We made some improvemts on WYDO analog not perfect but better.

Ken

I'm looking at it on my 19" analog Magnavox 1992 model and it looks better to me. I little snowy, but it always has been here.

OK foxeng,

I made several adjustments to some cabling and antenna probed, as a result I'm getting FOX 50 x 3 but still no WRAL... I don't get it... I do get WECT better now though as well. I guess each channel has a sweet spot, and there's no way to get on the roof each time I want to watch one of those Raleigh channels. WRDC is now so strong it's like it's on WCTI's tower almost! I'm watching 50 right now at this late hour. I've never gotten a Raleigh station this late in the morning.

WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH 14-1???? It is dropping out every few minutes on my system in Vanceboro during the superbowl...anyone else seeing this?

Yep...Same thing in Greenville...sucks

thought it was my rabbit ears...glad it's not me

I'm seeing signal loss every few minutes on the western end of Ayden on 14-1 plus the SD LIL on DirecTV.

Can you believe it, the biggest event of the year and WYDO DT & TV both having issues.

Good thing I can get WRAZ-DT.

Ken are you going in to hiding?

If you have DirecTV with MPEG4 equipment, it is on channel 701 in HD.

Yep sorry guys wish there was somethig I could do we are having microwave fade problems. We have ordered equipment to fix the problem but will not have it till the end of May. Of all the nights for this to happen.

Ken

Also on 700 SD for regular subs!!!

Thanks for the tip...14-1 is unwatchable

I was having drops on WFXI this morning. I thought it was my problem, since I was playing with antennas, guess not? Signal was bouncing wildly up and down. RIght now 8.1 is doing great, so turn to them if you can.

Is this FOX possessed?

If you have DirecTV with MPEG4 equipment, it is on channel 701 in HD.


beat me to it.

There is unusual atmospheric conditions because of the warmer weather. That is causing the STL fade. It happens on 14 a lot and has for a long time. I bet phones are ringing at CATV companies.

I just lost 8.1 for about a minute, then it came back... I think I'm going back to 26!

Dish network subs not having issues as they get WFXI.

If you lost 8.1 it is your antenna I'm monitoring 8.1 and we have not had a problem there i'm hopin it stabalzes as it gets cooler.

Ken

When I get my rotor replaced I will watch 8-1 only...what is the deal with 14-1...do they have no money? Other stations in this area don't have constant issues!

This is why people should have the option to pick other channels(national) to watch until a station can provide service to its viewers. This station has had a problem from its
inception. The former owners didn't provide anything close to a reliable or quality signal to us, the viewers. Hopefully, with the new owners things will change for the better. I believe this is the best chance for the people who can only get this signal.

I'm still on 8 and no further interuption, so maybe the weather is settling down. I'm sure the interuption I had was on my end from toying around today.

I played with my antenna and got 8 bars on WFXI this morning, at the beginning of the game, I got 5, and now NOTHING. I hate FOX. Who the hell decided to let them show the Super Bowl anyway? Maybe they should let a real network show it.

Again 8 is putting out a great signal both analog and digital. So if you are having problems there it is on your end I've been monitoring it in New Bern.

Ken

If you have DirecTV with MPEG4 equipment, it is on channel 701 in HD.

Wow... unbelievable WYDO. Somebody deserves to get fired because of this. Rediculous.

Agrejones. Thank you for this tip man. I would of never guessed to look at this channel on Directv. How did you find out about this? And why is Directv showing the game on this channel for?

Thanks.

i just moved to Winterville and I'm getting the superbowl fine. but i missed the recent Duke vs. NCSU basketball game because it was blacked out on ESPN and I don't get the Raleigh channels!!!! :mad:


anybody in the area with any speakers they are looking to sell? I haven't got my home theater set up yet but I'm thinking about definitive technology speakers.

WFXI = fine

WYDO = no signal

WTF????

Wow... unbelievable WYDO. Somebody deserves to get fired because of this. Rediculous.

Agrejones. Thank you for this tip man. I would of never guessed to look at this channel on Directv. How did you find out about this? And why is Directv showing the game on this channel for?

Thanks.

First off, Ken is working on it and it is a matter of the equipment he inherited from the previous owners. He got stuck trying to fix lousy equipment in just over a month for the Super Bowl.

I found the announcement on the Super Bowl thread over on the HDTV Programming forum on AVS.

I thought the WYDO equipment was new, put in when they upgraded to HD last spring.

My digital 8 is bouncing all over the place. I'm not sure if it's because of the screwing I did this morning or the weather. I'm thinking atmospheric bringing in interference is the problem we are all seeing. It can play havoc with antennas too.

DUKE Vs. NCSTATE was on WCTI 12, and was broadcast in HD.

Ken you should run a scroll on 14 telling folks with Directv to tune to 700/701.

WITN has a story up on the outtage on its web site.

This is a very low scoring game!

Ok. To back up what I was saying about atmospherics, I'm watching the game right now on WFXB 43.1 (18) Florence SC. coming in over the top of WUNM 19 x's also on channel 18! There is nothing anyone can do about this type of interference.

beat me to it.
I get a 721 message for both 700 and 701... I have premier with the HD package/H20-600...

I have PLUS HD package with HR20, also friend of mine has regular reciever and a lower package getting it.

Not sure why some get it and some dont.

WYDO may be in luck. The comments so far on WITN blame the local cable company.

I took pictures to prove I'm watching on 43.1 -I'll post by tomorrow.

Going to watch WITN NEWS to see if they air something about this.

We did have fade between hibbs road and Trenton tonight there was a lot of atmospherics going on. All I can say is that I promise to do my best to make it better. Microwave fade is a big problem in Eastern NC. We are planing new microwave paths that we hope will make it better. I even noticed some problems on other stations on Suddenlink. What a stressfull night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again sorry to everyone I wish I could of done something to make it better


Ken

Whatever... first I can't watch the first half of the superbowl... thanks to the info I received about Directv I was able to watch the second half without a glitch...

But now I can't even watch House. What a joke. I remember WYDO blacking out last year during American Idol. I dont know who Ken is, but I appreciate your information and honest with everyone. I truely hope you can get the problems there figured out.

Well...I knew it would happen like this. Several post back I suggested that they just close their doors. Lets see...how long has this same ole song and dance about ordering equipment been going on. What does it matter if they just aquired the stations in January. Hell, I can buy and have anything overnighted to me, and if my business depended on it, I surely would. I wonder how the companies that spent million for commercials would feel about it. Does FOX network know about this sorry excuse for an affiliate? If they do, do they care? Hell, football is all Fox has going for it in my opinion.

Keep up the good work Fox 8-14. You're a credit to broadcasting.

Search this thread and you'll find a majority of Fox 8/14 posts are related to sub-standard performance. Actually, "equipment issues" was the excuse used last year after Fox 8/14 failed to transmit the Daytona 500 in HD. Ten to one says they'll fail again this year...per the SuperBowl performance. Write a letter to FoxSports...I did last year.

Also, FYI, I was getting constant signal drops OTA HD at beginning of SuperBowl. We went to a friends home with DirectTV and he was getting signal drops too. I didn't investigate what channel his receiver was set on nor whether it was Fox 8 or Fox 14. The only station ID commercial I recall seeing was a split-screen with Fox 8 on one side and Fox 14 on other.

A lot of the equipment needed to fix WYDO's problems is custom configured and made. You can't just pick up the phone and have it delivered tomorrow. I'll try to explain it from memory. The signal is sent from WFXI in Morehead City to Ayden via microwave. That is a pretty good distance. The former owners chose to do it with 1 "repeater". Most other stations that have to do this use more than 1 since the distance is so far. If the atmosphere is "off" then the microwave signal gets bent and the signal misses the receiver at either the repeater or the site in Ayden. When that happens then nothing goes out over the air and you loose picture during the Superbowl.

As Ken said above they have ordered the equipment to fix the problem and I am assuming they will have more than 1 repeater when they are done. It takes time.

Let me also add that WITN has a lot of nads to make an issue of WYDO's problems. Have you ever tried to watch their morning news. They have irritating microwave blip about every 5 minutes.

We did have fade between hibbs road and Trenton tonight there was a lot of atmospherics going on. All I can say is that I promise to do my best to make it better. Microwave fade is a big problem in Eastern NC. We are planing new microwave paths that we hope will make it better. I even noticed some problems on other stations on Suddenlink. What a stressfull night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again sorry to everyone I wish I could of done something to make it better


Ken

I hope when Ken mentions "new microwave paths" he's talking about fixing the existing analog microwave path, and not the eventual change many stations will face with the 2 GHz Nextel conversion to digital paths.

Some stations have had signed deals with Nextel for several years...and they're still waiting for installation.

I dont care about atmospheric crap... no one does. The fact is this, people could not watch the Super Bowl on WYDO because there station is not "up to date" with the rest of the world.

I never get signal drops from channel 9, 7, or 12. Channel 14 from WYDO has the worst SD signal I have ever seen. Can anyone explain that? Are they blaming that on equipment as well?

The signal outage was the top story on both WNCT and WITN last night. I hope when their signal blows the next time that someone is there to blast them. LOL--They never did say WFXI / WYDO or FOX 8/14, just the "local affiliate". Bashing will not get the problems fixed.

Ken went out of his way to improve WYDO picture quality for the game Friday, and it looked much better than it did before that.

Since I don't live in the area, but have personal interests there, and since I work in the business and have done what Ken is doing, I can speak from a position of first hand knowledge. Let me put it in language you WHINERS understand. GET A LIFE.It s just television, not brain surgery. And if your life is ruined over this, you don't have much a life to start with.

Second, WFXI and WYDO was just sold 30 days ago. From what has been posted here over the years, the former owners seemed to have no clue how to run their TV stations. That is not the case anymore.

Third, Ken12 has inherited a real mess of two TV stations and has only been associated with WFXI and WYDO since January 1, 2008. For those who don't know Ken, he is the engineer at WCTI, and WCTI were one of the first stations in the state to do HD back in 1999. He knows what he is doing. For the lay person, without going into boring specifics, he is basically going to have to rebuild WFXI and WYDO technically. WCTI and WFXI/WYDO are not co-located and so it he has to divide his time between 3 transmitter sites over 100 miles a part (Trenton, Atlantic, Grifton) and two studios over 40 miles a part (New Bern, Morehead City). This process will take time, and money. I this will be a many month process because first he has to identify what the problem is, determine what has to be done, procure funding (the hardest part), purchase equipment, and then install. None of this happens overnight. The microwave equipment that is at fault now isn't an "on the shelf item" and is made upon order and always has a several month lead time.

Bottom line is, you WILL experience other problems until he can get it all straightened out. You will just have to deal with it and honestly, no one wants to hear your whining since it is obvious you have no clue what is going on in the first place and you can't contribute to the solution, only create a bigger problem. So get off Ken's back and give the guy some breathing room to do his job. The more time he has to respond to a bunch of idiots on here takes time away from fixing the real problems.

Some stations have had signed deals with Nextel for several years...and they're still waiting for installation.

WFIX/WYDO's microwave problem has nothing to do with NEXTEL. The NEXTEL deal is only for equipment in the 2 GHz band. STL and ICR links are done in 7 and 13 GHz bands. Only very old stations who were grandfathered have 2 GHz STL/TSL/ICR links. WTVD and WECT are the only stations I am aware of in the east that still maintains 2 GHz STL links.

The signal outage was the top story on both WNCT and WITN last night. I hope when their signal blows the next time that someone is there to blast them. LOL--They never did say WFXI / WYDO or FOX 8/14, just the "local affiliate". Bashing will not get the problems fixed.

Ken went out of his way to improve WYDO picture quality for the game Friday, and it looked much better than it did before that.

I don't think anything about WITN or WNCT's articles "bashed" WFXI/WYDO.

Second, WFXI and WYDO was just sold 30 days ago. From what has been posted here over the years, the former owners seemed to have no clue how to run their TV stations. That is not the case anymore.

Third, Ken12 has inherited a real mess of two TV stations and has only been associated with WFXI and WYDO since January 1, 2008. For those who don't know Ken, he is the engineer at WCTI, and WCTI were one of the first stations in the state to do HD back in 1999. He knows what he is doing. For the lay person, without going into boring specifics, he is basically going to have to rebuild WFXI and WYDO technically. WCTI and WFXI/WYDO are not co-located and so it he has to divide his time between 3 transmitter sites over 100 miles a part (Trenton, Atlantic, Grifton) and two studios over 40 miles a part (New Bern, Morehead City). This process will take time, and money. I this will be a many month process because first he has to identify what the problem is, determine what has to be done, procure funding (the hardest part), purchase equipment, and then install. None of this happens overnight. The microwave equipment that is at fault now isn't an "on the shelf item" and is made upon order and always has a several month lead time.


Amen, to all of this. People used to gripe when NCT was producing news on Fox 8/14 and it wouldn't air. This is why, people... It's lunancy to call for people to lose their job over a tv show. Things aren't always as simple as flipping a switch.

I have never blasted Ken. I'm sure he is caught in the middle on this. But being a broadcaster used to carry with it a level of responsibility to the community. Fox 8-14 is not serving the community well. This whole thing about someone being a whiner because they complain about a legitimate issue is getting old. Failing to hold companies accountable is the reason that service is so poor nowadays. We just accept bad performance. Everyone who buys ads on Fox 8-14 should stop doing business with them until they prove that they can keep a signal on the air, maybe then someone would get on the ball.

BTW foxeng, take a pill. Of all the posts about this, yours seems to be the angriest. It appears to me that everyone is respectful to Ken on here, and if he chooses not to respond, then thats his business, but I'm glad he does write a line or two as we all wait for the delivery truck to arrive with the new equipment.

I don't think anything about WITN or WNCT's articles "bashed" WFXI/WYDO.

I didn't mean the stations themselves bashed, but the people in the stories that were aired weren't happy, and the ones who are commenting on the websites. The interference was unbelievable last night, and all the equipment in the world cannot control the weather.

Failing to hold companies accountable is the reason that service is so poor nowadays. We just accept bad performance. Everyone who buys ads on Fox 8-14 should stop doing business with them until they prove that they can keep a signal on the air, maybe then someone would get on the ball.

I don't think they want to send out bad signals, that is why they sold, so they could get this mess fixed. It's going to take money and a lot of man power, not to mention more time than a month to do the job, not to mention they have to convert to all digital and must prepare for that task. If people stop buying ad time, there will be NO money there to do all this!

So I shouldn't be angry about this? I shouldn't be angry about nearly missing one of the greatest Super Bowls ever played? I should not be angry about missing programing that everyone else in the nation is getting?

Why? Because it's OTA and free? Sounds to me like your a homer looking to make excuses for someone. You act like someone should not be held accountable. You act like there is nothing that could have been done to prevent the situation.

My main concern is this. Why can WITN and WNCT have a solid and perfect signal 24/7 while WYDO looks like crap 24/7, that is of course excluding the times when there is no signal at all.

This could have been prevented. Lingering problems have been associated with this company for a long time. I remember when WYDO dropped the signal during the World Series a couple years ago.

Garbage network. And it's a shame to, because I feel the station(FOX Network, not WYDO) could be the best but I am not given ample opportunity to enjoy the station because of bad signals and signal drop offs.

I wonder is going to happen in February 2009 when SD goes away and everyone has to use HDTV...

Imagine the Chaos. They can't even get a signal from point A to point B right now because of the atmospheric problems. What does that even mean anyway? The stars weren't aligned properly so the signal drops from the repeater? Garbage.

I wonder is going to happen in February 2009 when SD goes away and everyone has to use HDTV...


It won't be all HDTV - It will be all digital tv, for SD and HD.

Well guess what..... A new solar cycle just began and some scientists are saying it will be a bad one. These solar storms can and have knocked out communications systems around the world. So imagine what would happen if we lost all our communication satellites? No Dish, no DirecTV, no nothing for a long time too. I do agree that eastern NC does not enjoy the robustness of services larger metropolitan areas have. Technology expansion and investment is driven based on return. Other than the population centers of Greenville, Jacksonville, and Wilmington, east of I95 is mostly rural and does not provide the "wealthy" target markets that larger metropolitan areas have. Therefore it is harder to see a legitimate return on investment. I am being honest about business in general. I enjoy the rural country too. But, it does have its downsides when it comes to technology investment.

Well guess what..... A new solar cycle just began and some scientists are saying it will be a bad one. These solar storms can and have knocked out communications systems around the world. So imagine what would happen if we lost all our communication satellites? No Dish, no DirecTV, no nothing for a long time too. I do agree that eastern NC does not enjoy the robustness of services larger metropolitan areas have. Technology expansion and investment is driven based on return. Other than the population centers of Greenville, Jacksonville, and Wilmington, east of I95 is mostly rural and does not provide the "wealthy" target markets that larger metropolitan areas have. Therefore it is harder to see a legitimate return on investment. I am being honest about business in general. I enjoy the rural country too. But, it does have its downsides when it comes to technology investment.

I totally agree with you. Living in Easten NC does have its drawbacks. Not just with TV. Cell Phone carriers, Cable TV options, and internet providers are just a few. Like you said, larger markets have more choices. I mean come on, I can't even get an IPhone through US Cellular because of there contract with AT&T. And of course, we can't get AT&T where I live.

I wonder is going to happen in February 2009 when SD goes away and everyone has to use HDTV...


It won't be all HDTV - It will be all digital tv, for SD and HD.

It has been mentioned that all analog systems will be shut down on Feb 17, 2009 and then turned back on on the 18th.

For those who have Digg accounts be sure to vote on this story to help spread the word beyond our local area.

http://digg.com/football/Local_FOX_Station_Loses_Broadcast_During_Super_Bowl_XLII

But being a broadcaster used to carry with it a level of responsibility to the community. Fox 8-14 is not serving the community well. This whole thing about someone being a whiner because they complain about a legitimate issue is getting old.

Being a broadcaster does bring responseablity and so does being a viewer. And because you can't watch the Super Bowl the way you want to is not the definition "is not serving the community well." That is your opinion only. Ken stated what he was up against and was trying to fix, but that isn't good enough for you. You seem to think that because you snap your fingers, it all happens instantly and when it doesn't happen, you seem to think that gives you license to whine, complain and gripe. That is the main reason most stations do not provide a conduit on boards like this. They are damned if they do and they are damned if they don't. Ken is under no requirement to explain anything to anybody.

BTW foxeng, take a pill. Of all the posts about this, yours seems to be the angriest.

I am just responding to comments to your "But being a broadcaster used to carry with it a level of responsibility to the community. Fox 8-14 is not serving the community well." That is not a respectful comment, that your emotional opinion on not having a flawless Super Bowl, particularly since it was explained what the situation was, and the fact that it was explained that there was a plan of action to correct it and that it was being acted upon and you stilled whined about it.

My suggestion would be to ease up on him or he may very well disappear and you will never what's going on. That is his right and I wouldn't blame him. No where does it say in his, or your's for that matter, job description that he has to deal rude people. Put yourself in his shoes for just one minute and you might come away with a different take on things.

I totally agree with what foxeng said. Ken has gone way beyond the call of duty to keep us informed and given us a place to let him know what we are seeing and aren't on our end. I want to know what is going on, as I'm sure all of you do to. Every time we have pointed something out, he has listened.

I explained last night, and I am in no way an expert by any means, that there was lots of distant TV stations infiltrating the area. When this happens, it causes overload to home TV antenna systems, and causes a lot of interference in the local broadcast stations signals. This is what happens to not only TV, but radio as well. There is nothing you can do about it, and it doesn't matter if you get the signal from a cable TV's antenna or your own home antenna. The interference is not selective to who's system it screws with.

For the record, I've never had problems with WCTI-TV or DT - I see comments about WITN not having problems and they do have them.

I can see both sides but can someone answer this question. Why can't we have both FOX affiliates (14 and 50) on the Suddenlink line-up? We have two CBS affiliates (9 and 5). :confused:

I can see both sides but can someone answer this question. Why can't we have both FOX affiliates (14 and 50) on the Suddenlink line-up? We have two CBS affiliates (9 and 5). :confused:

Price of carriage more than likely.

Let me also say, does anyone see any other engineers from this market on board here? No. Did you see the previous FOX engineers on? No.

MyNetwork? No, and they keep locking up my TV STB.

I can see both sides but can someone answer this question. Why can't we have both FOX affiliates (14 and 50) on the Suddenlink line-up? We have two CBS affiliates (9 and 5). :confused:

I believe this is the case, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but WRAL is grandfathered into some cable systems downeast from their days of being the affiliate with the biggest stick. At some point, in the late 80's/early 90's, I think, WNCT went onto their 2000 ft stick. Because so many people in the western fringe of this market already watched WRAL, 5 was grandfathered into some of the cable systems.

Not the case with Fox, Fox in RDU was WLFL for many years before WRAZ switched affiliations and folks downeast had no Fox affiliate for many, many years. It wasn't until WFXI came along and later WYDO that cable systems downeast carried Fox. Thus, the cable systems can't add an "out of market" station ex post facto.

My memory is a little fuzzy on some of this. Ken12 or FOXeng could probably answer this question better than me. Guys, chime in if I got something wrong here or if you can add onto what I missed.

You don't have WRAZ FOX50 on cable in eastern North Carolina due to the Network Non-Duplication rules originally established in 1977.

WRAL is significantly viewed in Pitt, Greene and Lenoir counties and the local cable operators can carry the entire broadcast schedule.

WRAZ is not significantly viewed in those counties.

So the answer is: Get an antenna!

So I shouldn't be angry about this? I shouldn't be angry about nearly missing one of the greatest Super Bowls ever played? I should not be angry about missing programing that everyone else in the nation is getting?

Why? Because it's OTA and free? Sounds to me like your a homer looking to make excuses for someone. You act like someone should not be held accountable. You act like there is nothing that could have been done to prevent the situation.

My main concern is this. Why can WITN and WNCT have a solid and perfect signal 24/7 while WYDO looks like crap 24/7, that is of course excluding the times when there is no signal at all.

You just don't get it do you? Sure, you can be mad all you want. What you are failing to realize here is the man who is trying to fix the problems is the one you are attacking. He has only been involved with this station for 30 days. You can't fix all the problems this station has in 30 days. You need to be venting to the former owners who didn't spend the money and not the new owners that Ken works for. Ken said upfront there would more than likely be problems with the Super Bowl. I guess you missed that part several pages ago. Plus he is also the man who keeps WCTI going as well. He is wearing many hats at the moment.

This could have been prevented. Lingering problems have been associated with this company for a long time. I remember when WYDO dropped the signal during the World Series a couple years ago.

There you go. You don't know what you are talking about. If you did, you would have know that on January 1, 2008 a new company (the same one that owns WCTI) bought WFXI/WYDO. But I guess that doesn't matter to you. You just equate what happened several years ago to what is happening now and they two are completely different things. You need to do more research before you start making statements like that.

Garbage network. And it's a shame to, because I feel the station(FOX Network, not WYDO) could be the best but I am not given ample opportunity to enjoy the station because of bad signals and signal drop offs.

??????? In this statement you seem to not know who or what owns what. Let me see if I can clear some of this up for you.

FOX Network is owned and operated by FOX Television, a division of 20th Century-FOX, which is owned by News Corporation. Beyond the 2 hours nightly of prime time and FOX Sports, the rest of the day is programmed by the station.

The station, WFXI and its satellite station, WYDO, are owned and operated by Esteem Broadcasting of North Carolina LLC, a company that also owns WCTI. Esteem Broadcasting is only associated with FOX and ABC as owners of stations who buy programming from FOX and ABC (an affiliate) and have no other connection with them (the same for WITN and NBC and WNCT and CBS). FOX and ABC provide programming to the stations. It is then up to the stations to get it out to the public.

The issue has been the former owner of WFXI and its satellite WYDO, Piedmont Television of Eastern North Carolina, Inc, didn't have the money to do what was needed for the stations. This company owned 5 other stations from Alaska to Louisiana and it seems all of them lacked the funds to do what was needed. Esteem is in no way, shape, form or style, connected with Piedmont, and never has been other than to buy two TV stations from them. Boiled down, there is a new sheriff in town for WFXI and WYDO and he has only been on the job for 30 days.

Understand now?

I wonder is going to happen in February 2009 when SD goes away and everyone has to use HDTV...

Again, you do not know what you are talking about. First, there is no law that states ANY broadcaster has to broadcast HD. That is urban legend. The law is that on Feb 17, 2009 analog broadcasts of full power television stations must cease and only digital broadcasts of at least SD resolution will be authorized. HD is, has been and will continue to be, optional.

Imagine the Chaos. They can't even get a signal from point A to point B right now because of the atmospheric problems. What does that even mean anyway? The stars weren't aligned properly so the signal drops from the repeater? Garbage.

Atmospheric conditions impact all forms of through the air transmission from AM radio up through your cell phone and microwave. It has nothing to do with star alignment and all to do with "atmospheric conditions." I don't have the time nor desire to teach you the science of propagation. You can Google it or the American Radio Relay League publishes very good books on the subject. Your local library should have them.

Bottom line is give Ken a chance before you nail him to a cross.

So the answer is: Get an antenna!

Exactly. Why should you pay cable for a service when it is no different than what is already there, and actually worse because it is amplified over and over before it gets to your house and compressed in many cases. Most people live in areas where OTA signals are plentiful, and cable has a higher probability of going out anyway.

How about last night if your cable plant down the road blew up... Would you be giving them what for on this board and would it be all over the news? I would hope so because that is a bill your paying for out of pocket.

You just don't get it do you? Sure, you can be mad all you want. What you are failing to realize here is the man who is trying to fix the problems is the one you are attacking. He has only been involved with this station for 30 days. You can't fix all the problems this station has in 30 days. You need to be venting to the former owners who didn't spend the money and not the new owners that Ken works for. Ken said upfront there would more than likely be problems with the Super Bowl. I guess you missed that part several pages ago. Plus he is also the man who keeps WCTI going as well. He is wearing many hats at the moment.



There you go. You don't know what you are talking about. If you did, you would have know that on January 1, 2008 a new company (the same one that owns WCTI) bought WFXI/WYDO. But I guess that doesn't matter to you. You just equate what happened several years ago to what is happening now and they two are completely different things. You need to do more research before you start making statements like that.



??????? In this statement you seem to not know who or what owns what. Let me see if I can clear some of this up for you.

FOX Network is owned and operated by FOX Television, a division of 20th Century-FOX, which is owned by News Corporation. Beyond the 2 hours nightly of prime time and FOX Sports, the rest of the day is programmed by the station.

The station, WFXI and its satellite station, WYDO, are owned and operated by Esteem Broadcasting of North Carolina LLC, a company that also owns WCTI. Esteem Broadcasting is only associated with FOX and ABC as owners of stations who buy programming from FOX and ABC (an affiliate) and have no other connection with them (the same for WITN and NBC and WNCT and CBS). FOX and ABC provide programming to the stations. It is then up to the stations to get it out to the public.

The issue has been the former owner of WFXI and its satellite WYDO, Piedmont Television of Eastern North Carolina, Inc, didn't have the money to do what was needed for the stations. This company owned 5 other stations from Alaska to Louisiana and it seems all of them lacked the funds to do what was needed. Esteem is in no way, shape, form or style, connected with Piedmont, and never has been other than to buy two TV stations from them. Boiled down, there is a new sheriff in town for WFXI and WYDO and he has only been on the job for 30 days.

Understand now?



Again, you do not know what you are talking about. First, there is no law that states ANY broadcaster has to broadcast HD. That is urban legend. The law is that on Feb 17, 2009 analog broadcasts of full power television stations must cease and only digital broadcasts of at least SD resolution will be authorized. HD is, has been and will continue to be, optional.



Atmospheric conditions impact all forms of through the air transmission from AM radio up through your cell phone and microwave. It has nothing to do with star alignment and all to do with "atmospheric conditions." I don't have the time nor desire to teach you the science of propagation. You can Google it or the American Radio Relay League publishes very good books on the subject. Your local library should have them.

Bottom line is give Ken a chance before you nail him to a cross.

Interesting post. I definently feel more knowledgable about the situation. I never once "nailed" this Ken person to the cross, as a matter of fact earlier in this thread I told him I appreciated his honesty and help with this situation, never have I bashed him, but I guessed you missed that a few pages ago.

I guess I am through hating WYDO for the time being, I do understand the mess that one person has to clean up behind another. But we should all be able to agree on one thing:

If these problems continue to arise, someone should take notice and give Eastern NC a reliable feed we can all count on.

My issue with WFXI is the lack of feedback to the public. I visited the WFXI web site and they have no information for the public. I called the Station they have no response and the lady who kindly answered the phone said the GM was not there today. I did leave a telephone number (one of thousands I am sure) I have head nothing so far (I understand that) I never would have left a number if Fox had even put a message up on the bottom of the screen telling me something last night.
We all have problems I try not to judge people or companies but their burdens but how they bear them WFXI has done a very poor PR job in the aftermath of the Super debacle. If the new owners learn anything from this it is to keep the customers informed.

Take a look at some these people’s comments and see what I mean. The WITN web site has them.

We were not the only ones -> TV Errors Rob Thousands Of Super Bowl
MORE DETAILS: <http://www.nbcsandiego.com/tu/5vmqvz5M3.html>

My issue with WFXI is the lack of feedback to the public. I visited the WFXI web site and they have no information for the public. I called the Station they have no response and the lady who kindly answered the phone said the GM was not there today. I did leave a telephone number (one of thousands I am sure) I have head nothing so far (I understand that) I never would have left a number if Fox had even put a message up on the bottom of the screen telling me something last night.
We all have problems I try not to judge people or companies but their burdens but how they bear them WFXI has done a very poor PR job in the aftermath of the Super debacle. If the new owners learn anything from this it is to keep the customers informed.

Take a look at some these people’s comments and see what I mean. The WITN web site has them.

I can't speak for what happened in the past with WFXI/WYDO, but Ken12 is the engineer now doing the work on WFXI/WYDO. I don't see how you can be much closer to knowing what is going on than the man doing the work. You have direct access to him via this board.

I can't speak for what happened in the past with WFXI/WYDO, but Ken12 is the engineer now doing the work on WFXI/WYDO. I don't see how you can be much closer to knowing what is going on than the man doing the work. You have direct access to him via this board.
I had to search hi and low for the information this web site provided. The point I was making is, that it is the best interest of both the viewers and WFXI to let people know whats going on and what your doing. I should not have to come here for this info. Take off the Fox colored glasses and read my post again. Thank you for your input.

The one thing I don't understand is why Suddenlink doesn't point an antenna at Atlantic and just carry WFXI. That 200 foot tower they have in Greenville can pick it up pretty clearly, and has before -- before WYDO was a Fox affiliate, Greenville got WFXI. That would get us a good signal and get around the regulations that keep Fox 50 out.

Only thing that could throw a kink in this is if WFXI and WYDO air separate spot breaks with locally-targeted commercials. I know 96.3/103.7 did this back in the day when Gene Gray still owned them. Even if that is the case though, Dish and DirecTV have somehow managed to get around it.

Here are the pictures I promised last night. I am in Jacksonville, right in the middle of the PBS 19 (18 DT) viewing area, yet last night the tropospheric ducting was so high, that WFXB FOX 43 (18 DT also) out of FLorence/Myrtle Beach knocked the 18 digital signal out of sight. First you see the game and the call sign, then the signal meter of my motorola STB I have hooked to an analog TV. This has the date, time and everything to show when it happened. I circled in red the game score bar and FOX logo.

FOX 14 was not the only station that had problems beating this phenomenon. Stuff happens...

I should not have to come here for this info. Take off the Fox colored glasses and read my post again.

No station is required to tell you, me or anyone, anything so I am not sure who has the "colored" glasses on.

Thank you for your input.

Your welcome, I think.

Only thing that could throw a kink in this is if WFXI and WYDO air separate spot breaks with locally-targeted commercials.

From what I understand, that is exactly correct.

No station is required to tell you, me or anyone, anything so I am not sure who has the "colored" glasses on.

The point I was making is, that it is the best interest of both the viewers and WFXI to let people know whats going on and what your doing.

Best interest... not required
God help of us if all we ever do is whats required.

Only thing that could throw a kink in this is if WFXI and WYDO air separate spot breaks with locally-targeted commercials

Having the ability to watch both 8.1 WFXI and analog 14, that is correct. The ads on WFXI are mainly for Jacksonville, New Bern, Havelock, and Morehead. The ads on WYDO cover Kinston, Washington, and Greenville.

I wonder how then Dish and Direct got away with carrying one or the other? Theoretically they could carry the correct channel to each customer based on zip codes.

The point I was making is, that it is the best interest of both the viewers and WFXI to let people know whats going on and what your doing.

Best interest... not required
God help of us if all we ever do is whats required.

Sure, it is good for the station, but that doesn't mean they have to or will. It is their station and they can do what they want with it as long as it is legal, including running it into the ground. Not what you may want, but there is nothing to stop them from doing that.

I wonder how then Dish and Direct got away with carrying one or the other? Theoretically they could carry the correct channel to each customer based on zip codes.

Directv has it's antenna array located at the WNCT studio's which is outside of WFXI's viewing area. Dish has their antennas at WCTI in New Bern. Dish could pick up WYDO, but why would they want to?

In order for Directv to pick up WFXI, they would have to locate further to the southeast. They won't do that just for one station. (I doubt)

I know all that... I'm saying it's surprising that WFXI/WYDO would have granted the DBS providers the right to carry one OR the other. Sure, it gets them audience, but in a market like this it severely dilutes who is seeing who's ads.

It is not that Piedmont didn't have the money, they chose not to spend it. Paul Brissette the principal was/is a notorious "bleed it dry" broadcaster. It is yet to be seen how the new company will be. Remember they are a private equity firm so they are in it for the return, not for the viewer. TV stations return somewhere in the high 30's to mid 40's. Meaning every dollar spent on advertising 30-40 cents on the dollar is profit. The term "cash cow" applies. The FOX O and O group (owned and operated) has a return around 50%

A typical TV station spends about 10% of it's positive cash flow on Capital improvements yearly. I would suspect the new owners of WCTI/FOX are spending more than that now but will strive to balance that or correct that percentage in the future.

As to "Down East" (a pet peeve of mine) "Down East" is east and north of Beaufort, not east of RT 95.

I don't know. I'm just glad I can get a signal from both Wilmington and Morehead, so if one goes out, I can see the other. My advice to anyone is to install your own antenna at home as a back-up even if you don't plan to use it all the time. Point it at either WFXI or WRAZ or WSFX which ever applies to your location, and if something happens again, you have a choice.
I still believe these problems will get ironed out, just not at the wave of a magic wand. When something is on it's last leg, it takes more than a month to correct, especially when you have microwave spots here and there from one edge of the market to another.

I have a UHF antenna pointed at Raleigh and get a fairly good signal from WRAZ, but I'm far too cheap to get anything HD (why am I here? Nowhere else to talk about local TV ;)). Got to imagine there's more like me out there.

Luckily we have Dish network and were unaffected last night. I just heard several call-ins on Pirate Radio 1250. The fallout over this is amazing. If you go to their website (pirateradio1250.com) they have a picture up from a local business who put "BOYCOTT FOX WYDO" on their outdoor electronic sign.

I work with the public and thats all everyone was talking today.

Yeah, several people were talking about it where I work today.

I feel quite sorry for Ken. I'm a network administrator and have blame passed to me all the time. My ISP goes out, it's my fault we don't have internet access. Most of us very much appreciate you keeping us informed here. Don't let the few a-holes scare you off, and good luck patching up the years of neglect that Piedmont and Grapevine did to these stations!

If you didn't hear on 9 about Phillips Blog, go check it out! He used the word "phenomena" too to describe the outage of Fox 14!

I have a feeling this is another night of the same, because I am getting more out of market channels. WBTW and WPDE so far.

Since I don't live in the area, but have personal interests there, and since I work in the business and have done what Ken is doing, I can speak from a position of first hand knowledge. Let me put it in language you WHINERS understand. GET A LIFE.It s just television, not brain surgery. And if your life is ruined over this, you don't have much a life to start with.

Funny coming from someone who has submitted close 9,000 posts in a chat room forum.
___________________
By Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - The Giants' last-minute victory over the Patriots was the most-watched Super Bowl ever. Some 97.5 million viewers tuned in, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The game eclipsed the previous Super Bowl record of 94.08 million, set when Dallas defeated Pittsburgh in 1996. More people watched yesterday's showdown than all but one American television broadcast ever. The "M-A-S-H" finale in 1983 was seen by 106 million viewers.
____________________

So I guess all 97.5 million Americans should get a life ehh foxeng?
Outside of Christmas more money is probably spent in the week leading up to the Super Bowl than any other week of the year. The Super Bowl is to Americans what the World Cup is to every other country in the world. Hell in some foreign countries they've actually killed referee's and/or players over things that occurred at the World Cup. Think of all the people who spent hours and hours planning, cooking, etc., not to mention those who actually went out and purchased a large plasma to host a party. Like it or not, this was a HUGE DEAL!

If WXFI and/or WYDO cannot or will not get Ken the hardware and equipment he needs (as well as hiring additional engineers if necessary) then the State Utilities Commission and/or the FCC should allow Suddenlink and Direct TV to drop WXFI/WYDO and pull the signal in from the Raleigh FOX affiliate. The way I feel about is that Suddenlink has let their problem (WXFI/WYDO) become our problem. Bottom line is that I have never written a check to any FOX affiliate; my checks are made out to Suddenlink and therefore it is there responsibility to account for this ongoing problem. I find their attempt to pass the buck and wipe their hands clean of the issue to be outright offensive.

Bottom line is that I have never written a check to any FOX affiliate; my checks are made out to Suddenlink and therefore it is there responsibility to account for this ongoing problem. I find their attempt to pass the buck and wipe their hands clean of the issue to be outright offensive.

I agree with that statement. If I pay someone for a service they cannot or will not find a way to provide, I hold them responsible to either find a way to do so, or I will ask for a refund. The cable company should make it their priority to get what I pay for on their system, and same goes for any other provider. JMO

Thank god for NFL Sunday ticket and NFL Sunday Ticket HD. I dont want to think about watching any more sporting events on WYDO...

Shoot, the SuperBowl is on Fox next year to.

Shoot, the SuperBowl is on Fox next year to.

Just gives you a year to put that antenna up aimed at Raleigh :)

Just some more insider info:

We did try to cover for any potential problems... Ken had a plan days in advance of the game...:cool: several of us Engineering/Production staff would be spread out at the various transmission points.

I was stationed inside the WYDO Transmitter site (Ayden) from 4p - 11p, we had another at the WFXI Transmitter (Open Grounds), and at the station. Ken was at a focal commmunications point at which we would be his hands if something needed done. I was on the phone constantly from 7p on with Ken and the other engineers to try to figure a work around. :confused: I know all the viewers fustrations... but imagine you are inside the transmitter that is having problems, LOOKING right at it... and there is not a thing you can do about it.... :eek: Bloody weather.

Would taller towers help? I've never seen microwave fade that I know of on WFXI all the years they've been on the air, but there was one superbowl back in the early 90's I believe that the station (WFXI, don't know about WYDO) was off most of the day, (I was on cable) and didn't come back until the game was about over, and when it did had noise going across the screen.

All the other stations have tall towers except Mynetwork, and I have seen fade on both 38 and 35 before.

WYDO uses a couple microwave hops to get its signal from Morehead. The first leg is between WSFL-FM outside Trenton and (based on a post Ken made earlier) Hibbs Rd. in Newport, and that's what failed Sunday.

I assume raising the microwave dishes to get a clearer Fresnel zone would make a difference, but you get to a certain distance where fog, rain, other signals, etc are interfering so much that there's nothing at all you can do. Microwave is NOT powerful at all.

edit: that would be the first leg of the hop, not the second

I've passed by the WSFL tower (old WCTI TV) and seen that hop from the road. It's in the woods pretty much. Used to on WYDO when it was fading you would get a sizzle sound and a lot of static, but last night it sounded like from what they say on TV that it was just dropping out completely and going black. So maybe that is an indication that the problem is at a different hop now...?

How did HOT FM get their signal to Williamston from Morehead? That's even further than WYDO has to go.

Funny coming from someone who has submitted close 9,000 posts in a chat room forum.

Do you think that with 9000 posts, and someone who actually WORKS in the business, I MIGHT have a clue with what I am talking about over someone with 1 post who appears to not even know the basics? This isn't the first time I have had this debate with viewers and it will not the last. I have heard all the "reasoning." You aren't saying anything that hasn't been already said.

So I guess all 97.5 million Americans should get a life ehh foxeng?

If you "live it" over just what it is, ENTERATAINMENT, then yeah, GET A LIFE. You need one. BAD.

Outside of Christmas more money is probably spent in the week leading up to the Super Bowl than any other week of the year.

Please, don't even start. You are now completely out of your realm.

If WXFI and/or WYDO cannot or will not get Ken the hardware and equipment he needs (as well as hiring additional engineers if necessary) then the State Utilities Commission and/or the FCC should allow Suddenlink and Direct TV to drop WXFI/WYDO and pull the signal in from the Raleigh FOX affiliate. The way I feel about is that Suddenlink has let their problem (WXFI/WYDO) become our problem. Bottom line is that I have never written a check to any FOX affiliate; my checks are made out to Suddenlink and therefore it is there responsibility to account for this ongoing problem. I find their attempt to pass the buck and wipe their hands clean of the issue to be outright offensive.

First, federal law has to be changed. Good luck on that one. You will be number "million and something" person to try. The rest is just your opinion.

I've passed by the WSFL tower (old WCTI TV) and seen that hop from the road. It's in the woods pretty much. Used to on WYDO when it was fading you would get a sizzle sound and a lot of static, but last night it sounded like from what they say on TV that it was just dropping out completely and going black. So maybe that is an indication that the problem is at a different hop now...?
The difference is that they probably just upgraded the STL from analog to digital. Now, being that the Brody family owns the WSFL tower, and WCTI is having to pay them to keep those microwave dishes up there, I would imagine they are about to move the hop to the 2000' WCTI tower on the other side of town.

How did HOT FM get their signal to Williamston from Morehead? That's even further than WYDO has to go.
Bubblegum, duct tape, and lots of luck. As far as I know that STL was never split apart. It was an 80 mile hop from the start, and until they moved to New Bern in 03-04 it gave them complete absolute hell.

New Bern to Williamston is a long way, but somehow they have made that one work. Archway might have split the hop into two sections when they moved.

The difference is that they probably just upgraded the STL from analog to digital. Now, being that the Brody family owns the WSFL tower, and WCTI is having to pay them to keep those microwave dishes up there, I would imagine they are about to move the hop to the 2000' WCTI tower on the other side of town.


That's what I was thinking was likely to happen also. I hope it works out.

I am in Fort Mill SC, 20 miles south of Charlotte and I am watching WITN crystal clear. My antenna is a Channel Master 3020 mounted 37 feet in the air with a CM 7777 Pre-Amp.

Since I don't live in the area, but have personal interests there, and since I work in the business and have done what Ken is doing, I can speak from a position of first hand knowledge. Let me put it in language you WHINERS understand. GET A LIFE.It s just television, not brain surgery. And if your life is ruined over this, you don't have much a life to start with.

Second, WFXI and WYDO was just sold 30 days ago. From what has been posted here over the years, the former owners seemed to have no clue how to run their TV stations. That is not the case anymore.

Third, Ken12 has inherited a real mess of two TV stations and has only been associated with WFXI and WYDO since January 1, 2008. For those who don't know Ken, he is the engineer at WCTI, and WCTI were one of the first stations in the state to do HD back in 1999. He knows what he is doing. For the lay person, without going into boring specifics, he is basically going to have to rebuild WFXI and WYDO technically. WCTI and WFXI/WYDO are not co-located and so it he has to divide his time between 3 transmitter sites over 100 miles a part (Trenton, Atlantic, Grifton) and two studios over 40 miles a part (New Bern, Morehead City). This process will take time, and money. I this will be a many month process because first he has to identify what the problem is, determine what has to be done, procure funding (the hardest part), purchase equipment, and then install. None of this happens overnight. The microwave equipment that is at fault now isn't an "on the shelf item" and is made upon order and always has a several month lead time.

Bottom line is, you WILL experience other problems until he can get it all straightened out. You will just have to deal with it and honestly, no one wants to hear your whining since it is obvious you have no clue what is going on in the first place and you can't contribute to the solution, only create a bigger problem. So get off Ken's back and give the guy some breathing room to do his job. The more time he has to respond to a bunch of idiots on here takes time away from fixing the real problems.

while you might think you're the bright one for shouting them down, in all honestly you did nothing for your cause. Do you think that a person who owns business that lost a $1000~$2000 in business because of this shouldn't be upset becaue of what happened? Whatever your feelings about it the Superbowl is big and what ever the reasons behind it, the service just wasn't there, and quite a few businesses and people suffered for it.

Dish Network announced that they will be launching Greenville New Bern Washington NC HD local channels in the 1st qtr of 2008. No exact date.

Ken or Eastern have you heard anything from Directv about them adding HD locals?

Do you think that with 9000 posts, and someone who actually WORKS in the business, I MIGHT have a clue with what I am talking about over someone with 1 post who appears to not even know the basics? This isn't the first time I have had this debate with viewers and it will not the last. I have heard all the "reasoning." You aren't saying anything that hasn't been already said.



If you "live it" over just what it is, ENTERATAINMENT, then yeah, GET A LIFE. You need one. BAD.



Please, don't even start. You are now completely out of your realm.



First, federal law has to be changed. Good luck on that one. You will be number "million and something" person to try. The rest is just your opinion.


enough with the get a life nonsense your just taking the opposing extreme when you make such a statement. plus i'd advise for your health not to say something like that to many football fans in england.. likely to get lynched ;)

Just some more insider info:

We did try to cover for any potential problems... Ken had a plan days in advance of the game...:cool: several of us Engineering/Production staff would be spread out at the various transmission points.

I was stationed inside the WYDO Transmitter site (Ayden) from 4p - 11p, we had another at the WFXI Transmitter (Open Grounds), and at the station. Ken was at a focal commmunications point at which we would be his hands if something needed done. I was on the phone constantly from 7p on with Ken and the other engineers to try to figure a work around. :confused: I know all the viewers fustrations... but imagine you are inside the transmitter that is having problems, LOOKING right at it... and there is not a thing you can do about it.... :eek: Bloody weather.

pretty bad feeling probably about the same feeling as the small business owner that's looking at his/her profits walk away while the signal is frozen.

Directv HD channel rumor.

Possible 7 new HD channels coming tommorow.

Outdoor Channel HD
Chiller HD
ESPNEWS HD
MTV2 HD
TOON DISNEY HD
DISNEY HD
BET HD

Looks like the forum lost 24 hours worth of data from ~10:45pm yesterday to ~10:45 pm tonight. Let's all complain about that. They should have had mirroring sql servers or at the least be doing intraday backups. This is just unacceptable...............

Just kidden.... :)

If anyone has a copy of my last post feel free to repost

Ken

We lost some good posts. I didn't copy anything, but I remember some comments about interference in the area. Between lunch and 5 PM I missed any posts in that time frame.

Dish Network announced that they will be launching Greenville New Bern Washington NC HD local channels in the 1st qtr of 2008. No exact date.

Ken or Eastern have you heard anything from Directv about them adding HD locals?

Sorry, I haven't heard any news on DirecTv HD locals... If I do, I'll be sure to pass along.

Space Diversity for Microwave Antenna.......

When spacing is adequate between antennas, there should be little correlation between the two paths with regard to propagation characteristics. Improvement in reliability comes from the reduced probability that both paths will be adversely affected by fading at the same time.

In general, more vertical spacing between antennas offers less path correlation and better path reliability. The rule of thumb for antenna spacing is as follows: 60-80 feet at 2GHz, 30-40 feet at 7GHz and 22-27 feet at 13GHz.

The following modified form of Arvids Vigants' fade reduction factor equation can be used to estimate the improvement offered by space diversity: Isd= [(7 * 10^-5 * f * s^2 * 10^(f/10)]/D

where Isd = improvement factor (space diversity). f = frequency in GHz. s = vertical antenna spacing, in feet, between centers. D = path length in miles. F = path fade margin.

Space Diversity for Microwave Antenna.......

When spacing is adequate between antennas, there should be little correlation between the two paths with regard to propagation characteristics. Improvement in reliability comes from the reduced probability that both paths will be adversely affected by fading at the same time.

In general, more vertical spacing between antennas offers less path correlation and better path reliability. The rule of thumb for antenna spacing is as follows: 60-80 feet at 2GHz, 30-40 feet at 7GHz and 22-27 feet at 13GHz.

The following modified form of Arvids Vigants' fade reduction factor equation can be used to estimate the improvement offered by space diversity: Isd= [(7 * 10^-5 * f * s^2 * 10^(f/10)]/D

where Isd = improvement factor (space diversity). f = frequency in GHz. s = vertical antenna spacing, in feet, between centers. D = path length in miles. F = path fade margin.

Someone forgot to use this formula when they installed original microwave then.

Maybe you guys can clear this up, because after reading about the FOX super bowl problems, I'm confused.

So the problem was between WFXI and WYDO's towers, and not with the broadcast signal from WFXI? because I lost the digital signal halfway through the second quarter and didn't get it back reliably until halfway through the 4th quarter.

Hopefully, there wont be any issues with WCTI tonight, because as far as I'm concerned, the Duke/Carolina game tonight is bigger than the Super Bowl.


Mike

Thanks to a kind member here is a repost of mine that was lost because of the server problems.




To all, there are no excuses I can make that will satisfy the viewers that were unable to watch the Superbowl. Piedmont last year spent a large amount of money trying to fix the problem by buying the latest and greatest microwave equipment that they could and that did not help the problem. They also purchased new digital transmitters for both WFXI and WYDO. Microwave manufactures say that the paths that they use should work great and they do most of the time but they all underestimate the amount of fade that we have in Eastern NC. We are one of the worst places in the country for this type of problem. I know they even looked to find places to add additional hops but were unsucessful in doing so from there current location. In other parts of the country the equipment they purchased would do hops of over 70 miles. Here it has a hard time even doing 20 with out fade.

WNCT says on Philips Blog that they don't have fade because they are high power that is not true they don't have fade because it is a short hop from Grifton to Greenville. I had quite a bit of fade Sunday night on WCTI also. Luckly it did not affect my picture quality there but it was close.

We did what we could in the last month to improve the quality of the picture on both WYDO digital and analog and I think we were sucessful in doing so. Nothing could be done in the short amount of time we had in fixing the microwave fade issuses.

I have allready ordered over $500,000 worth of equipment in the month of January some of which will not be available for over 90 days. Then once we get it it will take us around 30 days to get it installed. This will allow us to move the Fox operation to our site in New Bern and in doing so we will change our microwave paths. We will be going from the studio in New Bern to Trenton and from Trenton to Ayden for WYDO this in my opinion should be a very reliable path with a high fade margin. Then we will be going from New Bern to Open Grounds using space diversity on the recieve end. If this proves to be unreliable we will add a hop in the middle. This should allow us to give the viewers of Eastern NC a quality and reliable picture on WCTI WFXI and WYDO.

I can say there is not a person in our company that does not care and that Bonten media is a great company and will allow us to do what it takes to fix the problems. For me personaly Sunday night was the worst night in my life seeing the problems and not being able to do anything about them and I know that our other manangers felt the same way.

I have called all the manufactures that I have purchased equipment from and begged them to expedite the equipment for me so that we can make this happen as soon as possible.

Ken

You've got my best wishes Ken.

Does the improvements include an increase in WYDO transmitting power???

On Thanksgiving Day 1982, I had the same thing happen at WAVY in Norfolk. The STL path was only 8.6 miles. You could see the tower from the studio. However the temperature was 18 degrees different in the two places. Fade lasted about 75 minutes. Total lost of signal! It is a helpless feeling. Installed a second antenna 55 feet higher on the receive end and a diversity switch, never happen again.

We did what we could in the last month to improve the quality of the picture on both WYDO digital and analog and I think we were sucessful in doing so.

Just for the heck of it, I turned on WYDO during the news last night, and couldn't believe how much better the station's quality looked. I don't think I've ever seen it look that good. The sound is a bit low, but I don't notice the radio station now.

So the problem was between WFXI and WYDO's towers, and not with the broadcast signal from WFXI? because I lost the digital signal halfway through the second quarter and didn't get it back reliably until halfway through the 4th quarter.

What you experienced is another station far off interfering with the WFXI signal. I had the same thing happen. The only station I know of on 24 is an analog out of Charleston, SC. When their signal started coming in, it pushed WFXI's digital transmission back toward the east, and that's why we lost them I think. I only briefly a couple of times got a weak enough signal to lose reception, and it came back within a minutes time.

That is why in this area you need a good directional high gain antenna, so you can null out the interference.

From what I've been able to tell, the loss of microwave for WYDO occured at the WSFL tower south of Trenton. (Forgive me if I misunderstood that this was the bad spot) :)

You've got my best wishes Ken.

Does the improvements include an increase in WYDO transmitting power???

There will be an increase in 2009 when we go all digital

Ken

Raycom has screwed up somehow again. No commentator audio on the HD feed.:mad::rolleyes::D

Ken whatever you just did fixed it! Thanks again for doing all that you do.

yep I just called them and they had the audio on a differnt pid than what they told us lucklily I could change it from home can't win sometimes

Ken

Oh man, now we've got some sort of problem with breaking up in the picture, but it just stopped as I type.

Oh well, doing it again... lol

Alot of break ups all of a sudden.

I kinda like the game with out audio.

It's back to SD.

Back to HD

they are killing me think it is all good now

It's all good in Jacksonville.

The first 10 minutes of the game were great with out Billy Pecker talking. It only got aggravating when you couldn't hear what the call was. Too bad they couldn't pipe in Vitale's commentary.

I had some break-up near the end of the first half, then a switch to SD, then back to HD for the rest of the game. I was getting 6-7 out of 10 bars 40 miles from the transmitter on my new DB4.


Mike

It's all good in J-ville.

Jacksonville or Jamesville?
Thank you

The first 10 minutes of the game were great with out Billy Pecker talking. It only got aggravating when you couldn't hear what the call was. Too bad they couldn't pipe in Vitale's commentary.



Mike

LOL!

That was hilarious! I would rather listen to Vitale too, but it is what it is...

The SB is on 11 times on the NFLN CH 212 including now. For those of you who missed it get your HR's ready.

I had a PM asking if I could post my signal meter strength of WFXI.

I also have a few more pics of the Charleston stations I said I would post time and again, but never do...

So here is the proof!;)

Those don't look very clear, I can touch up the quality if it's too blurry.

How often do you get those Charleston stations? That's quite a distance!

More often than I check them I'm sure. Usually when it is warm weather they are there every night. That TV is closest to the antenna, and that box picks up better than the Samsung 32" TV I have with built in tuner.

I recieved an Email from Raycom yesterday applogizing for the problems with the HD feed on Wednesday. This is only the 6th HD game that they have done and are still learning. The realize when they don't give us the right settings to start with it causes the stations to have to rush to get it changed and that can lead to more problems. They promise to get better. I'll continue to monitor the games to make sure we get it right. When ever we have issuses I'll drop back to SD untill I get it fixed. Other than ABC this is our only HD feed and I'm still learning what can screw it up and what to do to fix it.

Ken

Ken any plans for WYDO 14.2 other than a SD simulcast?

I don't receive an 8.2

Sounds good Ken on the games. I may not be around this weekend, but if I am and see anything wrong I will come on and post it so people won't think it's their antenna.

We dont have a 8.2 just a 14.2 and have not made any plans at this time. Want to get everything working right with what we have first but I wouldn't be suprised if we dont do something after the transition

Ken

I have said it before you guys are lucky to have the physical advantages to get all these stations. I challenge all of you to come here to Jamesville. I guarantee you your magic won't work as EASY. It has been at least four months since I got 8-1 with my OTA. I can get analog channel 12 but only once I got 12-1 almost a year ago. To further reinforce my point the Slimline D* dish had to be moved near the road in order to get strong signals which finally I do now. My lowest SS is 94% for satellite 110. The rest are 97%-98%. With my OTA which is diplexed for the second TV I get 91% for 9-1 and 84% for 7-1. 2-1 to 2-5 the average is in the low 60's. Late at night I can get analog channel 5 out of Raleigh but NOT all that clear. Three miles away people have high speed INTERNET and cable. We are at the mercy of the satellite.

It is official. WITN verified tonight that the Greenville-Washington-New Bern DMA HD will be on Dish Network very soon. According to Dish network letter to retailers, by the end of March. According to WITN, the retailer said we are next.

It is official. WITN verified tonight that the Greenville-Washington-New Bern DMA HD will be on Dish Network very soon. According to Dish network letter to retailers, by the end of March. According to WITN, the retailer said we are next.

Mike contacted me this week about my post, the station had no info on this and I let him know about where I got my info, and he checked into it and it looks like Dish will have the HD locals soon.

Hopefully once Directv launches the D11 sat this qtr, they will add the local HD channels.

Pulling in some distant stations this morning.

Ch 2.1, 2.2 WFMY (Winston-Salem/Greensboro)
Ch 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5 WUNC (Ral/Durham)
Ch 8.1 WFXI (Morehead City) Generally dont pull this in.
Ch 8.1 WGHP (High Point )

Cant get WCTI this morning. Many times around this time WCTI is off or breaking up.

Under the Directv.com local channel look up tool it now says that Ch 431 Telefutura is now in our local channels package. But if you tune to that channel is says channel not purchased.

Under the Directv.com local channel look up tool it now says that Ch 431 Telefutura is now in our local channels package. But if you tune to that channel is says channel not purchased.
¿Habla español?:rolleyes:

WWE Smackdown will be leaving The CW after this season. No network named yet as a replacement.

Ken,

Was on a quick overnight trip to Morehead City and got a chance to catch a few minutes of WYDO on D*. The video looks better than I last remember. Good going!!

I was out in the Raleigh area and watched the game on 5.1 last night. Not one problem, and by the looks of things everything around here went well too. Hopefully Raycom got their stuff worked out for the rest of the season.

Caught the Bud Shootout in HD OTA last night on WYDO. Reception was fine with good PQ throughout. Audio was fine, but did notice audio transmission was 2.0 instead of 5.1 DD. Not sure if that was native to the broadcast or not. Sounded fine with Logic7 DSP though. Still got my fingers crossed for the Daytona 500 in HD via WYDO OTA. Good luck Ken.

I don't know if anybody else noticed it or not but the Pro Bowl was only in widescreen SD. It wasn't a WYDO problem either since WRAZ had the same thing.

Noticed that the pro bowl feed didnt look HD yesterday during the Daytona qualifying when they switched over to a preview of the game.

If I can get WITN HD with a cheap CM anybody can. As far as I am concerned that is NOT a big deal...
Like I said before I will get a little excited if WITN gets DD 5.1...

If I can get WITN HD with a cheap CM anybody can. As far as I am concerned that is NOT a big deal...
Like I said before I will get a little excited if WITN gets DD 5.1...

WECT NBC out of Wilmington just added it late last week. They have 5.1 all day long now on both NBC and FOX.:D

WECT NBC out of Wilmington just added it late last week. They have 5.1 all day long now on both NBC and FOX.:D
jspENC:
I sincerely do NOT mean to be sarcastic. NOT only you have [made] my points, you have *reinforced* them:
1. As I mentioned before you have the "natural physical" advantages to pick-up the Wilmington stations I do NOT.
2. By rubbing hard the DD 5.1 you are maybe hinting WITN to do the same. I definitely will NOT hold my breath waiting for that to happen:rolleyes:
3. I can only enjoy DD 5.1 when I tune in to CH 9-1 or 2-2.
4. Of course I can enjoy the DD 5.1 with the other D* HD channels.
5. I don't mean to be rude by changing subjects. Did you watch Sunday night in HD Lawrence Of Arabia on CH 78?
Thanks

jspENC:
2. By rubbing hard the DD 5.1 you are maybe hinting WITN to do the same. I definitely will NOT hold my breath waiting for that to happen:rolleyes:

I wouldn't hold my breath either waiting for WITN to do anything or spend any more than they have to on their current setup and facility.

The GM for WITN has said they will be building a "State Of The Art" facility on Arlington Blvd. in the next year or so. I would fully expect that a state of the art facility would include both HD local news and DD 5.1. Anything less wouldn't be state of the art.

jspENC:
I sincerely do NOT mean to be sarcastic. NOT only you have [made] my points, you have *reinforced* them:
1. As I mentioned before you have the "natural physical" advantages to pick-up the Wilmington stations I do NOT.
2. By rubbing hard the DD 5.1 you are maybe hinting WITN to do the same. I definitely will NOT hold my breath waiting for that to happen:rolleyes:
3. I can only enjoy DD 5.1 when I tune in to CH 9-1 or 2-2.
4. Of course I can enjoy the DD 5.1 with the other D* HD channels.
5. I don't mean to be rude by changing subjects. Did you watch Sunday night in HD Lawrence Of Arabia on CH 78?
Thanks

No problem. I wish you could get Raleigh or another NBC where you are too. I do hate like you that WITN does not have DD 5.1, and I also don't like that WCTI doesn't have it, but again, WWAY in Wilmington does, and has since the first day I got an HD tuner. You would think that if a small market like Wilmington can afford it, a larger market like ours would be able to.

New to the board, tried searching for this and couldn't find it, so hoping someone can help me out.

I'm in Rocky Mount on Suddenlink. Just got a new Toshiba 32HL67U a few weeks ago, and pulled in about 20 channels (HD/SD) via QAM. FOX and PPV barker showed up as channel 0, but everything else was 86-1 and up, so I didn't worry about it.

Come Saturday, most of my QAM channels quit working, and the base broadcasts have moved to all channel 0. So I have about 6 channels all reporting as channel 0. When I say base, they are like the -1 of the digital channels, so if i manually enter in 86-3, it takes me to 86-1, but reports it as 0. This is happening for all 86-89 (the only ones I remember for sure). Already rescanned twice to no avail. All of the unavailable (encrypted) digital channels are found and tune without issue, but of course there is no content as expected.

Calling Suddenlink gets me nowhere, they just tell me it's my problem, but quite frankly, I've found no one that seems to know what they're talking about. Has this happened to anyone else locally, and is there something else I can attempt? I have no other devices with a QAM tuner to test with.

Thanks.

Not sure if this is Dish network doing this or if it's coming this way from WITN... anyone else have a problem with WITN's analog signal only broadcasting through the right channel?

Not sure if this is Dish network doing this or if it's coming this way from WITN... anyone else have a problem with WITN's analog signal only broadcasting through the right channel?

I just checked the OTA signal and it's balanced, so it must be DISH. I have problems with WFXI broadcasting left and center only most times with low surround, and CW 9.2 blaring out of the left only during local comercials.
:rolleyes:

Might want to check to see if both left and right audio cables are pushed into the TV and receiver tightly...

It's coming in off a coax lead, so I know it's not the cables, but all of my TV's do it as well. I haven't tried it OTA, but if you're not having a problem it must be Dish. Guess I'll shoot an email off to them and see if it can be fixed.

Ken,
The tint is really off on 8.1 during the news. Brian's face looks pink.

Ken any plans in the works to bring a channel to a sub channel such as ABC NEWS, RTN, a Weather channel?

Also I know youve said in the past , but why again is there 12.3 and not 12.2?

I think Ken originally said that 12.2 is/was reserved for news/weather if they ever decided to go that route with the sub.

Yea I just went back 4 years ago in the post and saw where Ken said he set up his equipment that way.

Looking back at the last 4 years, its amazing how far Eastern NCs digital channels have come.

Kinda boring now, back then every day seemed to have something new going on, helping stations out with issues, new sub channels popping up, testing.
Its nice to go back and read the earlier post.

Hard to believe on 4/20/08 it will be 4 years that we've been working on the Greenville NC market thread.

Eastern,
Have you seen the Directv equipment over at the WNCT studios?

What is involved in it. How do they send the signal back to there site, FIBER or SAT?

You may still be having trouble with that splicer Ken. American Idol was not in HD OTA last night.

I noticed that as well RMartin and it was in HD on 26.1

I was having problems picking up 12.1 last night with my antenna in the wrong direction what with the wind the way it was, so I turned around and flipped back and forth between the game and Idol.

I'll look into it

Ken

Ken last night as the newscast went on the pink color went back to regular flesh tone. Maybe someone was working on it.

Ken last night as the newscast went on the pink color went back to regular flesh tone. Maybe someone was working on it.

Not sure what caused that I have quite a few places that could have a problem right now. Once I have everything centralized it will be a lot better. I'll be doing a lot less conversions between analog and digital and that will make all 4 stations a lot better

Ken

I scanned my ota channels on my tv tonight and all the channels came up under the original digital ch instead of the analog #.

To my surprise WCTI is putting out 3 channels, one appears to be a feed to WFXI for the transmission of the FOX NEWS, saw a color bar then the FOX NEWS SET with a empty chair, scroll thru the graphics in the back ground.

Ch 48-2
I assume that this channel is somehow not supposed to be visible to the public.

American Idol was in HD OTA last night. Problem fixed.

Sunday is the next big day Ken. A whole lot of people will be looking for HD around 2:00 pm.

I scanned my ota channels on my tv tonight and all the channels came up under the original digital ch instead of the analog #.

To my surprise WCTI is putting out 3 channels, one appears to be a feed to WFXI for the transmission of the FOX NEWS, saw a color bar then the FOX NEWS SET with a empty chair, scroll thru the graphics in the back ground.

Ch 48-2
I assume that this channel is somehow not supposed to be visible to the public.

I've seen the color bars when I have done a reset, but they don't stay up on my set.

Thanks to the MyNetwork 35 engineers (who must read this forum) for fixing the PSIP problem. I am actually able to tune to those channels now without them locking up on me.

Anyone wanna predict how bad Fox will screw up the Daytona 500?

Since they screwed up the biggest football game of the year, its only fitting that they screw up the biggest race of the year.

Anyone wanna predict how bad Fox will screw up the Daytona 500?

Since they screwed up the biggest football game of the year, its only fitting that they screw up the biggest race of the year.

In fairness to Fox, it wasn't them that screwed it up. It was WYDO, the local station. The Super Bowl looked fine and uninterrupted on WRAZ-50.1.

Eastern,
Have you seen the Directv equipment over at the WNCT studios?

What is involved in it. How do they send the signal back to there site, FIBER or SAT?

I have seen the Directv equipment. It's in a separate room in Master Control. Pretty fun to go take a look at once in a while. I'm not sure how it's sent back. Think it may be by satellite, don't think it's Fiber.

Could be wrong though, definitely not my area of expertise.

I scanned my ota channels on my tv tonight and all the channels came up under the original digital ch instead of the analog #.

To my surprise WCTI is putting out 3 channels, one appears to be a feed to WFXI for the transmission of the FOX NEWS, saw a color bar then the FOX NEWS SET with a empty chair, scroll thru the graphics in the back ground.

Ch 48-2
I assume that this channel is somehow not supposed to be visible to the public.

Surprised you just saw this. I mentioned it about a week or so ago. I stumbled across it to during a rescan too.

On my little Dynex SDTV on my desk at the station, this channel comes in and color bars are always up. Most times, I'm never here to see it at 10PM. Some of the photogs have told me you can watch Fox Eastern Carolina News on it during the evening. On my Dynex, it comes on as 48-001. On my Insignia SDTV at home it's 12.2. On my HD set in the living room, I can't pick it up at all. Weird how that stuff works.

I thought 12 looked a bit "ghosty" (is that a word--lol) on Directv. Definitely not fiber. 9 didn't look all that great either, but the rest did, except 14 which was bad color then, but haven't seen it since Ken worked on it, at least through D*. I think it looks a whole lot better on my analog TV through antenna. I'm surprised they don't carry MyNetwork 38.

I think I remember Ken saying 12 on dish was direct fed from the studio.

I thought 12 looked a bit "ghosty" (is that a word--lol) on Directv. Definitely not fiber. 9 didn't look all that great either, but the rest did, except 14 which was bad color then, but haven't seen it since Ken worked on it, at least through D*. I think it looks a whole lot better on my analog TV through antenna. I'm surprised they don't carry MyNetwork 38.

I think I remember Ken saying 12 on dish was direct fed from the studio.
The Dish POP for this area is at channel 12 so that doesn't surprise me. As for why 12 looks ghosty on DTV... they do have to still pick it up off-air and send it back to the mothership. Not sure how our local POPs are, but most of that time that is actually done with fiber.

The Dish POP for this area is at channel 12 so that doesn't surprise me. As for why 12 looks ghosty on DTV... they do have to still pick it up off-air and send it back to the mothership. Not sure how our local POPs are, but most of that time that is actually done with fiber.

I can't speak for Dish but for DirecTV, when my station was approached as the HD LIL POP for our market a few years back, I asked how that worked since we had been fiber all the way and had recently been switched to off air. They dropped the individual fiber from each station to save money.

A POP "collection center" is installed at a location that can receive all the stations in a market and then it is fibered on a single DS3 to a regional uplink center where many LIL markets in a region are sent for uplinking to the main distribution center in LA and the backup in Castle Rock, CO. From there it is sent to the correct CONUS or spot beam sat to your receiver.

Directv subs dont forget Nascar Hotpass Daytona 500 free preview Sunday.


SDTV

CH 790 TONY STEWART
CH 791 DALE JR
CH 792 JEFF GORDON
CH 793 KEVIN HARVICK
CH 794 FOX SD NATIONAL BROADCAST FEED WITH 13 DRIVERS SELECTABLE AUDIO.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WITH HR20/HR21/H20/H21 MPEG 4 SYSTEM
CH 795 TS HD
CH 796 DJ HD
CH 797 JG HD
CH 798 KH HD
CH 799 FOX HD NATIONAL BROADCAST FEED WITH 13 IN CARS AUDIO.

Anyone with QAM tuners in the Greenville Washington Suddenlink area loose WNCT on 78-8?

Wal*Mart has the DTV set top convertor boxes in stock for $49. With the $40 coupon from the gov't it will cost around $10.

go to www.dtv2009.gov
to request your coupon, up to 2 per family.

Tropho playing with the signals tonight, WCTI is going out, getting UNC from 4 out of RDU, getting stations, from Greensboro, and signals are being converted back to original digital channels, this of course brought the blacked out feed of 48-2 (FOX NEWS FEED )

I didn't mess with the digital last night, but night before last I had all the Raleigh channels coming in except WTVD, and WRAZ. I got to watch WWE on CW22 in HD without a single break up.

If anyone is interested WSFL 106.5 is HD now. I just noticed it yesterday when I was doing a scan for HD radio stations. WRVA 100.7 is HD too but it's hard to keep a lock on it.

I didn't mess with the digital last night, but night before last I had all the Raleigh channels coming in except WTVD, and WRAZ. I got to watch WWE on CW22 in HD without a single break up.

Yeah, I was picking up WFXI DT on Friday night. Had a nice clean lock too.

Just picked up a 15" 720p LCD for my desk in the bedroom. Nice tv with lots of functions; ATSC tuner built in, component, HDMI, composite inputs. Has a nice tuner; get everybody in the area plus the RDU locals with just my indoor antenna.

If anyone is interested WSFL 106.5 is HD now. I just noticed it yesterday when I was doing a scan for HD radio stations. WRVA 100.7 is HD too but it's hard to keep a lock on it.

HD car stereo is next on my list once that government rebate check comes in! :D Are SFL and RVA running multiple content streams like RAL? Do you know if V-103.3 is HD too? I hear the HD Radio ads running on that station all the time...

Ive been looking at HD radio as well, when you look make sure they have the tuner, most dont come with it.

Directv now has Nascar Hotpass channels up, 794 FOX SD, 799 FOX HD.

HD car stereo is next on my list once that government rebate check comes in! :D Are SFL and RVA running multiple content streams like RAL? Do you know if V-103.3 is HD too? I hear the HD Radio ads running on that station all the time...

RVA runs multi channel. SFL has a second channel on but there is no content. Just silence. 103.3 is HD with a second channel. Like SFL, the second channel is silence.

How about 107/9? I heard they were about to go HD. My birthday isn't far off, might consider HD radio if all these stations are starting to move that direction.

Now it's WFXI's turn...

Channel 8 froze up and now is currently broadcasting a black screen, at least on Dish network...

Still freezing up every few seconds, and amazingly WYDO is broadcasting with perfect quality!

Oh my my my, I don't think anyone saw this one coming...

Great picture on Directv channel 799 National FOX HD.
Dale Jrs in car channel in HD looks great also, nice to keep seeing the race even during the commercials.

WYDO must not be in 5.1, When I flip to the New York FOX HD feed on channel 799 Directv, its like night and day. Sounds like you are at the track.

I'm watching on WSFX. I'll tune to WFXI DT and see what's up.

Edit. Am now on WFXI and all seems fine. It must be an analog problem.

We take Suddenlink's limited channel package along with Dish, and just turned to WYDO... but for you Morehead/Jax people who can't get 14... welcome to two Sundays ago in Greenville!

Both WSFX and WFXI are putting out Dolby 5.1-- They sound identical

Scott,
Was just looking at analog 7 and I am now noticing the unbalanced audio you commented on earlier. The dialog is coming out of the left and center, and very low audio out of the right and surrounds. It's just like WFXI during local shows. I guess audio is low priority. CW does the same thing during local ads. It's all basically mono we are getting I think.

Were you noticing it during something locally generated? I just turned there and the hockey game on sounds fine. When I really notice it is during newscasts... the anchor seems to only come out of one channel.

I was noticing it during the game, and when the local ads came on it seemed to even out. The commentating and cheering of the game was quite a bit louder out of the left speaker, and not much at all coming from the right. It sounded sort of garbled to me out of the right side.

How about 107/9? I heard they were about to go HD. My birthday isn't far off, might consider HD radio if all these stations are starting to move that direction.

My HD doesn't pick it up in HD. Where are they located at? I may have to turn the antenna to pick it up in HD.

107.9 is on the 7/9 tower in Grifton along with 93.3. I don't think they have actually fired up HD yet though... if they were it should blast right into you in Ayden.

Both WSFX and WFXI are putting out Dolby 5.1-- They sound identical

OTA WYDO audio was definitely only 2.0 stereo during the NASCAR coverage today... shame too. WYDO used to broadcast in DD 5.1 during HD programming last year. Video feed was great though. Audio popping was a bit of a problem during switching to and from local commercials. I guess the good audio equipment went to WFXI after it was resurrected.

107.9 is on the 7/9 tower in Grifton along with 93.3. I don't think they have actually fired up HD yet though... if they were it should blast right into you in Ayden.

I agree. I have the antenna pointed due South and 7/9 are about 6 miles to my SSE. I'm not actually in Ayden.... About 5 miles East of it. The antenna is a 10 foot Radio Shack antenna and they're not real picky about direction.

In Greenville 93.3 and 107.9 are the stations that come in without even adding an antenna to your radio... they're just strong enough to get into the circuitry. I'd say it's safe to assume if they had HD you'd get it.

I'm surprised you have a problem getting WRVA... that station blasts into Greenville too. I'm pretty sure Pitt and Lenoir sits in their city-grade coverage contour. Even with the antenna pointed at them you get breakups?

I was awakened by Storms at about 3:30 and turning on TV and flipping I saw 19 was off the air for a while. This was before the storms even got into Jones county. These winds were rough. I watched TV for a while and nobody else but WITN went off. They never actually went off, but they kept going to radar and no sound once in a while.

I woke up too about 4:00 and turned on the TV... WITN was on the air, and was doing live weather cut-ins from Greenville. I was impressed they were prepared for that so early.

Anyone catch live updates on 9 or 12?

When I woke up, I saw that channels 6,7,9,12,and 26 were covering the weather (all live). There may have been more, but those are the ones I caught. Everyone was focused on Bladen up through Sampson, Wayne, and Lenoir county areas then. There were Tornado warnings. So with all that and the wind I couldn't turn off and go back to sleep.

The Nascar Hotpass is very much improved this year. Everything is in HD now - and I don't have to hope that the local Fox station is operational (I know you are working hard Ken).

Ken must have done a lot to WYDO for it to not have had any problems last night (it was unseasonably warm, just like during the Super Bowl). But what happened at WFXI yesterday? I can't say I've ever seen channel 8 start having problems, especially when WYDO was working great.

The Nascar Hotpass is very much improved this year. Everything is in HD now - and I don't have to hope that the local Fox station is operational (I know you are working hard Ken).
Does anyone know why they did NOT have DD 5.1 to go along with it?:mad:

I MAY know, I am NOT saying I do because I don't, but if Ken has done what I think he has done, you may not get 5.1 on WYDO because of what he has to do to make things work.

I had DD5.1 on the HD Hotpass, I don't know if WYDO did or not.

On the way to work this morning at 4:40am the storms hit Washington, I cant recall seeing rain and wind that hard ever. Could not see 10 ft in front of me. Got in to Washington and power was out, 15th street was under water. Had to drive in the opposite lane to get thru town. Then on HWY 17 the construction barrels where they are working on the new bypass were all over the road, 20-30 you had to drive thru them like a maze.
Storage buildings at Lowe's were blown over and into the parking lot entrance, one was blown about 150 yards out into a vacant lot beside the store, ball up and destroyed.
About 10 miles up 17 at the Martin/Beaufort Co border the highway patrol had the road blocked a possible tornado went thru.

In Greenville 93.3 and 107.9 are the stations that come in without even adding an antenna to your radio... they're just strong enough to get into the circuitry. I'd say it's safe to assume if they had HD you'd get it.

I'm surprised you have a problem getting WRVA... that station blasts into Greenville too. I'm pretty sure Pitt and Lenoir sits in their city-grade coverage contour. Even with the antenna pointed at them you get breakups?

HD radio is a lot like HD TV. With a analog receiver you can pick up marginal stations from some pretty good distances that a digital receiver would never lock on. Greenville is near the edge of WRVA's service limit and I live a few miles further out near the edge of their limit. WRVA locks about 90% of the time but when it's jumping in and out of lock (between digital and analog) it get a terrible stutter going. Both stations play the same style of music, classic rock, but I prefer WRVA because they'll play the "B" sides sometimes. 106.5 only plays "radio" classic rock.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb56/RMartin631/wrvaservicearea.gif

Would someone please contact 103.3 and tell them that HD radio is Hybrid Digital and not High Definition? Please.

Would someone please contact 103.3 and tell them that HD radio is Hybrid Digital and not High Definition? Please.
That applies to pretty much every station on the dial. Mix 101.5 WRAL has been calling it "high definition radio" for 7 years... and they were among the first to actually install it.

Would someone please contact 103.3 and tell them that HD radio is Hybrid Digital and not High Definition? Please.

It's easier for most people to think it's hi def. The workings behind hydrid digital would take too long to explain and most people would just say "whatever, it's hi def".

Just tell them High Definition is a visual thing so radio cannot be...its like people saying "flat screen" tv when they really mean "flat panel"...you can't fix dumb.

foxeng,

Remember when there was some confusion on which antennas were on the WRAL-DT tower? I think WNCN analog is the one that was confused with WTVD-DT. WTVD-DT is apparently on their own tower. WRAL has a lot to do to get on channel 48 and this explains it all for those interested, and tells what other stations are on their tower.

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getattachment_exh.cgi?exhibit_id=617875

Apparently WRAL/WRAZ are built in together, and WLFL/WRDC are together on one antenna. (I think)

When it's all done, from what I read, WRAL will increase it's coverage by about five miles.

http://www.fybush.com/site-030807.html

All you ever wanted to know about many of the Triangle's tower sites

foxeng,

Remember when there was some confusion on which antennas were on the WRAL-DT tower? I think WNCN analog is the one that was confused with WTVD-DT. WTVD-DT is apparently on their own tower. WRAL has a lot to do to get on channel 48 and this explains it all for those interested, and tells what other stations are on their tower.

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getattachment_exh.cgi?exhibit_id=617875

Apparently WRAL/WRAZ are built in together, and WLFL/WRDC are together on one antenna. (I think)

When it's all done, from what I read, WRAL will increase it's coverage by about five miles.

I read that (the attachment to the Form 387) the first time and thought "Oh my god - they have got ALOT to do" . The plan appears to be well thought out in terms of minimal disruption to viewers. It also leaves them with "ready to go" backup facilities (although at some reduction in coverage) - always a good thing to have.

http://www.wnct.com/midatlantic/nct/news/local_news.apx.-content-articles-NCT-2008-02-20-0007.html

What I'd like to see Suddenlink do is follow the terms of their franchise agreement and Pitt County to enforce them. There are areas of the county in which county code and the franchise agreement calls for SL to expand service to. The county liason to SL
has examined these areas and has said that they qualify for cable service but SL refuses to follow the terms of the agreement.

Would this include in areas in southern Pitt county?

*keeps fingers crossed*

Want more HD and better, far better picture quality, switch over to Directv.
Now with 90+ HD channels, and all digital, no analog.

I just want cable internet. I''ve got HughesNet now and it is awful.

I have embarq internet, and it is the fastest I've ever seen and much faster than warner bros. Road Runner. The Road Runner is always going out too. My embarq has never just died for no reason. The only times it has gone out were after a major storm.

I would love to have embarq too. Unfortunately, I'm too far out to get DSL. HughesNet only goes out in heavy rains. The problem with it is that it is slow all the time. It's faster that dial-up, but that's about it. Also, if you use it too much in a 24hr period, they throttle you down to dial-up speed.

So with that said, I'll say this, "Please come to my house Suddenlink!"

I would love to have embarq too. Unfortunately, I'm too far out to get DSL. HughesNet only goes out in heavy rains. The problem with it is that it is slow all the time. It's faster that dial-up, but that's about it. Also, if you use it too much in a 24hr period, they throttle you down to dial-up speed.

So with that said, I'll say this, "Please come to my house Suddenlink!"
Where do you live? If you are near Ayden or Grifton, check out Alltel's cellular aircards. They are running EV-DO over all of Pitt County except Grimesland area and you can get speeds up to 1000kbps or so. I was in Grifton yesterday and pulling 300-400kbps.

wow. I'll look into that. I've tried Verizon's cards and I barely got any signal at all. I'm just north of Grifton.

thanks.

wow. I'll look into that. I've tried Verizon's cards and I barely got any signal at all. I'm just north of Grifton.

thanks.

Verizon doesn't have any coverage past Winterville until you get into Kinston. Alltel has a tower just north of town on Highland and another just north of DuPont on Charles Braxton Road. Should be able to pull pretty good service from the one north of town.

Sorry to take the thread off topic :)

Would this include in areas in southern Pitt county?
*keeps fingers crossed*

If your areas qualify then yes, it does. Pitt County code in effect when they signed the franchise agreement with SL was:

You must average 25 houses per mile within 3 miles of the last SL drop for a total minimum of 75 houses. The Pitt County liason to SL agrees with me.

That means that you can have 25 houses per mile over 3 miles or 2 houses per mile for the first 2 miles and then 71 houses in the last mile. You can have any combination, I just used that as an example.

There is room for interpertation in the Pitt County code though and that's where SL is dodging the code.

SL is reading the code literally instead of the intent of the code. SL reads the code as saying all of the homes must be in a straight line along the 3 mile route. If there is a road that leads off of the route and it has 50 homes on it that road doesn't count. That is the issue where I am.

The intent was if there is a group of homes in a small area that meets the requirements of the code then they qualify regardless of how many roads it take to do it.

In other words, say you have a subdivision with 300 homes in it but they are on a bunch of little roads off of the main road. According to SL that subdivision wouldn't qualify because all of the homes aren't on the same road at the 25 home per mile rate.

I counted the number of homes in my area and it easily qualifies under the intent of the code. I think I counted over 100 homes. But they're not all on the same road so we're screwed.

That's very interesting. Is this agreement online anywhere? Have you tried contacting anyone about this? I would certainly be willing to do whatever I could to force suddenlink to start servicing my area.

That's very interesting. Is this agreement online anywhere? Have you tried contacting anyone about this? I would certainly be willing to do whatever I could to force suddenlink to start servicing my area.

I had the link to the Pitt County Code but it has changed. I have contacted my local county councilman and he put me in touch with the county liason to SL. The liason informed SL that it was the county's opinion that my area qualified and SL refuses to cooperate.

That's very interesting. Is this agreement online anywhere? Have you tried contacting anyone about this? I would certainly be willing to do whatever I could to force suddenlink to start servicing my area.
I'm not sure what the arrangement is in your area, but Grifton is not a Suddenlink area. Ayden is, but at some point the Grifton/Snow Hill Falcon Cable system takes over. This was at least the case a couple years ago, not sure if it's still true.

Has anyone had a problem picking up WNCT-HD, WRALHD, WITNHD,WCTIHD with their QAM tuners with limited basic cable. I am still picking up UNCHD and WRALNC, but no other digitals that were passed by SuddenStink. This started happening yesterday. I called Stink's CS and they told me that they couldn't troubleshoot this problem because the local channels control this aspect, which is nonsense.

I called Stink's CS and they told me that they couldn't troubleshoot this problem because the local channels control this aspect, which is nonsense.

That's Crap. This is definitely on Suddenleak.

Doesn't Time Warner have some area's of Pitt county? Did they take over Falcon?

Time Warner took over the old Adelphia systems. There was one up toward Tarboro in Fountain and one in southeastern Pitt County in Blackjack.

The Reflector's TV listings still show Grifton and Snow Hill as Falcon; TVGuide.com lists them as "Media Cast", whoever that is.

I think Time Warner is used in the Farmville area. Snow Hill/Falcon still handles Grifton as far as I know.

On www.zap2it.com (http://zap2it.com) for zip code 28530 it shows a company called NewWave communications

On www.zap2it.com (http://zap2it.com) for zip code 28530 it shows a company called NewWave communications
Looking at NewWave's site they list an office in Snow Hill and NC is mentioned a few times, but don't list any actual systems or channel lineups in NC. Weird. That's got to be at least the parent company though. Good find.

Why did WNCT just cut over to the Arkansas UK game???????? They did it right in the middle of the Duke, St Johns game.

Why did WNCT just cut over to the Arkansas UK game???????? They did it right in the middle of the Duke, St Johns game.

It was apparently CBS that did the cut over to the Arkansas/UK Game. It happened on WSPA yesterday, as well.

Thanks. I had to turn to analog because they went to another game again into the second half on the HD signal. I hope they get this worked out before NCAA Tournament. I hate that flipping in and out that CBS tends to do and way too often.

Last I heard WNCT's master control is in the upstate in WSPA's studios. Maybe this has something to do with it? Anyone know if WRAL switched too?

Thanks. I had to turn to analog because they went to another game again into the second half on the HD signal. I hope they get this worked out before NCAA Tournament. I hate that flipping in and out that CBS tends to do and way too often.

Be prepared.....CBS did this same thing during last year's tournament. There was one game where the HD feed was a game in-progress while the SD was a local commercial. The HD Feed even had the cards saying what game the feed was. The decision for the different feeds apparently rests with the network level (CBS).

Just did a rescan of my QAM cable channels and they are now showing up on the actual cable channel number that they do on the digital cable box, with channel id names. Still showing up on other channel # as well, 88-23 (EXAMPLE).
Here in Washington on Suddenlink.

Is anybody else having problems with WRAZ (50-1)? I am using a Channel Master 4228 antenna. The shows I watch on 50 are "skipping" during the show. The sound is fine, but the picture is "jumpy". I know I'm outting myself as a newb with this jargon, but it's the best I can do! Some of the commercials have this problem, and some don't.

I've noticed the problem during Two and a Half Men and King of Queens. It may happen on other shows, but these are the only two I ever watch on this channel. Two and a Half men is not in HD tonight for some reason. Last night, the skipping problem seemed to fix itself from time to time, but it would then go back to the problem.

50-2 and 50-3 don't have this problem. I've noticed this for the last few days.

Any ideas?