Good News!!
The CBS affiliate, WKYT, will begin HD broadcasts before August 1st. They'll be the first in Lexington to actually pass through HD from the network. TVQ here just does SD, and the NBC and Fox are months away from anything. See some info on WKYT's website...they've even got video of the antenna being hoisted up the tower. Pretty cool!
WKYT HDTV (http://www.wkyt.com)

hmmm...won't need DISH for CBS, then, if their power is enough to where I can get it here in Louisville. I can get WTVQ-DT a fair amount of the time but I think they are still at extremely low power. And they aren't HD (but WHAS-DT is).

And I'd be surprised to see WDKY (FOX) doing anything before year's end. Besides, FOX isn't HD anyway.

Thanks for the heads up!

From what I hear, the antenna is just below the main antenna at the top of the 1000 foot tower. I think it's on the east side of the tower though, as to improve coverage in eastern Kentucky, so that may hurt coverage to the west.
It's also on channel 13...so if you're using a UHF antenna, it won't work too well.
goldenrod

Well, I have a horizontal stack of Radio Shack UHF-Only and they regularly at least pick up a weak signal from WCPO-9 out of Cincy but I do have a VHF-only in my attic (but it's pointed the wrong way right now) and that should be sufficient until I get it mounted on the roof.

Thanks for the heads-up goldenrod!

I saw the blurb on the WKYT "local edition" at noon on cable yesterday...

Rumor has it that WTVQ-DT-40 should be doing some HD by the end of the summer too...

So we'll have two choices in addition to PBS when they re-surface in September.

I'll let you know when I see anything on WKYT-DT-13.

Just rescanned my channels and noticed WTVQ-DT-40 is doing their newscast as I type in 1280x720p (16:9) format! Awesome! I wonder if standard ABC programming will now be passed through in HD?

It looks like the first opportunity to see will be SAT evening when 007 "Live and Let Die" airs... my fingers are crossed!

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Just rescanned my channels and noticed WTVQ-DT-40 is doing their newscast as I type in 1280x720p (16:9) format! Awesome! I wonder if standard ABC programming will now be passed through in HD?

What's up with the wacky black sidebars though? Looks like they're trying to minimize the sidebars by cropping some content off the top and bottom. Why not just crop enough to make it true 16:9? Or just leave it 4:3. .... Complaints, complaints :D

HDC

Got some DX last night--able to pull in WHAS-DT on 55, WKRC-DT on 31, WKPC-DT on 17, WLWT-DT on 35, WXIX-DT on 29 (looked like crap). At least it's something to hold me over until the locals get going.

what type of antenna and setup are you using for DX? I've never been able to get DT-55 out of Louisville yet...

Originally posted by goldenrod
Got some DX last night--able to pull in WHAS-DT on 55, WKRC-DT on 31, WKPC-DT on 17, WLWT-DT on 35, WXIX-DT on 29 (looked like crap). At least it's something to hold me over until the locals get going.

Grrrrrr .... You must have something up your sleeve :D Or maybe a super directional antenna. For me, WDKY 56 pretty much obliterates any chance of getting 55 - same for all the Cincy stations too. I think they deliberately picked channels so that "out-of-market" digital stations would get obliterated by local analogs. :D 55 vs 56, 17 vs. 18, 35 vs 36 ....

HDC

Actually, my signature is a bit misleading I guess. I'm really in Georgetown. It does make getting the other channels a bit easier. I've got a Delhi VHF/UHF combo antenna and a Winegard preamp. 31 - WKRC comes in all the time. The others are only if the enhancement is up.
Off to change my signature location!!

BTW...local DT signals really obliterate analog DX on any given channel also. Case in point...40-Indianapolis used to put in a constant signal here, but it's totally gone now that TVQ is on the air.
I'm racking up the analog 13's I can get now before KYT comes on. So far, I have gotten Indianapolis (strongest signal), Bowling Green, Mount Vernon, IL, and Huntington. Those will all be gone once KYT signs on.

http://www.dxfm.com/fmdx_main.htm reported that WKYT-DT was on the air testing briefly WED morning. So far nothing yet today...

Here's a screen capture of the announcement...

WKYT is up and testing right now (as of 2:20pm.) Their on and off the air, but testing.

Originally posted by goldenrod
WKYT is up and testing right now (as of 2:20pm.) Their on and off the air, but testing.


Arrrrrrrg ... they're toying with me ... CSI, CSI, CSI !!!!! ... Give me CSI :D

HDC

I hear ya... nothing but test patterns on and off this afternoon. I was seeing a 1080i signal on WKYT-DT at a 84-85 signal level on my HiPix (that's the highest signal level I've ever seen). WTVQ-DT has a signal level of 80-81 typically. I'm using a Radio Shack UHF-75 antenna at 7 miles away line-of-site to the towers... It was picking up the VHF-13 WKYT-DT flawlessly. I've been waiting since January for this moment... but I fly out-of-town for a week away tomorrow... bummer...

Sweet, finally a little more excitement in Lexington! Glad to see this. I don't have a set or reciever yet, but soon I hope to.

What do you think the chances are that the other stations will be ready as listed on titantv.com?

CBS 59 WKYT-DT Aug 15 2002
FOX 4 WDKY-DT Nov 1 2002
NBC 39 WLEX-DT Nov 1 2002
NBC 47 WAVE-DT Sep 1 2002
PAX 21 WUPX-DT Nov 1 2002
PBS 14 WKSO-DT Under Review
WB 19 WBKI-DT Nov 1 2002

-james

WKSO and WKLE should be up and running with a four channel multicast.

Has anyone seen anything from WKYT-DT lately. They were actually running a "live" feed for a few minutes last week. Nothing but darkness for days now ....

Let's light it up ... CSI, CSI, CSI !!!!! :)

HDC

titantv is currently showing a go-live date of Aug 15th... although they're still showing the initially assigned channel 59 instead of the re-assigned channel 13.

WKYT-DT is up right now, broadcasting Young & Restless in HD.

great to hear this. if all goes well i will be moving to georgetown in the next few months. although i will miss the hd broadcast here in atlanta.

cool! ...caught the end of the soap right before they cut back to non-HD content... this is great!

However, I'm concerned with the WKYT-DT logo being present all the time... maybe that's just in place for testing? If it stays, then burn-in won't take long to occur...

I also noticed that they're putting up gray bars on the left and right for non-HD content... ugly... WTVQ-DT is putting up black... much more pleasing to the eyes...

here's a screen grab from Becker tonight on CBS...

note that they've changed their "logo/bug" to be less obtrusive... but it's always still present... and it's really ugly seeing it on top of the CBS "logo/bug" at the same time...

http://www.nelsonplain.com/wkyt_dt.jpg

grrr....I've a lock on WTVQ-DT but not a blip at all on WKYT-DT. :(

At last - 2 solid hours of actual primetime HD content in Central KY!

BTW, according to e-mail from the folks at WKYT they hope to be up for good now.

HDC

Pulled in WKYT-DT 13(108 Miles, az. 180) here at 7:03am, DTV Log #20. I like the Gray side bars for 4x3 upconverts on the HD subchannel!

I'm Seeing WTVQ-DT 40 a little this morning also, the 2 signals seem to be about equivilent this morning, although conditions aren't that great to S for me now, and I'm only getting up to a 38 Max reading from a F38310's internal receiver(DTC100) from either WTVQ/WKYT-DT. Not quite seeing WKLE-DT this morning however.

Enjoy CBS HD Central KY :-)

Arrrg two steps forward one step back!

Came home 8/13 to find WTVQDT 40-1 with no audio . Anyone else have trouble with 40-1 audio today?

HDC

Update: 9pm and outage continues - all other digital stations seem to be ok. What is weird is that the 5.1 light is lit on TVQ but all other stations show DD 2.0.

no audio on TVQ here either

I am unable to tune in WKYTDT on my Toshiba set top box. Is WKYTDT on the air tonight? 8/13

Well they must have found the right switch - WTVQ audio came back around 9:30ish. I wish they stop doing things like this .... makes me paranoid after my first STB failed :D

djohn

Yep - WKYT has been running fine on 8/13. They added a couple of subchannels this afternoon, one for a standard def feed and another to display their weather radar picture. So you might want to try a rescan to pick up the new subchannels. And they nixed the bug logo tonight.

HDC

Dateline: 8/17/02

WTVQ-DT started High Definition broadcasts tonight! The Big Picture Show (Speed 2) was broadcast in HD OAR 5.1. YeeeeeeHaaaaaaa!

HDC

Just curious if anyone else was disappointed in the lack of HD this past Sunday evening? Did our local CBS and ABC affiliates forget to throw a switch to feed the network HD signal into their transmitters?

As someone just starting to delve into HDTV availability , are these new ????-DT channels just broadcasting HDTV signal? I see nothing on channels 59, 40, etc. Thanks in advance.

kymikes,

The KET/PBS network was the first to transmit DTV in the Lexington area... I can pick up Richmond within New Circle Road on DT-42 (WKLE). They are multicasting on 42.1, 42.2, 42.3, and 42.4. All of these are currently in SD mode. They were sending an ED signal before July 1st on 42.4... They should be back up September 1st with hopefully an HD signal!

ABC WTVQ-DT on DT-40 was next in the spring of this year... However they didn't start passing thru network HD until just a couple of weeks ago... I should clarify that they are sending a continuous 720p signal, however it appears that they are sourcing an NTSC quality source a large percentage of the time.

CBS WKYT-DT on DT-13 (the FCC still has them on 59... but the info is stale in the FCC database). They're multicasting on 13.1, 13.2, and 13.3. They were the first to pass HD content OTA in Lexington in the early August timeframe. (and as stated above for ABC, CBS is always sending a 1080i signal, although the source isn't HD most of the time). WKYT has a link on their web site with more info... http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=852691

With an appropriate setup, you can DX DT in from Cinci and other places when tropo conditions are optimal.

There is also an interesting thread in regard to local cable jumping on the HD side of the fence...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=164738&highlight=Lexington

...this is probably obvious... but maybe not... you'll need an ATSC compliant tuner to tune in these DT stations... you won't be able to tune in these stations on your old analog NTSC TV tuner...

KET won't have HD by Sept.1.

William Smith writes... "KET won't have HD by Sept.1."

William, can you shed any light on what we can expect in the September timeframe from KET/PBS? Is there an HD future in store or return to the ED format seen previously?

The previous ED loops were awesome... I was hoping that we would be able to see them in HD!

Ragamuffin,
Sounds like you have been through the introduction in this area. Perhaps you could give me some time saving recommendations. I am in the East side of Woodford county. I have been viewing primarily on DirecTV sat. without any external OTA antenna for locals (marginal reception). At the end of last year, I upgraded to a Pioneer SD-533HD5 Projection TV connected to a Pioneer VSX-D608 Reciever. I also have a DTIVO and progessive scan DVD player. Improving OTA seems like the next reasonable step. Cable options in my area appear very limited (Aldelphia who is in bankrupcy proceedings). I think I have a "good" foundation but was waiting for local conditions to stabilize before taking another step. From prior history with local NTSC channels, I think I need a "good" external antenna and was starting to review HD recievers. I don't think I will be trying to pull in Cinn. or Louisville channels so I am not going for "maxed" antenna system. With KYT on 13, it sounds like a large multidirectional UHF/VHF antenna might work. I have looked at the CEA antenna site and most channels will be from E to S of me. Many recommendations suggest separate UHF and VHF antenna. Do you have any suggestions/ recommendations? Thanks in advance.

kymikes, check your e:mail...

KET is still working on the system upgrades at this time. I can't go into anything else right now.

Or we will shoot him :-)

Can anyone shed any light on why CBS WKYT-DT doesn't seem to switch to HD in a timely manner when HD is available for a particular show? (Sunday night it took over an hour for somebody to find the switch... Tonight, Monday, we're 45 minutes into prime time HD with it still being upconverted and displayed with gray bars on my set...)

I understand why the US Open tennis coverage was SD most of the weekend because of the rain delays on Sunday and Monday (Saturday's US Open coverage was eye popping to this newbie!!!). But I don't understand why the prime time shows are still running upconverted as much as I've seen the past few days.

Is somebody asleep at the wheel? Is this a national network feed issue, or a local switching issue?

It's really a bummer when I have someone over to introduce them to HD... and have to back pedal when the switch doesn't occur.

I expect some burps as we transition to this new technology... but this doesn't seem to me to be a technical hurdle? Can someone help me understand this issue better?

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Is somebody asleep at the wheel? Is this a national network feed issue, or a local switching issue?


Not sure ... I think it may be a feed problem ... There was one night last week where they switched but all CBS was sending was ye ol' color bar chart... I'd bet this will all get straightened out once the fall season gets underway.

One the bright side ... WTVQ seems to have gotten their act together :)

HDC

Is anyone else seeing a single pixel GREEN vertical line at the far extreme right of the image on WTVQ-DT when they broadcast in HD?

I just recently got hooked up for my OTA HDTV and I can receive WKYT (Ch. 13) just fine (actually very good). However, I have not been able to pick up WTVQ at all on Ch. 40. Antennaweb.org show WKTY's location to be 339 deg. while WTVQ is at 340 deg. Should I have to reposition my antenna for this small amount? Or is there something else going on?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

pjohnscpa

The WKYT and WTVQ towers are just a few hundred yards apart from each other in the vicinity of where Winchester road meets Man-O-War.

You don't mention where you are located, but in general, if you're getting a good signal from one, you should be getting a good signal from the other too. The 339/340 vectors you mention from antennaweb would put you south and slightly east of the towers, but what is your distance in miles?

You also don't mention what type of tuner/antenna combination you are using. WKYT-DT on Channel 13 is a VHF channel, while WTVQ-DT is on Channel 40 which is a UHF channel. Ideally you'll need a combination UHF/VHF antenna to get them both. I've had success with a UHF only yagi though.

One other problem you might be having is a lot of multipath in your UHF reception which may be degrading your channel 40 reception. A directional antenna will work better than a multi-directional antenna if multipath is a problem.

Can you pick up KET on DT-42?

Sounds like you're set for the ballgame tomorrow on DT-13 though! Go Cats!!!

Is anybody else seeing noise bursts in the WKYT-DT feed tonight? During Hack and currently during the RobberyHomicideDivision I'm seeing short loss of signal every 15-20 seconds (randomly) which causes a video pixelation breakup to occur and a dropout in audio for a split second... And then the signal immediately syncs back up.

I just overhauled my PC with HiPix card this evening in preparation to record the football game tomorrow in HD. My WTVQ-DT/ABC reception of ThatWasThen was flawless. I recorded about 30 minutes without a single problem.

I was nervous that my HiPix was burping, but I think its OK. I called a buddy of mine who has a Samsung 150 STB across town and while on the phone, we both saw the same interrupts simultaneously.

I've read elsewhere on the forum that the local stations sometimes have trouble locking on the network feed... I wonder if all this rain has something to do with this? I sure hope this gets resolved before the football game on Saturday!!!

I reckon that we'll see if things clear up when they start the local news with the gray bars. If it goes away then, then I guess it's the network feed, if it stays... then maybe there's a problem with local transmission...

Is there anyone from WKYT out there listening? If so, can you shed any light on this?

ragamuffin I am located in Richmond, KY just off I-75. So I am only about 20 miles or so from the towers.

I just bought a Channelmaster 4221 (4bay) and although it is UHF only, I pick up WKYT-DT very well! I knew I was taking a chance on that (UHF only) but evidently it paid off. I did not want to buy a dual purpose if WKYT was going to be the only VHF station.

I still cannot pick up anything on CH. 40.1 or 42.1????? I mean I get "no signal"!

Yes, the game is the main reason I went ahead and bit the bullet and bought the new Sony HD200 Thursday. GO CATS!!!!!!:D:D

Also, my signal was doing the same thing you mentioned about "pixelation" tonight. Not bad, but just ever so slightly.

Do you think I should try an amplifier? Please help! I would really like to pick up both ABC and KET!

Originally posted by ragamuffin
[B]Is anybody else seeing noise bursts in the WKYT-DT feed tonight? During Hack and currently during the RobberyHomicideDivision I'm seeing short loss of signal every 15-20 seconds (randomly) which causes a video pixelation breakup to occur and a dropout in audio for a split second... And then the signal immediately syncs back up.
/B]

Yep - I was getting some signal strength flux as well. TVQ and KET are pegging the meter tonight so we may be getting more multipath than normal.

My main problem now is that the folks at D* finally got WKYTDT loaded into their program guide database but they got the channel remapping wrong - it goes back to the analog channel (grrrrrr).

HDC

pjohnscpa

I would think you'd be OK at 20 miles... the 4221 and it's mate the 4228 (8-bay) are very directional antennas.

How high up is your antenna? The higher the better. Are there buildings or other things close by that can reflect signals towards your antenna? Are you inside the attic, or outside above your roof line?

One thing you can try is to use the 4221 and feed it into a conventional analog TV and tune in the analogs 27 and 36. If you're seeing a good clean non-ghosting picture on 36, then 40 should be clean as well. You can use the analog picture to precisely point the 4221 towards the WTVQ tower.

If you don't get a good clean analog signal, then I'm not sure an amplifier will help you out... but it might. Just be aware that too much signal can be a bad thing as well.

You didn't mention how you're feeding your antenna into your receiver? A single RG-6 quad shield cable is ideal. Try to keep your length minimal (ideally less than 100 feet). For your initial testing, make sure there are no splitters, combiners, or diplexers in the line. Run the antenna feed straight into the receiver.

What kind of receiver do you have? What kind of "signal" do you get for 13? (gimme a scale of some kind... on a 1-10 is it a 10?)

HDTVChallenged

Thanks for the feedback on the bad CBS signal tonight. I'll sleep better knowing the problem is not on my end. I sure hope this is cleared up by tomorrow. Maybe we're getting some tropo interference?

I'm still seeing glitches during Letterman tonight (with gray bars). I'm assuming that this is locally sourced HD? Maybe not...

Originally posted by ragamuffin
HDTVChallenged
Maybe we're getting some tropo interference?

I'm still seeing glitches during Letterman tonight (with gray bars). I'm assuming that this is locally sourced HD? Maybe not...

Could be a waterlogged antenna too :) .... or possibly interference from channel 12 in Cincy.

All of the gray bar stuff is just their normal SD analog feeds upconverted to 1080i at the station.

HDC

My antenna is currently outside mounted on the deck obviously not above the roof line. There are no buildings, trees, etc. that should block my reception. I am using the new Sony HD200 receiver, running about 85 feet of RG-6 with no splitters, etc.

My signal from Ch. 13 is probably 6-8 according to the reading I get from the HD200, but it is crystal clear.

However, none of the analog stations (18,27,36,46,56) come in very clear on my Sony 57HW40. Do I need to test the analogs on a standard "old" television?

Oddly enough, when I first hooked everything up I had the 4221 just sitting in my basement and Ch. 13 came in just as good as it does now outside on the deck. Go figure??

Is there any equipment that will give me a reading coming from WTVQ's towers as to better pinpoint signal that way?

Thanks a ton for your suggestions and help!!:) :)

pjohnscpa

Height is king in the antenna world... If you can get some more height, and the analogs improve, then your digitals should be improved as well.

WKYT-DT is so strong here in Lexington, my signal meter is pegging out at 10 out of 10. WTVQ-TV is slightly lower than this, maybe a 9.5 on a 10 scale.

Any old analog TV will work... new or old.

I'm assuming you have a 300-to-75 transformer from your antenna to your RG-6? If so, it possible for these to sometimes be faulty out of the box... If you have a spare, you might try a swap.

And this might be obvious... but make sure the appropriate antenna input is selected on your receiver... my TV has 3 "F" connector inputs and it can be confusing...

With digital you will not see the direct effects of signal strength, unless you are at the ragged edge of the coverage area.

KET's signal is on UHF 42 but remaps to 46-1 through 46-4.

As you live in Richmond you should have no trouble as WKLE's tower is at Clays Ferry and in the general direction of the WKYT and WTVQ transmitters.

As for the Sony receiver, I have heard of some anomalies with its handling of PSIP issues, but in our present configuration it shouldn't be a problem.


William Smith
KET Special Projects Engineer

Is there any equipment that will give me a reading coming from WTVQ's towers as to better pinpoint signal that way?

If you have access to a GPS, you can get your own coordinates and the coordinates of the WKYT and WTVQ towers from http://100kwatts.tmi.net/tv/KY.html. You can then get a precise heading towards the towers.

If you don't want to mess with the math, pick up an Excel spreadsheet from http://www.dxfm.com. The spreadsheets are located on the main page, right-hand frame, down near the bottom of the page. Get the DTV spreadsheet. Plug in your GPS coordinates, and it will give you a precise vector to the towers.

http://www.antennaweb.org is supposed to do this as well, and it appears from earlier in this thread that you've been there and done that... but if you live on a really long street, it's possible for antennaweb.org to give you a vector that may be slightly off... but I would think it would be close enough for the 20 mile range you are in.

The KY-FL game on Saturday was giving me constant picture breakup and audio dropouts on WKYT. Did anyone else see this? I was getting signal strength of 93-100 on my Hughes E86.

The SD signal on 36 looked OK (at around a 60 signal strength)...

Ryan

constant picture breakup and audio dropouts on WKYT

I noticed this anomoly on Friday evening during HACK. It continued all day Saturday (during the game) and Sunday (during MI2).

I think the problem is local to WKYT because nobody else is reporting the problem nationally. I've heard from Cinci people that WKRC-DT was perfect. I'm guessing something burped due to all the rain?

I sent an e:mail to WKYT but have not heard a reply... We'll see if anything got "fixed" today when I peek again tonight.

Thanks -- good to know I don't have to be paranoid about it being my problem...

Ryan

ragamuffin,
Thanks for your input.

I raised my antenna tonight a measly 10' and bingo--I had WTVQ and KET!! Just for good measure I put in a pre-amp and pulled my signal for all three lex. stations to very good! Except WTVQ is only in 4:3 even though it comes up as HD? Is that normal for TVQ?

Now all I need is to figure out the best way to ground the antenna before Wed. when storms are supposed to roll in! :) :)

Now all I need is to figure out the best way to ground the antenna

http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/hdreception/antenna_grounding.html has good info on grounding antennas.

I'm curious, with the antenna elevated, do you get a signal for WTVQ and KET without the pre-amp? The pre-amp will amplify the signal (ideally to overcome losses in your lead line and connection devices such as splitters combiners, baluns, diplexers, etc.), but it will also amplify the "noise" floor as well. I've heard the number 15.2db thrown around as the minimum signal to noise ratio required for a DTV receiver to lock onto the signal. So if you don't have this 15.2db of head room between the noise and your signal, the pre-amp isn't going to help. For my educational purposes, I'd like to know if you need both height and the pre-amp, or was the height by itself good enough to provide signal lock? (What pre-amp did you end up using?)

WTVQ was having some problems last night when I peeked over there early in the evening (all black video signal, audio only)... So they may have been tweaking things later in the evening which may explain the 4:3 you mention. I ended up watching the football game on the analog station. They have been providing a 16:9/1280x720p signal on their DTV channel since early August. They upconvert and center the SD NTSC signal when they don't have 16:9 content to source.... but this is still a 16:9 signal with black "pillar bars" on the right and left sides.

I wish they would send the native ATSC (18 modes, 6 that are SD, 6 ED, and 6 HD) equivalent for 4:3 so my TV's wide and zoom modes would function for this 4:3 material... but they don't. I don't know if this is a technical hurdle or not. Maybe William Smith can comment and shed some light on this subject? But from what I've seen in the past, KET is doing this "right" in my book... WKYT and WTVQ are doing it differently.

WTVQ-DT was black between about 8:20 and 8:30, but came back in plenty of time for the game. (Is it just me, or are the colors on WTVQ-DT really washed out?)

Still having trouble with WKYT(27). Any news?

Ryan

Is it just me, or are the colors on WTVQ-DT really washed out?)
I've only had my TV now for less than a week... although I've been watching stuff on a 19" VGA monitor since February. I have not had a chance yet to calibrate my TV yet using Avia. The HD I've seen on WTVQ has looked great to me so far... the SD PQ is all over the map. The football game last evening was in SD...
Still having trouble with WKYT(27). Any news?
I've pinged them via e:mail and have not heard back... WKYT-DT is still glitching audio and video approximately 3-4 times a minute on my end. Hasn't changed since last FRI evening. Last night's HD lineup on CBS was a bust, I was able to salvage the UK vs FL game on SAT by muting the TV and listening to the game via the radio broadcast. But regular TV isn't viewable as long as this problem remains on WKYT-DT.

Thanks. I sent them an e-mail, too -- we'll see what happens.

Ryan

Originally posted by rspaight
WTVQ-DT was black between about 8:20 and 8:30, but came back in plenty of time for the game. (Is it just me, or are the colors on WTVQ-DT really washed out?)

Still having trouble with WKYT(27). Any news?


Ryan,
Your eyes do not deceive - WTVQ's SD feed has always been somewhat color deficient (even on analog) - often times just increasing your color saturation can bring some of the life back. However, to date, the HD feeds from ABC have always looked great. (Except, of course, when they are completely black :D )

As for WKYT, I suspect the monsoon last week had something to do with their problems - I'm going to e-mail them today on this and another matter.

HDC

Just heard back from WKYT:

Hello Ryan,
Thanks for your note about WKYT-DT. We're aware of the problem, and are
trying to get it fixed. We think a software "update" we were sent is the
problem.
Glen Hale--New Media Director--WKYT

Sounds like they're running on Windows XP. :)

Seriously, though, it's good they're aware of it and are working on it. I'm sure there's a learning curve for this stuff for the tech staffs at a lot of these smaller market stations.

Ryan

Here's my reply from WKYT:
We are painfully aware of the problem and expect to have a replacement output module for the Harris Flexicoder (the equipment that creates the 310M transmission signal) by tomorrow morning.

I think I see where the problem is... right here (http://www.showtech.com/theme_parks/back_to_the_future/images/flux_cap_construction.jpg)!

... the flux capacitor just needs a little more POWER! ;-)

Good news. That darn Flexicoder again... :)

BTW, I checked out the HD signal on WTVQ tonight -- it does look *much* better colorwise than the SD stuff (and not just in the ways you'd expect it to).

Ryan

Originally posted by ragamuffin


http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/hdreception/antenna_grounding.html has good info on grounding antennas.

I'm curious, with the antenna elevated, do you get a signal for WTVQ and KET without the pre-amp? The pre-amp will amplify the signal (ideally to overcome losses in your lead line and connection devices such as splitters combiners, baluns, diplexers, etc.), but it will also amplify the "noise" floor as well. I've heard the number 15.2db thrown around as the minimum signal to noise ratio required for a DTV receiver to lock onto the signal. So if you don't have this 15.2db of head room between the noise and your signal, the pre-amp isn't going to help. For my educational purposes, I'd like to know if you need both height and the pre-amp, or was the height by itself good enough to provide signal lock? (What pre-amp did you end up using?)

WTVQ was having some problems last night when I peeked over there early in the evening (all black video signal, audio only)... So they may have been tweaking things later in the evening which may explain the 4:3 you mention. I ended up watching the football game on the analog station. They have been providing a 16:9/1280x720p signal on their DTV channel since early August. They upconvert and center the SD NTSC signal when they don't have 16:9 content to source.... but this is still a 16:9 signal with black "pillar bars" on the right and left sides.

I wish they would send the native ATSC (18 modes, 6 that are SD, 6 ED, and 6 HD) equivalent for 4:3 so my TV's wide and zoom modes would function for this 4:3 material... but they don't. I don't know if this is a technical hurdle or not. Maybe William Smith can comment and shed some light on this subject? But from what I've seen in the past, KET is doing this "right" in my book... WKYT and WTVQ are doing it differently.


Yes, I did receive signal lock without the pre-amp on WTVQ and KET. However, I could not get all three LEX stations at a strong level together. When I added the pre-amp, it boosted my signal for WTVQ to match that of WKYT and KET. So now all three are showing excellent signal strength! I have not experienced any "noise" from the pre-amp.
.
I bought a Blonder-Tongue (sp?) from Radio Electronics in Lexington. They were really nice people and very helpful. That is also where I bought my Channelmaster antenna.

Does anyone know if WLEX is on schedule for a November debut??

Does anyone know if WLEX is on schedule for a November debut?I recieved an e:mail from WLEX this week indicating that it will be 1Q03 at the earliest for WLEX-DT.

I wouldn't be surprised to see WLEX DTV on local cable before they do OTA... time will tell.

Originally posted by ragamuffin
I recieved an e:mail from WLEX this week indicating that it will be 1Q03 at the earliest for WLEX-DT.


Boooooooooo .... hissssssssssssssss

Yet another nail in the coffin for "Must See TV"

HDC

I believe WLEX doesn't have a construction permit for its proposed DTV station yet, Last I heard they were planing to be on Channel 39 from WTVQ's tower but I haven't heard anything lately.


As to why stations are using SD Upconverted material as a filler an HD program stream, current generation tuners do not make clean switches from (HD to SD or the reverse) in the same program service ( it has to do with re-sizing the video buffers on the fly), at KET we chose to live with it for now and plan to make the switch to PBS HD about 2 minutes before each HD broadcast, we know it will be ugly.


HD is coming to KET soon.... just hang on...


William

HD is coming to KET soon.... just hang on... Excellent! Can't wait! Thanks William!

Did anyone notice anything different today with the WKYT-DT CBS football game? WKYT-DT turned off their two additional multicast channels and re-directed the bandwidth to the single HD channel on 13.1 which my HiPix reported as 19.1Mbps. The PQ in regard to motion artifacts was much improved, including the CBS "It's all here" promo. To date, when they're multicasting on all three channels, my Hipix reports 15.1Mbps on 13.1, 3.0Mbps on 13.2, and 1.0Mps on 13.3.

My understanding is that CBS provides a 45Mbps feed to their local affiliates and the local affiliates actually produce the compressed MPEG-2 stream we see via our HD tuners. I wonder if WKYT-DT could possibly give us 720p for sports programming?

Thank you WKYT for the extra quality today! It made a huge difference to my eyes! Could we possibly see this 19.1Mpbs rate during primetime as well?

ragamuffin,

Yep I noticed .... I was going to send them an e-mail suggesting that they nix the 480p (.2) simulcast channel when they have real HD programming. I really don't see the point in simulcasting the same program on .1 and .2 ..... Now if we can just get them to throw the switches on time ......

As for 720p - I wouldn't hold my breath. My receiver would just turn it back into 1080i anyway - two conversions vs. none ..... hummmm :)

HDC

Originally posted by William Smith
I believe WLEX doesn't have a construction permit for its proposed DTV station yet, Last I heard they were planing to be on Channel 39 from WTVQ's tower but I haven't heard anything lately.


William,
You may be right there ... the latest filing in the FCC's online database is dated in fall of 2001 and status is "approved for filing." There is no actual "CP granted" entry to be found.

HDC

Anybody else here excited that the beautiful Commonwealth will be shown in HDTV this weekend. I only wish I was going to be home to see it. But alas, I will be at the game!

I had to drive by the stadium today so I went and checked out the CBS trucks. They had HD on the sides from "Core Digital Technologies". Here is their website.

http://www.coredigitaltech.com/

Somebody give me an update of how it looked.

There could be another chance when LSwho comes to town.

pjohnscpa,

I'm excited too... my wife gave my tickets away... so I'll be camped at home taping it on my HiPix. I'll post some screen shots!

Go Cats! Beat them Dawgs!

Rescan your channels! We have a new signal in the air tonight!!!

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Rescan your channels! We have a new signal in the air tonight!!!

Ok ... who? WDKY? WLEX? give us a clue what to look for :) ( I might have to put up my VHF antenna ...)

HDC

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Ok ... who? WDKY? WLEX? give us a clue what to look for :) ( I might have to put up my VHF antenna ...)

HDC

who? that's too easy! ;-)

a clue... it's not on the VHF band... so it's not WDKY-DT! clue#2, it's a UHF channel between ABC's and CBS's DT.

"they" were on last night and I caught them for the 10:00pm-11:00pm hour... they signed off after 11:00pm. No sign of them yet again this morning.

Go Cats!

Originally posted by ragamuffin
who? that's too easy! ;-)

a clue... it's not on the VHF band... so it's not WDKY-DT! clue#2, it's a UHF channel between ABC's and CBS's DT.

"they" were on last night and I caught them for the 10:00pm-11:00pm hour... they signed off after 11:00pm. No sign of them yet again this morning.

Go Cats!

Interesting .... I assume this is an actual Lexington station and not a bounce ? :)

I notice WKYT seems to have reconfigured to one subchannel just in time for the game this afternoon ... :)

HDC

PS. I originally asked because I have to be careful with doing rescans on my E86 - can cause wacky problems with the local program guide data.

Oh, OK .... I found it ... at least maybe the 2 stragglers will be shamed into getting off their butts now :)

HDC

Are you talking about Pax on Ch 21?

A little bird told me there was tower work at WDKY's analog site last week and WDKY's proposed new tower was denied by LFUCG.

As I've said before WLEX can't do anything (even buy the equipment) until the FCC gives them a construction permit so its not really their fault.

Originally posted by William Smith
Are you talking about Pax on Ch 21?

A little bird told me there was tower work at WDKY's analog site last week and WDKY's proposed new tower was denied by LFUCG.

As I've said before WLEX can't do anything (even buy the equipment) until the FCC gives them a construction permit so its not really their fault.

Yes! It's PAX on DT-21, WUPX-DT out of Morehead/Lexington. Sorry for the elusiveness, but just wanted to get everyone into a "rescan" mode mindset here in the next few weeks so that we can alert each other as to when new stations come up on DT as we approach the Nov. 1st date!

I had heard the LFUCG info on WDKY several months ago. I thought I had heard that they had a secondary gameplan? If I'm reading between your lines, maybe they'll be doing the DT thing from their analog tower soon? I'll keep channel scanning! Thanks for the chirp, William!

I've e:mailed just about every station in town at some time or another... Everyone has been very helpful and informative in their responses, even WLEX. However, with that said, WLEX appears from my perspective to not be very aggressive on the DTV front. I'm sure if they really wanted to be up on Nov 1st, they could have been... makes one wonder if the CP issue is just a dance with the FCC? Is there any way to find out why the CP hasn't been granted by the FCC? It's a shame too, from what I understand, WLEX has all new digital facilities and could possibly provide the first locally originated live HD content, if they really wanted to.

Well folks ... 11 hours to go and still not a peep out of WDKY-DT Ch4 ... Sad when PAX beats two of the "Big 4" on the air ....

HDC

WDKY has until Dec 1 per the documents on the FCC's web site..

Originally posted by William Smith
WDKY has until Dec 1 per the documents on the FCC's web site..

Whoops .... I must have been baffled by the mountain of extensions to the extention requests :)

But sheesh ... even PAX managed to get on the air ... Oh well I guess we're still doing better than L'ville.

HDC

Ok Guys. I've been lerking for months now, and am finally jumping in. I've got a problem with my reception of WKYT-DT. I've got a channelmaster 4228 in the attic with a 100ft lead to the receiver (Toshiba DST-3000) and generally get a signal of 100. From time to time, it goes to 51 or even 20, but picture is usually still ok. No matter the signal strength, when I press menu while tuned in to 13-1, it immediately switches off the digital feed and picks up the analog signal and says no signal strenght available. I switch the source via menu to local digital and select channel 13 and a 100 strength. Any thoughts?

Also, Last night during CSI, while tuned to DT, it switched to the analog signal on its own. Any thoughts?

I get no trouble with KET, TVQ or PAX.

Also, Last night during CSI, while tuned to DT, it switched to the analog signal on its own. Any thoughts?

By any chance, have you enabled the local program guide by entering your zipcode? If so, you may have to clear the zipcode entry. WKYT has been having trouble with their PSIP info conflicting with what DirecTV is sending out.

HDC

I do have my zip programmed in. I am having the same problem tonight during hack. I'll remove it right now and see how it works.

Lb2k

just caught this screen capture from the KET "digital" site... (see attached GIF)!

The next HD program scheduled on the national PBS guide is Nov 24, 9:00PM ET. Sure hope they're up by then! A couple of widescreen SD programs are scheduled before the 24th.

It looks like this KET-4 channel is going to be dual purpose and will timeshare between standard programming and HD. So I'm guessing we won't see the 24/7 loop (that has some great stuff in it) that was running prior to the early July cutoff.

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

http://www.pbs.org/digitaltv/

Bump

Well folks .... I see WDKY has applied for an STA (read low power) for channel 4. Perhaps they'll actually have something on the air soon ...

HDC(onverted)

Bump, Bump

Update: (11/15/02)
Just rechecked FCC site ... WDKY's STA has been approved ... Light it up!

Bump

Hummmm ....

I see blips on channel 4 tonight - max strength 06%. Can anybody confirm WDKY-DT is up or testing?

HDC

Has anyone seen PAX up in awhile. Seems I have not seen them for a week or so. Are they gone or is it just me?.

For those who care .... WDKY-DT Ch 4 is on the air as I type ....

As for UPX ... they are currently only on the air from 8pm(ish) to 12am(ish). Also, you may have to rotate your antenna to get them ... they are almost 35 degrees off from the other stations (from my location.)

HDC

I saw PAX digital on last night (FRI) when I did a channel scan... they're not up as I type this morning (SAT), but I've also "manually" redirected my antenna 180 degrees trying to sniff something from WDKY (I've got a rotor on my Christmas list :)). I'm smack dab in the middle of the WDKY's location and the WKYT/WTVQ digitals.

I've not seen anything yet on digital VHF-4 from WDKY. I must have been looking too late FRI evening... and they don't appear to be doing anything this morning...

HDTVChallenged, were they transmitting normal programming or test signals? Do you have any screen grabs to share?

sorry for the delay... here's some HD snaps shots from the game a few weeks ago...

http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0000b.jpg click here for full size picture (http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0000.jpg)
This is an NTSC up-convert of the last play in the LSU game... this is for comparison to the following HD pics...

The following pictures are 19.1Mbps 1920x1080i HDTV from CBS! WKYT shutdown their additional multicast channels and allocated full bandwidth to the single HD channel for this game.

http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0001b.jpg click here for full size picture (http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0001.jpg)

http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0002b.jpg click here for full size picture (http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0002.jpg)

http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0003b.jpg click here for full size picture (http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0003.jpg)

http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0004b.jpg click here for full size picture (http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0004.jpg)

http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0005b.jpg click here for full size picture (http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0005.jpg)

http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0006b.jpg click here for full size picture (http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0006.jpg)

Originally posted by ragamuffin
I've not seen anything yet on digital VHF-4 from WDKY. I must have been looking too late FRI evening... and they don't appear to be doing anything this morning...

HDTVChallenged, were they transmitting normal programming or test signals? Do you have any screen grabs to share?

Ragamuffin,
They have been transmitting normal programming since Friday afternoon (22nd.) You will need a true VHF antenna to pick them up. I was getting blips on channel 4 Thursday evening, but couldn't bring them in until I put my VHF antenna back up. I believe their tower is located between Wilmore and Nicholasville. Alas no screen shot capability here ... looks like the standard 480i signal upconverted to 480p :)

HDC

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
They have been transmitting normal programming since Friday afternoon (22nd.) You will need a true VHF antenna to pick them up. I was getting blips on channel 4 Thursday evening, but couldn't bring them in until I put my VHF antenna back up. I believe their tower is located between Wilmore and Nicholasville.

HDC,

I have a Radio Shack VU-190 combo VHF/UHF in my attic... I've got it pointing in the proper direction (Fox56 analog is "perfect" with no ghosting, and I'm getting on OK signal on analog 3 from L'ville, so I think my VHF is working properly...)... but I'm seeing nothing on the DT-4 from FOX. Can you verify that FOX is up in DT right now? It's Sunday afternoon... Anybody else out there locked it in yet?

Where are you "generally" located distance-wise from the FOX towers? I'm very close to the intersection of Man-O'War and Harrodsburg road.

Thanks!

Originally posted by ragamuffin
I have a Radio Shack VU-190 combo VHF/UHF in my attic... I've got it pointing in the proper direction (Fox56 analog is "perfect" with no ghosting, and I'm getting on OK signal on analog 3 from L'ville, so I think my VHF is working properly...)... but I'm seeing nothing on the DT-4 from FOX. Can you verify that FOX is up in DT right now? It's Sunday afternoon... Anybody else out there locked it in yet?

Where are you "generally" located distance-wise from the FOX towers? I'm very close to the intersection of Man-O'War and Harrodsburg road.


Yep, they're up (11/24/02-12:44pm) ... Generally ... ~10-15mi ssw of tower .... I get more or less "perfect" reception on 56 no matter what I use for an attenna or where I point it - so that may not be a useful indicator :)

Try aiming 180 degrees from your WKYT alignment and sweep toward the south ... It's a lot easier with a rotor ... I would think being on the south side of Lex you shouldn't have multipath problems.

HDC

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Yep, they're up (11/24/02-12:44pm) ... Generally ... ~10-15mi ssw of tower .... I get more or less "perfect" reception on 56 no matter what I use for an attenna or where I point it - so that may not be a useful indicator :)

I'm guessing that you're in the Danville area... and that FOX is possibly transmitting at very low power and possibly "away" from Lexington at the moment... I can see one tick mark on my signal meter occasionally, but not very often. Maybe they'll up the power on Monday and we'll be able to lock. I pinged another buddy of mine with a DT STB and he can't lock on them either... but he is seeing a sniff of a signal too... thanks for the heads-up HDC!

getting a blip of signal on WDKY here in Georgetown as well--not nearly enough to decode though

Originally posted by ragamuffin
... and that FOX is possibly transmitting at very low power and possibly "away" from Lexington at the moment...

Just checked the engineering data from FCC. The low power directional antenna is "pointing" South. >= Half power from 120 to 220 degrees ... Bizarre. OTOH, WDKY is allegedly a "Danville" station so perhaps that has something to do with the current orientation.

HDC

Danville is the city of license and must be covered in order to get the STA...

Recently I have been having trouble receiving WKYT-DT. I was receiving a nice picture on all three of the DT channels through my Toshiba Direct STB. Lately, I don't get a high-def picture, the picture appears to be SD, and not particularly good quality. I searched this thread and didn't see anything to show a general problem with WKYT-DT so I am assuming I have a personal problem. Other HDTV channels are received just fine, both OTA and through Direct. Any thoughts?

Originally posted by djohn
Recently I have been having trouble receiving WKYT-DT. I was receiving a nice picture on all three of the DT channels through my Toshiba Direct STB. Lately, I don't get a high-def picture, the picture appears to be SD, and not particularly good quality. I searched this thread and didn't see anything to show a general problem with WKYT-DT so I am assuming I have a personal problem. Other HDTV channels are received just fine, both OTA and through Direct. Any thoughts?

You've been bitten by the DirecTV program guide bug which is sending you to the analog channel. The only consistant fix is to disable the local program guide ... If you're lucky, WKYT will temporarily disable their channel remapping to 27-1 long enough for your rx to add 13-1 to it's memory. Then you can dial 13-1 directly from the remote without the rx jumping to the analog channel.

HDC

If you're lucky, WKYT will temporarily disable their channel remapping to 27-1 long enough for your rx to add 13-1 to it's memory. Then you can dial 13-1 directly from the remote without the rx jumping to the analog channel.

I was doing it this way for a while, but then 13-1 would bounce to 27 analog every hour or so (annoying during games). So I gave up and took out my ZIP code. All is well now, but of course I don't get local schedules or the pretty icons. Oh, well.

Ryan

My problem is that if I take out my zip code then my STB does not recognize the other DT stations in the area. Could someone direct me to a discussion thread about this DirecTV problem? Is this something that I have to live with the rest of my time with DirecTV?

djohn

I had the same problem with my Toshiba STB. I have the mindset right now to live with it. I don't use the guide to see what's on, so it doesn't bother me as much as it bothers my wife...so it goes. Being poineers again in the television revolution is fun most of the time, but can be frustrating.

The best fix is to scan your channels....remove your zip.....and scan again.
This kept my call letters up when I put in 27-1 or 36-1 but removed the guide.

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Just checked the engineering data from FCC. The low power directional antenna is "pointing" South. >= Half power from 120 to 220 degrees ... Bizarre. OTOH, WDKY is allegedly a "Danville" station so perhaps that has something to do with the current orientation.

HDC

That is true, they are lsited out of Danville for FCC purposes, but are required to provide coverage to lexington for Neilson ratings purposes. Or so the station manager said. What they have done here is a quick fix to avoid losing their license from the FCC for non-compliance. They are still looking for a tower site to install their DTV high power transmitter.

I live in on the east side (Almost in Clark County) and have not been able to tune in their signal yet. (The best i got on the signal meter was 6). Why don't they ask 27 or 36 if they can lease space on their tower. It seems this would be the most cost effective for fox since their tower applicaction was denied by LFUCG and the FAA won't allow them to buid another tower near the other two.

The other problem is that WDKY is a sinclair station. Almost none of their stations nationwide provide any HDTV. Talk about a bunch of cheapskates. Maybe the FCC should take a few of their licenses away so they get with the program. If pax can do it, why can't WDKY get the picture.

The other problem is that WDKY is a sinclair station. Almost none of their stations nationwide provide any HDTV. Talk about a bunch of cheapskates.

My apologies if any DKY engineers are lurking here, but it's obviously a shoestring operation down there. The locally fed ads and promos look like they're coming off of a VHS deck with a tracking problem.

Ryan

they are lsited out of Danville for FCC purposes, but are required to provide coverage to lexington for Neilson ratings purposes

Actually I believe the only meaningful legal requirement is that they serve the community of Licence ... even in regard to the analog broadcast.

I live in on the east side (Almost in Clark County) and have not been able to tune in their signal yet. (The best i got on the signal meter was 6).

And you probably wont get anything in the current configuration. The current antenna's field strength is practicaly 0% for anyone north of the KY river.

That having been said the quality of the digital signal (for those who can get it) is as good as upconvered 480i ever gets. Certainly better than the best SD DBS feeds.

The flaw of Sinclair's argument that this is all money down the drain is that:

1) On VHF Channel 4, WDKY could easily reach the same area coverage as analog 56 while using 1/10 (or less) of the ERP that they are using on channel 56. In fact, I'd bet that they could reduce their ridiculously high ERP on 56 enough to cover the cost of running the digital transmitter at reasonable power without any noticable effect on the analog signal.

2) Sinclair risks alienating their most coveted marketing demographic: Specifically those who have already demonstrated that they have ample discretionary income to afford shiney new HDTV's and digital receivers.

Then again FOX ain't helping much either ...

HDC

As always these are just my opinions ... I could be wrong.

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
That having been said the quality of the digital signal (for those who can get it) is as good as upconvered 480i ever gets. Certainly better than the best SD DBS feeds.
Are they doing any "widescreen" stuff yet? I'm curious on how good the NFL games look on WDKY-DT?

I have both my HDTV and an analog set side-by-side and CBS football in HDTV is outstanding in comparison to analog. CBS NFL DTV is good in comparison to analog (although there stills seems to be some EE going on...). ABC Monday Night Football DTV pales in comparison to the analog from a color perspective only. This ABC "washed out" appearance for upconverts on DTV has been discussed on this thread before... Why does CBS look better than ABC in this regard? Anyone know why?

ragamuffin,
No widescreen yet .... and I doubt they will do any of this before they get their "full-power" transmitter running. WDKY is just "upconverting" their regular analog feed. That having been said, the digital signal quality is significantly better than the analog (except for the audio level that is about 15db too high :) )

I don't watch any significant amount of NFL - however, I have noticed the washout effect on WTVQ while surfing the channels. Again, I believe WTVQ just upconverts their normal analog SD feed for MNF - easier to insert local spots. I've long suspected that there's something a bit wonky with TVQ's SD color balence (even before the digital conversion.) So, I suspect the problem originates in the analog domain and is made worse during the upconvert.

OTOH, WKYT usually passes-through the CBS upconverted network feed if it is available. CBS's upconverter does a much better job (for the most part) than what the local affiliates can do. It's getting bit harder to tell the difference since KYT nixed the gray side-bars on the locally upconverted programs.

HDC

Anyone else experiencing drop-outs on WKYT? The last couple of days (even before the snow) I may not get a signal at all while other times it is very, very weak. I have had no problems with WTVQ or KET.

Originally posted by pjohnscpa
Anyone else experiencing drop-outs on WKYT? The last couple of days (even before the snow) I may not get a signal at all while other times it is very, very weak. I have had no problems with WTVQ or KET.
I've been picking them up OK the past few days... however, a quick check at the moment shows ZERO signal level on my meter. So there is nothing coming from them right now. And I'm less than 10 miles to their tower. WTVQ is coming in loud and clear.

12/5/2002 4:34EST

Signal strengths
WKYT-DT (13) : 100
WDKY-DT (04) : 65
WTVQ-DT (40) : 72
WKLE-DT (42) : 100
WUPX-DT (21) : off air
WKRC-DT (31) : 0 to 6

The two Lexington UHF channels are much higher than my normal afternoon readings.

HDC

ragamuffin,

See WHAS's comments in the Louisville threads..

Probably the same thing as they have the same type of system.

Originally posted by William Smith
See WHAS's comments in the Louisville threads..

Probably the same thing as they have the same type of system.
Thanks William! I see that WCET-DT went HD yesterday! One wonders if WKLE-DT will be far behind?

I am also seeing some dropouts with WKYT.

Also, has anyone noticed that WTVQ is multicasting. The second one is just an upconvert of the analog, like WKYT is doing. But it looks like poo. Lots of video "noise" in the source. Have a look.

Originally posted by Wellington
I am also seeing some dropouts with WKYT.

Also, has anyone noticed that WTVQ is multicasting. The second one is just an upconvert of the analog, like WKYT is doing. But it looks like poo. Lots of video "noise" in the source. Have a look.

I noticed that as well Wellington.

Did anyone catch the "promo" on WTVQ last night showing off the 720p? It was showing clips of their morning shows and lots of other shows plus showing clips of the space shuttle and other misc. stuff. It looked simply awesome! Even better than those CBS promo clips!

BTW, I still have no signal on WKYT.

The upgrade should be done soon, I plan on some off-line testing before making the switch.

But I was wondering if anyone would mind helping me out..

I would like to have a contact list showing usernames, addresses, and equipment to help troubleshoot any problems.. or maybe even a small beta test group for some or our future plans..

If your interested please Email me direct at wsmith@ket.org.


This would also help prove to my management that there are more than three of you...

Please put AVS ( in caps ) on the subject line so I can filter the email as it comes in..

Thanks



William

Originally posted by pjohnscpa
Did anyone catch the "promo" on WTVQ last night showing off the 720p? It was showing clips of their morning shows and lots of other shows plus showing clips of the space shuttle and other misc. stuff. It looked simply awesome! Even better than those CBS promo clips!

BTW, I still have no signal on WKYT.

I'm seeing WKYT-DT at 100% signal level right now while CSI is on.

I'm not seeing any dropouts in signal at all. Wellington, can you describe the dropouts you're seeing/hearing?

What I do hear sometimes (about once every 3-5 minutes) is a quick audio echo that last less than a second. A very quick stutter... I've been chalking that up to my HiPix card since I moved it back into a slower system this past week. Is that what you guys are referring to as "dropout"?

I'll keep my HiPix record button ready for this WTVQ promo. Was it on during their news hour last evening?

I've dialed in the 36.2 multicast too... My HiPix shows the stream rate at 4.00Mbps. It does look pretty bad.

As far as the dropouts, I would have the amount of signal I normally do. Then it would go to 0%. for a sec. But strange thing is that I have been fine for all of CSI. It just stopped. Hopefully no more trouble.

On CBS HD website they now list WKYT digital on channel 59. Have they switched from CH. 13????



http://www.cbs.com/info/hdtv/ (http://)

:confused:

Originally posted by pjohnscpa
On CBS HD website they now list WKYT digital on channel 59. Have they switched from CH. 13????
No... the original channel assigned to WKYT-DT was UHF-59... However, WKYT-DT petitioned the FCC and had the channel changed to VHF-13.

59 was in the high UHF space and is not as efficient expense-wise to operate as 13. It is also possible that 59 may be lost someday in the future as part of the UHF band. So WKYT had the change request honored.

Now the FCC needs to update "their" database... because everyone seems to feed from there... and if it is wrong, we'll see it wrong everywhere.

Can someone post an updated list of the stations (around Lex.) that are currently broadcasting some HD and their digital channels. Every website I know of to get this info. seems to have conflicting reports.

Also, I am still experiencing some problems with WKYT but not WTVQ or KET. Does rain or clouds effect my antenna's ability that much?

Thanks in advance.

Originally posted by pjohnscpa
Can someone post an updated list of the stations (around Lex.) that are currently broadcasting some HD and their digital channels. Every website I know of to get this info. seems to have conflicting reports.

Also, I am still experiencing some problems with WKYT but not WTVQ or KET. Does rain or clouds effect my antenna's ability that much?

Thanks in advance.

There's a fairly complete list that I posted earlier in this thread ...

WKYT-DT (13) : CBS ... HD feeds passed through
WDKY-DT (04) : FOX ... SD upcoverted to 480p (no widescreen, very low power)
WTVQ-DT (40) : ABC ... HD feeds passed through (mostly :) )
WKLE-DT (42) : PBS ... 4 channel SD multicast ... HD in works
WUPX-DT (21) : PAX ( 8pm...11pm) 480p converted SD
WKRC-DT (31) : CBS (Cincy ... occasional bounces) HD passed
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WLEX-DT (39) : NBC ... still waiting ... can't confirm CP status
WBKI-DT (19) : WB ... spring 2003 at earliest
WBLU: UPN ... digital? what's that

As for rain/clouds, paradoxically, my digital reception usually improves in wet weather ... but high wind is a problem ...

HDC

woohoo!!!
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=202338

I called WLEX today to ask about broadcasting in HD. They said it wasn't going to be until late 2003 at the earliest. Can this be right?

Originally posted by pchilds
I called WLEX today to ask about broadcasting in HD. They said it wasn't going to be until late 2003 at the earliest. Can this be right?

It wouldn't surprise me ...

HDC

The CATS looked good in HDTV!!!!!

:D :D

I sent Insight an e-mail over the week-end inquiring about the status of cable HDTV in Lexington and received the following surprising reply. The note contains an omission, ABC is provided in Hi-Def according to the CSR that I spoke to by telephone this morning. Since I am not a new subscriber, there is a $13.95 one time charge for an installer to bring the STB to my home and install it. They are scheduled to come out next week. The price for me works out to be $1.50 more a month that I am currently paying with DirecTV and lifeline cable.

Thank you for contacting Insight. HDTV was just launched. You would need to subscribe to at least the digital gateway service and then you will subscribe to a HDTV box. The HDTV box is currently $2.00 per month. You will receive 4 channels: CBS, KET, HBO, and ShowTime. Customers that subscribe to HBO or ShowTime will be able to pick one HBO HD channel and one ShowTime HD channel. You will have 2 boxes: 1 Digital box and 1 HDTV box. You must have an HDTV TV, Digital Box and our HDTV Box to pick up the programming. If you have any other questions please email us or contact our customer service number at 514-1400.

Thank You,
Lesa
Customer Service Rep

Glad to have finally found a thread about lexington maybe some you guys can help me trouble shoot a problem that I am having with wkyt....
I just recently bought a samsung sir-t151 tuner for my hd set and when I am watching 27-1 I noticed that the picture will go black for about a 1/2 to 1 second and so does the audio at the same time when watching a hd broadcast I have note left it on the channel long enough when they have a sd broadcast to notice it on a sd broadcast because of fear of screen burn in on the sides of my rptv. I have pulled up the menu to watch the siginal strength and it never goes down when I see this problem it stays the same at aroung 60-70%. I have not noticed this on the 27-2,27-3 channel or the 36-1,36-2 or the 46-1,2,3 and 4 channels.
I am using a 8-bay antenna on my roof with a 25 db gain amp in the house. I live in the danville area about 1 mile from perryville. I called the maker ot the stb and they said to check with the station and see if they are running the latest spip software version( whatever that means) but I have not heard back from them. so far all of the hd programming that I have seen from cbs and abc looks awesome!!! I would appreciate any input on helping to resolve this problem.

Originally posted by rndthm
can help me trouble shoot a problem that I am having with wkyt....
I just recently bought a samsung sir-t151 tuner for my hd set and when I am watching 27-1 I noticed that the picture will go black for about a 1/2 to 1 second and so does the audio at the same time when watching a hd broadcast
I've not seen any problems with 27-1 since way back in the fall during the UK/Florida football game. I live on the south side of Lexington and get great signal reception using a HiPix PC card tuner. Can you describe how often these dropouts occur?

One other thing to note... when I begin to point my antenna away from WKYT-DT, I experience macro-block artifacting on my HDTV... not "black" dropouts as you describe. Maybe the ST-T151 deals with loss of signal differently then my tuner. I'd suggest rotating your antenna away from the transmitter and see if your reception failure mode is the "black" dropout you describe. The CM-4228 antenna is very narrow beam width antenna and not omni-directional at all. WKYT-DT and WTVQ-DT are very close to each other and can be picked up on the same vector from your location most likely... Are you using a rotor or a fixed antenna mount?
I am using a 8-bay antenna on my roof with a 25 db gain amp in the house.
I too have an 8-bay UHF-only antenna (Channel Master 4228). Just wanted to point out that it is UHF only and WKYT-DT is on 13 which is VHF. I'm not having a problem with my setup, but your distance compared to mine could behave differently. You don't mention the type of amp you are using... I once helped somebody with a CM-4228 and CM-7775 pre-amp that only passed UHF. There is some kind of notch filter that lets none of the VHF Channel 13 through at all. We removed the pre-amp and everything worked great (in Woodford County). If distance is a problem, then a pre-amp will probably work better for you than a standard video distribution amplifier. Ideally you should locate the pre-amp as close as possible to the antenna that you can instead of near the HDTV.

I'm curious if you have tried to pick up the WDKY-DT digital on VHF channel 4 yet (you won't get this with your 8-bay)? HDTVChallenged on this forum lives in your area and is seeing WDKY-DT... but nobody north of their transmitter (here in the "big" city) can see them at all... Rumor has it that they're using a 9-volt battery powered walkie talkie as a transmitter... :-(

The model of the amp is............. ASKA Model am-125 uhf/vhf/fm 25 db gain distribution amplifier. I am seeing this anywhere from 2-10 minutes it only last about a second but it is very annoying.
I tried channel 4 but I have not seen nothing, I called the local installer of my antenna and they said I would not have any problems with picking up a vhf channel. What would you recommend that I try???

Originally posted by rndthm
The model of the amp is............. ASKA Model am-125 uhf/vhf/fm 25 db gain distribution amplifier. I am seeing this anywhere from 2-10 minutes it only last about a second but it is very annoying.
I tried channel 4 but I have not seen nothing, I called the local installer of my antenna and they said I would not have any problems with picking up a vhf channel. What would you recommend that I try???
I think I editted my initial post while you posted simultaneously to my edits with the reply above (so you may not have gone back and re-read my post)... I suggested one thing to do (rotate your antenna). I also asked a question (are you using a rotor)... One other question, what antenna (MFG and PART#) are you using?

I am using no rotor, Not sure of the Mfg or Part# for the antenna my local installer brought it out and put it up I did not keep the box but they called it a 8-bay antenna. when rotating the antenna I get the macro-block artifacting too (If this is the same as a digital sat. signal breking up in a rain storm). I just tried unhooking from my amplifer and the signal strength went down alot but I am still seeing a good picture from everything but cbs is not broadcasting any hd programs right this moment to tell if it has made a difference. I was hoping someone else around this area would have a samsung sir-t151 to see if thier unit is doing the samething with wkyt but my local installer has a echostar 6000 with ota card in it and they said the samething happens on thiers also when watching wkyt 27-1.
Strange thing about all of this is it only seems to happen when they(cbs) are sending out a hd program:confused:

Originally posted by rndthm
I was hoping someone else around this area would have a samsung sir-t151 to see if thier unit is doing the samething with wkyt but my local installer has a echostar 6000 with ota card in it and they said the samething happens on thiers also when watching wkyt 27-1.
Strange thing about all of this is it only seems to happen when they(cbs) are sending out a hd program:confused:
I have a friend using the older st150 unit, I'll ping him and see if he's seeing anything similar to what you are seeing. I'll also let you know how CBS-HD goes this evening from my end. I would suspect that if you were having reception problems on 27, you'd see the same thing on 27.2 and 27.3 and it doesn't appear that you are.

Thanks, I appreciate the help on trying to figure this problem out.....I will be watching this thread on and off through out the night.

Originally posted by rndthm
Thanks, I appreciate the help on trying to figure this problem out.....I will be watching this thread on and off through out the night.
I saw a dropout near the end of Becker, I just saw one again at about 9:50 during the Enron movie (I'm channel surfing, so there may have been more). I taped the King of Queens and will scan that later. Just wanted to let you know I did see the dropouts you're referring to... and I'm using a Hipix tuner.

edit: I saw another at 10:40pm and again at 10:56pm

my guess is that WKYT isn't aware there is a problem... so if the problem does persist, it would probably be a good idea to give them a heads up. they were appreciative of our feedback before...

I have seen the dropouts too on my Samsung 150. I have seen it for a few days.

I saw some during becker and the enron movie but I did not look at the time. from what you are seeing what do you think could be causing this??? I will be trying to contact wkyt on my next day off which will be Wednesday and talk to one of there engineers to see if they have any idea what is going on.
At least I know now that it is not my stb causing the problem thanks for looking out for this problem.

Just got off the telephone with a engineer from wkyt and they were not aware of any of the problems that I am seeing so they are looking into it today, they found it to be interesting that it only happens during hd programs they said it might be their receiver they use to get the hd from cbs. they said to watch the hd programs Thursday night to see if it is still going on they said if it was still happening for me to contact them again Friday.
I noticed it again Monday night and last night, did anybody else notice these one second blackout periods the last couple of nights?

Originally posted by rndthm
I noticed it again Monday night and last night, did anybody else notice these one second blackout periods the last couple of nights?
Yes! I saw it again on JAG last night. I'll try to catch it with my recorder and send a sample AVI to WKYT if that will help.

Thanks ragamuffin....... That would probably be very helpful to them to see what is going on from our end. I got so mad last night that I turned to wtvq channel 40-1 and I had no problems what so ever watching their hd broadcast.

Just for confirmation, I have been seeing these dropouts fairly consistantly on 27's HD broadcast. Since I have been changing other hardware in my setup to accomodate changing to a new triple LNB DirecTV sat. dish, I had somewhat brushed it off until I got the changes made and stabilized. It seems pretty consistant on their HD programming and if you change to the SD broadcast of the same programming, it isn't present in the SD broadcast. FYI.

Same here Kymikes, on the hd programming I only see it on 27-1 if I change to channel 27-2 I never see the problem of the sd broadcast of the same program, so far I believe I am the only one that has called about this problem lately it might help wkyt figure this problem out if a few more people that are seeing this call in and report it. The person that I had talked to at wkyt was jamie powell.

The same thing was happening at my father's place in Raleigh a couple of weeks ago when I was there for Xmas. The CBS affliate there actually shows locally-originated HD content (including local news) and all of that was fine. Anything HD from CBS, though, would exhibit video "blackouts" of less than a second in length several times an hour. (Audio wouldn't usually be affected.) He says they eventually got it fixed.

It sounds like CBS has changed their feed in some way recently, and it's affecting some affiliate's systems.

I haven't seen it myself on KYT, because I haven't watched anything HD on KYT in the last week or so. SD stuff on 27-1 has been rock-solid.

Hopefully KYT can get it straightened out before the playoffs this weekend.

Ryan

So far so good looks like the phone call made a difference, just got thru watching csi and I had no problems, how is everybody else doing tonight on wkyt, I will be watching without a trace to see if all goes well with it also.

without a trace had no problems either on my end, 2 good solid hours of cbs hd programming without any problems.

Appears all clear on my front as well. Two hours starting with CSI without a blip. Three cheers that they now know what causes the problem.

CSI looked good for me. Two glitches but they were reception-related, not in the stream.

A question -- did it take anyone longer to tune in 27-1 than usual? It took about 5-10 seconds for my Sony HD200 to pull it in. I actually got a "no signal" message before it finally showed up. After that, it was fine. 27-2 came in as quickly as usual, as did all sat channels. Wondering if the KYT fix might be related.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take a slow tune over "blackouts" any day.

Ryan

Ryan, I did not have that problem with my Sammy 160. I tuned off channel a couple of times (during ads mostly) and 27-1 tuned back in very quickly, either through the guide or using "back" to switch channels. 5 - 10 seconds is a looooong time based on any experience that I have had on either OTA or D* HD content but I sure don't have any clue as to what might cause it. Good luck.

Hmmm. Strange. It hadn't happened before, and hasn't since. I'll keep an eye on it.

Thanks!

Ryan

I called kyt today on one of my breaks and I asked them if they found any problems and made a fix and they said they checked everything and could not find any problems they were also keeping an eye on 27-1 last night to see if they could see any problems and seen none well guess what neither did I nor anybody else, they said it could have been a problem coming from the cbs feed to them, they said to keep an eye on it and let them know of anymore problems like that, so if anybody see's any 1 second black out periods please post them and I will call and let them know, I am going to try and watch as much as possible this weekend but this is also my weekend to work at work.

Watched the two HDTV NFL playoff games this weekend and had zero blackouts.

Tuning's back to normal, too. Poltergeists, I guess.

Ryan

Did anyone see a digital broadcast from WKYT-DT yesterday (1/25/2003)late afternoon through late evening? I had been receiving them at about 50% strenght the evening before, and used Saturday morning to move my antenna outside and up the tower. When I finished, I was ready for the SuperBowl ((WTVQ at 92%), but 0% from WKYT. Thanx in advance.

Bill

Originally posted by KF4RAV
Did anyone see a digital broadcast from WKYT-DT yesterday (1/25/2003)late afternoon through late evening? I had been receiving them at about 50% strenght the evening before, and used Saturday morning to move my antenna outside and up the tower. When I finished, I was ready for the SuperBowl ((WTVQ at 92%), but 0% from WKYT. Thanx in advance.

Bill

Bill,

AFAIK, they were on-air all day ... or at least whenever I surfed through the channels... In any case, I just checked and they are coming through fine as I type ...

HDC

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Bill,

AFAIK, they were on-air all day ... or at least whenever I surfed through the channels... In any case, I just checked and they are coming through fine as I type ...

HDC


Thanx for the prompt reply.
I double checked based on your report and I had left the VHF side disconnected.

Thanx agian,
Bill

I just looked on antennaweb and their showing DKY up. I tried to pull them in, but I see nothing. Has anyone seen anything yet?

Originally posted by the19hole
I just looked on antennaweb and their showing DKY up. I tried to pull them in, but I see nothing. Has anyone seen anything yet?
Take a few minutes and read this entire thread... there's a lot of good info for the Lexington area DT's, including info on WDKY.

Yes, they are up and running at very low power. Basically the minimum required by the FCC to "pass" as being compliant. Their tower is located between Lexington and Danville. The antenna they are using is directional and pointing away from Lexington towards Danville. One guy on this list (HDTVChallenged) lives in Danville and has actually received the signal on VHF channel 4. WDKY is not passing any FOX widescreen... so I'm not sure what the point is for even trying anymore to even pick them up.

Nobody in Lexington has reported picking them up except for one screen capture I saw in the DTV section on the site http://www.dxfm.com.

Originally posted by the19hole
I just looked on antennaweb and their showing DKY up. I tried to pull them in, but I see nothing. Has anyone seen anything yet?

WDKY-DT has been up 24/7 (in stealth mode) since late November 2002. However, unless you are south of the KY river (Danville area) your chances of actually receiving WDKY-DT are just about zero %. Furthermore, there is no Fox WS (so far) ... just converted 480i ...

HDC

Test feed on right now KET4 until 11:00

Next test Sunday @8:00pm KET4

Official web site for KET HD/WS programming information:

http://www.ket.org/dtv/programs.htm

Can someone give suggestions on reception problem with DTV OTA? I am getting high levels of static in the sound on the Lexington stations to the point I can't hear the program. Picture reception is not a problem. I have a Mits 55511 being fed by a R.S. VU-90XR antenna that is on the roof of a two story in Frankfort. Any feedback would be great! Finally found some local HD people!

Originally posted by mbb
Can someone give suggestions on reception problem with DTV OTA? I am getting high levels of static in the sound on the Lexington stations to the point I can't hear the program. Picture reception is not a problem. I have a Mits 55511 being fed by a R.S. VU-90XR antenna that is on the roof of a two story in Frankfort. Any feedback would be great! Finally found some local HD people!
I have not tried the DTV's in town because I have no power due to the ice storm that hit lexington... there are about 60,000 people without power still... the television stations are having problems too... so I'd try again later in the week when the temperatures rise, the ice melts, and things get back to normal...

If you're seeing good quality picture, and your audio is goofed, then either the audio is being sent with problems, or you have a problem in your audio system. I can't do anything to give you more feedback until power is restored. They're saying it might take up to a week.

Are you seeing this "same" thing on DTV-13 (CBS WKYT), DTV-40 (ABC WTVQ), and DTV-42 (KET/PBS)?

Hello Lexington HDTV people,

Steve Cambus has an HDTV site (http://louisvillehdtv.com/) that needs help from one of you. His website was originally Louisville-only, but he agreed to add pages for some other Kentucky cities. I've finished the Bowling Green page - it's up there now. We just need someone from Lexington to do a Lexington page - that would give coverage of all of the major population centers in the state.

Anyone want to volunteer to do Lexington? Email Steve or me if you're interested.

-Reagan

Just turned on Lexington locals last night. Not sure about the quality yet?

I'm not having any luck finding any signal from TVQ. Is it just me or are they down?

Is WTVQ digital down?

Originally posted by the19hole
Is WTVQ digital down?
Yes they do appear to be down. I'm not seeing anything either on WTVQ-DT channel 40.

It's been a rough week due to the storms. I heard there was large chunks of ice dropping from the towers and damaging equipment and buildings. Let's hope that WTVQ's digital antenna wasn't damaged this week.

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Yes they do appear to be down. I'm not seeing anything either on WTVQ-DT channel 40.

It's been a rough week due to the storms. I heard there was large chunks of ice dropping from the towers and damaging equipment and buildings. Let's hope that WTVQ's digital antenna wasn't damaged this week.

Their engineering and accounting offices got hit pretty hard ... looks like a war zone. It's amazing that they've manged to stay on the air at all. Let's hope the digital xmitter and antenna survived. I asked them about the status of Ch40 via e-mail but they (understandably) haven't responded yet.

HDC

I'm not getting anything on either 27.1 or 36.1. That area was hit hard by the ice storm, they may well still be on generators -- in which case the analog stations are probably the priority.

Is 27.1 coming through for anyone?

Ryan

Originally posted by rspaight
Is 27.1 coming through for anyone?
27.1 has been working fine for me all this week. Coming in loud and clear as I type this reply.

Originally posted by ragamuffin
27.1 has been working fine for me all this week. Coming in loud and clear as I type this reply.

Hmmm. I got a weak (unwatchable) signal when my power came back earlier in the week, and now get a big fat zero. 36 worked for a while, but is now gone as well. I know it's not my antenna, since that's indoor.

Wonder if my set-top (Sony HD200) has issues?

Ryan

Never mind. I'm a moron. I was trying to get the Sony to scan on channel 27, not channel 13. Got the antenna set just right, scanned channel 13, and all is well.

Now I just need to remember to scan 40, not 36, when TVQ comes back...

Ryan

Anyone miss the first hour like me of the Grammy's on CBS tonight? It seems 13.1 just now came back up with power here at just before 9:00pm... Was it just me?

Yea, it was down. I also have the east coast CBS HD feed from dish so I didn't miss anything. On day long from now HD will be a priority, maybe.

Allen

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Anyone miss the first hour like me of the Grammy's on CBS tonight? It seems 13.1 just now came back up with power here at just before 9:00pm... Was it just me?

I swear they went down just as S&G sang "Hello darkness my old friend ..."

Hummm ...

HDC

Whew -- I'm it wasn't just me this time. I was starting to get paranoid. :)

I have a feeling things are going to be touch-and-go for a while. The storm really messed things up around here.

The HD feed looked kinda weird and jumpy when it came back up (as the NYP was introduced), but smoothed out after that and looked pretty good for the remainder. Loved the Clash tribute!

Ryan

Guys, I need some help picking a new antenna. I live in SW Lexington off of Clay's Mill. I currently have a Terk TV55 mounted 4 foot above my chimney with a rotor, my house is a ranch by the way. I get Lex CBS and ABC ok but struggle with others. I would like to improve Lexington stuff, try to pull in Louisville and anything else I can get my hands on. My receiver is a Dish 6000. I see some folks using a CM-4228. Can I sill get DT-13 with this UHF only? What pre-amp do you guys recommend? As most I'm not supposed to have an outdoor antenna, and I know the FCC says you can regardless of the restrictions. I have a huge attic but not willing to give up much, your thoughts? Ugly is a factor.

Thanks for your help!

Originally posted by the19hole
I see some folks using a CM-4228. Can I sill get DT-13 with this UHF only?
I've got a 4228 that gets VHF-13 flawlessly.
What pre-amp do you guys recommend?
I'm using a CM-7777.

HD feed tonight KET4 20:00 22:30

WTVQ-DT is back on the air! Welcome back :cool:

Originally posted by the19hole
Guys, I need some help picking a new antenna. I live in SW Lexington off of Clay's Mill. I currently have a Terk TV55 mounted 4 foot above my chimney with a rotor, my house is a ranch by the way. I get Lex CBS and ABC ok but struggle with others. I would like to improve Lexington stuff, try to pull in Louisville and anything else I can get my hands on. My receiver is a Dish 6000. I see some folks using a CM-4228. Can I sill get DT-13 with this UHF only? What pre-amp do you guys recommend? As most I'm not supposed to have an outdoor antenna, and I know the FCC says you can regardless of the restrictions. I have a huge attic but not willing to give up much, your thoughts? Ugly is a factor.

Thanks for your help!

I too have the CM4228 mounted in the attic and get 13 no problem. In fact, it comes in best of all!

Originally posted by the19hole
I sent you a PM... did you get it?

Anyone using Insight's HD? I did a quick search here and didn't see any mention it (except in the louisville thread).

I emailed insight, again, sharing my need for timeshifting (no way I can make it to the couch on time). I just wanted to remind them that this is important (i'm not sure there is anything more than ota that needs timeshifted as of now, but eventually there will be and I want themto keep it in mind).

In any case..... I was surfing around and bumped into this old article at http://www.media-visions.com/itv-cablehdtv.html and it mentions a Scientific America set top box that converts the cable co's QAM back to 8vsb. (sorry, semi-crosspost in hardware).

Insight HD seems like a good deal, 2 bucks?

Originally posted by jcblack
Anyone using Insight's HD?I don't have Insight yet... but four guys I work with have subscribed to the service. Since I already have an OTA tuner, and I'm not currently an Insight "digital" customer, there's no compelling reason to jump on Insight just yet (since I"ll need to add digital at about $10/month, and than the $2/month for HD). I'm not interested in the digital service since I use a Tivo to record via an analog tuner... So it's more then $2/month for me.

The guys I work with report that they're very happy with the service, although it's currently limited to CBS (via WKYT-DT), KET (hardly any HD though), HBO, and Showtime. ABC-HD is available and reportedly "hooked-up" and ready to transmit once they ink a deal. [NOTE: HBO and Showtime HD are available if you subscribe to the HBO and/or Showtime package... ie.. not included in the $2/month fee].

With ESPN-HD and possibly HDNet on the horizon, I'm probably game to jump on the Insight bandwagon eventually.

Anyone have any news to report on the latest ETA for WLEX-DT?

...Scientific America set top box that converts the cable co's QAM back to 8vsbHmmm... very interesting!

Anyone have any news to report on the latest ETA for WLEX-DT?

Anyone? Anyone?

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

Is any one else been having major late-night multipath trouble this week? WKYT-DT has been unwatchable after 11pm(ish).

HDC

I am seeing the audio dropouts on WKYT, but no signal dropouts. I noticed on the Louisville thread that someone was seeing the same audio problems on their CBS affiliate. Maybe it is a problem with the CBS source.

Also has anyone see problems with PAX? I am seeing Audio and Video come and go, but again the signal is fine.

Originally posted by Wellington
I am seeing the audio dropouts on WKYT, but no signal dropouts.

I'm 90% sure its thunderstorm induced multipath. Even the analog stations were blanking out tonight.

HDC

Anyone using insight's HD in lexington yet? Did you get it yet, ragamuffin?

The Lousiville thread is pretty busy. There is a lot of talk about HDnet and Espn and discovery on insight. What's the story here in lexington? same? ...I'd assume it would be.

Thought I'd ask here again before sending insight an email...

jcblack,

I don't have Insight HD yet... I would need to step up to digital ($10 more per month for me), and then the additional $2 for HD as well.

A bunch of guys I work have it and they like it, but are somewhat disappointed with the content. No ABC yet, which means Insight HD customers missed the NBA finals and Stanley Cup hockey. Doesn't appear to be any plan in place to get this up and running anytime soon either. Both sides say they're ready, and that the other side is holding things up...

Right now I get more for free OTA (with NBC out of Louisville on a good day) than Insight offers me. I saw the posts on the Louisville thread and was curious myself. I'll ask the guys at work next week and let you know if they've heard anything from Insight.

I have Insight HD and am quite happy, except for no ABC. The picture quality is different from Direct in my experience. Fewer artifacts but a lower color saturation.

Insight had announced in a strategic direction to rollout wider HD by end of 2nd quarter of this year across their systems. Looks like that is happening.

Anyone know anything about why WTVQ-DT Channel 40 is off the air?

Interesting info regarding WLEX-DT in the Louisville thread from mid last month at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=2324656#post2324656 ... this is HDTVChallenged's response to some info from William Smith at KET. Does this change in WLEX ownership accelerate their DTV interest any at all?

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Anyone know anything about why WTVQ-DT Channel 40 is off the air?

... this is HDTVChallenged's response to some info from William Smith at KET. Does this change in WLEX ownership accelerate their DTV interest any at all?

I suspect channel 40 was knocked off by the Friday storms ... plus they were having some trouble with their upconverter for a while .... then again they are still recovering from February ...

Somehow, I don't think all the ownership changes at WLEX are going to help the DTV transition at all ... WLEX as gone from being the market leader (technology-wise) to the market straggler ...

HDC

Edit/Update (7/13): Just after I posted this, I noticed channel 40 was back on during the wee-hours, checked this morning and they were off again .... hummm

Channel 36 HD is back on the air as of 6:24pm . . .

Hello guys. New to HDTV. Got my Fusion II about 3 weeks ago and was a little frustrated at the lack of OTA HD. There are several programs that are excellent but - Monday night football last monday night was nothing short of stunning. My wife kept saying "this looks REALLY good". Monday nights are gonna be good this season. I'm at Clays Ferry with a 8 bay channel master in the attic and getting good signal on cbs, abc and local pbs. Can't wait til lex18 cures their digitally challenged condition.

DaveS

I have a CM422 in the attic and I get WAVE at about 85% at night. I'm on the south side of Lex. Go to antennaweb.org ant get the direction and give it a try.

Hi.

I wanted to ask you fellow Lexingtonians for some advice.
Currently I get HDTV through Insight which is pretty good but the fact that they still do not have ABC drives me crazy because that means no Monday Night Football for me in HDTV. They also seem to lag behind with getting other HDTV channels like ESPN-HD and HDNET.
That is why I am thinking of getting OTA receiver and antenna.
I live in SE Lexington, off Tates Creek. The equipment I had in mind was the Samsung SIRT151 and the Zenith antenna.
I live in an appartment complex which means I cant put anything outdoors. Indoors only.
I will be happy to get any input from you guys.
Also if anyone has any news as to when Insight will have ABC and/or ESPN-HD please let us know.
Last time I talked to them they did not seem to know much, just said they expect to increase their lineup this fall.

Thanks.

Lost CBS. is CBS in Lexingotn offline or do I have a problem??? did a scan of channels lastnight and cbs did not show up nor did it today. Anyone having problems with ota cbs. --- DaveS

Originally posted by SNOOT
Lost CBS. is CBS in Lexingotn offline or do I have a problem??? did a scan of channels lastnight and cbs did not show up nor did it today. Anyone having problems with ota cbs. --- DaveS

Yes ... they are off the air, phone receptionist did not have an estimate as to when they'd be back up, but they are "working on it." They had some trouble with the analog side on Saturday, so perhaps they are scavenging parts to keep 27 up ... (speculation.)

HDC

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Yes ... they are off the air, phone receptionist did not have an estimate as to when they'd be back up, but they are "working on it." They had some trouble with the analog side on Saturday, so perhaps they are scavenging parts to keep 27 up ... (speculation.)

HDC

I had heard that they were off the air this past weekend (analog 27 and digital 13) putting in a new generator. Perhaps (speculation) they are still making some adjustments.

Originally posted by JohnnyVolcano
Hi.

I wanted to ask you fellow Lexingtonians for some advice.
Currently I get HDTV through Insight which is pretty good but the fact that they still do not have ABC drives me crazy because that means no Monday Night Football for me in HDTV. They also seem to lag behind with getting other HDTV channels like ESPN-HD and HDNET.
That is why I am thinking of getting OTA receiver and antenna.
I live in SE Lexington, off Tates Creek. The equipment I had in mind was the Samsung SIRT151 and the Zenith antenna.
I live in an appartment complex which means I cant put anything outdoors. Indoors only.
I will be happy to get any input from you guys.
Also if anyone has any news as to when Insight will have ABC and/or ESPN-HD please let us know.
Last time I talked to them they did not seem to know much, just said they expect to increase their lineup this fall.

Thanks.

If you have not read through the L'ville thread yet, AVS L'ville Thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=1062650#post1062650), I'd suggest browsing through there first for what might be possible with Insight eventually. It seems that Insight is blazing it's trail in L'ville as they appear way out in front of anyone else technically (with HDNET, ESPN-HD, ABC, CBS, NBC, DISC-HD, and PBS). I'm assuming that Lexington Insight should follow at some point in time... "when" is the $10,000 question.

Lexington Inisight currently offers nothing more than what you can get OTA today (minus ABC with no solution in sight). I've been OTA long before Insight came into play. I'd like to get ESPN-HD and HDNET at some point, and it appears that Insight will be using the upcoming Motorola HD PVR which interests me...

To answer your OTA in the Tates Creek area question, the Samsung is a good receiver. WKYT and WTVQ are both located at the intersection of Man O'War and Winchester roads, roughly NorthEast of your location. PBS is located roughly SouthEast of your location (I-75 at the river). You mention you're in an apartment, are you on first floor, or a higher floor? Do you have rooms that face these general directions "clearly", or are you on the opposite side of the building. Are there other buildings blocking your view in the "optimal" directions? If you have "height" and an open view in these general directions, just about anything will work for you antenna-wise for these locals.

Does anyone else out there have problems with KET's audio PSIP's via OTA?

I'm currently trying to archive a segment of a show to a DVD and when I use DVDtoAVI to demux the audio and video, the AC3 delta number "calculated" by DVDtoAVI is garbage due to too many "wacky" sub channels in the audio stream (invalid audio PSIP's?). I've never had a problem doing this with any other OTA stream. I've also heard about some issues with certain OTA tuners getting confused when switching to KET sub channels (I can't remember the specific details). My spcicific OTA tuner (HiPix) works fine in this regard though, does anyone else out there have KET audio PSIP issues?

Originally posted by ragamuffin
If you have not read through the L'ville thread yet, AVS L'ville Thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=1062650#post1062650), I'd suggest browsing through there first for what might be possible with Insight eventually. It seems that Insight is blazing it's trail in L'ville as they appear way out in front of anyone else technically (with HDNET, ESPN-HD, ABC, CBS, NBC, DISC-HD, and PBS). I'm assuming that Lexington Insight should follow at some point in time... "when" is the $10,000 question.

Lexington Inisight currently offers nothing more than what you can get OTA today (minus ABC with no solution in sight). I've been OTA long before Insight came into play. I'd like to get ESPN-HD and HDNET at some point, and it appears that Insight will be using the upcoming Motorola HD PVR which interests me...

To answer your OTA in the Tates Creek area question, the Samsung is a good receiver. WKYT and WTVQ are both located at the intersection of Man O'War and Winchester roads, roughly NorthEast of your location. PBS is located roughly SouthEast of your location (I-75 at the river). You mention you're in an apartment, are you on first floor, or a higher floor? Do you have rooms that face these general directions "clearly", or are you on the opposite side of the building. Are there other buildings blocking your view in the "optimal" directions? If you have "height" and an open view in these general directions, just about anything will work for you antenna-wise for these locals.

I live on second floor. Apt is facing south, so I dont have direct line of sight to the ABC, CBS tower. However, The whole area is on a hill so I guess the entire location is pretty high.
I will probably get the Samsung. which antenna is recommended considering I can only use indoors?

Thanks.

Originally posted by JohnnyVolcano
I live on second floor. Apt is facing south, so I dont have direct line of sight to the ABC, CBS tower. However, The whole area is on a hill so I guess the entire location is pretty high.
I will probably get the Samsung. which antenna is recommended considering I can only use indoors?
Do you have any wife acceptance factor issues? I'm assuming you'll be primarily interested in ABC and CBS... if so then I'd suggest a CM-3021/CM-4221 4-bay UHF antenna. You should be able to pick one up locally at Radio Electronics on Skain Ave. (behind Herald Leader building) for less than $25.00. CBS is on VHF channel 13 but the UHF only CM-3021/CM-4221 has no problem receiving this VHF channel. This is a "directional" antenna that you'll need to rotate around towards the SouthEast to pick up PBS when interested. This is an "outdoor" antenna, but could easily be tucked into a closet somewhere possibly. It's roughly 18 inches wide, 3 feet tall, and has about 6 inches of depth.

Originally posted by ragamuffin
I had heard that they were off the air this past weekend (analog 27 and digital 13) putting in a new generator. Perhaps (speculation) they are still making some adjustments.

Well, I just got an e-mail from the operations VP. He said they are having problems with the high-voltage transformer that feeds the station, and are cutting power consumption back to avoid loosing it completely. They expect to have it replaced Friday night and everything back to normal by the weekend ... Looks like a Ghosty Amazing Race this week.

HDC

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Do you have any wife acceptance factor issues? I'm assuming you'll be primarily interested in ABC and CBS... if so then I'd suggest a CM-3021/CM-4221 4-bay UHF antenna. You should be able to pick one up locally at Radio Electronics on Skain Ave. (behind Herald Leader building) for less than $25.00. CBS is on VHF channel 13 but the UHF only CM-3021/CM-4221 has no problem receiving this VHF channel. This is a "directional" antenna that you'll need to rotate around towards the SouthEast to pick up PBS when interested. This is an "outdoor" antenna, but could easily be tucked into a closet somewhere possibly. It's roughly 18 inches wide, 3 feet tall, and has about 6 inches of depth.

The wife factor is a HUGE one. Since I get CBS and PBS in HD through insight, the only reason I am getting an OTA is for ABC's monday night football, other than that, I really dont watch much of ABC. So basically I am getting the OTA for one channel and one show only.

Would the zenith antenna work fine with the samsung tuner?

Originally posted by JohnnyVolcano
Would the zenith antenna work fine with the samsung tuner?
The question isn't whether the zenith and the samsung will work together... the question is will the zenith pull in the signals you want to receive (regardless of what tuner you're using... but some tuners do reject multipath better than others, especially the newer generation of tuners)? I'd say give it a try and let us know... when you buy your zenith, see what the store's return policy is if it doesn't happen to work out for you.

In your apartment, without direct line of site to the tower, you'll probably be seeing some multipath signal (ghosting on analog channels), in the digital world this could manifest itself in periodic dropouts in signal (macroblocking).

You don't mention which zenith antenna you're referrring to specifically (or I missed it), if it's an "omni" style antenna, then it might increase multipath issues, where a directional antenna like the CM-3021 will have less of a problem "locking" in on the signal.

We won't know though until you try it... give it a whirl and good luck!

On September 15th Insight will be launching a new HD Pak....
ESPN HD 775
Discovery HD Theater 776
HD-Net 777
HD-Net Movies 778

Also on the 29th Insight will be adding
Bravo HD on Channel 774...

The HD Pak will be $7.95/month

Bravo will be added to the Broadcast HD tier at no additional cost.

In the Analog World, CSPAN and CSPAN 2 will be moving to 57 & 58

WBKI (WB Programming) will be added on Channel 17.

WLJC from Beattyville will be added to Channel 98.

WKYT will be Changing to channel 9, while The Weather Channel moves to Channel 2.


Winston Boggs
Technical Operations Manager
Insight (Lexington)

Winston,

That's GREAT news! Can you comment on the lack of ABC-HD at the moment and if it might possibly be added for the upcoming MNF season just around the corner?

I've also read in the L'ville thread on this forum about Insight possibly providing a single control box solution (i.e. Motorola DCT6208 (http://broadband.motorola.com/noflash/dct6208.html)) with HD PVR capability in the near future. Is this true for Lexington Insight as well? And if so, is this included in the $7.95 rate above, or will there be an additional cost?

Thanks!

they're back up as of 10:15am this morning...

Originally posted by ragamuffin
they're back up as of 10:15am this morning...

As promised ... although something seems a bit off with the PQ on 1080i sub. The encoder seems to be having a very difficult time handling rapid scene cuts. There's blurry ghosting that seems to be originating in the analog feed. It also looks like there's some AC interference on analog, maybe that what is giving the encoder a hard time. Upconverted PQ, was definately better before the shutdown, but I suppose we can give them a couple of days to get it ironed out again.

HDC

Ragamuffin,

I cannot really comment too much about WTVQ-HD, but as you might know they recently had a change of local management. I can say it is our desire to carry all available Broadcast HD Programming available.

There is a new middleware in test that will allow the use of the 5100 for all services, including our interactive services. The date for deployment has been moved back a few times, but it looks like the next month or so.

Yes we plan to offer the new Motorola 6208 sometimes near the first of the year, but too early to know about pricing yet.


Thanks,
Winston

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
... something seems a bit off with the PQ on 1080i sub. The encoder seems to be having a very difficult time handling rapid scene cuts.

Ok, looks like some analog frame dropping going on at the input to the local upconverter. Interlace artyfacts abound on any rapid motion.

PGA Golf - bad
Local News - bad
Amazing Race; Local commercial inserts - bad
Amazing Race; program video and CBS fed commercials - good
The District - the usual CBS HD quality

Conclusion: something's 'broken' with the local upconversions

HDC

Originally posted by HDTVChallenged
Ok, looks like some analog frame dropping going on at the input to the local upconverter. Interlace artyfacts abound on any rapid motion.

PGA Golf - bad
Local News - bad
Amazing Race; Local commercial inserts - bad
Amazing Race; program video and CBS fed commercials - good
The District - the usual CBS HD quality

Conclusion: something's 'broken' with the local upconversions

HDC
I agree that "something" is whacky... I've been watching the PGA for the past couple of hours and what I'm seeing is a venetian blind "tearing" effect (interlacing?) that gets worse during motion. I'm not sure if this is edge enhancement artifacting or not. I'm also seeing an overall darker picture than normal from WKYT-DT during upconverting. Definitely not as good a picture (when there isn't an HD source) as what I've been used to seeing in the past.

I didn't watch the Amazing Race you mention above... How was that fed differently than the PGA? It wasn't in HD was it?

Edit: Here's a screen grab...

http://www.nelsonplain.com/image0009.jpg

Originally posted by ragamuffin
I didn't watch the Amazing Race you mention above... How was that fed differently than the PGA? It wasn't in HD was it?


Not in HD, but CBS upconverts some of their SD programs at the network, and then transmit them down at 1080i. Amazing Race and the last 2 Survivors have been done this way. If you have a quick eye, you can tell when KYT switches between their up-con and the CBS up-con in order to insert local commercials. I suspect since PGA is a quasi-live event, it doesn't get the special network treatment.

Anyway - good to see I'm not the only one seeing bad interlace lines. It might be a good idea to e-mail that pic to the station, I sent an e-mail but I can't capture a pic to go with it. To me it looks like one of the half frames is getting dropped, or they are getting converted in reversed order.

HDC

Well,
I could be jinxing things, but, it looks like WKYT finally found the source of the upconversion trouble ... maybe they did enough ctrl-alt-dels during the storms yesterday to fix the problem :D

OTHO, the station logo has also disappeared, which raises the possibility, that the ID overlay may have been generating the problem ... time will tell if things stay fixed.

HDC

Originally posted by ragamuffin
Does anyone else out there have problems with KET's audio PSIP's via OTA?

I'm currently trying to archive a segment of a show to a DVD and when I use DVDtoAVI to demux the audio and video, the AC3 delta number "calculated" by DVDtoAVI is garbage due to too many "wacky" sub channels in the audio stream (invalid audio PSIP's?). I've never had a problem doing this with any other OTA stream. I've also heard about some issues with certain OTA tuners getting confused when switching to KET sub channels (I can't remember the specific details). My spcicific OTA tuner (HiPix) works fine in this regard though, does anyone else out there have KET audio PSIP issues?

I have tried more than once to talk with the HiPix tech support about the issue. The Hi Pix decoder software assumes that there is only one audio stream with each service. The KET stream is ATSC compliant and the audio streams are signaling properly. Unfortunately, I can't help you and the HiPix tech support just blames it on us. I have a $35K stream analyzer that confirms stream compliance.

UK @ Alabama confirmed on ESPN HD!!

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tvlistings/index?date=20030913

(No comment on our last game....:eek: )

I have E* and live in Gtown - but called Insight just to see if ESPN HD was available in Lex yet - lets see, the game is on the 13 and they expect to have it available on the 15th!!! Great timing!!

So it appears those with D* (or maybe a big dish) are in luck.

Does anyone know of any Lexington area bars (besides Two Keys) with a HD setup?

Originally posted by Gruber22
UK @ Alabama confirmed on ESPN HD!!

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tvlistings/index?date=20030913

(No comment on our last game....:eek: )

*pops in from louisville thread*
No comment is neccessary. :cool:

Heheh, but seriously, very cool news about the UK game being on ESPN HD. It would have been great to have the UK vs UL game on it though.. =/ Oddly enough, InHD is also doing a EKU vs WKU game in HD.
http://www.inhd.com/products/viewProduct.jsp?prodId=10612

Insight up here has been early on getting channels up and running, so maybe they'll have it up in time for the game. Every time there was a big event on HD, Insight always made a push to get it up in time (both for the Superbowl and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, they got ABC and CBS up in only a couple of days before their respective events.) Be sure to let them know they'll miss out on this game if they dont' get it up in time.

Any news yet about ABC-HD? with the new insight HD pack coming sept. 15th, I'd hate spend money for an OTA tuner just for Monday Night Football.

Also, will insight have inHD channels?

Originally posted by William Smith
I have tried more than once to talk with the HiPix tech support about the issue. The HiPix decoder software assumes that there is only one audio stream with each service. The KET stream is ATSC compliant and the audio streams are signaling properly. Unfortunately, I can't help you and the HiPix tech support just blames it on us. I have a $35K stream analyzer that confirms stream compliance.

William,

I grabbed a trial version of a $49.95 ATSC stream analyzer from Manzanita and analyzed some streams captured from KET and local CBS. Here's a summary table of the information gathered:
http://www.nelsonplain.com/atsc/table.gif
I have two friends that each have a different capture card than me (I use the HiPix). Both of them report problems receiving the KET DT sub channel streams. One of them is using a MyHD card, the other is using the Hauppauge WinTV-D card. My HiPix doesn't have any problems selecting KET-DT sub channels (can you clarify what particular problem you've tried to contact HiPix tech about?). The TS streams captured by all these cards contains a complete digital stream archive for all program material (i.e. all sub channels included). I'm using third party software that operates on these TS streams to demux a selected audio stream, this software operates independantly from the HiPix or MyHD cards... It barfs on KET captures for any KET streams, regardless of capture hardware.

I've included the screen captures from Manzanita for each of the PIDs included in the table above at this link (http://www.nelsonplain.com/atsc/index.html).

I don't disagree with you that the KET streams are ATSC compliant. The question I have is why are your streams so "different" than the other DT stations? Why two audio streams on your first three channels (how can I take advantage of the secondary stream)? Why a fifth program stream (that no tuners that I'm aware of can see at all)? Why are you not using the "conventional" PID numbers of 0x11, 0x21, 0x31, etc for video... and 0x14, 0x24, etc for audio? Why the duplicated Audio PID of 0x0064 for both program #'s 0x0006 and 0x000A?

Thanks!

-rm

Because we went first... and we use different equipment that WKYT..

KET's streams allow for a second audio service (the DTV equivalent of SAP audio)With KET1 its a descriptive service for the visually impaired.


A lot of DTV equipment is was originally developed to be compliant with the DVB standard. DVB reserves the PID 10 and 11(Hex) so to maximize equipment compatability and resolve conflicts ATSC recommended we avoid those.

The PID values are also standardized with PBS.

Service A0 is a placeholder used to map EPG information for the analog services into DTV receivers. After the experience with the ice storm, I'm looking into how to use it as a "breakaway" service. (Different Video same audio).

The PIDS are also matched with the PBS Satellite feeds. In an emergency we could just patch PBS's DTV stream into the network and the PBS feeds would pass right through the system with the PBS X feed going to KET1 and PBS Kids going to KET2)


So as you can see there has been some planning going on..

A big problem is that some decoders (and software)ignore the data in the VCT (Virtual Channel Table) and make assumptions on the stream structure.


As a network of transmitters, we can't just make radical changes. We don't just mess up one transmitter, we can screw up 16 at the same time!

Or worst case 32! 16 analog and 16 Digital.

Originally posted by William Smith
As a network of transmitters, we can't just make radical changes. We don't just mess up one transmitter, we can screw up 16 at the same time!

Or worst case 32! 16 analog and 16 Digital.

.... just don't sneeze at the wrong time ;)

And one more thing.. The encoding system that WKYT is using was developed from the ground up as an ATSC product.

My guess as to why the software decoders are having trouble is the interleave between the video and audio data packets.

If you could strip out (based on PIDs)the second audio service it might work... if you fill it with null packets...

Wanted to let everyone know that Insight in Lexington will begin the transmission of ESPN HD starting Saturday in time for the KY/ALA game on ESPN HD that evening. It will be a free preview and everyone with Insight HD will be authorized to receive. Pretty sure it will be on free for everyone for 30 Days.
Thanks,
Winston

Hey all, long time lurker, first time poster. Have a couple of questions about OTA HD in Lexington.

1st, I know Fox and WB have Digital channels broadcasting now, but from reading online seems they are simply rebroadcasting their SD signal. Was curious if this is indeed the case, and has either announced any time table of actually broadcasting actual HD content?

Second, I am looking for recomendations for a local antenna retailer/installer. I have a single antenna on the roof that picks up CBS/PBS great, but ABC comes in and out at will. I'd like to contact someone with know-how and equipment to get up on my roof (I am not a roof climber, too afraid of heights, even for HD). I'm hoping that a professional could ensure a good signal for all of the channels in the area (CBS, ABC, PBS, FOX and WB (realizing that at this time Fox is at best simply 480p widescreen -- but even the posibility of Smallville and Fox Football in HD at some pointin the future is worth some effort)). From my location in Lexington (outside Man-O-War on RR, right before Jacobson Park) I'm assuming I'll have to consider multiple antenna and a pre-amp (dark blue for the WB/Fox, yellow for the others).

So, anyone have some suggestions on a local installer? I'm willing to spend a little bit of money, but obviously the more affordable the better. I'm simply wanting to ensure reception for what is available now, and be well prepared for when other channels start broadcasting.

Thanks for any leads, and thanks for all the previous information these forums have provided!

Originally posted by jstew9
1st, I know Fox and WB have Digital channels broadcasting now, ... and has either announced any time table of actually broadcasting actual HD content?
I haven't heard anything about either of these "locals" passing HD content through yet.
Second, I am looking for recomendations for a local antenna retailer/installer.
I'm a DIY person myself... so no experience with local installers.
I have a single antenna on the roof that picks up CBS/PBS great, but ABC comes in and out at will. I'm hoping that a professional could ensure a good signal for all of the channels in the area (CBS, ABC, PBS, FOX and WB). From my location in Lexington (outside Man-O-War on RR, right before Jacobson Park) I'm assuming I'll have to consider multiple antenna and a pre-amp (dark blue for the WB/Fox, yellow for the others).

From the "speculation" department... I've heard rumors that WLEX (NBC) will possibly be co-locating their DT antenna on the same tower as WTVQ-DT (corner of Man O'War and Winchester roads) in the near future. I've also heard speculation that FOX will be putting up a new tower and possibly switching from their current DT VHF channel 4 to something in the UHF range... I don't think the new tower will be located where their current DTV VHF-4 transmitter is currently located. So before you invest in multiple antennas (and you'll be very lucky to pickup FOX currently on VHF 4 at your current location even with a super pro installation), I'd make sure it won't be outdated in the very near future.

And I'd also suggest looking into a rotator for your current antenna. You don't mention which direction your current antenna is pointed towards? You can use the web site at
L'ville HD (http://www.louisvillehdtv.com/lex.aspx) for the Lexington area DTV tower locations. You should be able to point it in the middle of the WKYT-DT and WTVQ-DT towers and get both CBS and ABC perfectly, especially from your location... and then possibly also be able to pick up PBS from the back of your antenna, you won't know until you try. From your description, it sounds like you might be pointing towards PBS, and getting CBS in the back end of your antenna while ABC is being rejected from the back end because it is off axis?

And BTW, you're practically sitting under these towers, you don't need a pre-amp.

Major Networks:

CBS - http://www.cbs.com/info/hdtv/ (week at a glance, special seasonal events in fine print "news" section at bottom of listing)
ABC - http://www.abcactionnews.com/programming/hdtv.shtml(Tampa/StPetersburg ABC affiliate)
NBC - http://www.nbc.com/nbc/header/TV_Schedule/index.html
KET - http://www.ket.org/dtv/programs.htm
WB - http://wgntv.trb.com/entertainment/wbnetwork/stv-wb-hdtv-fall03.htmlstory
FOX - ???

PBS - http://www.ptvdigital.org/dt2a_sep.html (National PBS)

Additional current Insight CableTV Offerings:

ESPN-HD - http://espn.go.com/espnhd/schedule.html
HDNet - http://www.hd.net/schedule_sevenday.html
HDNetMovies - http://www.hd.net/movies_schedule_sevenday.html
BravoHD+ - http://www.bravotv.com/HDPlus/
DiscoveryHD - http://dhd.discovery.com/schedule/upcoming/upcoming.html

Future Possible additions:

InHD - http://www.inhd.com/matrix/matrix.jsp
TSN - http://www.tsn.ca/shows/feature.asp?fid=7805 (Canadian ESPN equivalent)

Originally posted by ragamuffin
From the "speculation" department... I've heard rumors that WLEX (NBC) will possibly be co-locating their DT antenna on the same tower as WTVQ-DT (corner of Man O'War and Winchester roads) in the near future. I've also heard speculation that FOX will be putting up a new tower and possibly switching from their current DT VHF channel 4 to something in the UHF range...

Yeah ... WLEX and WTVQ originally planned to share a DTV tower before all the CP trouble at WLEX ... I don't know if that's still a go, but the tower sharing plan was one of the reasons they wanted to move to channel 39. I'm more than a little annoyed at WLEX for putting up their new radar system, yet still we have no NBC DTV. Obviously, $$$ issues were not the problem.

As for WDKY, they would be supremely stupid to give up VHF channel 4 and move back to UHF ... but we are talking about Sinclair here ;)

Has anyone in the Lexington area actually recieved WBKI-DT (19)? I get blips at night, but no strength. I have better luck with the Cincy DT WB station (channel 33).

HDC

Ragamuffin,
Thanks for the listing. I am confused (a somewhat constant state) as I didn't think that Insight was carrying InHD as part of their Lexington line up. Have I missed something?

Originally posted by djohn
I am confused (a somewhat constant state) as I didn't think that Insight was carrying InHD as part of their Lexington line up. Have I missed something?
You're correct... I made this list a couple of weeks ago and was using the L'ville Insight thread info and assuming Lexington would follow in step eventually. Since then L'ville Insight pulled InHD from their "preview" channel. Sorry for the mis-info, and thanks for the correction. I've editted the listing above to reflect this mistake.

HDC,

WDKY might still move to another channel, DTV on VHF-LO channels have a real problem with impulse noise, (Such as the kind generated by electric motors). Plus remember that most consumer devices have an RF modulator and output on 3 or 4 so many reception problems can be generated by consume devices.

And remember that before DTV Lexington was a UHF only market, Not everyone is going to have a VHF antenna and WDKY doesn't have the power that WKYT has to overcome the antenna mismatch..


So they may move later, but not back to 56....

Originally posted by William Smith
So they may move later, but not back to 56....

Still, it's ironic for a company that continually complains about the cost of DTV transition to want to move off of channel 4. (Power consumption wise.)

FWIW, even with the low power, I have relatively few problems with WDKY-DT ... it even manages to stay up when 56 gets knocked off by lightning.

HDC

Did anybody get some signal blimps lastnight from channel 39 ,my signal bar on me set last night was showing alot of activity going on but I could never get a lock on the signal for a picture...

Originally posted by rndthm
Did anybody get some signal blimps lastnight from channel 39 ,my signal bar on me set last night was showing alot of activity going on but I could never get a lock on the signal for a picture...

Didn't look last night ... I was locked into CBS ;)

HDC

Do you know if WLEX is still on track for being on the air with channel 39 by October 1st ???

Originally posted by rndthm
Do you know if WLEX is still on track for being on the air with channel 39 by October 1st ???

I've never heard a firm date from anyone at the station or even any speculation as to when WLEX will get up and running. I'd hate to have to boycott another season of NBC though.

HDC

Originally posted by rndthm
Do you know if WLEX is still on track for being on the air with channel 39 by October 1st ???

I wrote to WLEX a couple of weeks ago and David Powell, the chief engineer replied, stating they are waiting for delivery of the antenna which will be about six months. So they are looking at the first part of next year. But he was clear not to commit to a date as it is beyond the station's control for the antenna's delivery.

Dave

Originally posted by djohn
I wrote to WLEX a couple of weeks ago and David Powell, the chief engineer replied, stating they are waiting for delivery of the antenna which will be about six months. So they are looking at the first part of next year. But he was clear not to commit to a date as it is beyond the station's control for the antenna's delivery.

Oh well, that makes my viewing choices much easier. Hope they at least make it up by the olympics :(

HDC

I don't exactly know what my question is here so let me just describe the situation and any insight would be appreciated.

First . . . I live off Richmond Road just outside of Man O' War and I have one of those little Terk antennas in my apartment. With the antenna in one set position, I pick up WKYT-HD and WTVQ-HD at max signal strength via both my MyHD card and my Samsung HDTV receiver. At that same antenna position, I pick up KET at around half-max signal. If I move the antenna to a different location I can pick up KET at max signal or PAX at a very low signal strength. All of that is background info but is not really relevant to my question.

So . . . I have a cabin with my father and brother about 80 miles east / south east of Lexington close to Cave Run lake. For those of you familiar with the area, it's off 1274 about 2 miles from the Longbow boat ramp and maybe 15 - 20 miles southwest of Morehead. My dad had bought an antenna at Radio Shack in Morehead (I have no idea of model) for picking up regular TV. This was before I was interested in HDTV and before I had any way of watching it. So I decide I would take my HDTV receiver and my HDTV monitor to the cabin and see what I could pick up. I picked up WKYT-HD pretty good - about 5 bars on my HDTV receiver. However, I couldn't pick up WTVQ-HD at all. I would think since the antennas for WKYT and WTVQ are so close and my antenna is 80 miles away that for all intents and purposes the WKYT and WTVQ antennas are in the same location. So I don't think it's a problem with pointing my antenna. Is WTVQ's antenna pointing in a different area or is it not transmitting at the same power as WKYT's or what? Any recommendations on how I could possibly pick up WTVQ-HD?

Also, just as FYI, although we can pick up Huntington, Cincinnati and Louisville analog signals, I've had no luck picking up any HD channels from any of those locations. Not that I expected to but I was hoping against hope I guess since our cabin is on top of a ridge and we have pretty clear line of sight in most any direction.

WTVQ's digital antenna is low on their tower and is directional. Its pointed to the west ( toward downtown). This is a lower power system. WKYT is has their DTV antenna side mounted at the top of the tower and is pattern for the east. You should be able to pick up KET's Morehead station ( RF channel 15) if you are on the ridge line and can see the analog on 38....

Yeah, I am picking up KET's digital feed from Morehead and also the digital feed for PAX from Morehead.

Thanks for the info on the antennas for WTVQ & WKYT.

DaveStrorm,

Which version of the Samsung HDTV receiver do you have? I have the Samsung SIR-T150. I am having trouble with PAX. (Morehead) It cuts in and out. Not dropout, if I watch the signal meter it stays solid. Then the unit will lock up and "re-start". Something strange is going on because.... when I turn my antenna to get the PAX station in Louisville (DT 8) all is fine. No problems. So it does not seem to be a problem with the network feed. Maybe a problem with Morehead's transmitter? I do not think it is my box as that station is the only one that does it. Just wondering if you or anyone else have seen this.

Originally posted by Wellington
I am having trouble with PAX. (Morehead) It cuts in and out. Not dropout, if I watch the signal meter it stays solid. Then the unit will lock up and "re-start".

I think something is bad in the PSIP data ... my E86 locks up solid whenever I try to tune to another station after viewing PAX(21)

HDC

I have the SIR-T165 and I haven't experienced dropouts on PAX or having my receiver re-boot after switching off that channel. But I haven't watched PAX that much while I've been there either.