 miles from clays ferry. so i always assumed that unamplified rabbit ears would do the trick. but it sure looks like i may need to go to the attic with a more impressive antenna.

on the second floor of my condo i have my rabbit ears on a 7.5 foot tall stack of plastic buckets. and i have not been able to find any hot-spots outside of about a 3 foot square area in the hallway. maybe the 20 year old walls have some form of lead-asbestos insulation that is sucking up the signal. :D i usually get 80's and 90's for signal strength from all the other broadcasters in the area. i am doing good to get over 50 from fox

thanx

Well, I just turned over to WDKY to see the status tonight, and they are currently showing Bernie Mac in HD. Looks like complete sh!t, but it's HD nonetheless. No reports of problems in this thread tonight, so hopefully this is a good sign. After hearing many bad things about Fox's HD, and after seeing AI look absolutely gorgeous, I'm kind of worried about this Sunday. My Super Bowl party seems to keep growing by the day.

Originally posted by bitblaze
I ran into this site and thought it might be helpful. There is some good info on indoor and outdoor antennas, plus more..
Winston

http://hdtvexpert.com/

More helpful sites:
http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/dipole.html
http://www.kyes.com/antenna/rabbitear.html
http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/comparing.html
http://www.atechfabrication.com/reception_solutions.htm

Originally posted by blurredvision
Well, I just turned over to WDKY to see the status tonight, and they are currently showing Bernie Mac in HD.

Indeed ... WDKY has managed to make it through 30 minutes of primetime successfully. All the switches from 8:00pm to 8:30pm worked the way they should.

I'm in shock :D

Well, looks like Johnny Zero looks like crap too, all grainy. Am the only one experiencing a bad example of HD? I flip it over to Hope & Faith, and it looks pretty darn good for sitcom HD. No grain, nice color, fairly sharp picture. Is this what we can expect from Fox for most of their programming?

Yes! Splicer seems to be working and no macroblocking from unstable signals! I figured WDKY was messing with the splicer earlier today when we saw the frozen video frame/black screen.

CSI has the same "grain-look". I think Jonny Zero is suppossed to look 'gritty'.
How did Bernie Mac look?

I checked the stream and WDKY-DT is using the full 19Mbps from the network, so it *should* look this way on every FOX affiliate tonight since as I understand it, there is no re-encoding going on at the affiliates when the network shows are running.

Originally posted by BenCJedi
How did Bernie Mac look?
IMO, in the 30 seconds I watched, it looked no better than Johnny Zero does now. I'm glad that I was able to see that Fox atleast knows a little something about HD after seeing AI the other night.

If that is what Johnny Zero is supposed to look like, count me out. They call that HD?

Originally posted by Brinkley
If that is what Johnny Zero is supposed to look like, count me out. They call that HD?

I was expecting the quality to look like American Idol did (well briefly). I hope the fix for the splicer was not choking the quality slider or something.