I had emailed Earl Friday to see if he could get them to do something, so I don't know if it was me adding Springfield, or Earl getting D* to add it to their Database.Earl over at dbstalk.com ?

anyone know why D* uses their database instead of PSIP? It was nice setting up my E* receiver. I added the big three manually (three because KATV is not receivable in my house) and all the names came up with the signal and I just cut out the "DT" and "HD" since they were cut off anyways. A lot easier, it sounds like, than what D* subs have to do...It's a tossup. The D* system usually works ok, except you're limited to two markets for your DVR (non-DVR receivers work a bit differently, depending on model). For most people, this is not an issue. It makes it difficult for me if I want to view/record Joplin or Tulsa channels, which I can occasionally receive with my TV's tuner.

In areas where some local stations are lax about PSIP, the D* system is actually superior, as long as their database is accurate. If PSIP program data is used and is missing or incorrect, a show won't get recorded.

Yea, Earl Bonovich at dbstalk.com is who I emailed trying to get his to jog D* into fixing this, but it appears its the springfield dma that got the receiver working. It even uses the 7-1 guide data from the "old" 7-1, so it works great. Where there will be a problem is if 22-1 comes back, then there will be two 7-1's of which one will be 22-1 and one will be 44-3...I think. Hell, I don't know what's happening. Its working, that's all I know.

Yea, Earl Bonovich at dbstalk.com is who I emailed trying to get his to jog D* into fixing this, but it appears its the springfield dma that got the receiver working. It even uses the 7-1 guide data from the "old" 7-1, so it works great. Where there will be a problem is if 22-1 comes back, then there will be two 7-1's of which one will be 22-1 and one will be 44-3...I think. Hell, I don't know what's happening. Its working, that's all I know.heheheh, don't touch nothin' :)

Yea, Earl Bonovich at dbstalk.com is who I emailed trying to get his to jog D* into fixing this, but it appears its the springfield dma that got the receiver working. It even uses the 7-1 guide data from the "old" 7-1, so it works great. Where there will be a problem is if 22-1 comes back, then there will be two 7-1's of which one will be 22-1 and one will be 44-3...I think. Hell, I don't know what's happening. Its working, that's all I know.

I got 7.1 to work with my HR20-100 in the main room using the secondary Springfield DMA, but no luck with my HR20-700 in the bedroom. Not such a big deal since my wife watches in there primarily and she claims she doesn't care about HD...the horror!!

I got 7.1 to work with my HR20-100 in the main room using the secondary Springfield DMA, but no luck with my HR20-700 in the bedroom.You might try going into the Edit Off Air menu and resetting the OTA configuration. Then, re-enter the LR & Springfield ZIPs.

A hard reset (unplug), might help, too.

davenlr, is your HR20 a -100 or -700?

Mine is a -700. I had to reset off air settings, then do an initial setup, enter LR and Springfield, edit and check them as available, then go into fav's and check them.

Hey where do u live in Little Rock to ger ABC OTA??? I cant get it from west Little Rock.

OK it is possible to have two OTA's??? I live in West Little Rock and I have my OTA pointing toward NBC, CBS & FOX. ABC is 180 degrees the other direction. Any help?

Do a rescan on your TV. KATV-DT is currently originating from 42-3. Some receivers will remap to 7-1.

The subject we are discussing with two OTA markets is attempting to get DirecTV DVR to work to get the OTA signal.

Mauijiminar, ABC is in WLR now. If you can get channel 42-1, rescan and ABC will be 7-1 or 42-3 depending on how your set scans. You can try directly entering 44-3 or 44.3 if your set supports it.

ABC ch 7 analog is also in WLR now, but low power.

I just counted, I get 6 different FOX stations, two in HD, four in SD, and I can't get Nova in HD on PBS (yet)...Two more weeks...

I just counted, I get 6 different FOX stations, two in HD, four in SD, and I can't get Nova in HD on PBS (yet)...Two more weeks...I get 10 pbs channels. Two analog OTA, one satellite. The rest are OTA digital.

One is 24/7 PBS-"HD" but it's downconverted to 720p from 1080i, and multicast with two other SD sub channels. The result is, well, not quite DVD quality. Certainly not HD.

Hopefully, the MPEG4 PBS channel on D* will be much better quality. Dave, where did you see two more weeks for PBS-HD on D*?

mauijiminar,

Check your Private Messages (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/private.php?folderid=0).

I just counted, I get 6 different FOX stations, two in HD, four in SD, and I can't get Nova in HD on PBS (yet)...Two more weeks...
What happens in two weeks?

Davenlr, how are you getting so many Fox's? Oh wait, your FTA satellite, your big antenna, and D*, right? heh, thats kinda cheating. Sounds a lot like Comcasts BS commercials claiming they have way more HD channels than satellite does. Those are hillarious.

Anyway, I doubt anyone else here can help me with this, but I figured I would try cause maybe someone has a media center box. I just can NOT get my Windows Vista Media Center to show 42-3 OR 7-1. It worked just fine before the remapping, but since then, every single time I try either of the channels I get "No TV signal". I still have a good signal on all the 42's and no signal on 7-1 in the signal meter screen. I guess I get no 7-1 signal because VMC is still probably pointing back to the 22 area cause of the way that the information from MS is set up to specific frequencies and not whatever it can find. I just can't figure out at all how to get it to show up on 42-3 or 7-1. I figure I am going to need this soon to record stuff that the HR20 can't catch for my wife. So, if someone has a media center box and has got it working again with 7, let me know how.

Stevenken, try 44-3

It doesn't work that way, arxaw. The channels come from when the setup goes out to some site (presumably MS's) and gets the channel information for your zipcode. Then it sets them up as 1041, 1071, 1111, 1381, 1421, and so forth. You can go in and add "missing" channels like 7-2, 11-2, and the rest by putting them in two boxes, one for the 42 part and one for the 3 part. It automatically puts in the callsign for the channel. For instance, now when you put in 42 and 3, it comes up as KATV-HD like it should (before, it just said KWBF-DT3 for 42-3 and KWBF-DT2 for 42-2). You could go in there and alter that labeling if you want to, but it doesn't have any effect overall. This has adding of the channels has already been done for the channel both prior to the remap and post remap.

As I said before, it was working fine on 42-3 (1423) until they did the channel remapping to show it as 7-1. Now nothing shows up on 1423 or 1071. It just sits there with a black screen until it goes blue and says no tv signal. I have gone into the channel preferences and tried changing a couple of things to more accurately reflect it, but there has been no change. Because of their screwing with the mappings, I don't think this will ever work again on media center boxes until it gets back on the channel 22 assignment that most guide data sites think its supposed to be at.

Ok, nevermind, I don't know what changed, but somehow its working now. I went in to look at it after I posted that message and saw General Hospital (or whatever its supposed to be) on there. I guess something I did with the xml files earlier must have worked and I just wasn't able to see it until I exited out of it for a while. I could have sworn I restarted media center and everything and looked at it after I did the changes and nothing would work. Oh well, its up now, I guess thats what matters as if I actually wanted to watch anything off it.

hehe, that's what I said about the HR20, I don't know how it started working, but it does.

Sam, two weeks is when my defective Pansat 9200HD should be back from Panarex in California. Its a combo FTA (SD and HD), and ATSC receiver. I had it wrking on PBS-HD last weekend, and the quality was stunning. The part of the receiver that programs it would crash it tho, so I couldn't add anthing but PBS-HD...so I had to return it for a new one/repair.

Yea, I'm cheating:
KLRT DT HD OTA
WNYW HD D*
Fox Marquette Mi SD
Fox Montana
Fox Virgin Islands
Fox Beaumont Tx

I'm collecting Fox's so I can watch as many Green Bay Packer games as possible next fall, as I can't afford Directv's outrageous price for Sunday Ticket Superfan anymore.

Thats what you get for being a Packers fan. :)

Just so everyone knows, that was just a joke. Didn't want to be thought of as being rude.

I got the smiley hahaha. Gotta be a fan of someone... I like Da Bears too.

Anyone else lose KETS-DT? I was watching Soundstage, and got two quick "searching for signals" followed by a black screen, no sound, but signal is 80%. All receivers....Whats up?

Had a glitch that needed reseting.

Oh Ok...Thanks Matt. Thought maybe I had a bad transformer outside causing the signal to fail...Glad its not me.

I was beyond upset to find my computer must have somehow run out of drive space while recording Lost last night. ARRRRRRRRRHG :mad:

And be careful what you wish for. After weeks of complaining, it appears this happened because Comcast apparently boosted the bitrate back up. My final file ended up around 4.6GB, which was definitely bigger than the previous two weeks, and that was with the drive running out. Unfortunately, it was unplayable beyond the part where Desmond first meets that guy on the bed (and there's no way the first 15-20mins alone was 4.6GB).

So now I need to try to get them off the torrents. Yipee. :rolleyes:

Out of curiosity, what was the final file size you guys saw? Would it happen to fit on a blank DVD??? ;)

ooh, I hate when that happens. The bitrate is better, still not where it was in the first episode. Mine averaged 10.01mbps (12mbps was the first episode's average I believe, the last two have been 9mbps, every little bit helps, pun intended haha). Anyways, 70 minutes of recording (I give lots of padding on either end in case my computer's clock screws up) gave a 3.94GB file. With the commercials removed, I have a 2.33GB file. Could fit on a DVD. If the torrents don't work for you, PM me.

Yea, I'm cheating:
KLRT DT HD OTA
WNYW HD D*
Fox Marquette Mi SD
Fox Montana
Fox Virgin Islands
Fox Beaumont Tx

I'm collecting Fox's so I can watch as many Green Bay Packer games as possible next fall, as I can't afford Directv's outrageous price for Sunday Ticket Superfan anymore.

those FTA channels send HD? I thought it was only SD channels...might be looking into that some time if HD is involved...do any of the other networks' affiliates broadcast over FTA? Like say, an ABC affiliate perhaps, lol

ooh, I hate when that happens. The bitrate is better, still not where it was in the first episode. Mine averaged 10.01mbps (12mbps was the first episode's average I believe, the last two have been 9mbps, every little bit helps, pun intended haha). Anyways, 70 minutes of recording (I give lots of padding on either end in case my computer's clock screws up) gave a 3.94GB file. With the commercials removed, I have a 2.33GB file. Could fit on a DVD. If the torrents don't work for you, PM me.

Crazy. I have no idea why it wouldn't record ok then. I definitely had 4 GB of space available. Oh well.

Thanks for the offer...I'll keep you posted.

Yea, ABC affiliate in Missoula Montana, and the ABC affiliate in Puerto Rico (although that on requires a 10' C band dish). Only two free HD on FTA that I can get right now is PBS National and MYnetwork-HD. I'm sure there are others but are either scrambled or using 4:2:2 video which my receiver won't pick up. I know the old WB feeds in HD that way, several shows each night, but I could only get them with one of the old fta computer card tuners, which I no longer have.

Sam, that new bridge is UGLY. I liked the old narrow one with the 90 degree corner at the bottom of the gully :)

Yea, ABC affiliate in Missoula Montana, and the ABC affiliate in Puerto Rico (although that on requires a 10' C band dish). Only two free HD on FTA that I can get right now is PBS National and MYnetwork-HD. I'm sure there are others but are either scrambled or using 4:2:2 video which my receiver won't pick up. I know the old WB feeds in HD that way, several shows each night, but I could only get them with one of the old fta computer card tuners, which I no longer have.

Dave, I guess you've been talking about a DVB hooked up for free digital? I've got my 10ft cband dish and 4DTV with Motorola HD still hooked up and running. I've given alot of thought to abandoning the dying 4dtv and getting a good dvb for all the wild feeds that are free. Any recommendations, sounds like your pretty happy with your setup.

I will be once my HD receiver comes back. Was bad out of the box. Using a cheap $85 fortec mercury ii via component, and its great. Lots on C band too. Since you have the dish, all you would need is a 85.00 receiver. Of course, if you use a "polorotor" type lnb, you would need a new voltage polarity switching lnb, and a disq to actuator converter to move the dish, or just use the 4dtv receiver to do the polarity/moving. Check out ftalist.com for KU feeds, and for C band, I just scanned all the sats listed on Lyngsat.com, and chose the one with all 5 network feeds since I'm currently stuck at one spot with horizontal polarity on the old big dish...trees grew all over in front of it. Gonna require a major chain saw day before the leaves grow back, If I want to keep getting the caribbean stations...Its looking right through a 60' oak tree. KU is simple and cheap tho. I bought 4 lnb's, used an old musac dish for one sat, an old round directv dish for another, and bought a new motorized 1M dish, plus the C band dish...that covers the 4 ports on the disq switch. Its a lot of fun mainly, but I find myself watching Aljezeera, JCTV (Christian music videos), PBS, ABC News Now, and a few others when Directv has 200 channels of nothing on....

Sam, that new bridge is UGLY. I liked the old narrow one with the 90 degree corner at the bottom of the gully :)Don't get me started about that bridge. [Oops, too late:]

The AHTD called it a "minor bridge replacement" so they wouldn't have to submit an environmental impact statement. Then they came in and removed an entire mountain to build the damned thing. It looks like a @#$)&*@ piece of elevated freeway in the middle of a scenic parkway road on one of the main entrances to Eureka. I live ~3 miles west of it and have to drive past there every time I go into town. :(

</rant></ot>

And it doesn't even get rid of the BAD turns. Will see what it looks like when they are done. Back to topic... Why are the low power skip distrupters not required to go Digital in 2009? That's just giving equity an out from having to join the rest of the world...And its a disservice to those stations that had to switch.

Long time lurker, first time poster :)

Got my Converter Box "coupons" in the mail yesterday. Headed over to Circuit City this afternoon and snagged one of the Zenith DDT900 boxes for one of my TV's that I'm too cheap to replace (that and they are still in great shape). I'm picking up channels now that I couldn't get in analog (or that came in fuzzy). I've got an old pair of rabbit ears sitting up in my attic, hits a splitter, and heads to the Living Room and MBR. Only thing I still can't get is AETN but if I spend some quality time with my antenna I can probably get that.

Sam

Long time lurker, first time poster :)

Got my Converter Box "coupons" in the mail yesterday. Headed over to Circuit City this afternoon and snagged one of the Zenith DDT900 boxes for one of my TV's that I'm too cheap to replace (that and they are still in great shape). I'm picking up channels now that I couldn't get in analog (or that came in fuzzy). I've got an old pair of rabbit ears sitting up in my attic, hits a splitter, and heads to the Living Room and MBR. Only thing I still can't get is AETN but if I spend some quality time with my antenna I can probably get that.

Sam

location or distance from the towers? (can get distance on antennaweb.org if you don't want to disclose your location). Still waiting for my coupons...

I'm in West Little Rock so all the majors are within 6 miles over on Shinal

AETN's (KETS-DT 5) tower is in Redfield, to the SE of you. Try extending the dipoles on your rabbit ear antenna to ~78 inches tip-to-tip. If they won't extend that far, try 39 inches (half of 78).

Davenlr, you've got me thinking hard about the dvb, think I'm gonna pursue it. My 4dtv subscriptions actually ran out today. I tried to watch boxing on Showtime HD on GO 120 and it said my I wasnt subscribed, checked the HBO HDs and found the same. So I guess its time to start checking out the DVBs again, I was real close to getting one a year ago, cant remember what brand it was now. I used to have a diagram of how to hook up multiples of those boxes and run them to all different rooms. Of course I'm not sure how multiple viewing would be done, if at all. I know you have all the horizontal and vertical polarity to deal with on those. Sorry guys for getting off OTA a bit, although OTA is free and so is DVB after your set up.....its all about as much "free" tv as I can get:D

The polarity uses the same switching as directv... 13v/18v on the coax. Receiver sends disq pulses to tell 4 way switch which port to use 1-4 if you have multiple dishes, or sends pulses to the disq motor to tell it what position to go to, if you have a motorized dish. You can even have one motorized and 3 stationaries on one receiver. For multiple receivers you use a dc block and run the lines to the main receivers IF passthru, but will only be able to watch stations on the same polarity/sat the main receiver is on. If you want independant control, you need to use 2 or 4 output lnbf's on stationary dishes and run each output to its own receiver. Not sure if they have C band multi output LNBF's but positive they have KU ones. Check www.sadoun.com, they have all that stuff, as well as packages. Is your C band dish KU compatable? Or are you going to buy a 1m KU dish? If you are wanting feeds, which are usually lower power, you really need a 1.2m dish and a good HH motor. Check satelliteav.com for their Geosatpro dish/lnbf, or sadoun.com for their Fortec star line. Avoid gosatellite.com as they won't let you return receivers even if they are bad out of box. Don't know policies of the others. PM me if you need more info.

Byrdnest...welcome. you should be able to get PBS, aim your ears toward the SSE. If that doesn't work, you can build a half wave dipole from old 300 ohm ribbon cable, or just buy a cheap metro vhf antenna to put in your attic. You will still get drop outs due to light switches/heater relays/cars driving by/lightning because they are running such low power, but it should come in.

arxaw and davenlr,

thanks on the tips for getting AETN. Haven't been able to get AETN for about 10 years now so it's not a big deal. I had been contemplating building a dipole though. May have to play with it.

Any word on when Little Rock hd locals might be available from E* or D*? And when is KATV's digital signal coming back? I apologize if this has been covered lately, but I haven't been following for a while.

QUOTE=obuengineer;13288141]Any word on when Little Rock hd locals might be available from E* or D*? And when is KATV's digital signal coming back? I apologize if this has been covered lately, but I haven't been following for a while.[/QUOTE]

Hi OBU. I live between Sherwood and Jax. Talked to folks at KATV and
they don't even know yet whether to rebuild antenna at Redfield or put it on Chenault mountain, with the rest of the TV transmitters. I get my HD signal via OTA thru a Dish 411 receiver. Get channels 11 16 38 just fine. CHannel 4 doesn't do much HD yet. Can't pick up the standby channel 7 HD at all.

Whodart

Last I heard, DirecTV's newest MPEG4 satellite that will carry LR HD locals is slated to launch this month. Probably at least a couple of months before the start adding stuff to that sat., if the launch goes as planned.

katv-dt is currently being transmitted digitally from Shinall Mountain in WLR, on a sub channel of KWBF-DT (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state=&call=kwbf&arn=&city=&chan=&cha2=69&serv=&type=0&facid=&list=2&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9).

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/fm_tv_service_areas/maps/DS1136477.gif

...I get my HD signal via OTA thru a Dish 411 receiver. Get channels 11 16 38 just fine. CHannel 4 doesn't do much HD yet. Can't pick up the standby channel 7 HD at all.

Whodart

I would think channel 4 (KARK) would do more HD than 38 (CW) just because NBC does more HD than the CW. I don't know the real numbers but that's what it would seem like to me.

"katv-dt is currently being transmitted digitally from Shinall Mountain in WLR, on a sub channel of KWBF-DT (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state=&call=kwbf&arn=&city=&chan=&cha2=69&serv=&type=0&facid=&list=2&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9)."

Lately, whenever I tune to that channel (I believe it's 42-3) all I get is a black screen. My tuner is picking up a signal there, but there's no picture or sound. Even when I was getting something on that channel, it was overcompressed and there was no HD for programs that usually are, such as Lost. Comments?

OBU, thats because they have remapped 42-3 back down to 7-1, so all you have to do is rescan and you will find it. And I know that we do a lot of talking here, but if you are ever unsure about something and don't want to read 30 pages of stuff, just use the search feature. It is your friend. And, like arxaw said, D11 is scheduled to go up this month sometime. It usually takes a couple of months for testing and adjusting the orbit and everything before they actually turn it on live. If you want to know more about it, go to dbstalk.com or satelliteguys.com and they usually have tons of people talking about it.

Whodart, 4 does far more HD than CW. Heck, I think almost as much as FOX. All you have to do is turn it on in the morning and see they are the only morning show in HD (at least I don't think Good Morning America is in HD, but then again its been a REALLY long time since I have watched it), turn it on at 5:30 and see they are the only network nightly news in HD, 80% or more of their prime time programming is HD.

Too bad they are on such a crappy channel as 4 that can't get a good signal out. They are the ONLY ones I see with their signal levels bouncing up and down constantly making the show almost unwatchable if you have an internal antenna. Well, thats on my HR20-700 anyway. On my H20-600 its always pretty stable, so I dunno if its because my speakerwire antenna (which in the past has always gotten really good signals) doesn't work as good as my set top rabbit ear/loop antenna with amplifier or if its because of the location of the antenna. In any case, I am not very happy with channel 4 HD reception.

Now, on another note, can anyone explain to me what a "vee-hick-uhl" is? I know what a vehicle is, but I am just having the hardest time figuring what a "vee-hick-uhl" is. I hope you can tell the sarcasm there. Its just one of those things that irritates me to no end when I hear it on commercials. It makes me not want to do business with the company. No offense is intended to those of you who actually pronounce it that way.

katv-dt is currently being transmitted digitally from Shinall Mountain in WLR, on a sub channel of KWBF-DT (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state=&call=kwbf&arn=&city=&chan=&cha2=69&serv=&type=0&facid=&list=2&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9).

http://www.fcc.gov/ftp/Bureaus/MB/Databases/fm_tv_service_areas/maps/DS1136477.gif

Is this map supposed to be the current KWBF-DT coverage? I live in Benton, and I haven't been able to get 42-1 in months (except for very briefly last time we got some ice, I didn't check this morning to see if today's snowfall helped any.:)) I did a rescan, and like other have said, I seem to be getting some info on 7-1, but no picture. I'm also seriously missing my HD Lost. I know we actually had this discussion on here recently about their power levels, but I was able to get them for a while, last summer, when they first raised their power, but by the fall, they were gone.

As far as KARK-DT goes, like others have pointed out, 4 has as much HD content as anybody else. They were late to the party, but it's been almost two years now since they went HD, and I've never had any reception problems with them since they bumped their power up.

I wondered why I couldn't get 42 any more, didn't realize they dropped power. I got it over the summer, enjoyed watching the Cardinals in (compressed) HD

"katv-dt is currently being transmitted digitally from Shinall Mountain in WLR, on a sub channel of KWBF-DT (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state=&call=kwbf&arn=&city=&chan=&cha2=69&serv=&type=0&facid=&list=2&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9)."

Lately, whenever I tune to that channel (I believe it's 42-3) all I get is a black screen. My tuner is picking up a signal there, but there's no picture or sound. Even when I was getting something on that channel, it was overcompressed and there was no HD for programs that usually are, such as Lost. Comments?KWBF-DT recently redid katv's channel mapping. Not sure how dish network receivers work, but you may need to remove/re-add your local OTA channels or maybe reboot, etc. Also try entering 44-3 or 7-1, if that's possible.

There are previous posts about this problem. Regular OTA tuners should find katv-dt on either 42-3, 44-3 or 7-1. Channel mapping is so confusing. They should just map to the physical (RF) channel number they're actually using.

KWBF-DT recently redid katv's channel mapping. Not sure how dish network receivers work, but you may need to remove/re-add your local OTA channels or maybe reboot, etc. Also try entering 44-3 or 7-1, if that's possible.

There are previous posts about this problem. Regular OTA tuners should find katv-dt on either 42-3, 44-3 or 7-1. Channel mapping is so confusing. They should just map to the physical (RF) channel number they're actually using.

Nope, done all that, it's definitely something else (lowered power is my best guess). The map shows they should reach all the way to Malvern in my direction, but I get nothing. I'm using a Sony DHG-HDD 250, and my antenna is pointed toward Shinall. I can even get AETN-DT with this set up, but nothing on KWBF-DT.

...Too bad they are on such a crappy channel as 4 that can't get a good signal out. They are the ONLY ones I see with their signal levels bouncing up and down constantly making the show almost unwatchable if you have an internal antenna. Well, thats on my HR20-700 anyway. On my H20-600 its always pretty stable, so I dunno if its because my speakerwire antenna (which in the past has always gotten really good signals) doesn't work as good as my set top rabbit ear/loop antenna with amplifier or if its because of the location of the antenna. In any case, I am not very happy with channel 4 HD reception.Your problem is part crappy antenna and part crappy OTA tuners in the HR20-700 made by Pace. The H20-600 is made by LG and has the 5th generation LG OTA chipset. One of the best available. Also, the HR20-700 has two OTA tuners and splits the signal to route to each tuner, thus lowering signal strength considerably. It has also been shown that the tuners in the HR20-700 just receives some channels better than others.

Now, on another note, can anyone explain to me what a "vee-hick-uhl" is?You ain't from here, are ya.... :)

...all I get is a black screen. My tuner is picking up a signal there, but there's no picture or sound. What's your signal strength on that channel?

Nope, done all that, it's definitely something else (lowered power is my best guess).Probably a good guess in your case, as others have suspected same on here. That being said, what antenna are you using?

(obuengineer's getting a signal. His problem is channel mapping, which was recently changed.)

Probably a good guess in your case, as others have suspected same on here. That being said, what antenna are you using?

(obuengineer's getting a signal. His problem is channel mapping, which was recently changed.)

I don't know exactly what antenna I have, it's your basic exterior UHF/VHF from Radio Shack. I bought it about 5 years ago, and have been using it almost exclusively for digital reception since October '04 when I got my first HD receiver. Like I said earlier, it's pointed toward Shinall, and I get everything but 42, including KETS-DT and KVTN-DT.

I think the main thing I'd like to get a straight answer about, is whether or not 42 has lowered their power again. Before last summer, I couldn't get anything at all from them. Then for a few months, I could get them fairly well. I don't remember exact signal strengths, it wasn't as good as the big boys, but it was decent. Then in the fall, they disappeared. I haven't adjusted my antenna through any of this, and none of the other stations showed any major change in reception.

I can see the towers on Shinall from my roof, and am about 20 miles away. Ch 30 (KLRT) and 32 (KARK) peg out at 100%, 44 is 76% using a reference bow tie antenna with no reflector i.e. 0 db gain... They are running a shorter tower, but I suspect they scaled back the power output as well.

I suspect they may have. I also suspect a station in our area, KFTA-DT is also operating below it's allotted power by the FCC.

An engineer from a NWA station posted on this thread that it's illegal to do that. So I wonder, is it possible to file a complaint against such stations?

I wouldn't hesitate to complain if I couldn't get them, especially fro. Benton using a yagi...although to be fair, Radio Shack antennas are bottom barrel when it comes to real gain.

Maybe complain in a written letter to the station that you're well within the FCC's predicted coverage area map but can't receive them, and state in the letter you've sent cc:copies to katv and the FCC (?).

I don't know exactly what antenna I have, it's your basic exterior UHF/VHF from Radio Shack. I bought it about 5 years ago, and have been using it almost exclusively for digital reception since October '04 when I got my first HD receiver. Like I said earlier, it's pointed toward Shinall, and I get everything but 42, including KETS-DT and KVTN-DT.

I think the main thing I'd like to get a straight answer about, is whether or not 42 has lowered their power again. Before last summer, I couldn't get anything at all from them. Then for a few months, I could get them fairly well. I don't remember exact signal strengths, it wasn't as good as the big boys, but it was decent. Then in the fall, they disappeared. I haven't adjusted my antenna through any of this, and none of the other stations showed any major change in reception.

RockyF, I'm not saying this will work for you, but I live near Danville, very fringe area so reception can be very touchy here. I have found "hot spots" for channels like 42.1 KWBF and 38.1 KASN by changing the height of my anteanna up or down 1-2 feet. I can lock channel 42.1 at 15 feet with a 65% steady signal. I can move the antenna down a foot or up about 18 inches and completey lose the lock on the signal showing only 40% with no attempts to lock. I have a 30' CM telescoping pole so it is very easy for me to change heights. I saw a pattern once with signal strenghts in parallel patters from the ground up to about 40 feet, there were red and white areas that alteranted every 18 inches to 2 feet between hot and cold spots, like a layered effect, I cant find the chart now, I wanted to link you to it for a better idea, sorry.

Thanks for the info Arkyman, I never would have thought of reception being so height sensitive. My antenna would be a little harder to adjust, at least regularly. It's on a mast attached to my chimney, the pole doesn't go to the ground, so I can't even rotate it without getting on the roof. I don't want to mess it up too much and lose what I do get. I might play around with that a little this weekend, if the weather's decent.

RockyF, I'm not saying this will work for you, but I live near Danville, very fringe area so reception can be very touchy here. I have found "hot spots" for channels like 42.1 KWBF and 38.1 KASN by changing the height of my anteanna up or down 1-2 feet. I can lock channel 42.1 at 15 feet with a 65% steady signal. I can move the antenna down a foot or up about 18 inches and completey lose the lock on the signal showing only 40% with no attempts to lock. I have a 30' CM telescoping pole so it is very easy for me to change heights. I saw a pattern once with signal strenghts in parallel patters from the ground up to about 40 feet, there were red and white areas that alteranted every 18 inches to 2 feet between hot and cold spots, like a layered effect, I cant find the chart now, I wanted to link you to it for a better idea, sorry.

This might be the link you saw describing / showing the patterns:

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

There is other really good stuff at the parent site too:

http://www.hdtvprimer.com/

dmatch

This might be the link you saw describing / showing the patterns:

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

There is other really good stuff at the parent site too:

http://www.hdtvprimer.com/

dmatch

If you scroll down, the one I was talking about is the

"average power diagram for uhf"

Thanks for the info Arkyman, I never would have thought of reception being so height sensitive....It's also possible it's installed in a horizontal dead spot for certain channel(s). Similar to how a cell phone may drop out in a weak area, and moving a few feet left, right, back or forward will clear up the call.

I actually discovered this height thing by accident. I had always heard higher is better especially in fringe areas. I guess generally speaking that may be true. I used to have my Channel Master Quantum 1160a (huge anteanna) mounted 20 feet above my roofline, that would be 35 feet high. BTW, the quantum has a preamp built right into the boom of the antenna, at one time before I dropped it and broke some elements and bent the boom it was a great antenna. Anyway, we had to re-roof our house, no choice but to take it off the roof. I re-installed it behind the house against the eve. At first I had it about 12ft high, reception was ok but no where near the same as when 35ft up. So I decided to raise it some, I first ran it up to about 20ft, reception got alot better on the major networks but channels like 42 and 38 just wouldnt lock. For a week or so I accepted that they just would not come in without the height. My wife had complained about my antenna being an eye sore on the roof and didnt want if back up top after the roof job was done. So, I decided to find a spot down low to setup, besides that big antenna with rotor system was extremely heavy and handling it on top of the house required a good guy wire system and at least 3 people to put it up or take it down. I decided I already had a good spot and went out to tape up my connections. I couldnt reach a few places so I loosened the eve mount and lowered the antenna to about 15 ft. while I was doing my tape jobs my son came out and said, "hey dad, 38.1 is coming in and has about 80% signal. My jaw dropped and I said you've got to be kidding me I just lowered it 5 feet, that aint right. I went in to check expecting 38.1 to be locked and the other channels to be gone or weak. What I found instead was now 38.1 was 80%, 42.1 was about 65-67% and the other channels like 11.1, 16.1 had actually increased about 10 points on signal quality to the 75-85% range, at that time 4.1 and 7.1 were still running very low power and I wasnt able to lock them, back then I didnt worry about them because I was too far away to get their very low powered signal. Anyway I was shocked to say the least and suddenly realized that height was a huge variable when it comes to good reception, and the fact that lowering my antenna a few feet meant locking or not locking a signal just blew my mind on everything I'd ever known about setting up an antenna. Anyway thats how I discovered it, guess you could say I got lucky:)

... the fact that lowering my antenna a few feet meant locking or not locking a signal just blew my mind on everything I'd ever known about setting up an antenna. When I lived in LR and KARK-DT was still LP, the only way I could get it with an indoor antenna was to put the antenna on the floor, and only one spot about a foot square would work. It wouldn't work anywhere else in the room. And it would work in that spot, regardless of which way I turned the antenna.

Location. Location. Location.

....as I've discovered

When I lived in LR and KARK-DT was still LP, the only way I could get it with an indoor antenna was to put the antenna on the floor, and only one spot about a foot square would work. It wouldn't work anywhere else in the room. And it would work in that spot, regardless of which way I turned the antenna.

Location. Location. Location.

Hey ARXAW, I live between SHerwood and Jax and I can't get channel 4 digital even with a good antenna pointed at them and an amplifier. Of course, channel 7 tower is down now. I can get 11 16 38 just great, even without an amp, just straight off a radio shack yagi with UHF front end.

Whodart:confused:

Whodart: You in a valley or something? If you can get 30, you should be able to get 32. What's your signal look like on 30 and 44?

Whodart: You in a valley or something? If you can get 30, you should be able to get 32. What's your signal look like on 30 and 44?

Hi Davenlr. Yeah, I get 30, Dish designates it as 016-01. 32 is 004-01 and
I don't get a useable signal on it. 44 comes in but since I don't watch it, I have it deleted from the program guide as well as 25 and some of the others.
I get a great signal from channel 11 (12 on the DT list). Only ones I don't
get are channel 4 (DT32) and channel 7 (DT22, tower down). I'm in flat land - Chenault mountain is 263º magnetic from me. :(

Whodart in NLR

44 comes in but since I don't watch it, I have it deleted from the program guide as well as 25 and some of the others.
....[snip].... Only ones I don't
get are channel 4 (DT32) and channel 7 (DT22, tower down). I'm in flat land - Chenault mountain is 263º magnetic from me. :(

Whodart in NLR
Just in case you missed the change regarding channel 7 (KATV). It is now on 44 (virtual 42) subchannel 3. It actually maps itself to virtual channel 7-1, but only after I access virtual channel 42 first.

dmatch

And just to help out (while trying not to be a complete jerk), it's Chenal for the road and Shinall for the mountain. Not Chenault, we aren't in France. :)

Sorry if that was unnecessary, just thought I would chime in and help out on that. I do too much editing on peoples posts, its a bad habit, I just can't help myself on spelling and grammar. (and yeah, I know that I have some myself, but I try my best to get them all. hehe)

Dmatch - OK, thanks re Channel 7. I am going to point my antenna at SHINALL mountain (thanks steveken), and let Dish 411 find all the HD channels again, since 7 is broadcasting their signal from there until they build their new antenna (which is going to take a year, and they not sure where they are going to construct it yet). I am getting an education on all the TV technicalities, as to the VC stations PSIP virtual channel, the Ch, DT and 09 designations, etc. I have a printout that shows the magnetic bearings of all the station in my area, from my location (GPS) and charts showing the real channel, virtual channel, Xmit power, and Rx signal level, miles, true and magnetic bearings. Whew!

Whodart NLR

Last night and this morning, and actually earlier in the week too, I've been getting horrible pixilation and cutouts. I presume it has something to do with the weather.

For reference I'm using the Zenith DT100 with an indoor set of rabbit ears hanging out in my attic and I'm within 6 miles of Shinall. Is the weather just shaking the towers that much and it's just something I have to live with going digital or what? It was happening on both 16.1 and 7.1, didn't check any of the other ones. My signal strength is usually around 75% or so, guess I should have checked what it was this morning with the pixilation happening.

On a side note, I'm contemplating putting an amplifier in the system so I can snag PBS, I get the PBS signal at about 30% so not quite enough to snag it. Would this help the pixilation problem?

any speculation on whether the local stations will continue channel mapping when they turn off their analog signals next year? Channel mapping gets annoying and confusing quickly...it would be weird for a lot of viewers to see KARK32 instead of KARK4...I would imagine they'll keep channel mapping unfortunately...

Byrdnest - I tried rescanning my local HD channels OTA with the Dish 411 receiver today and all I can pick up is channel 11 (DT12). My digital 4 7 16 and 38 are all zero signal strength, while 11 is 75%. WOnder if it is the snow? Even a new scan and resetting the 411 doesn't change it. ??

Whodart

Byrdnest, BTW, I'm 16.1 miles from Shinall and 26.3 from channel 38 xmtr

Whodart

Last night and this morning, and actually earlier in the week too, I've been getting horrible pixilation and cutouts. I presume it has something to do with the weather.

For reference I'm using the Zenith DT100 with an indoor set of rabbit ears hanging out in my attic and I'm within 6 miles of Shinall. Is the weather just shaking the towers that much and it's just something I have to live with going digital or what? It was happening on both 16.1 and 7.1, didn't check any of the other ones. My signal strength is usually around 75% or so, guess I should have checked what it was this morning with the pixilation happening.

On a side note, I'm contemplating putting an amplifier in the system so I can snag PBS, I get the PBS signal at about 30% so not quite enough to snag it. Would this help the pixilation problem?

Byrdnest, I set up a Spartan 3 UHF/VHF amp on my Radio Shack 90XR
VHF/UHF/FM antenna trying to get 2 and 38 in. It did - but, the channels on Shinall came in so strong causing multi-path distortion that I had to take the amp out and the reg signals off the antenna did a lot better job for channels 4 7 11 16 38 that the amplifier did. I picked a bad day to to try and re-align my antenna (it was 10º off), the snow has knocked all of the local HD channel out, but the reg SD channels come in fine off the antenna. Strange that Dish coming in fine and this hughes satellite internet working just fine, even though it's snowing hard. GO figger....

Whodart NLR:eek:

IF you need to use an amp to get KETS-DT (rf 5) and are within 15 miles of shinall, you will have to use a VHf LO/VHF-HI combiner, and a separate antenna for channel 5 on the low side of the combiner. An amp on the vhf-HI/UHf side with 15-20 miles of Shinall will cause all sorts of problems. Actually, for the price of an amp, get a VHF-LO/Hi splitter/combiner and a metro area VHf/UHF yagi, one of the 3 to 6 element jobs found at walmart, rat shack, Lowes, etc, and point it at redfield. Run the coax to to VHF Lo side of the splitter. Run your current antenna VHF-hi/UHF or just UHF, to the VHf-hi side (it will pass uhf too). That will isolate ch 5 from your current antenna and only introduce about a 3 db loss to your UHF which is lots of cases actually improves close in reception.

To the OP getting 30 and 44 but not 32, mis-aim your antenna about 10 degrees south, or change the elevation a foot or two up or down. You are in a dead spot or a multipath zone for 32. A little movement on the antenna should snag it.

Here was my anomaly last night while it was snowing. Of course the Directv was down all night while snow covered the dish, but ch 11.1 and 11.2 which never drop here (4 miles west of Danville) is what had me puzzled. I checked all my channels, Little Rock side, 4.1, 16.1, 38.1 & 38.2, all came in strong. 42.1, 42.2 & 42.3 were down but thats not unusual here as of late, I've been losing them more and more lately. But ch. 11.1 & .2 DTV side was down all night long, its back up today. I switched inputs on my tv to the Fort Smith antenna side setup and all channels were locking fine there, 5.1, 5.2 kfsm cbs, 13.1,13.2,13.3 & 13.4 AETN and 40.1 khbs abc. Seems kthv 11.1 & .2 was the only major drop out of the night here, they must have been having problems at the tower last night:confused:

Just wondering. Do you have your D* ant mounted where you can't get to it to remove the snow with a broom?

Davenlr - yep. That setup sounds like the old antenna system I used to have when all we had was 4 7 11 in Lrock. Pointed one yagi at Shinall and one at Redfield and hooked them together with a piece of twin-lead twisted 1/2 turn, then a balun and coax down to the TV. Worked fine for years. You dang near have to be a telecommunications engineer nowadays to hook up anything. I installed my own satellite system back in early 80's and thought that was far as technology was ever going to go. Ha. Tnx.

Dave E in NLR (Whodart)

Just wondering. Do you have your D* ant mounted where you can't get to it to remove the snow with a broom?

Its mounted just on the north side of the peak of my house facing the south view. Its 15 feet up, I'd have to get on the roof and as slick as that snow was and the fact it would have been covered again in 30 minutes made me say, we will just watch local tv tonight:)

We didn't get a flake o' snow here (THIS time). LOL

Byrdnest, snow on your roof is probably mucking w/ your antenna below it. A wet snow accumulated on an outdoor antenna's connectors can also affect reception.

We didn't get a flake o' snow here (THIS time). LOL


Its *still* piling up down here. 8" so far (and just got back from brushing off the dish). Had the flu last week, and the podunk (dialup) internet was out most of last week to boot.

Wow, that's deeper than any snow event we've had this year, up here in Carroll County, and quite a bit for your neck o' the woods.

There was about 3 inches in the front yard here late this afternoon. The streets weren't bad, though, which was the positive thing about this storm. I work in a grocery store, and I'll just say I was relieved to be off today :) Parking lot was packed when I drove by my store this afternoon. I had the same problem with D* reception, but I simply went outside with a broom every hour or so when reception started getting poor. All the precip ended here around 7PM this evening.

Its amazing how little wet snow knocks out KA band. I had 1" covering the bottom 2/3rds of the dish and it was gone. Lucky for the folks up north the look angle is lower and the snow slides off the dish instead of piling up on it. FWIW, I lost FTA KU also. I sure with I could find someone in Arkansas selling a 4' or so KU dish...They want $135 to ship a $85 dish from Ohio...I need a bigger FTA dish. This 36" dish is to marginal.

Wow, that's deeper than any snow event we've had this year, up here in Carroll County, and quite a bit for your neck o' the woods.

we got 9 inches on Tuesday here in Belleville. Last night we got about 4-5 more, we were very lucky. The map showed us in the 10-14 inch range, but we got lucky. It never got as cold as the weather man predicted, they said it would be around 29-30 degrees, I dont think it ever got below 33-34 degrees. The result was we probably did get 12 inches of snow but it melted as nearly as fast as it fell leaving us with about 5 inches this morning. I really dont care for snow but a little dont bother me here and there. 10-14 inches:eek: that would have bothered me:eek:

Its amazing how little wet snow knocks out KA band. I had 1" covering the bottom 2/3rds of the dish and it was gone. Lucky for the folks up north the look angle is lower and the snow slides off the dish instead of piling up on it. FWIW, I lost FTA KU also. I sure with I could find someone in Arkansas selling a 4' or so KU dish...They want $135 to ship a $85 dish from Ohio...I need a bigger FTA dish. This 36" dish is to marginal.We're not much farther north, but I've never had to remove snow from the dish since I moved from LR to NWA. The dish is only 5' off the ground though, in case the need ever arises.

Saw this on the ardemgaz web site:

http://i28.tinypic.com/2guw96u.jpg
There was no caption, but it looks like it was taken in a house damaged by the recent tornadoes in the state. Most of us on this board are fortunate to have escaped such devastation.

Damn.. Outdoor Home Theatre. and a "console" tv??? Antique.

Okay, I guess I better take back all my griping against KWBF. I went up on the roof after checking all the snow was gone, and had my wife looking at the signal meter. I had planned on trying to lower the antenna a little bit as was suggested a few days ago, but I couldn't reach it as well as I thought I'd be able to. I ended up just turning the antenna just a tiny bit, and she yells that the signal jumped from 27% to 66%. I came down and I've got a pretty solid signal, and I didn't lose AETN or anything else. I did have to do a rescan to get KATV to remap to 7.1. The picture right now is pretty crappy, but it is a Raycom game. I'll check Road to Perdition tonight to see how HD content looks. I've finally got ABC-HD back just in time for more KATV-DT pre-emptions of "Lost" this coming Thursday!

Okay, I guess I better take back all my griping against KWBF. I went up on the roof after checking all the snow was gone, and had my wife looking at the signal meter. I had planned on trying to lower the antenna a little bit as was suggested a few days ago, but I couldn't reach it as well as I thought I'd be able to. I ended up just turning the antenna just a tiny bit, and she yells that the signal jumped from 27% to 66%. I came down and I've got a pretty solid signal, and I didn't lose AETN or anything else. I did have to do a rescan to get KATV to remap to 7.1. The picture right now is pretty crappy, but it is a Raycom game. I'll check Road to Perdition tonight to see how HD content looks. I've finally got ABC-HD back just in time for more KATV-DT pre-emptions of "Lost" this coming Thursday!

Just a suggetion.....Cm remote controled rotor.
Then next time you can sit in your chair, use the remote and move the antenna to the best signal location. I've done it for years, its very nice to have a rotor setup when your signal seems to stray or the antenna gets turned for some unknown reason.

Hmm, all the snow I got in my yard, never lost D* once. I was watching a ballgame on ESPN HD and it messed up like twice I think, but other than that nothing at all happened to my reception. I checked a bunch of HD channels too. I guess I just got lucky. I remember way back when we got that really good and deep snow (well, for LR deep. :) I guess it was the year of the ice) I had my dish out on the walkway of my apartment and it had at least 3 inches on it with no loss in reception. I have never had a problem with losing D* reception except for if the clouds were REALLY REALLY thick and it was raining like a expletive deleted outside. ;)

Just a suggetion.....Cm remote controled rotor.
Then next time you can sit in your chair, use the remote and move the antenna to the best signal location. I've done it for years, its very nice to have a rotor setup when your signal seems to stray or the antenna gets turned for some unknown reason.


Yeah, I looked at those in the past, but I've been pretty lucky to be able to find a "sweet spot" where I can get almost everything without having to turn the antenna. Maybe next time I have an extra hundred dollars laying around.:(

Oh, and the I also haven't had any signal loss on Dish Network with the snow this week, I haven't even thought to look out and see if I had any accumulation on the dish.

I've got a rotor, but I never use it any more. I guess I'll keep it in case I want to try some DX'ing after Feb '09.

I've got a rotor, but I never use it any more. I guess I'll keep it in case I want to try some DX'ing after Feb '09.

Thats cause your in a lucky spot:)

RockyF, thats what is nice about a rotor, if your loss is due to antenna positioning (lets say the wind moved it) the rotor can have you back locking channels in just seconds, that is of course if the problem is antenna positioning. As for my small dish, every time I get snow accumulation on my dish I lose the signal, its a bummer.

Arkyman, if you lose it that easy I would think that you have a suspect alignment. The DBS signals are so strong that you should have a hard time losing them if your dish is aligned right. If you lose it with snow accumulation, I would venture a guess that you lose it pretty easy with rain too. Am I right?

Arkyman, which dish do you have:
1LNB
3LNB
5LNB
?

Since installing the 5LNB dish last fall, I haven't had any snow fade yet, and rain fade is very rare. It only happens during the worst of showers and only briefly.

I do easily lose the LR locals easily from rain fade, but I'm on the extreme outer reach of the LR spot beam. Normal signal strength for me on the LR xpndr (119 #25) is only ~55 to 60%. And I never watch them except to see the weather or something on the local news.

When I accumulate snow on the Dish, I lose the signal, it has snowed 3 times and I lost the signal all times. The longest it stayed down was last thursday night, the signal was lost from about 6pm til about 4am. I have the 3lnb setup. I rarely lose the signal due to rain fade but if its heavy enough I will lose it. I think a huge elm tree just to the left of my house and the dish is my main problem at times. Big limbs stick out and almost hang in front of the dish. The installer mentioned this to me when he put the dish up, said I would probably need to trim those trees limbs back on the west side. I figure when it rains I lose my signal due to these limbs swaying in front of the dish, leaves especially moving leaves can cause mass pixelation and signal loss. The installer could have moved my dish about 15 feet to the west and avoided the tree, but he would have had to run all new cabling into the house. I used to have Dishnet, they ran all new wiring 3 years ago to 4 rooms, the cabling is in great shape and is RG6 so I did not want drill more holes in my walls and floors. As for the alignment, I think the elm tree is my culprit, but I'm fixin to sentence it to a date with the chainsaw and trim the fat:)

Arkyman,
What D* receiver(s) do you use? I think you told me, but I forgot....

This weekend was the weekend the sun travels the satellite arc. I identified two branches which are going to cause me grief with my FTA when the leaves grow. If you want to check if that tree is causing your problem, go outside tomorrow at 3:15pm and if you see shadows on your dish, its the tree blocking 119. For the other sats, the sun will be about 1 degree higher than the sats next week, at the following times:
99 - 1:49pm
101 - 1:57pm
103 - 2:07pm
110 - 2:36pm
119 - 3:15pm

Add a couple minutes if you are west of LR 60 to 100 miles.

Arkyman,
What D* receiver(s) do you use? I think you told me, but I forgot....

H20-MFG:100

This weekend was the weekend the sun travels the satellite arc. I identified two branches which are going to cause me grief with my FTA when the leaves grow. If you want to check if that tree is causing your problem, go outside tomorrow at 3:15pm and if you see shadows on your dish, its the tree blocking 119. For the other sats, the sun will be about 1 degree higher than the sats next week, at the following times:
99 - 1:49pm
101 - 1:57pm
103 - 2:07pm
110 - 2:36pm
119 - 3:15pm

Add a couple minutes if you are west of LR 60 to 100 miles.

Ahh yes. I've owned a C-band system since 1990, my current one since 1996. I am all too familiar with sun fade, it happens twice a year, once in march around SEC basketball Tourney time and again in late fall of each year. First time I ever saw it I thought.....OMG, my satellite system just crashed, boy was I relieved when it had cleared up in about 5-10 minutes.:)

Does anyone actually receive HD quality programs on OTA channel 7.1 KATV ABC? I don't on my Suddenlink cable KATV HD channel. I get the analog signal. Thought I'd ask before telling the cable company that KATV 7.1 is now transmitting HD. I understand that the cable company uses OTA for input.

KATV-DT is currently broadcasting as a subchannel of KWBF-DT on channel 42.3, which is remapped to 7.1. They are doing HD, I watched a few minutes of Road to Perdition last night, and it was in HD.

Does anyone actually receive HD quality programs on OTA channel 7.1 KATV ABC? I don't on my Suddenlink cable KATV HD channel. I get the analog signal. Thought I'd ask before telling the cable company that KATV 7.1 is now transmitting HD. I understand that the cable company uses OTA for input.

Before the Katv tower Collapse, I received 7.1 and .2 at about 80% lock all the time. Most of their primetime was HD, all sporting events like footall and basketball were HD, super high quality. Since then they are using 42.3 like many have said. It drops in and out on me, I can pretty much forget watching it until the new tower goes up on Shinall MT.(I hope)


Am I the only one who has noticed that OTA HD is clearer and more crisp than HD channels on the small dishes? When I had my C-band dish it was the same way, the C-band or 4dtv looked really good in high def but the OTA channels were still clearer. From a satellite prerspective it doesnt get any clearer than C-band delivery, it is shot from the programmer to the satellite then relayed back to earth. It is then picked up by cable companies, small dish net companies, IPTV and then folks like me that have a C-band dish. The companies then relay that to the customer via cable system or satellite system. When it was analog I could tell a difference in the C-band and small dish on quality, however I had the small dish HD and C-band HD for a year and compared them often, they looked the same on quality, but neither looked as good as the Free OTA HD signals, go figure. I thought as long as digital signals were uncompressed they could not lose quality, it shows in the OTA HD, that means the small dishes and even the original suppliers like HBO HD and ESPN HD must be compressing it down to a lower bandwidth before it is even transmitted. Any insight on this long question that started as a short one?:D

All digital tv is compressed, at least that available to comsumers. Uplinks from programmers are 4:2:2 video mpeg2. Tv stations convert to ATSC Mpeg2, Directv converts to its own form of Mpeg2 or its newer MPeg4 which provides better quality in less space. The bottom line is the more "conversions or reencodes" in the path, the more loss. Then there is the matter of how much or the original bitrate is being passed on, or cut down for bandwidth. Since Directv mpeg4, the quality vs OTA has gotten almost unnoticable. But even Directv, when providing HD locals gets them OTA usually, so its 4:2:2 mpeg2 -> ATSC MPeg2 -> Mux locals together -> uplink to Directv -> Reencode to Mpeg4 with statmux -> Uplink to customer -> Decode at customer. Lots of places for quality loss.

OK, it sounds like KATV does not yet have a digital transmitter at high power.

All digital tv is compressed, at least that available to comsumers. Uplinks from programmers are 4:2:2 video mpeg2. Tv stations convert to ATSC Mpeg2, Directv converts to its own form of Mpeg2 or its newer MPeg4 which provides better quality in less space. The bottom line is the more "conversions or reencodes" in the path, the more loss. Then there is the matter of how much or the original bitrate is being passed on, or cut down for bandwidth. Since Directv mpeg4, the quality vs OTA has gotten almost unnoticable. But even Directv, when providing HD locals gets them OTA usually, so its 4:2:2 mpeg2 -> ATSC MPeg2 -> Mux locals together -> uplink to Directv -> Reencode to Mpeg4 with statmux -> Uplink to customer -> Decode at customer. Lots of places for quality loss.
IMO, HD quality was just fine on my cable KATV HD channel before the tower collapse.

Before the tower collapse, KATV transmitted one HD signal and one SD signal. Now, the transmitter they are on is sending out TWO HD and one SD signals, hence less than 1/2 the bitrate they were at before. I BELIEVE Comcast gets its HD feed directly from the studio, so they probably have the lock on ABC quality HD at the moment.

AETN has a great plan for getting donations.... Have only a digital transmitter (good thing) and then don't show ANY HD programs for two weeks (bad thing). I have no clue why they aren't running any HD (maybe can't put the "send money" graphics on it?). Anyway, I've had enough. I installed a 1.2 meter stationary dish in my back yard today, and have the HD receiver on the way for PBS HD national. Doesn't have DVR capability, but neither does AeTn :)

KATV-DT is currently broadcasting as a subchannel of KWBF-DT on channel 42.3, which is remapped to 7.1. They are doing HD, I watched a few minutes of Road to Perdition last night, and it was in HD.

but did it look ok? I guess any HD is better than none...if I could just get 42 with my indoor antenna again...

but did it look ok? I guess any HD is better than none...if I could just get 42 with my indoor antenna again...

Honestly, it didn't look as good as before. As Davenlr said, they now have 2 HD and 1 SD signal on the same channel, and I did notice some pixilization.

OK, it sounds like KATV does not yet have a digital transmitter at high power.Supposedly, KWBF transmits katv-720p, in full power on RF channel 44, subchannel 3. But that is debatable.

If you post your location in your profile, someone in the forum might be able to tell you if you or your cableco has a chance of picking it up OTA.

...Am I the only one who has noticed that OTA HD is clearer and more crisp than HD channels on the small dishes?...If you had a 5LNB dish to go with that H20-100 receiver, you'd see all the new MPEG4 HD channels are excellent, except when the networks like TBS, TNT, etc. use stretch-o-vision on programs originally shot in SD 4:3. That is the networks' fault, not D*'s.

Just curious as to why you haven't upgraded your dish? D* will upgrade it for free, if you restart your programming commitment. Or you can order one on e-b-a-y e-x-p-r-e-s-s dot com for $69 w/ free shipping, if you don't want to restart a programming commitment. That's what I did.

Also, if your H20-100 ever goes out, try to replace it with an H20-600. In fringe areas, the OTA tuner with LG chipset in the H20-600 is far superior to the chipset used in the RCA-made H20-100.

If you had a 5LNB dish to go with that H20-100 receiver, you'd see all the new MPEG4 HD channels are excellent, except when the networks like TBS, TNT, etc. use stretch-o-vision on programs originally shot in SD 4:3. That is the networks' fault, not D*'s.

Just curious as to why you haven't upgraded your dish? D* will upgrade it for free, if you restart your programming commitment. Or you can order one on e-b-a-y e-x-p-r-e-s-s dot com for $69 w/ free shipping, if you don't want to restart a programming commitment. That's what I did.

Also, if your H20-100 ever goes out, try to replace it with an H20-600. In fringe areas, the OTA tuner with LG chipset in the H20-600 is far superior to the chipset used in the RCA-made H20-100.

I am getting the Mpeg4 channels thru the BBC connected to the back of my receiver. I watch this on my Sony SXRD 60A2020 which has a sweet picture to begin with. But you are saying you think the H20-600 would still look better than the H20-100 with BBC? If so, I'm gonna look into the H20-600 especially since it has a better ATSC tuner in it, I could use that.

The reason I currently have the h20-100 is because it was free back in August 2007 when I had the Direct installed. I was on D.network for 3 years, had the 811 receiver. HD was brand new to the small dishes when I got it, they told me as more HD was added I would receive it for the current $10 extara a month for HD access. Well, a few things happend that just sent me thru the roof. Dishnetwork lied to me, told me I'd get the new HD's. ESPN2 came out and I never got it, I called and asked why? They said I needed a new receiver to get the newer HD channels and it would only be $99 upgrade, I told em to shove it where the sun dont shine and ended my subscription with them (it was up anyway). I was so mad at the small dishes that I actually bought a used 4dtv rec. and motorola HDD box for my C-band dish so I could swap out my 11 year old Toshiba analog rec. and get digital via the big dish. Great for the living room but bad for all our bedrooms. So, we hooked up to local cable for the other rooms, old analog cable with lots of problems, it was watchable but many many problems. We kept both C-band and Cable for 1 year. After that I couldnt stand it any longer, I called direct and we hooked up. I have an external phillips HDRW 720 recorder so I seen no need for the H21 rec which they wanted $199 for, I took the free h20 instead.

has anyone seen both Comcast's ABC HD and KWBF's subchannel ABC HD? With the compression Comcast is using, are they comparable quality-wise? Too bad MNTV isn't 720p too, it might not look so bad...

I am getting the Mpeg4 channels thru the BBC connected to the back of my receiver.You said in a previous post that you only have the 3LNB dish. There are no MPEG4 channels available on that dish. You need a 5LNB dish to get the MPEG4 channels.


...you are saying you think the H20-600 would still look better than the H20-100 with BBC? No, picture quality is more or less comparable on both the -100 and -600 HD receivers. The advantage of the H20-600 over the -100 is a superior ATSC tuner that locks in weak OTA channels the -100 often can't find.

This may have been answered here before but I am wondering at what resolution does D* and E* transmit their HD programs. Nobody at D* seemed to know what I was talking about. I guess it wasn't in their book.

Supposedly, KWBF transmits katv-720p, in full power on RF channel 44, subchannel 3. But that is debatable.

If you post your location in your profile, someone in the forum might be able to tell you if you or your cableco has a chance of picking it up OTA.

I'm in Hot Springs Village, AR and the cable company is Suddenlink. When I asked a few weeks ago, they said they were waiting for KATV to get their digital transmitter up to be able to provide HD here. Perhaps that channel 44.3 retransmitted, etc. is not good enough or too weak.

You said in a previous post that you only have the 3LNB dish. There are no MPEG4 channels available on that dish. You need a 5LNB dish to get the MPEG4 channels.


No, picture quality is more or less comparable on both the -100 and -600 HD receivers. The advantage of the H20-600 over the -100 is a superior ATSC tuner that locks in weak OTA channels the -100 often can't find.

Heres a couple of pics of my LNBs on my Direct Slimline dish. All I know is that thru the BBC box I get all the HD channels that Direct carries. They told me without the BBC I could only get the mpeg2 thru the H20-100 but with the Box in place I get the Mpeg4 also.

I was able to watch part of Road To Predition on katv (via KWBF-DT44) on Saturday mainly to check out PQ, but it was because of favorable propagation. It wasn't up to the standards of other locals, more of DVD quality if anything.

I'm sure in Northern areas of Central Arkansas, Equity's decision to use ch 44 for KWBF-DT wasn't the brightest move since KYTV-DT north of the border blasts into North Central and parts of NWA quite well. I wonder if this is the real reason for KWBF's "reduced power"--staving off potential KYTV interference complants?

FWIW, I've had no issues with (very directional) KETZ interference on RF 12 on KTHV, and rarely from (somewhat directional) WABG on KARK. But, I'm also on the good side of KARK and KTHV's fringe signals and those living "downstate" from me might disagree.

For anyone interested, here is a pic of two combined antennas I recently put up as an independent system strictly for receiving NWA stations, aiming North West. In the pic, I am using a Winegard PR9032 114" UHF Yagi, a CM 4228 UHF 2- Bay with screens removed, CM7777 UHF/VHF pre-amp. CM4228 is about 14 feet high and PR9032 is around 20-22 feet high. Each antenna has a 6ft RG6 coax that is going to a VHF/UHF combiner. PR9032 to UHF side for channels 21.1 and 18.1 & 18.2.....4228 to VHF side for 9 which re-maps to 13.1, 13.2, 13.3 & 13.4. The output side of the combiner is connected to the input of the CM7777 with another 6ft RG6. I am running from the pre-amp on the mast to the power supply inside with RG11 (100ft. I only needed about 50ft). I already have my CM3671 crossfire handling the Little rock side and running to the ATSC tuner on my Sony HDTV and the Direct H20-100. So, I got out my Old Samsung SIRT165 and ran the FT.Smith feed into it and into the TV via Component vid. Works great, I do have to swap inputs for LR side vs FS side but who cares, it only takes a second and I can get Free tv from two markets, I'm Happy:)

HSVHD: If Suddenlink carried KWBF-DT, they can get KATV-HD, they are on the same transmitter. If they can't, then you have a long wait. I've been to HSV several times, and I've seen spots I'm sure you could get it OTA, but more spots I doubt a cell phone would work they are so down in a valley... Call Suddenlink and ask them if they can receive digital channel 44, and tell them KATV is using subchannel 3, maybe they can get it going for you. They seem to be a pretty progressive company.

BelElDel... Directv is using ~1280x1080 for mpeg2 instead of 1920x1080, usually referred to as HD Lite. Their Mpeg4 channels are reportedly full 1920x1080.

Heres a couple of pics of my LNBs on my Direct Slimline dish. All I know is that thru the BBC box I get all the HD channels that Direct carries. They told me without the BBC I could only get the mpeg2 thru the H20-100 but with the Box in place I get the Mpeg4 also.

You have the same problem most people have, you see 3 white circles on your dish and think you have 3 lnb's. You have a 5 lnb dish which is indicated by a couple of things.
#1, you know you have a slimline. a slimline IS the 5 lnb dish.
#2, if you look real close at that 3rd white cover, you will see 3 distinct parts in it. Its really a 3 in 1 lnb.
#3, if you will notice by the shape of the arm that holds the lnb's on it, you will notice that it seems to be a bit misshapen (I mean stretched long ways when it doesn't need to be). That to me is also an indicator that you have a 5 lnb dish. I don't know why they don't have anything in the area on the right side (as you are looking at the white covers themselves) of the arm. It confused me at first and confuses others still because they don't see 5 distinct white covers.

Everyone that is still up, set your HR20's and HR21's to record Channel 79 at 1am. Shuttle nighttime launch in HD. Should be awesome.

BelElDel... Directv is using ~1280x1080 for mpeg2 instead of 1920x1080, usually referred to as HD Lite. Their Mpeg4 channels are reportedly full 1920x1080.

Thanks, Davenlr. I had "heard" that it was 720, but thought different.

You have the same problem most people have, you see 3 white circles on your dish and think you have 3 lnb's. You have a 5 lnb dish which is indicated by a couple of things.
#1, you know you have a slimline. a slimline IS the 5 lnb dish.
#2, if you look real close at that 3rd white cover, you will see 3 distinct parts in it. Its really a 3 in 1 lnb.
#3, if you will notice by the shape of the arm that holds the lnb's on it, you will notice that it seems to be a bit misshapen (I mean stretched long ways when it doesn't need to be). That to me is also an indicator that you have a 5 lnb dish. I don't know why they don't have anything in the area on the right side (as you are looking at the white covers themselves) of the arm. It confused me at first and confuses others still because they don't see 5 distinct white covers.


Actually thats the first time I've been up and took a close look at it. You are right about the 3 lnb look from the ground but I did realize once I got up close enough to see it on the roof that the last one was a triple lnb.

Everyone that is still up, set your HR20's and HR21's to record Channel 79 at 1am. Shuttle nighttime launch in HD. Should be awesome.

I'll probably be up at 1am so I'm gonna watch it, thanks for the heads up, I bet thats gonna look awesome:)

Heres a pic of my Little Rock connection

steveken's correct. That's a slimline 5LNB. I think the extra blank slot is either for international programming or for appearance purposes only, due to the offset of the LNBs.

Everyone that is still up, set your HR20's and HR21's to record Channel 79 at 1am. Shuttle nighttime launch in HD. Should be awesome.
heheh, too bad it's not the D*11 launch :)

Heres a pic of my Little Rock connectionI saw one of those today on what was probably a 60' tower, in central Carroll County. It's gotta put some stress on the rotor!

I use Gemstar-TV Guide IPG Data, also called TVGOS(TV Guide on Screen), on my Sony DHG-HDD500 DVR. It was transmitted via VBI on KETS analog channel 2 PBS. It was also on my Suddenlink cable KETS. I have no guide data now after the tower collapse. It's not likely that it will be available from KETS again at full power.

Does anyone know if TVGOS data is transmitted on any other OTA channel that might be receivable in Hot Springs Village? I haven't had my OTA antenna up lately but I could if I thought there might be another TVGOS channel available.

well, I don't know what changed since the last time I tried looking at my vista media center channels, but its as if something got changed in those files for it or something and now I can't get 7-1 on it anymore. Meh, not that bigga deal, but just thought it was weird.

Heh, this media center crap sure is funny. Looked at the prefs again, made sure they said the right stuff. Went into the add missing channels, pulled out most of the stuff that was there cause I thought it was extraneous. Violia! Now its back ta workin.

My question

I have the Sony SXRD 60a2020. I have the H20-100 hooked to it via HDMI. I currently have the resolution set to "Native". My tv is a 1080p tv. Will it have a better picture with the Native setting, the 720p or the 1080i settings. I've heard some say you should set it to 720p if you are running a 720p or 1080i set, but mine is a 1080p set and from what I understand it takes 720 and 1080 and even upscales them to the highest resolution possible. I'm just looking for the best possible settings for my system. I also noticed in native when you change channels there is a momentary pause before the channel comes up on the TV. When my HT system is on, you actually hear them talking 2-3 seconds before you see a picture. But when set to a permanent setting like 1080i the channel pops ups immeadiately without delays.

You know, the amount of times people ask things like "what should my stuff be on for the best picture" on here makes me wonder. I know we are always wanting the "best settings" for the "best picture" on our TV's, but I have to ask one thing.

Who are we really making these settings "the best" for?

I mean, you are taking an HD signal from DirecTV which is already pretty damn good in the first place, and put the settings on what person #1 says is the best, you look at it for a while, then person #2 comes along and says that this setup is the best, so you change it to that. Hell, that might happen for 4 or 5 people.

Now, all the while YOU can't see the difference at all between setting 1 and setting 2 and etc., so what difference does it make what people say are the "best" settings on it? I say play with the settings on your system, find out what you think looks the best along with what gives you the best performance (like the displaying of the channel like you are having Arky), and just stick with that. I would venture a guess that after enough time of playing with each setting, you will find a setting that looks the best to you.

I mean, you are the most important person for your system, aren't you? Well, your family too of course, but most of the time the only person that will notice what you have done is you because you are the only one who cares enough to look.

The only reason I say all of this is because its a virtually never ending discussion on here. Every so often we will get a new person, or a person that has been away for a long time, come to the board asking this same question. Most of the time the answer will be the same, but occasionally you will have someone pop in their 2 cents worth. Since you are the most important viewer of your system, since you know what your system can do, and since you know how to tinker with settings (cause you aren't going to break them, are you?), why not go ahead and just play with it until you get the best picture you can as far as you can tell.

I doubt anyone else will be able to see the difference either, especially from satellite. I don't think I know ANYONE that can look at an image on the screen and say "Oh, that's definitely 1920x1080!" Or "Oh my god, look what they have done to that 720p signal, they made it 1080i!!!"


:)

Resolution changes take time for the set to resync. Personally, on my 1080p, I leave the res set to native, and the format to "as broadcast", which may or may not be available as a choice to you depending on your software version. In leu of that, I used pillar box. If you set the receiver to 1080i always, it has to interlace a 720p sports program which your monitor then deinterlaces again. NATIVE sends 720p and all your set has to do is upscale it to 1080p. The final choice of course is what looks better to you. I keep 480i and 480p disabled to force the receiver to upscale it to 720p, but your monitor might do a better job with the 480 input. My monitor is a cheapy 48" Poloroid. Wished I could have afforded a nice 50" Aquos, but oh well :) Just set it to what looks good to you, and if the res changes are annoying, leave it at 1080.

Steveken, I ordered one of those Hauppage USB HD PVR things on sale from Rat Shack to put on my laptop in my work van. While I'm out driving around the state on my service calls, I'm gonna check some of these places people are asking questions about and see what kind of signals are available...Should be a fun toy for $50. Can't believe it will actually work good enough to record HD tho...Will see.

Tourchwood always this good? Never watched it before...and I'm a sci-fi nut.

Thanks for answering my question, I just wasn't quite sure how I should have the receiver set when 1080i is its highest resolution and my tv is capable of 1080p. If the tv only accepted what it was fed there would have been no question but the tv does actually take that signal and upscale it even more. It looks the best on native to me, it puts programming into its correct formats in this mode whereas the other modes leave it stretched at times, thats why I changed it to native to begin with, thanks Davenlr for the info:)

Steveken, I apologize for upsetting you, I was only looking for the best technical settings for my system, not systems in general, thats why I mentioned I was mixing a 720p/1080i receiver with a full 1080p capable tv. I know what looks good to you is whats most important, thats how most of my stuff is set up as well. And yes, everyone will not agree on what settings look best:)

BTW, I'm on Torchwood also waiting for the Launch, hope they dont take the whole hour up then launch at 1:58 a.m.

This announcer is an idiot. Rocket engines don't "suck in" debris...Jet engines do.

Here are a few pics from KARK 4.1 HD running Conan and HDNET showing shuttle coverage. I adjusted these pics as close as I could get them but they are still nowhere near the quality of the actual HDTV picture.

One more of the Shuttle on Launch, looks like a mushroom cloud from a Nuke bomb.

Steveken, I apologize for upsetting you, I was only looking for the best technical settings for my system, not systems in general, thats why I mentioned I was mixing a 720p/1080i receiver with a full 1080p capable tv. I know what looks good to you is whats most important, thats how most of my stuff is set up as well. And yes, everyone will not agree on what settings look best:)

You in no way what-so-ever upset me. I merely said all of that because even though you just asked it, someone else will ask it again in maybe 2 days time. I know that my spiel will not do any better in that 2 days time because people just won't go back through here and read previous posts or use the search box (theres just too many posts). It was just a feeble attempt at getting basic information out there. Sorry if I upset you. :)

I use Gemstar-TV Guide IPG Data, also called TVGOS(TV Guide on Screen), on my Sony DHG-HDD500 DVR. It was transmitted via VBI on KETS analog channel 2 PBS. It was also on my Suddenlink cable KETS. I have no guide data now after the tower collapse. It's not likely that it will be available from KETS again at full power.

Does anyone know if TVGOS data is transmitted on any other OTA channel that might be receivable in Hot Springs Village? I haven't had my OTA antenna up lately but I could if I thought there might be another TVGOS channel available.

I have had no problem with loss of KETS analog. Little Rock Comcast apparently converts the KETS digital signal to analog channel 3 on the basic cable lineup. Try splitting your signal from the wall so that one coax goes into the Sony input for "antenna" (with the analog data) and the other into the "cable" connection. This works for me since the analog is necessary for the TVGOS data to be received by the Sony DVR HDD 500. The TV guide from Gemstar is only available in this market, I'm told, via a contract with KETS and all TVGOS is analog only.

Bottomline, I really don't understand how the VBI is working now since no such data subcarrier line exists with digital transmission. But the TVGOS data is being sent out and Comcast digital converts it to analog on their system. This may be unique to Comcast, but it is worth a try with Suddenlink. The real question is what happens after Feb 18, 2009. Those of us with the TV Guide on Screen may be out luck.

I use Gemstar-TV Guide IPG Data, also called TVGOS(TV Guide on Screen), on my Sony DHG-HDD500 DVR. It was transmitted via VBI on KETS analog channel 2 PBS. It was also on my Suddenlink cable KETS. I have no guide data now after the tower collapse. It's not likely that it will be available from KETS again at full power.

Does anyone know if TVGOS data is transmitted on any other OTA channel that might be receivable in Hot Springs Village? I haven't had my OTA antenna up lately but I could if I thought there might be another TVGOS channel available.

KLRT has been broadcasting this for years.

E

You in no way what-so-ever upset me. I merely said all of that because even though you just asked it, someone else will ask it again in maybe 2 days time. I know that my spiel will not do any better in that 2 days time because people just won't go back through here and read previous posts or use the search box (theres just too many posts). It was just a feeble attempt at getting basic information out there. Sorry if I upset you. :)

I'm good, no one upset here at all, everyone here has been a big help to me and I appreciate everyones input:)

Scroll to the bottom of this page (http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101233318&formid=387&fac_num=2770) and click on exhibits 2, 3 & 4 (.pdf format).

KETS-Dt may be completely off the air for up to two weeks ~2/18/09 during the move from ch 5 to ch 7.

Imagine they will have to remove the ch 5 antenna and replace it with a ch 7 antenna. That would take time. My concern is ch 12 and ch 7 will be 90 degrees apart for lots of LR. Since the low/hi splitter won't work anymore, I'm going to have to find a vhf omni that actually works, or fashion a phased combo ch 7 yagi/ch 11 yagi, and then add in UHF, which will be expensive and gawdy. Maybe D11 will be up with LR locals by then...

Article on katv & KETS progress:
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/219422

There are errors and ambiguous statements in the article.

"The KETS digital signal was unaffected, meaning viewers who receive the signal via cable or satellite dish saw no interruption in service."
Should've read: Digital reception with antenna was uninterrupted.

"AETN has made arrangements to place a temporary analog transmitter on the Shinall Mountain tower owned by Clear Channel Communications that already holds KETS’ digital transmitter...."
Shouldn't that say Redfield instead of Shinall?

"dale nicholson, general manager of katv, said on Feb. 6, that 93 percent of Channel 7 ’s audience could watch the ABC affiliate, and that the over-the air signal would be clearer and stronger in the next 10 days."
Which signal will be stronger? The analog or digital?

"dale nicholson, general manager of katv, said on Feb. 6, that 93 percent of Channel 7 ’s audience could watch the ABC affiliate, and that the over-the air signal would be clearer and stronger in the next 10 days."
Which signal will be stronger? The analog or digital?

I would guess the analog since it said clearer but since the article is riddled with errors who knows?

I wonder if anyone on the AETN board actually owns a digital TV (including HDTV)? Meanwhile, actual HD programming on station resumes on March 17.

(http://www.aetn.org/production/hd_schedule)

If you look at the actual press release on KATV's website it's actually perfectly clear. The person writing the article for the Ar Dem-Gaz just can't copy and paste right apparently. It's their analog signal that should be improved.

If you look at the actual press release on KATV's website it's actually perfectly clear. ..Their site is so cluttered with crap I couldn't find it. Got a link?

Imagine they will have to remove the ch 5 antenna and replace it with a ch 7 antenna....Somewhere on the FCC site, one of the exhibits KETS submitted said they were modifying the existing ch 5 antenna to work as a ch 7 antenna. Seems like it would be quite different since it's in a different band...

Well, 39" down to 18"...guess they have a big hacksaw hahaha

dave,
don't laugh. :)

Their site is so cluttered with crap I couldn't find it. Got a link?

Hummmmm, I say it was on their site. Now where the heck did I see that. I'll try to track it down but no guarantees.

Well, I don't know where I saw it. Where ever it was it was 2 entries back to back for different days which was wierd because they both said "it was released today.....". I can't find it and neither can google so who knows where I saw it.

But the synopsis still stands that what was being improved was their analog transmission. digital seems to be doing fine (as long as 42 keeps their power up). Fortunately I'm about 6 miles from the towers so it doesn't really affect me.

Somewhere on the FCC site, one of the exhibits KETS submitted said they were modifying the existing ch 5 antenna to work as a ch 7 antenna. Seems like it would be quite different since it's in a different band...

Page 2 of the link below talks about hanging the Ch. 7 antenna and then removal of the Ch. 5 antenna.

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getattachment_exh.cgi?exhibit_id=618299

Article on katv & KETS progress:
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/219422

There are errors and ambiguous statements in the article.

"The KETS digital signal was unaffected, meaning viewers who receive the signal via cable or satellite dish saw no interruption in service."
Should've read: Digital reception with antenna was uninterrupted.

"AETN has made arrangements to place a temporary analog transmitter on the Shinall Mountain tower owned by Clear Channel Communications that already holds KETS’ digital transmitter...."
Shouldn't that say Redfield instead of Shinall?

"dale nicholson, general manager of katv, said on Feb. 6, that 93 percent of Channel 7 ’s audience could watch the ABC affiliate, and that the over-the air signal would be clearer and stronger in the next 10 days."
Which signal will be stronger? The analog or digital?

Well, after a letter to the editorial staff with your citations listed, the following response is received. You can go to their website or contact the person who contacted me for further info:

from Michael Storey <mstorey@arkansasonline.com>

1. All digital reception was unaffected, as stated. Cable and dish use digital signals. If you have a digital tuner in your TV and an antenna, your service was also uninterrupted. I believe it's clear that we're only talking about analog signals.

2. The KETS digital transmitter is on a tower on Shinall Mountain, as written.

3. Nicholson was talking about the analog signal, as was the entire article. A digital signal does not get stronger. It's either all there or not at all.

I trust this answers your questions.

- Michael Storey

Now, for 1 and 3, he's pretty much right. #2, he is clearly wrong, unless every one of you guys that post on here (and the FCC filing) is wrong. You decide.

[QUOTE=steveken;13365757]Well, after a letter to the editorial staff with your citations listed, the following response is received. You can go to their website or contact the person who contacted me for further info:

from Michael Storey <mstorey@arkansasonline.com>

1. All digital reception was unaffected, as stated. Cable and dish use digital signals.

"If you have a digital tuner in your TV and an antenna, your service was also uninterrupted."

Thats BS, my digital tuner and OTA were interrupted and is today still interrupted......whoever made that statement needs to go wash their mouth out with soap:(

Your digital reception from KETS was affected? How? Its on a separate tower across 530 (not on Shinall unless someone on here wants to agree with this ass that KETS's digital tower is up there).

Your digital reception from KETS was affected? How? Its on a separate tower across 530 (not on Shinall unless someone on here wants to agree with this ass that KETS's digital tower is up there).

I cant get KETS here, its not strong enough to lock, my service from them has always been interupted. Their analog signal is pretty descent here but their digital signal is non-existant, so to me its interruped. I wouldnt make that statement but they've always claimed my area as a coverage area. I do get those channels on the Fort Smith side from channel 9 which remaps to 13.1, but I only get about a 40% signal from KETS. They shouldnt make statements like that when folks who've received their analog for years cant even bump a digital signal from them, they need to go back to the drawing board.

I'm never surprised. I had someone at KETS several years ago, tell me I needed to point my antenna North toward Conway, when I called to question them about their signal suffering from constant impulse noise. I was trying to find out how high I would need the antenna to eliminate it...Oh well.

The Hauppage Usb hd atsc tuner came in today. Says minimum 2.2ghz processor. That happens to be exactly what I have, but HD still studders. Badly. It also said it needs 64mb of video ram. but my video on both my desktop and laptop are built in. How would you get 64MB of video memory? My ATI program shows the video buffer is 0 MB and won't let me change it. Do I need to buy a PCI video card for the desktop? What about the laptop?

FWIW, with the included UHF stubbie antenna, it found KLRT and KARK. Nothing else. It said it only works if you are within 10 miles using the stubby. Plugged in the rooftop, and it scanned everything. It also erases everything before scanning. For $50 its worth playing with.

I'm never surprised. I had someone at KETS several years ago, tell me I needed to point my antenna North toward Conway, when I called to question them about their signal suffering from constant impulse noise. I was trying to find out how high I would need the antenna to eliminate it...Oh well.

The Hauppage Usb hd atsc tuner came in today. Says minimum 2.2ghz processor. That happens to be exactly what I have, but HD still studders. Badly. It also said it needs 64mb of video ram. but my video on both my desktop and laptop are built in. How would you get 64MB of video memory? My ATI program shows the video buffer is 0 MB and won't let me change it. Do I need to buy a PCI video card for the desktop? What about the laptop?

FWIW, with the included UHF stubbie antenna, it found KLRT and KARK. Nothing else. It said it only works if you are within 10 miles using the stubby. Plugged in the rooftop, and it scanned everything. It also erases everything before scanning. For $50 its worth playing with.

wow, those are some steep requirements. I don't remember what the minimum CPU is for my Autumnwave OnAir GT but my 2.0GHz laptop with 256MB shared video memory runs it well. And the included antenna picked up the big four with a lot of tweaking (I bought an amplified indoor antenna to simplify reception). And it works with clear QAM. That said, when I bought it a year ago, it was $100 more than you spent...

gah, nearly all of Raycom Sports' affiliates are CW or MNTV affiliates. Even one of the ABC affiliates in South Carolina won't show the game tonight, they move it over to a MNTV affiliate. And a lot of the "affiliates" are FSN South and FSN Florida. Why can't we just keep the college basketball conference tournaments on the FSNs and small affiliates?

I hate having to use the torrents but KATV leaves me no choice for LOST in HD tonight...

I'm never surprised. I had someone at KETS several years ago, tell me I needed to point my antenna North toward Conway, when I called to question them about their signal suffering from constant impulse noise. I was trying to find out how high I would need the antenna to eliminate it...Oh well.

The Hauppage Usb hd atsc tuner came in today. Says minimum 2.2ghz processor. That happens to be exactly what I have, but HD still studders. Badly. It also said it needs 64mb of video ram. but my video on both my desktop and laptop are built in. How would you get 64MB of video memory? My ATI program shows the video buffer is 0 MB and won't let me change it. Do I need to buy a PCI video card for the desktop? What about the laptop?

I am pretty well close to Shinall if thats where KETS is according to the morons at the newspaper. I should get it absolutely perfectly, no problems at all, but yet I don't. Hell, I STILL should get it if its down in Redfield because its just not that far, but I don't. Its because KETS's signal is CRAP. There is no reason why someone located where I am shouldn't be able to get KETS OTA EASILY.

If you have just a standard P4 2.2GHz processor, you don't really have enough oomph to do HD WITHOUT a good video card. The demands of HD are just so much in regards to decoding, drawing, fast motion, etc that you have to have a good, beefy, modern system to do it. If you have a slower machine that will show HD stuff if it is slower and then goes to pixel hell when activity in the scene speeds up, its because your computer is slowing it down due to a lack of power. Most of the time, its on-board video thats the problem.

It is stuttering because your on-board video is garbage. ALL on-board video is garbage, especially if its an Intel on-board video. You can barely play Freecell on them because the graphics are just terrible. They just do NOT have the power to do any job well at all. They are just a low-cost, easy excuse for video that the computers makers use to save a few bucks. You would be better off getting a computer without video at all and having to add it yourself later.

64MB of video ram with an on-board card is shared ("with the main memory of the system" is what I should have put after that, thus this late update). If you get an add-on card, the ram is going to be on the card. You simply can't do HD with a laptop video, it just does not have enough power to do the job. That is unless the laptop uses a real video card like the alienware, high end dells, high end hp's, and a few others use, but you will pay out the wazoo for that. The only way you are going to be able to use HD with the laptop most likely is to record it completely, THEN try to watch it. Even then it might not be good enough. The decoding of the HD and trying to display it at the same time is probably what is overwhelming the hardware with the live feed.

As far as you question about getting a PCI video card for the desktop.....good luck finding one that is worth anything. With the advent of AGP and PCI-Express, plain PCI video cards have been forgotten about because they are extremely inferior. Even some of the newer on-board video cards are far better than PCI can do. I haven't been looking for one lately, but the last time I remember actually seeing a PCI board in a store was well over 3 years ago.

I would hope you have an AGP or PCI-E slot on your motherboard. If you don't, quit buying Dell. :) List out your specs, might be able to tell you more about what you will and won't be able to do from them.

You know, something I forgot to mention in that last post, I too have a 2.2GHz Gateway computer that I was getting OTA HD on until I got my new HP machine.

Its got 1GB regular ram, I think when I used it for that I had a GeForce Ti4200 in it for video with I think 128MB video ram on it, I later put a 6600 with 256MB in it and that, of course, worked better. Those three things (CPU, system ram, and video card) together made the HD recording and watching a little slow at first (because windows media center is a dog on it), but once everything came up, it was smooth just like it should be (until you change volume, ffwd, rwd, or anything else that made a windows overlay showing what you are doing come up....again, media center is a dog sometimes. Not sure if its not just the computer, but I don't think so.)

So, I think in your case, Dave, its just the simple fact that you probably don't have enough system ram and you definitely need a newer/better video card with some actual ram on it instead of shared system ram. Again, on-board video is never worth a damn unless you are doing emails and spreadsheets and word documents. :)

Ok. Here is what I have, basically got it to download and view music videos (720x480 or less)...which works great, as do DVD's and divx HD files at 1280x720, and a few HD trailers (think they are avi, but don't know what compression)...

Emachines AMD Athlon 64 2.2GHz, 1 GB main memory, 128 MB shared video buffer ATI Radeon Express 200 built in (it does have a PCI-Express slot available)...Windows XP SP2, two 500 GB 7200 rpm drives and one networked 1 TB drive.

The HD channels work ok in a window (at 1280x720 res) and work almost without stutter (at 1024x768) res. Recordings play fine using powerDVD, no stutter.

I'm gonna try it on the laptop just for grins. If it works ok in a window, that's fine. I just wanted it for trips, and thought if it worked on the laptop, I could use it to watch the nascar race on KLRT-DT, while using the main HD for the HOTPASS drivers channels (no commercials) at the same time, since my HD monitor doesn't have PIP.

Think a PCI express card would beef up my desktop enough? I really don't want to spend lots of money on it, as in a year or so @ plannedon building a media center pc from scratch using an ASUS motherboard and lots of memory, and a kick ass video card...just can't afford it this year, this year is my FTA projects year for extra cash.

Installed on the laptop (1.8 GHz Turion 64) and works perfect...go figure... Now when I go to Jonesboro I can check out KAIT :)

Sorry, no edit on this pda... Checked the website. Had to turn on overlay mode with the ATI card, and its now working great.

Oh, so it does have a PCI-E slot in it? Thats the way to go I think.

You really don't need a whole lot for a media center box. I mean, why throw a crapload of money at something that all its going to do is let you watch tv and movies?

With that said, I would just buy a media center box off the shelf for a few hundred bucks and go that way with it. You will get just as much performance out of it as a kick ass one you build. Hell, with one you pull off the shelf, it will be at least a Core2Duo chip in it with enough memory probably, and a lot of hard drive space (which you already have enough of). Definitely something that will be really good for HD reception/viewing/recording/editing/etc.

The problems you have right now, however, are:

1) the name brand...even though it was bought by Gateway, eMachines is still crap. (ok, that was a joke. even though in the past they might not have been known for quality, its still a decent machine functionality wise.)

2) the 128MB shared memory.....plus the video card itself isn't that good.

So, look on pricewatch.com and around locally for a decent PCI-Express card that is reasonable for you. I would think that a $100 card or so would do you wonders. Basically, do what you can to get away from the god-awful on-board video. You will be amazed at how much better your system will run.


Oh yeah, you have a desktop AND a laptop, but you STILL have to use that damn pda to post messages? Wow man, I tell ya what, if you want me to, I will come over and get all this fixed up for you if you come over here and build me an at least so-so antenna. :)

I have had no problem with loss of KETS analog. Little Rock Comcast apparently converts the KETS digital signal to analog channel 3 on the basic cable lineup. Try splitting your signal from the wall so that one coax goes into the Sony input for "antenna" (with the analog data) and the other into the "cable" connection. This works for me since the analog is necessary for the TVGOS data to be received by the Sony DVR HDD 500. The TV guide from Gemstar is only available in this market, I'm told, via a contract with KETS and all TVGOS is analog only.

Bottomline, I really don't understand how the VBI is working now since no such data subcarrier line exists with digital transmission. But the TVGOS data is being sent out and Comcast digital converts it to analog on their system. This may be unique to Comcast, but it is worth a try with Suddenlink. The real question is what happens after Feb 18, 2009. Those of us with the TV Guide on Screen may be out luck.
I did some testing and my analog cable KETS channel does not transmit VBI(with TVGOS) and there is no OTA analog KETS now. I don't understand how Comcast could be passing TVGOS on KETS.
As far as 2/2009 end of of analog, apparently participating CBS stations plan to transmit TVGOS on a digital channel. But KTHV doesn't have plans for it yet. I guess we just need to wait and see what happens and if it works with the Sony.

KLRT has been broadcasting this for years.

E

I tested it, and KLRT OTA analog 16 does transmit VBI data but my Sony unit does not recognize any clock or TVGOS data in the VBI data as of today. BTW, OTA analog ABC channel 7 also transmits VBI, but no recognized TVGOS.

Stupid thunderstorm knocked my power off from 7:18 to 8:55, knocking out my recordings of Smallville and Reaper. My in-laws have the Superstations package from Dish, so we'll record the west coast feed over there and watch them in SD over the weekend. I was ticked off at KATV for preempting Lost and Eli Stone for basketball tonight, but I guess this makes me feel a little better about having to record them late.

As far as 2/2009 end of of analog, apparently participating CBS stations plan to transmit TVGOS on a digital channel. But KATV doesn't have plans for it yet. I guess we just need to wait and see what happens and if it works with the Sony.

Sorry, but I was wondering, you do realize that KATV isn't CBS, right? Or was that just a typo on your part? Just made it sound like you thought KATV would carry this TVGOS stuff like other CBS stations do. Just wanted to make sure you realized KTHV is the CBS and KATV is ABC.

Steveken, on my hauppage, it scans in THV2, but refuses to scan in 11.1. Looks like the database is a jet database. Do you know how to manually edit a hauppage file or is there a program to manually add a channel?

I bet you are using WinTV. You have to get a real TV app like GB-PVR or maybe even, gasp, Windows Media Center. LOL Just kidding. I would just use GB-PVR, its about the bets you can use right now thats free.

And again, I forgot to put in key information. Geez, my head ain't on right today. I said that you were using WinTV because I had the same problem happen to me. No matter how many times I would scan through the channels, the damn thing just would NOT show 11.1. I wish I knew what was up with that, guess its just a poorly written program. It doesn't do ANYTHING like it should. Its just s POS in general.

Stupid thunderstorm knocked my power off from 7:18 to 8:55, knocking out my recordings of Smallville and ReaperOur power went out in Eureka during a heavy storm tonight. But I have a UPS, and the D* HR20 never missed a beat recording Survivor on KFSM-DT.

I was ticked off at KATV for preempting Lost... Did katv ever get HD timeshifting capability? KHOG-DT in Fayetteville has it.

Does GB-PVR get the tv guide from the stations? WinTV wants me to get it from the net, which I can't do. Since its sent in the ATSC stream, was hoping to get it from that.

Steveken - about KETS digital. The other OTA signals I get from Shinall all are magnetic 264° to 266°. I live between Sherwood and Jax. If you say the KETS digital xtr is across 530, approx how many degrees difference would that be from me? None of the new charts show the KETS digital tower. Hate to bug you with a simple question like that, but I am installing a fixed low freq antenna so wife can get her shows on the KETS digital channes 2-1 and 2-2. (That's how DISH numbers the local OTA channels) Regards

Dave E, NLR.

Steveken - about KETS digital. The other OTA signals I get from Shinall all are magnetic 264° to 266°. I live between Sherwood and Jax. If you say the KETS digital xtr is across 530, approx how many degrees difference would that be from me? None of the new charts show the KETS digital tower. Hate to bug you with a simple question like that, but I am installing a fixed low freq antenna so wife can get her shows on the KETS digital channes 2-1 and 2-2. (That's how DISH numbers the local OTA channels) Regards

Dave E, NLR.

It's across 530 from where KATV's tower used to be in Redfield about 4 miles west, so if you aim at KATV's old coordinates you'll probably be close enough.

Thanks, Byrdnest. Got a cheapie 2-6 channel antenna and lo-pass filter so she can watch Donna Dewberry One-stroke painting. THey don't broadcast it on the analog channel. Gotta keep mama happy.

Dave E
NLR

I tested it, and KLRT OTA analog 16 does transmit VBI data but my Sony unit does not recognize any clock or TVGOS data in the VBI data as of today. BTW, OTA analog ABC channel 7 also transmits VBI, but no recognized TVGOS.

I assume you ran the "VBI Search" sub-program that searches the channel to which you are tuned to seek out VBI data. The instructions to perform the VBI search is over on the Sony HDD250/500 forum (FAQ section).

I forgot to mention that I have split my incoming cable signal, with one coax going to the "Cable" input of the DVR, and the other coax to the "Antenna" connection. This allows your tuner to see both digital and analog signals simultaneously. Make sure the "Cable KETS" and the "Antenna KETS" channels are turned on. Also, you may want to do a hard reboot after you have split the signal to both digital and analog inputs. THis is what I did and as long as my unit "sees" the pseudo-analog KETS cable channel, my TVGOS has worked beautifully.

If this doesn't work, you might try repeating the "Search VBI" procedure with your unit tuned to "analog" KLRT, wait five minutes (until the "Search Current VBI" message goes away), turnoff the unit over night and cross your fingers.

Sorry for such a long reply. Good luck

Steveken - about KETS digital. The other OTA signals I get from Shinall all are magnetic 264° to 266°. I live between Sherwood and Jax. If you say the KETS digital xtr is across 530, approx how many degrees difference would that be from me? None of the new charts show the KETS digital tower. Hate to bug you with a simple question like that, but I am installing a fixed low freq antenna so wife can get her shows on the KETS digital channes 2-1 and 2-2. (That's how DISH numbers the local OTA channels) Regards

Dave E, NLR.
The KETS Digit xtr is on the KASN channel 38 tower near Redfield.

Sorry, but I was wondering, you do realize that KATV isn't CBS, right? Or was that just a typo on your part? Just made it sound like you thought KATV would carry this TVGOS stuff like other CBS stations do. Just wanted to make sure you realized KTHV is the CBS and KATV is ABC.
Yes, my typo. Regarding TVGOS on digital CBS, It should read "KTHV doesn't have plans for it yet", per an inquiry to KTHV a few weeks ago.

to those who recorded LOST last night, I hope you set your DVRs to record an extra 45 minutes since LOST didn't start until 1:45 I'm told. The game went late and I guess KATV couldn't cut anything to get themselves back on schedule before LOST. KATV got themselves stuck in a sticky situation with their SEC contract, I hope they hear some backlash from the common LOST fans and not just us.

I assume you ran the "VBI Search" sub-program that searches the channel to which you are tuned to seek out VBI data. The instructions to perform the VBI search is over on the Sony HDD250/500 forum (FAQ section).

I forgot to mention that I have split my incoming cable signal, with one coax going to the "Cable" input of the DVR, and the other coax to the "Antenna" connection. This allows your tuner to see both digital and analog signals simultaneously. Make sure the "Cable KETS" and the "Antenna KETS" channels are turned on. Also, you may want to do a hard reboot after you have split the signal to both digital and analog inputs. THis is what I did and as long as my unit "sees" the pseudo-analog KETS cable channel, my TVGOS has worked beautifully.

If this doesn't work, you might try repeating the "Search VBI" procedure with your unit tuned to "analog" KLRT, wait five minutes (until the "Search Current VBI" message goes away), turnoff the unit over night and cross your fingers.

Sorry for such a long reply. Good luck
Thanks for the tips but KETS analog and digital output from my Suddenlink cable do not show any VBI data. Comcast must do something different from Suddenlink. Before the tower collapse, my cable analog KETS station transmitted VBI TVGOS into the DVR cable port. Now no analog cable VBI available when using the DVR cable or antenna ports.

SUCCESS! (almost) :)
I stuck a temporary antenna out my window last night and the Sony found a TVGOS host - OTA Channel 9 analog AETN in Arkadelphia. Clock and guide data downloaded. Only problem is the clock is one hour behind. I think it's using pre-2007 D.S.T. Maybe it will be correct starting the 1st Sunday in April.
This Sony unit and TVGOS can be rather "difficult". :(

Stupid thunderstorm knocked my power off from 7:18 to 8:55, knocking out my recordings of Smallville and Reaper. My in-laws have the Superstations package from Dish, so we'll record the west coast feed over there and watch them in SD over the weekend. I was ticked off at KATV for preempting Lost and Eli Stone for basketball tonight, but I guess this makes me feel a little better about having to record them late.

See, everyone is different. I never watch those shows but I do watch alot of sports. I was watching the SEC tourney last night and was very happy.:)

Thanks, Byrdnest. Got a cheapie 2-6 channel antenna and lo-pass filter so she can watch Donna Dewberry One-stroke painting. THey don't broadcast it on the analog channel. Gotta keep mama happy.

Dave E
NLR

And we all know, "If mamma ain't happy......"

Thanks for the tips but KETS analog and digital output from my Suddenlink cable do not show any VBI data. Comcast must do something different from Suddenlink. Before the tower collapse, my cable analog KETS station transmitted VBI TVGOS into the DVR cable port. Now no analog cable VBI available when using the DVR cable or antenna ports.

SUCCESS! (almost) :)
I stuck a temporary antenna out my window last night and the Sony found a TVGOS host - OTA Channel 9 analog AETN in Arkadelphia. Clock and guide data downloaded. Only problem is the clock is one hour behind. I think it's using pre-2007 D.S.T. Maybe it will be correct starting the 1st Sunday in April.
This Sony unit and TVGOS can be rather "difficult". :(
Wow. That is good news. The clock difference has happened to me before, especially after a long period without working data. So, it should self-correct within a day or two.

See, everyone is different. I never watch those shows but I do watch alot of sports. I was watching the SEC tourney last night and was very happy.:)

I'd be happier if the quality was better. I'm not asking for HD, just decent quality. It's been awhile since I've watched Raycom's coverage OTA but I remember not being impressed and E*'s signal for KATV is terrible. I watched Tennessee play on Sun Sports from Florida (thank goodness for the sports pack). Even worse is KWBF's Big 12 coverage from ESPN+, the colors are terribly messed up. So I'm watching on Altitude from Colorado. The coverage's quality isn't bad, it's the local stations and/or E* messing it up...

Never understood why most of you go nuts over basketball of all things. I mean, comeon, its not all that great. I personally hate basketball.

The world would be pretty boring if we all had the same interests.

</ot>

Hehe, I hate basketball too, but was testing out the katv "hd" signal last night and caught myself watching the OT period. I think what I dislike so much about it, is that constant obnoxious horn that blows every 10 seconds and rattles my speakers. Think that game last night was the first game I've seen with a Mexican/Latin player. Nice to see them diversifying the teams a little.

Public TV station WINT South Bend, IN lost their analog transmitter due to a Klystron failure...they are petitioning the FCC to 86 analog early (http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080312/NEWS01/26369342).

I thought someone posted on here earlier that stations were permitted to switch to digital at any time. Or maybe this is a flash-cut station...

I'd be happier if the quality was better. I'm not asking for HD, just decent quality. It's been awhile since I've watched Raycom's coverage OTA but I remember not being impressed and E*'s signal for KATV is terrible. I watched Tennessee play on Sun Sports from Florida (thank goodness for the sports pack). Even worse is KWBF's Big 12 coverage from ESPN+, the colors are terribly messed up. So I'm watching on Altitude from Colorado. The coverage's quality isn't bad, it's the local stations and/or E* messing it up...

Yeah but it beats the heck out of the old analog signals.

Never understood why most of you go nuts over basketball of all things. I mean, comeon, its not all that great. I personally hate basketball.

No one asked you to understand. Look at it this way, you have your tv and the rest of us have ours, that means you can watch what you want and so can the rest of us:rolleyes:

Think the reason Directv has no or bad guide data for KWBF has anything to do with the fact titantv doesn't even know what channel it is:
Fri 03/14/2008
KWBFDT 43.1 (43)
???

Wonder how many nastygrams KATV is gonna get for not showing the live Nationwide NASCAR race Saturday afternoon from Bristol, so it can show more basketball? God I'm glad I don't have to rely on KATV for ABC... I'd go nuts.

I wonder what they'll have to preempt tomorrow to show a third game in the morning (since UK-UGA was delayed). When the Raycom sports broadcast team was apologizing to affiliates about having to preempt shows I was thinking that KATV has no problem with that! Maybe their affiliation should be considered SEC with a secondary affiliation of ABC...

Maybe when they put up their brand new tower and digital station, the will actually run all this low res sports on subchannel 2 and run ABC HD on subchannel 1. Lord knows raycom doesn't require any bandwidth for its 320x480 resolution.

Public TV station WINT South Bend, IN lost their analog transmitter due to a Klystron failure...they are petitioning the FCC to 86 analog early (http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080312/NEWS01/26369342).The bozos running aetn are still living in the past. Don't expect them to spend taxpayer money wisely. In their minds, it's free money.

I thought someone posted on here earlier that stations were permitted to switch to digital at any time. Or maybe this is a flash-cut station...LPTV stations can flash cut.

Maybe when they put up their brand new tower and digital station, the will actually run all this low res sports on subchannel 2 and run ABC HD on subchannel 1. Lord knows raycom doesn't require any bandwidth for its 320x480 resolution.

I suggested this to them in one of my annual "why are you idiots pre-empting Lost for basketball?!" e-mails a couple of years ago, and they responded that their contracts required that the games be on the primary channel, or something like that.

Ok, so put the low res game on 7-1 and network programming in HD on 7-2. Doesn't matter as long as its ON. I remember last year when Nascar was on TNT and Directv turned off TNT-HD to use the bandwidth for NFL Sunday Ticket. They got so many complaints and threats of cancellation they sent out notices that TNT would never be turned off during NASCAR again...

I was scanning around and picked up 4 dtv subchannels on channel 18, just came in enough to catch a few frames here and there, but thought I caught Searcy MyNet...Is Equity running a 4 subchannel LPTV station in Searcy?

With all of the discussion of KWBF-DT transmitter power I decided to check signal power levels at my parent's house in DeWitt. They have a twenty year old UHF antenna and a twenty-fve year old VHF antenna on a 50' tower with a cheap Radio Shack amplifier. They can pick up all the majors (KLRT, KTHV, KARK, KASN) with signal strengths between 70 to 100 using the OTA tuner of a DirecTV HR20. All afternoon the KWBF-DT never would lock and its signal strength bounced between 0 and 30. Just before 6PM the signal shot up to between 70 and 80 and had a good solid lock. This stayed solid all night until around 11PM when the signal strength dropped back to between 0 and 30. As far as I can tell these changes were not gradual. Has anyone else noticed this? Could KWBF-DT be upping its power during prime time?

For those of you that have not heard, it appears as though the AMC14 satellite launch was a failure last night. This satellite was to carry new HD & SD channels for Dish Network.

@Davenlr:

Crain Media runs My Town TV (KTWN 18). This year one of their subchannels is an America One affiliate. Their primary channel is local programming and includes a lot of local high school sports programming. Another channel is a radio channel rebroadcast with weather info overlays. The fourth one is who-knows-what. It's there so whoever tends the station can leave up webpages and Windows error screens by accident (actually haven't seen this in a while but saw it many times in the past). It is usually a copy of the radio/weather subchannel.

KTWN is quite a hodgepodge. They do have a homepage though:

http://www.ktwn18.com/

dmatch

Wonder how many nastygrams KATV is gonna get for not showing the live Nationwide NASCAR race Saturday afternoon from Bristol, so it can show more basketball? God I'm glad I don't have to rely on KATV for ABC... I'd go nuts.
My TV guide shows that the NASCAR minor league race will be on 42.2 (usually RTN) . The quality of the picture should be real interesting, unless they change something (I doubt it). They appear to have robbed a bunch of bandwidth from 42.2 to give KATV (42.3/7.1) a somewhat better picture than they would have otherwise. The race might be the ugliest thing to ever hit the airwaves.

dmatch

Cool, thanks for the info. My TV Guide from Directv for 42.2 is in Russian (really), so it makes no sense. It seems more and more to me like Equity is partially taking over the ABC affiliation. I've noticed lots of ABC and ESPN programming on there, and they have several ABC affiliates in other states on FTA. Seems as tho KATV and Equity are merging into a mass of program/network swaps. Guess that's a good thing, if only they would pay attention to quality. Watching retrojams this morning, and the sync was almost 500ms off between the audio and video...on my FTA non-dvr...something I have noticed on and off with Directv. Seems there is nothing in the digital specs to facilitate syncing the two streams.

errett, what's up with the stretch-o-vision on 16.1 during local programming? Noticed it briefly last night, and tuned back in this morning, network shows looked fine, but Saved by the Bell reruns are stretched. KASN-DT still looked okay last night.

That's a shame for Dish subscribers. I hate to see satellite launch failures. Competition is a good thing. Hope Directv 11's launch Monday 3/17 goes well. Two days and we will know if LR is gonna have HD locals soon :)

Fly-Daddy: Sounds like tropo skip was the cause of your primetime signal increase. I'd monitor it several days. If its always at the same time, it might be them playing with the power, but such antics would be noticed locally here in LR, and I'm not seeing any deviation in signal. If it is tropo, you should see the same results around sunrise and for a few hours after sunrise as well.

I'm glad D* doesn't launch from Russia.

D10 was launched from Russia on the same Proton M that just failed. Actually, D10 was the very first launch using that model rocket.

That's a shame for Dish subscribers. I hate to see satellite launch failures. Competition is a good thing. Hope Directv 11's launch Monday 3/17 goes well. Two days and we will know if LR is gonna have HD locals soon :)

After doing a "Search" looks like D* is not going to carry a "live" launch this time and will show a "Re-broadcast" of it on 3-18 @ 5a on channel 573. Is this right?

Guess they don't want to spend the money for a live launch from the middle of the ocean :)

Guess they don't want to spend the money for a live launch from the middle of the ocean :)


Well, after further "searching" I find that coverage of the launch is scheduled for 5:30 p on Monday, 3-17 on D* channel 573. I guess this will be a "live" launch after all.

P.S. The NASCAR coverage is in a "Rain Delay" and looks like crap on 42 in Stretch-O-Vision or something with resolution resembling a Kinescope from the 50's; hardly worth watching.

WABC-HD..yea baby. I can see the individual raindrops. Its looking pretty good on FTA too, although not HD. I spent 1 minute on 42.2 and was laughing, the guys face doing the interview was at least 30 different blocked shades of tan. I don't even have any old mpeg1 music videos with that bad a picture.

Holy crap what a PIXELATED MESS on 42.2. This is nuts!! I wish those morons were watching this board AND their signal. If it were me, I would be so embarrassed that I would never ever want to show my face again, much less my channel. Thank god this is only Bristol (a.k.a. can't hardly hit the throttle, wreck around every corner). Can't remember if anyone said there was stretching on 42.2, but I am not seeing it. Just the crappy 4:3.

Just flipped it to the D* 49. Wow, ghosting? Seriously? They can't get a picture without a ghost up? If only to live in a big market where there are more options or people who care about their programming.

I think its interesting the Dish launch was a failure. Did it blow up? I sure hope we don't have that problem. As many launches as are done anymore, it should be really hard to have a launch "fail".

Ahh, found this website with info on it..... http://www.spaceflightnow.com/proton/amc14/

Looks like ILS really needs to work on those upper stage rockets. Those protons appear to have a decent track record in the past, but I wouldn't trust them. I would put more than enough space fuel on it to correct any kind of screwed up launch. I don't know if I would use them myself anymore and opt for SeaLaunch vehicles.

What ever happened to Airianspace down in Guyana? Didn't they used to launch most of the American sats?

Wabc interrupted pre-race to show a 30 story tall crane that fell over right through the 20 story apt building across the street...Several fatalities, what a mess. I don't know why Nascar doesn't just simulcast on Speed or another national channel. Relying on local broadcast stations is a crap shoot at best. At least HDnet shows the race later in the week...At least the cup series. Don't know if the Nationwide is rebroadcast or not.

With all of the discussion of KWBF-DT transmitter power I decided to check signal power levels at my parent's house in DeWitt. They have a twenty year old UHF antenna and a twenty-fve year old VHF antenna on a 50' tower with a cheap Radio Shack amplifier. They can pick up all the majors (KLRT, KTHV, KARK, KASN) with signal strengths between 70 to 100 using the OTA tuner of a DirecTV HR20. All afternoon the KWBF-DT never would lock and its signal strength bounced between 0 and 30. Just before 6PM the signal shot up to between 70 and 80 and had a good solid lock. This stayed solid all night until around 11PM when the signal strength dropped back to between 0 and 30. As far as I can tell these changes were not gradual. Has anyone else noticed this? Could KWBF-DT be upping its power during prime time?

No, fly you were getting tropo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-FM_DX#Tropospheric_propagation) (short-haul) last night. Although it was not long distance, it was strong especially with a very strong in the 9:00pm hour with KAFT-13 analog, KEMV-6 analog, even stronger KAIT-8 analog (which was showing actual ABC programming, BTW). I also had weak analog signals from KPBI-34 (Eureka Springs), KHOG-29, and KNWA-51 (nothing from the Springfield area--even KWBM-31 analog), so KWBF-DT was making the trip okay) KNWA-DT (50) and either KAFT-DT, or KAIT-DT--both on RF 9 were "pinging" on my hamshack STB (US digital--4th gen rx) but no lock/psip. I did though have a strong signal from KFSM-DT (18).

It's across 530 from where KATV's tower used to be in Redfield about 4 miles west, so if you aim at KATV's old coordinates you'll probably be close enough.

Finally found the link to the other website I've been using lately for antenna pointing. www.tvfool.com

They show all of the stations that I get vs. www.antennaweb.org only showing some of them.

They also have some pretty cool Google Earth KMZ files.

Antennaweb is bit more conservative than TVFool. To show more stations in your area on antennaweb, add 50 to 150 feet to the antenna height, at the bottom of the address entry page (+OPTIONS).

The color coded google earth overlays are probably the best predictor of reception for a specific address. But even those can be off sometimes. I have a friend in Eureka who lives in an area surrounded by hills. All the predictors including google earth showed no signals at his house, but he's getting 9 Springfield, MO channels from 65 miles away, using a CM 4221 antenna indoors, + 7777 preamp.

What's up with KLRT and stretch-o-vision on locals news and commercials? I thought my settings had gotten screwed up. Now I'm having to shrink using my monitor.

I don't know, but its pissing me off too. I can't shrink it on mine it doesn't look like, although I haven't tried the TV's settings...they may be on widescreen. I never change it on anything else, so I shouldn't have to change it for 16. I tried the Format button on the HR20, but it didn't do anything either. I think we are just stuck like that which really really sucks. Guess its just one more station I won't be watching. TBS and TNT have already lost me for the same reasons.

I thought my "auto wide" had somehow gotten turned to "ON". Checked it and it was off as I had it set. Now I see I'm not the only one enjoying KLRTS's Stretch-O-vision:rolleyes:

I just don't understand why it should be decided for us whether or not our content is stretched. If someone wants to distort their content, it's not hard to do so, they can do it themselves. Unfortunately my family found it quickly. But they haven't with our new DISH receiver :) so no more stretching.

There is no excuse for this B.S.

I tuned over for a few minutes of their 9pm newscast. Disgusting.

Bad enough for TNT, TBS, A&E, History, KWBF etc to distort pixels but if I want to stretch the damn picture, it should be my choice and not forced on me by the broadcaster/station/cable network. Not sure about the D* receivers but the E* vip211 will not allow me to "squeeze" these bastardized images back to proper OAR on my main TV.

And to think KLRT used to be one of the good guys in this town (despite their noxious weekday daytime programing--Springer, Maury and morning infomercials instead of local news) for HD. Thank you KWBF, KATV, and now KLRT to contribute to the dumbing-down of HDTV local broadcasting.

I guess subchannels for KARK are next.....

KARK has to get a good, reliable signal first. It is the only channel in my house I have to fight to get strong enough to matter. Theirs, and now KLRT's, signal has been bouncing around a LOT here lately for me enough to make the signal unstable and blocky at times. KLRT used to be nice and strong for me, but now its jumping around 30 to 40% at times. Makes it damn hard to watch a show.

As far as our bitching about the fabulous stretch-o-matic that KLRT just turned on, don't we have an engineer that works for them on here on a regular basis? There are so many here that I get everyone confused, but I think errett works there.......I could be mistaken. If he indeed does work there, maybe he can provide us with a decent enough explanation of this garbage. Damn, I really hope this is a temporary thing and they turn this crap back off.

KARK has to get a good, reliable signal first. It is the only channel in my house I have to fight to get strong enough to matter. Theirs, and now KLRT's, signal has been bouncing around a LOT here lately for me enough to make the signal unstable and blocky at times. KLRT used to be nice and strong for me, but now its jumping around 30 to 40% at times. Makes it damn hard to watch a show.

As far as our bitching about the fabulous stretch-o-matic that KLRT just turned on, don't we have an engineer that works for them on here on a regular basis? There are so many here that I get everyone confused, but I think errett works there.......I could be mistaken. If he indeed does work there, maybe he can provide us with a decent enough explanation of this garbage. Damn, I really hope this is a temporary thing and they turn this crap back off.

I've been locking OTA signals for about 5 years now. In the last 6 months I've had more problems with signal strength and keeping them locked than ever before. Also have seen alot of tampering with stretching and stuff like that from the broadcasters lately. It worries me that they are looking for a cheap way out when it comes to broadcasting digital:mad:

DirecTV D11 sat launch delayed. Details at:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=92610&page=44

I wonder what power KWBF-DT is really transmitting at? FCC shows possibly 1,000kW ERP. Of course that's not true. TV Fool shows ~94kW ERP now and post-transition.

The ~94 kW sounds more like KWBF-LP in Sheridan (FCC shows 104 kW).

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?list=0&facid=37005

shows KWBF-DT has a construction permit for 1000 kW (since 2004) and appears (to my untrained eye) to be running under a Special Temporary Authority at 587 kW. Kind of like solving a puzzle trying to figure what is really happening when the FCC is involved.

For anyone interested you can look up TV stations on the FCC website here:

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/video/tvq.html

dmatch

dmatch,
Yes, I've seen all of the FCC listed power levels for KWBF-DT. Which made me do a double take when TVFool showed something different and not even listed on the fcc link you posted.

Who knows what power level they're using.

Ft Smith has a FOX affiliate that is supposed to be xmting at 200kW, with an app for 1,000kW (which was rejected). But from the posts on that board about problems receiving the station, I don't think they're xmting at even 200kW. Their power is more likely still at their STA level.

I wonder what power KWBF-DT is really transmitting at? FCC shows possibly 1,000kW ERP. Of course that's not true. TV Fool shows ~94kW ERP now and post-transition.

Remember that TVFool accounts for directional patterns (assuming you're looking based on your location) and so if KWBF-DT has a null in a particular direction, it's entirely possible that it could appear as low as 94 kW.

Looking at their 1000 kW signal's proposed directional pattern, it looks to me at first glance like it will output 78 kW in its deepest null, so it's entirely possible.

- Trip

Hi Steveken. I have been trying to setup digital KETS channel 2 (RF) and seeing on the forum that they are located near the ch 38 xtr in Redfield. For the life of me, I cannot pick them up at all, either toward Shinall or Redfield. Are they actually transmitting, or still screwing around? I'm picking up the rest of the area channels OTA through my Dish 411 receiver between 70 and 80%, but no sign of rf2. Thanks

Dave E
NLR

Well, first of all, I am probably the last person you need to be asking direct questions to about this junk. I DO talk a LOT, but am probably the least in the know. :) I pick up what I do know from the Internet. The manner in which I pick up all my digital signals can be best defined as "pure luck" or "gerry rigged" at best. I do not have a real antenna hooked up outside (even though I have a mast that would be perfect for one). My setup involves speaker wire for one TV and a cheap off the shelf job from wal-mart that I was able to get someone to give me for free once upon a time. DaveNLR and arxaw know FAR more about this stuff than I do.

With that said, and like I have said several times before, I can't get 5.1 through 5.4 myself. From what I can figure out, you will need one hell of a setup in order to pull in their weak-ass signal so you can watch it. The only person I have heard of getting it done is DaveNLR even though the rest of us supposedly should be able to get it with little to no problems.

And yes, their transmitter is down in Redfield. Its not only located near the 38 transmitter, but it is on the same tower as the 38 xmtr. So, why you can't get it is beyond me.

:)



By the way, I am post number 5000 on here!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!

Steveken - you may not be the 'boss-hog" to ask for information, but you are really good at answering dumb questions like I put forth. APpreciate the quick answer. I
guess I am just dealing with a weak signal, it won't even register on the local channel
HD scan the dish 411 makes, and picks up all the rest just fine, but KETS won't even
register with my antenna pointed directly at the KASN tower in Redfield, and I get
KASN (rf38-1) at 78% - so KETS must REALLY be weak. Thanks again.

Dave E
NLR