Anyone have any idea what's going on with MediaCon? The NASCAR race on FOX (KFXA) tonight is being broadcast in HD OTA, but MediaCon's QAM is only in SD, stereo. When I was watching movies on Fox QAM earlier today, they were also in SD, but I didn't think to check the OTA at that time.

Did MediaCon lose some sort of re-broadcast agreement with KFXA after the transition?

Anyone have any idea what's going on with MediaCon? The NASCAR race on FOX (KFXA) tonight is being broadcast in HD OTA, but MediaCon's QAM is only in SD, stereo. When I was watching movies on Fox QAM earlier today, they were also in SD, but I didn't think to check the OTA at that time.

Did MediaCon lose some sort of re-broadcast agreement with KFXA after the transition?
Not that I know of, and it's in SD in Iowa City via Mediacom. :mad:

Out of curiousity, have any of you had any luck with a particular indoor antenna for KWWL-DT reception now that we are back on VHF? I know that rabbit ears stink right now because they're just too omnidirectional, but I'm curious if anyone has had good luck with a certain indoor directional unit. The reason I ask is that some do not have an option for outdoor units, so I want to at least provide them an option. Let me know what you are using and your location or distance. THANKS!

Rabbit ears are working for me, Jarret. I'm between your station and Crossroads, in Waterloo. (28 mi) But really, your advice to shorten the rabbit ears totally lost the signal for me...mine are exactly 34" long (each ear.)

So fwiw, if people follow your advice to shorten them, they may never find you - I know I wouldn't have.

Rabbit ears are working for me, Jarret. I'm between your station and Crossroads, in Waterloo. (28 mi) But really, your advice to shorten the rabbit ears totally lost the signal for me...mine are exactly 34" long (each ear.)

So fwiw, if people follow your advice to shorten them, they may never find you - I know I wouldn't have.

Good to know... we had the opposite experience here. I guess I'll pass on that one can try either length to see if there is success. Thanks!

Anyone using the 15-2186 (DA-5200) from Radio Shack? I've been getting people with these units having trouble. They claim to have VHF capability, but I can't imagine anything that small performing well for VHF. I also can't find any tech specs or gain figures on it either. I know clearstream and some DB-8 also claim "enhanced VHF reception" despite them being just grids with bowties. "Enhanced" must mean better than a beer can or paper clip! If they get more than a few DB, I'd be impressed! No wonder people are confused!
-Jarrett

Here's a link to build a 3 element antenna out of 300 ohm twin lead:
http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/dipole.html

I haven't built this myself, just sketched out how they would look for fun (see attachement) . At channel 7, this should fit on a 3' x 3' sheet of cardboard. Just an idea...Matthews claims this should be an improvement over rabbit ears

(and click here (http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/miscellaneous.html) to Mr. Matthews misc. page)

I have the DA-5200 mounted outside on the second level of my house, pointed at the tower. I live on the SE side of Cedar Rapids.

Prior to the conversion, I used to pull in KWWL in the 80s-90s. I am now pulling it in the high 60s - which causes pixelation and break-ups from time to time. Extremely frustrating....

I also have another TV hooked up to interior rabbit ears on the second level of my house, with the antenna pointed at the tower through a window. On that TV I am also only pulling in a signal in the high 60s.

I have Dish Network, and since they don't seem to be in a hurry to add KWWL-HD, I am not sure what else I can do to increase the KWWL signal.

At what point will KWWL increase it's power? Maybe that will help.

At what point will KWWL increase it's power? Maybe that will help.

Hopefully April... but we don't have this new transmitter even being built yet at Harris. No guarantees, but at latest I'm hoping to be at 30KW by June 12th when KCRG joins us. I'll pass along what I know as soon as I know ;)

You are confirming my thoughts on that Radio Shack antenna. They were never built for VHF. Sure, with more power out of us, it will bludgeon it's way to the converter, but the antenna sure isn't going to help matters.

Jarrett,

You might want to step over to the HDTV technical forum for advice
on indoor VHF antennas.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=25

Check out the sticky threads at the top.

Sorry, I am running a full size VHF in my attic.

Jay

Anyone have problems with KWWL today. My signal strength is really weak. My Sammy HD boxes get a small enough signal to work, but my Sammy HD tv and my digital boxes get nothing. Any news??
Thanks

Anyone have problems with KWWL today. My signal strength is really weak. My Sammy HD boxes get a small enough signal to work, but my Sammy HD tv and my digital boxes get nothing. Any news??
Thanks

My signal remains rock solid on KWWL.

Did anything change with KFXA's signal when then switched of analog? Power or tower height? I ask because I'm getting a much stronger signal then before.

Jarrett,

You might want to step over to the HDTV technical forum for advice
on indoor VHF antennas.
Jay

I've been checking that out... but with the VHF issues are relatively new to many of those indoor units they liked over there, such as the DA-5200. I think many are finding out these little square "HD" antennas are all they are cracked up to be.

I'm using a Winegard SS-1000 antenna at about 5' off the ground on the east edge of Independence. After making a few adjustments as I was able to lock in KWWL-DT as well as the rest of the local digital channels.

Good to know... we had the opposite experience here. I guess I'll pass on that one can try either length to see if there is success. Thanks!

Anyone using the 15-2186 (DA-5200) from Radio Shack? I've been getting people with these units having trouble. They claim to have VHF capability, but I can't imagine anything that small performing well for VHF. I also can't find any tech specs or gain figures on it either. I know clearstream and some DB-8 also claim "enhanced VHF reception" despite them being just grids with bowties. "Enhanced" must mean better than a beer can or paper clip! If they get more than a few DB, I'd be impressed! No wonder people are confused!
-Jarrett



Jarrett
The model RS 15-1892 works pretty well as far as I have heard. You can check my post about the brother in law NE of New Hampton (post #2988)
The 1892 sells for 49.99 ....................

I need to call him and talk him thru a factory reset to see if he can then get 7.1......he says 7.2 & 7.3 come in fine.

Prior to changeover it was also pulling in 2-7-9 analog (plus Mason City, Rochester, etc) so it does have VHF capability.

Doug

It's just weird. I was on vacation last week when the switch over took place. No problems with the station before. Wanted to watch the news, couldn't get the station on my TV. It showed no/weak signal. Went to the Sammy HD box and it showed only 2 of 8 bars, could get picture though.
Thoughts? Usually have high signal strenghts between 80-95 percent. All other stations are high signals too.

It's just weird. I was on vacation last week when the switch over took place. No problems with the station before. Wanted to watch the news, couldn't get the station on my TV. It showed no/weak signal. Went to the Sammy HD box and it showed only 2 of 8 bars, could get picture though.
Thoughts? Usually have high signal strenghts between 80-95 percent. All other stations are high signals too.

Well, a) they switched from channel 55 to channel 7. b) there are a lot of people having issues with multi-path interference in VHF.

What kind of reception were you getting on Analog 2, 7, and 9? How are 2 and 9 coming in now?

Nothing has changed with the other channels. All are strong except 7.1. I've always been able to watch kwwwl 7.1, .2, and .3 before with no problems. I have a large roof ant. in my attic for the past 4 years. What happened when KWWL switched? Didn't think anything would change since I haven't watched analog for over a year now. On my two Sammy HD off air boxes I get watchable singnal 2 of 10 bars. used to be up to full 8-10. My cheapo digital boxes can't get Kwwl signal, or it's too weak for them. My Sammy HD tv won't get strong enough signal either.
Something seems off.

Anyone have any idea what's going on with MediaCon? The NASCAR race on FOX (KFXA) tonight is being broadcast in HD OTA, but MediaCon's QAM is only in SD, stereo. When I was watching movies on Fox QAM earlier today, they were also in SD, but I didn't think to check the OTA at that time.

Did MediaCon lose some sort of re-broadcast agreement with KFXA after the transition?
House & 24 were both in SD tonight on media con. :mad:

OK, I've got to ask, why is KWWL still running a digital transition crawler? The only people who will see that will have successfully made the transition already :confused:

Or maybe I should add a ;) to that :D

Nothing has changed with the other channels. All are strong except 7.1. I've always been able to watch kwwwl 7.1, .2, and .3 before with no problems. I have a large roof ant. in my attic for the past 4 years. What happened when KWWL switched? Didn't think anything would change since I haven't watched analog for over a year now. On my two Sammy HD off air boxes I get watchable singnal 2 of 10 bars. used to be up to full 8-10. My cheapo digital boxes can't get Kwwl signal, or it's too weak for them. My Sammy HD tv won't get strong enough signal either.
Something seems off.

KWWL is transmitting the digital signal now at the same power and frequency that the analog signal was prior to Feb 17th. If you haven't been watching analog for over a year, then you probably haven't been monitoring your reception of VHF channel 7, until KWWL shutoff the temporary 7.1 (Which was really transmitted on UHF channel 55)

Keep in mind, with DTV, the channel numbers don't necessarily mean anything besides the brand name of the station. For instance, Channel 2 no longer exists. The DTV channel 2 you are watching is really UHF channel 51 sending out a digital flag telling your tuner to display "2.1"

So, you might want to check your attic antenna and make sure it was built for VHF-HI (Real analog channels 7-13) and make sure it isn't a UHF antenna. Because in June, the same thing will happen with KCRG and KIIN. KCRG will shutoff digital channel 52 (Which you are watching now) and move it back to the dead analog channel 9 slot.

You need different antennas for VHF and UHF. Or at least a "combo" antenna.

Here is some interesting information on the ANSI/CEA-909A "smart antenna" technology standard that might hold some promise. Stay with the article to the fourth (last) page for info on the 909A standard.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb09/7328

Some discussion on the topic here.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1008952

This technology may be worth watching to help solve multipath issues. The problem today is that few CECB boxes have the smart antenna interface, and it's not adopted by TV manufactures. Presumably both Walmart and Best Buy carry the RCA ANT2000, but it's probably not worth trying unless you interface it to something with the smart antenna interface to manage it. It would be interesting to pair one of these up with a supported CECB and see if it make a difference for KWWL.

Here's some additional reading.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/66526
http://broadcastengineering.com/hdtv/smart_antennas/
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1014159

RCA manufacture site for the ANT2000
http://www.staytuned2tv.com/product_center.html

An outdoor smart antenna
http://www.summitsource.com/smart-digital-antenna-for-6900dte-sylvania-dx-dta5000-tv-smart-antenna-multidirectional-hdtv-digital-uhf-vhf-outdoor-offair-high-definition-local-hd-television-reception-aerial-green-zone-part-dta5000-p-7125.html

4lids- I'm near mormon trek and highway 1 in South(west?) Iowa City. Getting no reception with my CM 4221 into Winegard AP-8275 preamp and splitting 5 ways to various tuners and DVRs on VHF 7, although all of the other UHF channels come in great (before and after "transition"). My antenna sits in front of a 3rd story window, facing north towards the towers.

On Wednesday of this week, my AntennaCraft Y5-7-13 and Pico Macom UVSJ UHF VHF Band Separator/Combiner (only 34.93 shipped total) should arrive, and I plan to send both the 4221 for UHF and the Y5-7-13 for high-band VHF into the AP-8275. I'll post back with my findings. I had originally considered the YA-1713, but it's huge with a 100" boom length that would just not fit (and look terrible) inside my place, but the Y5-7-13 is only 60" in length and 34" wide, and if it gives me a good KWWL signal, I will be able to deal with it, although it will still look ridiculous indoors above my 4221.

Also, I tried a simple indoor amplified loop/rabbit-ears hooked directly to my TV, and even though I tried a number of lengths from 30-33", I couldn't get KWWL at all (not even recognizing it on a channel scan), although I was able to pick up every other digital station (KCRG, KFXA, KWKB, KIIN, KGAN).

Thinking out loud here, but is there any reliable way to tell if someone is getting a signal on a channel, regardless of multi-path?

What I'm getting at is that I know a friend of mine, in his 80's, can't receive 7 any more since I re-scanned his TV. The Samsung external tuner will see the channel, but stutters the audio and shows no video. The TV's tuner won't lock on 7 at all, but Analog 2 and 9 are still crystal-clear, and he's on the top of a ridge, so I'm sure it's not a weak signal, but a multi-path issue, but is there any way to know what's happening without crawling up into his attic to try and adjust his 7-foot-long VHF antenna?

Also thinking out loud for a way to help people on here determine if they actually have a WEAK signal vs. a signal that's just plagued by multi-path noise.

Of course, if multi-path is referring to waveforms reflecting and canceling themselves out, then you truly wouldn't see a signal, I suppose...

Some of the CECB converter boxes have two signal meters, one for strength and another for quality. I have an Apex DT-502 that does that, and so does the GE 22729 (Wavy looking)

The Zenith DTT901 and Insignia NS-DXA1-APT excel at multipath correction, but only have the single signal bar.

I think if you are seeing multipath, those signal meters will 'bounce'.

Pointing a remote antenna without a rotor requires some creativity.

I just went to http://tvfool.com/ and plotted where I should point my antenna (My case it was 270° to hit the middle of Walker, Rowley and Garrison) and sighted it in with a compass.

I suppose you could also setup a small TV in the attic and watch the meters for signal, or
use walkie talkies to tell a person in the attic which way to move it. I have a cordless phone
with an intercom feature I can use.

You could also do it yourself with an intercom maybe if you could hear the beeps. Some of the
CECB tuners have an audible beep noise to let you know when it is stronger or weaker.

Hope that helps...

Thinking out loud here, but is there any reliable way to tell if someone is getting a signal on a channel, regardless of multi-path?

What I'm getting at is that I know a friend of mine, in his 80's, can't receive 7 any more since I re-scanned his TV. The Samsung external tuner will see the channel, but stutters the audio and shows no video. The TV's tuner won't lock on 7 at all, but Analog 2 and 9 are still crystal-clear, and he's on the top of a ridge, so I'm sure it's not a weak signal, but a multi-path issue, but is there any way to know what's happening without crawling up into his attic to try and adjust his 7-foot-long VHF antenna?

Also thinking out loud for a way to help people on here determine if they actually have a WEAK signal vs. a signal that's just plagued by multi-path noise.

Of course, if multi-path is referring to waveforms reflecting and canceling themselves out, then you truly wouldn't see a signal, I suppose...

i have lost 100% KWWL as of the 17th.
the VERY MINUTE they switched to digital only the channels disappeared.
period end of story.
My scanning for channels has become an attempt at futility and i am pissed as hell.
wtf did you do KWWL? change your stupid antennas so that when i had a fair picture prior to the 17th for KWWL-DT that now i have nothing? scanning channels doesnt even see it and manually adding the channels does nothing, i get zero picture.
wtf!

v_lestat:

There are lots of folks here who would be glad to assist you with your reception problem.

Please describe your system there, i.e. antenna type, feedline (lead-in), receiver, and any splitters / amplifiers you might be using.

Where are you located relative to Rowley?

I called and Mediacoms KFXA HD feed problem (only to Iowa City I think) is supposed to be fixed this afternoon, we'll see tonight. Have to check out Bones.

I watched my first recorded show OTA since KWWL-DT moved down to channel 7. Even though I get what appears to be a solid 60-65% signal (and I've tried every possible configuration and that is the absolute best I can get), there were a few short breakups in the picture throughout Chuck. It wasn't bad enough to give up on, but my hope is when they go full power this summer, I can get back up into at least the 70's and things will be back to what I had for over 2 years when they were broadcasting on channel 55. As I originally said, for some of us, this change is definitely not progress, but a big step backwards in service. The worst part, though, is knowing we have to go through this again for KCRG in a few months.

KWWL is transmitting the digital signal now at the same power and frequency that the analog signal was prior to Feb 17th. If you haven't been watching analog for over a year, then you probably haven't been monitoring your reception of VHF channel 7, until KWWL shutoff the temporary 7.1 (Which was really transmitted on UHF channel 55)

Keep in mind, with DTV, the channel numbers don't necessarily mean anything besides the brand name of the station. For instance, Channel 2 no longer exists. The DTV channel 2 you are watching is really UHF channel 51 sending out a digital flag telling your tuner to display "2.1"

So, you might want to check your attic antenna and make sure it was built for VHF-HI (Real analog channels 7-13) and make sure it isn't a UHF antenna. Because in June, the same thing will happen with KCRG and KIIN. KCRG will shutoff digital channel 52 (Which you are watching now) and move it back to the dead analog channel 9 slot.

You need different antennas for VHF and UHF. Or at least a "combo" antenna.

I hAve a large UHF / VHF in the attic and was recieving great quality analog 7 prior to as well. Just can't understand what may have changed with the switchover. I'll need to do some more answer searching. Any help appreciated. Thanks to all who can and have helped.

I'm wondering if any of you have a Channel Master 2016 antenna? We live on the NW side of Cedar Rapids. For the last couple years we've been using a SquareShooter with no problems. Now we can't pick up KWWL. It says that it should pick it up (according to the specs) but the Winegard reps say it probably won't work. (Thanks a lot!) Anyway, we really want to be able to keep the antenna in the attic if at all possible. The 2016 looks like it might do the job but it has to be purchased online and would be a pain to return. Can anyone help?

We live on the NW side of Cedar Rapids. For the last couple years we've been using a SquareShooter with no problems. Now we can't pick up KWWL.

I had to adjust the skew (rotating the square so it wasn't level) on my SS-1000 antenna, as well as turn the azimuth a few degrees before I was able to get KWWL. After that, I tried the elevation a bit but it made no real difference.

So is it not just me, but Winegard really did spec these antenna for channels 7-69 at one time? I notice now they say they are only for 14-69. I do recall they said they may not perform as well on 7-13, but now I see no mention of it at all on their website.

My SS-1000 is connected via about 20' of RG-6 to a Channel Plus distribution amp which is then split several times to feed the various TV's in my house. Right now I'm able to get the digitals from 2, 7, 9, 28, 32, and 48. I'm not seeing anything on 20, but that's a good 60 miles away and I never watch that station anyway.

IMHO, the biggest problem with DTV is there's no way to adjust the antenna until AFTER you lock in the station. Once I got KWWL added then I could adjust the antenna to peak the signal.

IMHO, the biggest problem with DTV is there's now way to adjust the antenna until AFTER you lock in the station. Once I got KWWL added then I could adjust the antenna to peak the signal.

Yup, I agree, how do you aim for something that you cannot get! LOL.. Some converter boxes, like the DTVpal have a meter that can be opened for a RF channel and that make it easy to aim while watching the signal, waiting for the lock to happen... I think looking back in hindsight, all CECBs should have had analog pass through as well as digital signal meters for actual RF channel for preforming antenna aiming...

Yup, I agree, how do you aim for something that you cannot get! LOL.. Some converter boxes, like the DTVpal have a meter that can be opened for a RF channel and that make it easy to aim while watching the signal,

Nice! I wanted the DTVPal but by the time it was finally available I already my converters. I wish they would add that feature to the Dish Vip722 box, or it it's already there, make it easier to find.

I am needing help picking up kwwl ch 7 in the Marshalltown area. We have always used rabbit ears and were getting all of the digital channels. Since the conversion, we can't get channel 7 or channel 13 which means no NBC at all for us. We prefer to get channel 7 over 13 because of 7.2 and 7.3. I have reset my tvs to factory preset and rescanned. Not sure what else to do at this point. Any help would be appreciated.

Oh, and all of our tv's are digital.

Panasonic Viera Plasma (our main tv)
Bedroom tv's are:
Poloroid
Emerson
Magnavox

Can get channel 13 on the Emerson, can't get channel 7 on any of them. :(

I'm kinda jumping into this discussion a little late, but I wanted to share my experience.

I recently purchased one of those Radio Shack 15-2186 antennas to sort of "beta test" for a family member before recommending/not recommending it to them. Of course, since I live almost within walking distance of the towers my results probably won't count, but I was able to get all of the channels with this antenna, including channel 7.

I did notice, however, that this antenna seems to work best if it is mounted horizontally, rather than vertically. When mounted vertically (as given in the instructions), channel 7's signal strength was in the upper 60s. When I rotated it horizontally, the signal jumped into the upper 70s-lower 80s. The other channels didn't have as significant of an improvement from trying this (Averaging only about 5-8% or so), but it was an improvement nonetheless. So, if anyone has this model of antenna and you're having trouble, keep the front facing towards the tower, but try rotating it sideways. It might help, especially with the VHF channels.

My only concern with having this antenna mounted horizontally is how watertight the coax connector is. Since tilting it sideways means the connector isn't pointing downward anymore, this raises the possibility of water getting inside the antenna with nowhere to drain from, possibly damaging the amp. So, perhaps this isn't a good idea if you're using the antenna outdoors in an open area. If it's indoors or in your attic though, or perhaps even outdoors yet protected by a roof overhang or such, then it certainly wouldn't hurt to try.

4lids-
On Wednesday of this week, my AntennaCraft Y5-7-13 and Pico Macom UVSJ UHF VHF Band Separator/Combiner (only 34.93 shipped total) should arrive, and I plan to send both the 4221 for UHF and the Y5-7-13 for high-band VHF into the AP-8275. I'll post back with my findings. I had originally considered the YA-1713, but it's huge with a 100" boom length that would just not fit (and look terrible) inside my place, but the Y5-7-13 is only 60" in length and 34" wide, and if it gives me a good KWWL signal, I will be able to deal with it, although it will still look ridiculous indoors above my 4221.

Also, I tried a simple indoor amplified loop/rabbit-ears hooked directly to my TV, and even though I tried a number of lengths from 30-33", I couldn't get KWWL at all (not even recognizing it on a channel scan), although I was able to pick up every other digital station (KCRG, KFXA, KWKB, KIIN, KGAN).

That CM4221 is a great antenna, but only designed for UHF. Sounds like you have the right plan in adding the VHF high band unit and then combining the two. Rabbit ears are not reliable right now. Some are having success, but it requires a lot of playing around with them, and we are the farthest away from Iowa City.

For others using the SS-1000, I've never seen it specifically list VHF in its capabilities, but there is at lest a pattern listed for channel 7 on the winegard data sheet for it. The lobe though is kind of off to the left a bit.
http://www.winegarddirect.com/pdf/spec_SS1000-SS2000.pdf

Good suggestion on the DA-5200 and turning it sideways. I'll pass that along to those that call with one. Thanks!
-Jarrett

imho, the biggest problem with dtv is there's no way to adjust the antenna until after you lock in the station.

+1,000,000

Well, I've done a rescan on the sets and boxes, still no KWWL. Hmmm

OK, I've got to ask, why is KWWL still running a digital transition crawler? The only people who will see that will have successfully made the transition already :confused:

Or maybe I should add a ;) to that :D

You can thank congress for this one. Brilliant! It is still required by law that all broadcasters run the crawls, regardless if they still have an analog or not. :rolleyes:

Still got that BS problem of no KFXA in HD via mediacom in IC. mediacom rep had no clue.

I'll send the KFXA CE an email.....

And now, KWWL is frozen (About 7:30AM, Wednesday 2/25). Getting a good signal, but the picture is stuck on a frame from what look like a furniture or carpet commercial, and there's no sound. The only thing still working is the closed captioning. So, I guess I'll just have to read the Today show.

And now, KWWL is frozen (About 7:30AM, Wednesday 2/25). Getting a good signal, but the picture is stuck on a frame from what look like a furniture or carpet commercial, and there's no sound. The only thing still working is the closed captioning. So, I guess I'll just have to read the Today show.

Coming in fine OTA here near Iowa City as of 8:02am ( directv AM21 tuner ). Maybe there was a glitch on NBCs feed coming in to KWWL...

Well, I've done a rescan on the sets and boxes, still no KWWL. Hmmm



Do you think my Antenna needs to be adjust again to fine tune? Just not sure why it would need that when it worked fine before.

Since I can't get any info from Mediacom csr's (3 calls in 25 hours) I called the IC telecommunications comission and they have a direct phone # for the IC headend/maint supervisor. They were going to check it out and give me a call back.

Since I can't get any info from Mediacom csr's (3 calls in 25 hours) I called the IC telecommunications comission and they have a direct phone # for the IC headend/maint supervisor. They were going to check it out and give me a call back.

Heres the info from Eric at KFXA:

"Mediacom had a problem with a receiver that gets the HD feed from KFXA
Friday night. This is preventing Mediacom of Cedar Rapids from
broadcasting HD or sending HD to other Mediacom facilities in the area."

I talked to Mediacom Monday and they said they hoped to have it back
soon, but gave me no time frame for the fix.

Heres the info from Eric at KFXA:

"Mediacom had a problem with a receiver that gets the HD feed from KFXA
Friday night. This is preventing Mediacom of Cedar Rapids from
broadcasting HD or sending HD to other Mediacom facilities in the area."

I talked to Mediacom Monday and they said they hoped to have it back
soon, but gave me no time frame for the fix.

Any further information that I get I will post here.

Welcome Eric!

Great forum to monitor the local areas DTV status. Jarret from KWWL and Kirk from KCRG frequent this board and it's great to have their input and information, even if at times it's bad news.

Again, welcome aboard!

Any further information that I get I will post here.Welcome aboard, and thanks for the Mediacom update.
ADDED: And I got a call from the IC maint supervisor, and he's looking into it. Just getting a phone call from him made may day.

Well, I've done a rescan on the sets and boxes, still no KWWL. Hmmm

Did you delete KWWL prior to the rescan? Or reset the sets and boxes to factory setting? Some (mine for example) would not pick up KWWL during a rescan until I manually deleted them. Just a thought.

Tom

Did you delete KWWL prior to the rescan? Or reset the sets and boxes to factory setting? Some (mine for example) would not pick up KWWL during a rescan until I manually deleted them. Just a thought.

Tom

One item I tell people if they have lost a channel is to unplug the antenna and scan for channels. This will erase the channels in the memory. Then reattach the antenna and scan again.

This has fixed many problems that I have heard about.

Thanks guys, I'll try that. This is jsut so confusing to lose something that was there before the switch over. Both analog and digital used to come in fine. Like I said, can get very weak signal on on HD receiver, and nothing on the el-cheapo digital boxes. But I will try this.

One item I tell people if they have lost a channel is to unplug the antenna and scan for channels. This will erase the channels in the memory. Then reattach the antenna and scan again.

This has fixed many problems that I have heard about.

Great idea! (Why didn't I think of that?)

4lids- I'm near mormon trek and highway 1 in South(west?) Iowa City. Getting no reception with my CM 4221 into Winegard AP-8275 preamp and splitting 5 ways to various tuners and DVRs on VHF 7, although all of the other UHF channels come in great (before and after "transition"). My antenna sits in front of a 3rd story window, facing north towards the towers.

On Wednesday of this week, my AntennaCraft Y5-7-13 and Pico Macom UVSJ UHF VHF Band Separator/Combiner (only 34.93 shipped total) should arrive, and I plan to send both the 4221 for UHF and the Y5-7-13 for high-band VHF into the AP-8275. I'll post back with my findings. I had originally considered the YA-1713, but it's huge with a 100" boom length that would just not fit (and look terrible) inside my place, but the Y5-7-13 is only 60" in length and 34" wide, and if it gives me a good KWWL signal, I will be able to deal with it, although it will still look ridiculous indoors above my 4221.



Well, the good news is that fedex dropped off the AntennaCraft Y5-7-13 and UVSJ today. The bad news is that no amount of maneuvering gets me a good enough signal to add the channel. I've tried directly into a new Samsung tuner (to eliminate problems potentially caused by the antenna pre-amp or cable run), and the channel isn't found on a new scan. On my EyeTV software with HDHomeRun, when I try to manually add channel 7 (177000 kHz), the tuner shows 100% Signal Strength and bounces around from 10-40% in quality (which is an improvement from before with only the 4221 which bounced from 0-15%ish). I've also tried rotating the antenna on its side, as suggested with a different antenna, and this decreases the signal quality, and I tried pitching the antenna to point above and below the horizon without good results.

Looks like I will have to watch my favorite NBC shows online until if/when KWWL is able to increase their signal strength with their new transmitter. I hope KCRG doesn't create the same problem when they go back to 9...

Is anyone else in Iowa City having better luck than I? I feel like if I can't get a signal with a 60" long high-vhf antenna inside pointing out a 3rd floor window in the direction of the tower with a well-regarded antenna preamp (Winegard AP-8275), then there's not a lot more I can do. It's really too bad- when that PDF with maps of expected signal strengths for each channel was released by the FCC and linked here a month or so ago, I thought it looked like my sometimes iffy KWWL reception was going to actually get better after the transition. :-(

when that PDF with maps of expected signal strengths for each channel was released by the FCC and linked here a month or so ago, I thought it looked like my sometimes iffy KWWL reception was going to actually get better after the transition. :-(

Depends on if that was a "full power" map or not, though. Jarret has said a few times that KWWL won't be at full power until June-ish, as their high-power transmitter hasn't even been built by the supplier yet.

Iowa City should be within range... I spoke with someone today in North English that was locking it in. Not sure what the deal is there.

Update on the maximized transmitter: It is ordered... 60 day build by Harris, but they usually beat that. Hopefully will be installed just before May... at latest end of May... going to 30 KW. Power will definitely not be the culprit then, unless we are talking overdriving things and more multipath. We'll see!

In the meantime, I got the corporate stream analyzer now, so I'll check things out a bit more to make certain there isn't anything else going on. Initial findings are good though.
-Jarrett

Well, we have engineers on here from 3 of the "big 4" in the CR market... now we just need someone from KGAN, assuming they don't share with KFXA.

Then again, we might scare KGAN's engineer off when someone like me goes off on him for the inability to switch their signal over to HD and/or 5.1 after the last commercial break of just about EVERY hour-long show on CBS...

*sigh*

Jarrett...

First, I was going to comment that Law & Order seemed to be .1-.2 seconds off on lip sync, and still way over-driven. But now, we come back from the opening commercials, and there is NO audio whatsoever.

I'm watching KWWL-HD via QAM on MediaCon, FWIW.

Depends on if that was a "full power" map or not, though. Jarret has said a few times that KWWL won't be at full power until June-ish, as their high-power transmitter hasn't even been built by the supplier yet.

Maybe that is my problem too then. Along with about 30 other people I know that lost KWWL.

Maybe that is my problem too then. Along with about 30 other people I know that lost KWWL.

After last night, with "Life" having several annoying dropouts of my OTA signal, I guess I'm going to have to do manual QAM recordings of NBC shows on my TiVo S3 after all, and hope the signal strength increase this summer helps us all.

Jarrett...

First, I was going to comment that Law & Order seemed to be .1-.2 seconds off on lip sync, and still way over-driven. But now, we come back from the opening commercials, and there is NO audio whatsoever.


What a weird day... first in the morning our Newsticker locks up and freezes the video on air. Then we had something freak out the harmonic encoder for 7.1 last night that dropped the audio and required a full reset. I checked the audio this morning and NBC continues to be all over the place. I have the dialnorm set at -23 now, which hopefully will keep the NBC center channel in line, which is normally what is way out of whack. Then we had lip sync complaints this morning (more than that .1-.2 seconds). I reset some gear, and everything looks perfect here again. Dish and DirecTV was still off though, so I had them reset as well. Everything looks pretty close now.

The only thing I notice is the Today Show between the show and breaks (all NBC). There seems to be a lot of variance still, with the commercials actually lower. Goofy... I'm awaiting NBC to get down with the downlink changeover across the country and then we should be getting metadata from them again to help smooth things out on our Dolby Encoder. The fun of 5.1!
-Jarrett

Do you wish you were back in La Crosse/La Crescent?

Is anyone else in Iowa City having better luck than I? I feel like if I can't get a signal with a 60" long high-vhf antenna inside pointing out a 3rd floor window in the direction of the tower with a well-regarded antenna preamp (Winegard AP-8275), then there's not a lot more I can do. It's really too bad- when that PDF with maps of expected signal strengths for each channel was released by the FCC and linked here a month or so ago, I thought it looked like my sometimes iffy KWWL reception was going to actually get better after the transition. :-(
I live near Walden Square. I'm currently getting KWWL with this Jensen TV640 (http://www.amazon.com/Jensen-TV640-Antenna/dp/B00005QZ0G) I had laying around. I had to play with the angle and orientation of the dipoles a lot, but I have a decent signal now. I have the dipoles folded down, almost flat, facing to the North. It's set up outdoors on my deck. I'm receiving a Stealthtenna next week, which I hope will be a better long term solution.

The good news - first day of weather, after changeover - and silly rabbit (ears) are still pulling in KWWL-DT. a little pixelation initially, but the Apex box seems to do that whenever it turns on.

I know - not much of a test, but the sky is gray, and there are a couple raindrops...;)

I used to use that antenna and still own it.

If you read back 5 pages or so, I had an issue with my Media Center software preventing me from getting 7.1 VHF. Unfortunately, I changed out my CM2016 with an older Radio Shack antenna, so I have no clue in actual practice how good at VHF reception that antenna is.

I believe however, that if you get that antenna on your rooftop, get a mast pre-amp on it, and have good cabling, it will do the job just fine. I am going to try to change the RS antenna out this weekend and put back the CM2016 if the weather holds, prolly Saturday morning.

It worked wonderfully for me with UHF near Kirkwood CC in CR. I'd bet as long as you can max out height and have no direct obstructions it would get 7.1 VHF just fine. You're prolly at least 15 miles closer to the towers than I am.

Do you wish you were back in La Crosse/La Crescent?

There are days, Eric. These past two come to mind! We'll get there eventually at KWWL though!

still having very good luck with my "uhf only" channel master 4228 installed with rotor in the attic. other than a trip to the attic to switch the preamp from uhf only to combined and a rescan of the two DirecTV receivers off air tuners and I've been in business since KWWL's switch. DirecTV had some issues with their guide info that prevented reception of 7.2 for a few days, that's been resolved. 6 miles north of IC , surrounded by trees

Did someone turn up the power??? I got a little bit more signal strenght now from KWWL, and starting to pick it up on another TV. Actually got a signal. It drops and chops, but seems to be stronger. Any ideas?

what happened last nite - turned on Sony DVD (to watch Chuck - no way I can watch K&K) - but it was still tuned to KWWL-DT. HORRIBLE loud oscilating HF noise - change channels up or down one, all is good - so something either from NBC or KW. Your 5.1 thingy acting up again?

by the time Office came on, it was fixed, but just curious. was pretty nasty - i could see it popping more delicate tweeters....

I heard from Mediacom that the problem was fixed. Can anyone confirm this?

There are days, Eric. These past two come to mind! We'll get there eventually at KWWL though!KWWL, WXOW ... heck, they even have equipment problems at the pub down the street. Just a fact of life. It doesn't matter where you work; you're always going to be complaining about the equipment.

After striking out on 7 with the amped rabbit-ear/UHF panel combo last week, I tried using a homemade, unamplified wire antenna cut to channel 7, and I am still just bouncing from about 0 to 30 percent.

The amped antenna is getting a fairly stable picture from analog 9 even with the ears fully retracted and pointing up (they have to be or they kill my DT reception on KCRG and KGAN), so I'm still holding out hope for better days ahead.

I'm going back to central Iowa this weekend, where I'll be trying my luck with WHO-DT on channel 13 for the first time (and doing other things; I do have a life). They should be at or near full power. They're about ten miles closer to me there than I am to Walker/Rowley right now, but I hope it'll give me some indication of how well I'll do with DT 9 and a fully-powered DT 7.

I'm all about spelling shortcuts, acronyms, etc. when posting, especially after a spinal cord injury that left my fingers stiff (and about everything else too.) I used to bang out at least 40 wpm, now I'm lucky to do 12.

With that said, I'd like to offer an alternate shortcut spelling for "probably:" probly

When I see prolly I think trolly.

And not a real one that runs on rails, but those fake ones that rides on tires.

;)

After striking out on 7 with the amped rabbit-ear/UHF panel combo last week, I tried using a homemade, unamplified wire antenna cut to channel 7, and I am still just bouncing from about 0 to 30 percent.



would like to ask about your ch 7 wire ant, is it a single dipole or did you build the 3 element yagi?

would like to ask about your ch 7 wire ant, is it a single dipole or did you build the 3 element yagi?It was just a single dipole attached to the terminals of a 300-75 ohm transformer. I was planning to try making one with a director and reflector element later, but I just haven't had the time to devote to that type of thing lately.

I uploaded the design plans for my homemade UHF/VHF antenna.

see: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15011979#post15011979
from back in November.

It is under 1 meter overall size so you should be able to install it
per FCC laws.

Any question private mail me.

I heard from Mediacom that the problem was fixed. Can anyone confirm this?
Will report when primetime starts......

Hey guys/gals

I was asked by a friend who lurks on this forum if KWWF 22 is still up and running.............................I know my set up will not find it.

Doug

I heard from Mediacom that the problem was fixed. Can anyone confirm this?
Looks good tonight Eric! :)

Crap. After adjusting my antenna last week so KWWL works I now have drop outs on KCRG. But KRIN and KGAN are both fine. Isn't this stuff fun??

Hey guys/gals

I was asked by a friend who lurks on this forum if KWWF 22 is still up and running.............................I know my set up will not find it.

Doug
I'm getting it. I rarely watch that channel, but I saw that they are adverstising their switch to digital in June.

I'm getting it. I rarely watch that channel, but I saw that they are adverstising their switch to digital in June.

Ok...................thanks, he got the message.

Well folks, I found my problem and it was internal of the RS HDTV Indoor/Outdoor Directional Antenna (15-2187). It seems that RS was using tinned bare wire for it's connection, but the factory didn't cut the waste wire off and it was shorting the internal antenna out via corrosion. Plus one of the wires was starting to break at the circuit board from corrosion as well. It turns out there is no seal to the case.

After replacing the wire, cleaning the amp board and putting some RTV sealant to keep most of the moisture out, KWWL came back but channel 9 analog came in even cleaner (it was a little fuzzy before) plus some extra channels.

Anyone else been having problems with lip sync being way off on KWWL HD on Mediacom (807) the last few nights? There was also a lot of switching between the SD and HD feeds on 807 during SNL... maybe trying to fix the lip sync issue? I noticed that when it switched to the SD feed the lip sync was fine.

Sorry for these dumb questions. I just moved to North Liberty and I have just installed a Winegard GS2200 in the attic and I also have very basic Mediacom cable (ch 2-22) as a backup (since they give it out free for 3 months).

1. I managed to position the antenna to get all available channels (2-1/2, 7-1/2/3, 9, 9-1/2, 12, 12-1/2/3, 15, 20-1, 28, 28-1/2, 32, 32-1/2/3, 48, 48-1/2/3/4) with good signal strength on (digitials) 2, 9, 12, 20, 28, 32, and fair signal strength on (digitals) 7, 48. And I think I have a multipath issue on 7 as it bounce up and down once a while but not frequently. Is that because of the antenna being too strong for this area? Am I really having multipath issue rather than signal not strong enough?

2. Does Mediacom pass in HD signals thru very basic cable? I see here people saying that they have channel 114-x for HD channels, but I only get channel 99-x, and all those channels are in SD, and those digital-only channels (e.g., 9-2) are not included.

3. Does signal strength affects sound volume? I watched 9-1 (thru antenna of course) last night and I have to turn up the volume to 80% to barely hear the sound. It's not breaking up, just low.

Thanks

Am I really having multipath issue rather than signal not strong enough?

Sounds like it to me. I have similar issues and am 7 miles from the tower. It's certainly not low signal in my case. Multipath on DT is hard to diagnose, at least on analog we could see the ghosting and know what it was.

2. Does Mediacom pass in HD signals thru very basic cable? I see here people saying that they have channel 114-x for HD channels, but I only get channel 99-x, and all those channels are in SD, and those digital-only channels (e.g., 9-2) are not included.

3. Does signal strength affects sound volume? I watched 9-1 (thru antenna of course) last night and I have to turn up the volume to 80% to barely hear the sound. It's not breaking up, just low.

Thanks

2) Yes, they do, if you have a QAM tuner in your TV, you should be able to get it. I have the 2-23 package also, and that's how I get HD on one of my TVs (more reliable, usually, than antenna). A few pages back, I posted the listing for the local HD QAM channels.

3) Nope. Signal strength is signal strength. Most of the locals have been having fun trying to normalise volume lately.

Looks like MediaCon has FOX in SD again.... :(

Looks like MediaCon has FOX in SD again.... :(

Nah...it's KFXA this time. OTA and Directv in sd also.

Yea. Just noticed that.....

I'm watching a recorded Chuck and it doesn't seem to be in HD through DirecTv.
Back in HD 3 minutes in with some audio glitches.

I just finally readjusted my antenna in my attic and did a rescan and got 7.1 7.2(This), and 7.3(RTN). My question is I'm not receiving the 24 hour KWWL local weather channel like I did before the switch. I was thinking 7.2 or 7.3 would brodcast the KWWL local weather. Am I suppose to still be able to get this channel? Thanks in advance for any help!

I was thinking 7.2 or 7.3 would brodcast the KWWL local weather. Am I suppose to still be able to get this channel? Thanks in advance for any help!

NBC "Killed" their Weather Plus product several months ago (nation wide) and therefore it isn't available to their affiliates any longer. KWWL picked up "This" to run on 7-2. So, KCRG's 9-2 "Local 9.2 KCRG" is your only choice that provides continuous local news and weather information to Eastern Iowa.

Nah...it's KFXA this time. OTA and Directv in sd also.

We had switcher issues last night. Resolved around 8pm. Could not get the Fox Splicer to stay in Network.

Anyone want to take odds on which of the 4 locals will turn off the HD feed at 8 PM tonight and go SD through 10PM to display Linn County's L.O.S.T. vote results?

I'm guessing all 4 will, unfortunately.

Anyone want to take odds on which of the 4 locals will turn off the HD feed at 8 PM tonight and go SD through 10PM to display Linn County's L.O.S.T. vote results?
I recall during the November election results where KCRG debuted their HD crawler and stayed with HD for a while. I believe that both KCRG and KWWL have the capability if they'll just use it.

KCRG-DT is running the election results right now, without switching to upconvert.

Still HD so far, but the lip sync on KCRG is awful right now on MediaCon, but not that bad OTA. Can't say that I agree with KCRG squeezing the picture off the top of the screen to put up their crawler, though.

On another subject: I just got back from central Iowa and had no real trouble with their new VHF channel 13 at 36.5 kW.

It's coming in fairly well on two sets with indoor UHF antennas -- the first floor set has a Silver Sensor hooked up to it while the second floor one has a simple bow tie. Both are next to a window facing the tower site about 15 miles to the south, but some trees and the house next door are in the way of a more direct path.

They're even running promos, bragging about the fact that their DT is up and at full power.

Still holding out hope for better things from channel 7 here.

On another subject: I just got back from central Iowa and had no real trouble with their new VHF channel 13 at 36.5 kW.

Still holding out hope for better things from channel 7 here.

That is good news... it gives me some hope that things won't at least get any worse when we go to 30 KW. Our new transmitter is on order, being built at Harris right now. It is about a 60 day turnaround, so we are looking at early May hopefully for install. If we are lucky, it will be in before the May sweep, which would be ideal, but no guarantees. At latest, things will be up the final transition.
-Jarrett

Anyone want to take odds on which of the 4 locals will turn off the HD feed at 8 PM tonight and go SD through 10PM to display Linn County's L.O.S.T. vote results?

I'm guessing all 4 will, unfortunately.

I wouldv'e taken that bet with KWWL with a crawl :p We've had HD crawl capabilities for about a year and a half. I'm thankful that we had it to handle all of the relentless DTV crawls over the past year!
-Jarrett

Am I the only one seeing the red blotches on skin tones on KGAN?

tsduke:

Most on air talent use theatrical makeup because the lights make you sweat
and washes out color making them pale.
You may be seeing noise in the video. When video goes to black, is the picture
solid or look like corduroy?

If so, you may need to adjust your color level lower. Also, if you are using a convertor
box what type of cable is the video coming in on?
(yellow composite or component)

tsduke:

Most on air talent use theatrical makeup because the lights make you sweat.
You may be seeing noise in the video. When video goes to black, is the picture
solid or look like corduroy?

If so, you may need to adjust your color level lower. Also, if you are using a convertor
box what type of cable is the video coming in on?

Why would I want to adjust my setting for one channel that has issues and all other look great??

Am I the only one seeing the red blotches on skin tones on KGAN?
I see it often on many CBS HD feeds, not the local stuff.....

I see it often on many CBS HD feeds, not the local stuff.....

From what I can tell it's a problem from the local feed, I've seen no color problems when I'm watching KCNC from Denver CO. on my big dish as compared to watching the local network on my OTA.

I am not seeing skin tone blotches but an interference pattern on red vertical surfaces
on the left side.

KWKB is now in HD on Directv.

KWKB is now in HD on Directv.
Wow! Thats a surprise. Although I'm not sure that I can believe that they are "in HD" when they aren't locally in HD....

According to my guide the 1st HD program on today will be 'Worlds Funniest Moments" at 9.00 PM. Guess we will have to see.

hdtvincr... that was my thought. I guess we'll know soon enough. That would be a pretty nice surprise that's for sure.

Am I the only one seeing the red blotches on skin tones on KGAN?

I see it on the network HD programming as well on KGAN. I have Directv and see it on all three of our HD TV's-Plasma and LCD.

I know this is a bit off-subject, but can anyone see KWWF-TV 22 analog? If so, what are they doing? Someone on Wikipedia is saying they're airing This TV but I'm finding that hard to believe what with the affiliation already on KWWL-DT...

- Trip

I know this is a bit off-subject, but can anyone see KWWF-TV 22 analog? If so, what are they doing? Someone on Wikipedia is saying they're airing This TV but I'm finding that hard to believe what with the affiliation already on KWWL-DT...
Don't know if they are still on the air with their low power analog, but Mediacom is retransmitting their SD signal digitally, and it is NOT the same programming as airing on KWWLs ThisTv....

Hey everyone, make sure we say "HI KFXAChief". New members need to be acknowledged once and a while.

According to my guide the 1st HD program on today will be 'Worlds Funniest Moments" at 9.00 PM. Guess we will have to see.
I was at work, what do you see????

My guess is SD programming. If I recall correctly, the DirectTv guide for OTA KWKB would show programs as HD also, but obviously they were not.

Am I correct in assuming that KWWL has some sort of NOAA weather radio connected to their equipment? Part of a NOAA weather radio test cycle randomly began broadcasting (presumably erroneously) over Leno's monologue, then suddenly cut off during the "This is a test of the NOAA weather radio system" announcement. To the best of my knowledge, NOAA weather radio tests normally aren't broadcast OTA on TV.

Also...if this is the case, then could this perhaps explain the mysterious random beeping noise I've been hearing on channel 7 for the past few weeks? The NWR test got cut off about halfway through, and soon after there was one of those mysterious beeps. Having heard this beep immediately after the partial NWR test, I made a mental connection. Specifically, the random beep I've been hearing on KWWL sounds identical to the beep my weather radio makes whenever I push a button on it.

I was at work, what do you see????

My guess is SD programming. If I recall correctly, the DirectTv guide for OTA KWKB would show programs as HD also, but obviously they were not.


Alas I am at work at 9.00pm too - so can't report too much there.

However - There are now 2 KWKB's showing on the online Directv guide whereas previously there was only one.
And when I check the info for the 2 stations that appear on my TV Guide I see -

KWKB - KWKBDT services from Cedar Rapids A3.
And the other one -
KWKB - KWKB services from West Branch.

Re: KWWF - the unscrambled Galaxy 18 feed of KWWF is still showing the regular independent programming. (Equity uses G18 to feed its transmitters and cable systems.) Several other Equity stations recently switched to ThisTV, so maybe that's where the mistake came in.

Re: KWKB in HD at 9 p.m. - I would guess that's an error in the listings, since KWKB is airing a tape delay of My Network TV's 7-9 programming from 9-11. Airing that in HD would require equipment capable of recording and playing back HD, which seems unlikely for KWKB. Perhaps the listings service assumes its in HD since the network provides it in HD.

Anybody experiencing this problem. When ever KWWL switches from HD to digital my Samsung reverts to channel 7.3 from 7.1. I can switch it back without problem, just a nagging problem. It's as if KWWL loses the signal & my TV goes to the next available channel. This happened between National news & local news last night & again this am during The Today Show with weather cut-ins.

Anybody experiencing this problem. When ever KWWL switches from HD to digital my Samsung reverts to channel 7.3 from 7.1. I can switch it back without problem, just a nagging problem. It's as if KWWL loses the signal & my TV goes to the next available channel. This happened between National news & local news last night & again this am during The Today Show with weather cut-ins.

Not sure why that would be occurring for you. Are you saying that you are watching 7.1 and then the thing switches to 7.3 by itself when we transition between HD and local upconverted? Usually when I here things like this, I'm guessing that the old channel info (pre 2/17) is still hanging around in the channel map somehow. Have you tried a complete rescan or factory reset?

Re: KWKB in HD at 9 p.m. - I would guess that's an error in the listings, since KWKB is airing a tape delay of My Network TV's 7-9 programming from 9-11. Airing that in HD would require equipment capable of recording and playing back HD, which seems unlikely for KWKB. Perhaps the listings service assumes its in HD since the network provides it in HD.

This is sorta like the TitanTV schedule that KCRG uses, on their own website, claiming that the syndicated showing of 2 1/2 Men at 10:35 CT is in HD.

I really wish they would do something about that, but as long as they insist on using the TitanTV guide, the best they can do is put up a disclaimer. Of course, now that so many more people are on Digital, a disclaimer seems appropriate, but who knows...

Anyone else getting audio dropouts on channel 7.1 OTA? Signal seems fine, video is fine, just scattered audio dropouts that last about half a second.

Well Smallville definitely isn't in HD. Not sure why there are two KWKB channels listed in my guide, but the HD one is definitely not in HD.

Anybody experiencing this problem. When ever KWWL switches from HD to digital my Samsung reverts to channel 7.3 from 7.1. I can switch it back without problem, just a nagging problem. It's as if KWWL loses the signal & my TV goes to the next available channel. This happened between National news & local news last night & again this am during The Today Show with weather cut-ins.

Yeah, this just happened to me tonight. Was watching 7.1 and at the top of the hour (8:00 PM) the TV switched to 7.3. I haven't been watching KWWL much since the change over (have to move the antenna) and this is the first time I've seen this happen. I also have a Samsung TV, though it is a different model (LN-T4665F).

I did do a full rescan, but if it were a problem with the TV "remembering" the old station info I would expect it to try to tune to channel 55, not 7.3. Strange.

This is sorta like the TitanTV schedule that KCRG uses, on their own website, claiming that the syndicated showing of 2 1/2 Men at 10:35 CT is in HD.

I really wish they would do something about that, but as long as they insist on using the TitanTV guide, the best they can do is put up a disclaimer. Of course, now that so many more people are on Digital, a disclaimer seems appropriate, but who knows...

Not so much TitanTV (IMO), but the underlying listing data that comes from TMS TV Guide or FYI TV (don't recall who now). The listing companies have a high turnover rate in the reps they employ to gather and enter data from stations. Many reps are cluless and don't pay attention to what stations send them. So they pick the network descripter for 2.5 Men instead of the syndicated one and you end up with the HD flag in the listings for a non HD show... Electronic listings for cable and satelliteget the same (inacurate) data.

I have done a rescan. My signal strength for KWWL is great, 8-10. The other OTA channels don't cause this & their strength is much less. I will do another rescan. FYI - my signal is over antenna.

Yeah, this just happened to me tonight. Was watching 7.1 and at the top of the hour (8:00 PM) the TV switched to 7.3.

I'm not sure if this is related, because my TiVo S3 is not switching sub-channels on the fly or anything, but two nights ago I was trying to figure out how the heck I get KWWL in better since the move back down to VHF and at some point I lost RTN on 7.3 and was getting the primary KWWLDT on *both* 7.1 and 7.3. It was kind of freaky, I'd never seen such a thing. Today, though, it just is a black screen. Not the black screen with the message a TiVo puts up when it can't tune in a channel, just a black screen. I can only guess the way I have my rabbit ears configured is causing the glitch and honestly I've never watched RTN. I still can't get a perfect lock on KWWLDT, though, so I sure hope the new rig in May does the trick.

I wonder if the PSIP data for KWWL is getting frakked up somehow... I haven't had any problems with this particular issue, but I watch primetime KWWL via QAM, and the only antenna 7.1 I watched was Conan, so if the issue started in the last 2 weeks, I wouldn't have even been watching.

As soon as I heard about the 7.1 to 7.3 issue, I checked out our PSIP stuff. Nothing looks wrong there. I did just get my TS reader from AutumnWave today, so I will try that out! Perhaps there is something going on I can't see.

Also, anyone having success up in the New Hampton area getting KWWL-DT? I have a viewer with a 36' tower up there that is struggling with us. He says it will read 90% quality and then 0 (drop outs). The only thing I can point at is the 40 dB VHF booster on his system, but it doesn't appear to be affecting KTTC's VHF reception (who is closer and more powerful). Perhaps it is boosting something out of band that is conflicting with VHF 7. Just curious!

Finally, I think we have sorted out our 5.1 audio fun here. For the past month, we've been struggling with a balance: the 5.1 feed to the majority of our audience, and the mixed down stereo feed to analog basic mediacom and CFU. The only way we could deal with this before was a resister network and we had to boost the center channel at the downconverter, which unfortunately affected the main 5.1 feed as well. That resulted in some clipping in some shows (law and order especially for some reason!).

We now have an external mixer in place to handle this 5.1 to 2.0 feed and things sound nice now for both feeds. The 5.1 should sound as NBC intended it and the mixdown sounds pretty good too. Let me know if you hear differently! Now if I can get the satellite companies to get their lip sync problem with us under control!

-Jarrett

We have a Westinghouse tv at work, and whenever it sees a glitch in a signal it jumps to the highest sub-channel (7-3 or 9-2). Obviously the hardware must be designed to react this way.

Perhaps yours is a similar situation?????

As soon as I heard about the 7.1 to 7.3 issue, I checked out our PSIP stuff. Nothing looks wrong there. I did just get my TS reader from AutumnWave today, so I will try that out! Perhaps there is something going on I can't see.

I don't know if it's a KWWL issue or if it's a side effect of a poor signal. Even though my TV said the signal was 5-6 bars last night (out of 10) I was getting lots of audio drop-outs watching primetime HD programming. The video was fine though, and usually it's the other way around. So perhaps my signal was worse than it appeared on the meter?

The other thing that makes me wonder is that when I was first trying to get KWWL after the changeover I did a scan and my TV detected 7.3, 7.4 and 7.5. The signal was all broken up though and I moved my antenna and did another scan and then I got them at 7.1, etc.. So that is interesting..

However, yet another thing I noticed was that before the changeover with KWWL my TV would sometimes pop up the station ID overlay saying 55-1, then it would say 7-1, then 55-1 -- this would repeat for about 20 seconds changing every few seconds. Meanwhile the video and audio would be fine. I did have this happen with other channels too though. Haven't noticed it lately.

Also, anyone having success up in the New Hampton area getting KWWL-DT? I have a viewer with a 36' tower up there that is struggling with us. He says it will read 90% quality and then 0 (drop outs). The only thing I can point at is the 40 dB VHF booster on his system, but it doesn't appear to be affecting KTTC's VHF reception (who is closer and more powerful). Perhaps it is boosting something out of band that is conflicting with VHF 7. Just curious!
-Jarrett
What type antenna is your viewer using? What happens with KGAN or KCRG stations?

jarrett - unless you have JUST fixed your lipsynch, it isn't just the satelites...Thursday's today show had obscene, to the point of humorous, amounts of lip-synch delay - as bad as a dubbed Japanese monster flick from the 50's. (not satelite's fault, since I'm watching your hd feed over cfu - on their hd channel)

jarrett - unless you have JUST fixed your lipsynch, it isn't just the satelites...Thursday's today show had obscene, to the point of humorous, amounts of lip-synch delay - as bad as a dubbed Japanese monster flick from the 50's. (not satelite's fault, since I'm watching your hd feed over cfu - on their hd channel)

Yesterday? Things were fine from what we could see yesterday on all sources... and things looked fine tonight too (I just checked out my CFU HD feed). Earlier this week was another story. I did need to reset the NBC gear on Monday or Tuesday due to some drift, and I was checking out some settings as well that might have contributed a bit... but this was due to DirecTV's 2 second discrepency. Let me know if you see differently still and I'll investigat further.

What type antenna is your viewer using? What happens with KGAN or KCRG stations?

He never gave me the exact brand or model number... just said it was a big one, said it was my problem and that KWWL needed some new engineers. Nice guy :rolleyes:
Of course, KGAN and KCRG are fine... but more interestingly, KTTC is fine as well. They're about 13 miles closer and slightly more powerful at the moment too. So this one has me bit stumped. My only guess is that the booster is bringing up some kind of out of band noise and causing this fluctuation of signal quality between perfect to gone.

He never gave me the exact brand or model number... just said it was a big one, said it was my problem and that KWWL needed some new engineers. Nice guy :rolleyes:
Of course, KGAN and KCRG are fine... but more interestingly, KTTC is fine as well. They're about 13 miles closer and slightly more powerful at the moment too. So this one has me bit stumped. My only guess is that the booster is bringing up some kind of out of band noise and causing this fluctuation of signal quality between perfect to gone.

Well from what your saying the problem is with his system and not knowing what he has or how old there is no way you can help him.
I would think if the booster was having problems he would see it on other channels unless it's a single channel unit.
Could be he's using a converter box which has a problem.

He never gave me the exact brand or model number... just said it was a big one, said it was my problem and that KWWL needed some new engineers. Nice guy :rolleyes:
Of course, KGAN and KCRG are fine... but more interestingly, KTTC is fine as well. They're about 13 miles closer and slightly more powerful at the moment too. So this one has me bit stumped. My only guess is that the booster is bringing up some kind of out of band noise and causing this fluctuation of signal quality between perfect to gone.

As far as I know, KTTC is running 20kW, if your still running 5.2kW, that is just a bit less then 6dB down in output power. Plus 13 miles, that may just be too far.... That would be my guess...

I believe some forums members were helping another member the other day, who they think is getting a harmonic of a high power FM doing weird things in his amp at VHF-7, that could be happening here....
(I wonder if the viewer in question runs the FM trap in, pointed to KTTC, maybe he is pointed away from the offending high power, while overloading pointed towards you, that would not explain KGAN and KCRG though.... )

He never gave me the exact brand or model number... just said it was a big one, said it was my problem and that KWWL needed some new engineers. Nice guy :rolleyes:
Of course, KGAN and KCRG are fine... but more interestingly, KTTC is fine as well. They're about 13 miles closer and slightly more powerful at the moment too. So this one has me bit stumped. My only guess is that the booster is bringing up some kind of out of band noise and causing this fluctuation of signal quality between perfect to gone.

I see there was a nasty letter to the editor in the CR Gazette today ---3/7----from a IC/Coraville FORMER KWWL viewer. Keep your chin up.....................

I see you asked about New Hampton............I gave you my report.....but I still have not had a chance to drive up there and help the B-I-L out. By the time I get up there I am going to be able to get his house top antenna working........it will be warm enough for me to get up the ladder...........just need to drop new 75 ohm down and put in a couple spitters.

I am located in Atkins, Iowa just west of CR. I can no longer recieve KWWL's digital signal. I pickup all other locals fine and have been able to tune in KWWL digitial until recently. Are they offline? According to their website they are still transmitting on channel 55 so nothing has changed that I am aware of.

I am located in Atkins, Iowa just west of CR. I can no longer recieve KWWL's digital signal. I pickup all other locals fine and have been able to tune in KWWL digitial until recently. Are they offline? According to their website they are still transmitting on channel 55 so nothing has changed that I am aware of.

Need to rescan, KWWL-DT is NOT on UHF-55, but moved their digital to VHF-7. It is possible that it is simply to weak to reach you or that you do not have a VHF-HI antenna as well.

Obsolete link is here:
http://www.kwwl.com/Global/story.asp?S=9013894
Hope this saves some time for Jarrett

Obsolete link is here:
http://www.kwwl.com/Global/story.asp?S=9013894
Hope this saves some time for Jarrett

Grrr... thanks for catching that. I sent our Internet Director an updated version of that on 2/16/2009 to be ready. Looks like it didn't get done. I'll let her know!

to quote '4lids' "My only guess is that the booster is bringing up some kind of out of band noise and causing this fluctuation of signal quality between perfect to gone."

Possible out of band noise that can cause over-loading of preamps is digital electonics "home computers". If your TV antenna and preamp is too close to your personal computer, monitor, printer or even your newer furnace or microwave oven, the preamp can amplify digital harmonic noise that matches the desired TV signal causing interference.

The high VHF channels, 7-13 below 230 MHz, will be more susceptible. Note when the signal is fluctuating what other electronic devices are activated. An FM trap may be effective in eliminating some, but not all, of the lower frequency interference from entering the preamp.

rfifry, RF interference is in my name, EMC is my game.

Jarrett, this has probably been asked before and someone else can answer if they know, but are you ever going to fix the 5 second audio dropout when you switch from network to local? This has been going on for a long time it seems. I haven't noticed it as much or at all on other stations.

Dear Channel 7: It’s not me; it’s you
John and Barbara O’Leary
Iowa City

Dear Channel 7,
Haven’t seen you in awhile. What happened? We had such good times together. Then somehow we failed to connect. You became hard to reach. Perhaps the signals were there, but I failed to see them.
You asked me to change and I bought a converter ... an antenna. Then suddenly, you changed. You traded your ’55 classic for an ’07 piece of junk. You just disappeared.
I scanned for you but to no avail. I tried every room, looked in all directions. It was as if you weren’t there any more. There is a now void for me between 2 and 9.
I am trying to be strong, unlike your signal. I am seeing other people. If I should bump into you at a friend’s house, I will just tune you out — because I don’t need the silent treatment you’ve been giving me, or your static. How many others have been jilted by your towering indifference?

Dear Channel 7: It’s not me; it’s you
Haven’t seen you in awhile. What happened? We had such good times together. Then somehow we failed to connect. You became hard to reach. Perhaps the signals were there, but I failed to see them.
You asked me to change and I bought a converter ... an antenna. Then suddenly, you changed. You traded your ’55 classic for an ’07 piece of junk. You just disappeared.
I scanned for you but to no avail. I tried every room, looked in all directions. It was as if you weren’t there any more. There is a now void for me between 2 and 9.
I am trying to be strong, unlike your signal. I am seeing other people. If I should bump into you at a friend’s house, I will just tune you out — because I don’t need the silent treatment you’ve been giving me, or your static. How many others have been jilted by your towering indifference?

That's cute... we saw it too. I'm not even sure if they have called or emailed us yet to ask for help (I can't find any record of them). I can't wait until May gets here and the new transmitter arrives.

Jarrett, this has probably been asked before and someone else can answer if they know, but are you ever going to fix the 5 second audio dropout when you switch from network to local? This has been going on for a long time it seems. I haven't noticed it as much or at all on other stations.

I'm still working on it... there is something going on with the transition from HD to local upconverted. We think it is simply a reclocking issue with the 5.1 to 2.0 switch. Both are embedded and running through a clean and quiet switch. At least the video isn't glitching anymore! This has been going on since I walked in the door back in 2007. It certainly isn't five seconds, but it does appear to take a second or two to relock. I haven't forgotten about it, but I'm still trying to find some kind of balance between viewer help and actual engineering work at the station. I think I'll be caught up with the calls and emails by early September :rolleyes:

It seems, for me anyway, this fog we're having is causing an across-the-board drop in signal strength. KWWL is completely AWOL now, and the rest of the channels have a 10-30% drop in received signal strength. As usual, no changes whatsoever in my setup or immediate surroundings, other than the fog of course. Anyone else having trouble today?

I'm still working on it... there is something going on with the transition from HD to local upconverted. We think it is simply a reclocking issue with the 5.1 to 2.0 switch. Both are embedded and running through a clean and quiet switch. At least the video isn't glitching anymore! This has been going on since I walked in the door back in 2007. It certainly isn't five seconds, but it does appear to take a second or two to relock. I haven't forgotten about it, but I'm still trying to find some kind of balance between viewer help and actual engineering work at the station. I think I'll be caught up with the calls and emails by early September :rolleyes:
Thanks for the update. Yeah, it's more like 2-3 seconds, but that's long enough to be annoying.

Keep up the good work and thanks for letting us know what's going on.

A couple KWWL things tonight. During the first 15 minutes of SVU there were a couple instances of the picture looking "grainy" as opposed to being pixelized. I saw this on both Directv and Mediacom HD feeds. (Iowa City)

Also numerous one or two second audio dropouts in the past few minutes. Anyone else experience this?

I wasn't watching SVU as much as I had it on and was listening to it, but film grain is quite common on TV shows, and isn't necessarily a sign of something wrong with the feed.

As far as audio dropouts, I didn't notice any that were 1-2 seconds long, at least not in places that would have detracted from my watching/listening ability.

The video on Live with Regis and Kelly is freezing something fierce, watching KCRG-DT via QAM. Video on commercials (looks like it's the national commercials) is freezing, too. Audio isn't dropping or stuttering, but the video keeps hanging up, making it almost unwatchable.

Local commercials seem to be fine, and analog 9 OTA and analog 9 via cable are fine, but haven't checked 9.1 OTA.

Anyone else home to see the same thing?

I live over by dyersville 52040, and am having issues getting channel any channel 7's. I'm using a hauppauge 1600 tuner in a vista PC w/ "media center" to drive it. I also have a 80" antennae in the attic. 2's PBS (cant remember if it was 12 or 32) and 9's are perfect. I also can not get 28 (fox) or 20 (used to be WB) I'd love to get them too, but they have always been problematic for me.
antenna is similar to Model: VU-90 XR on radioshack's website, i can't post links yet here.:rolleyes:

my question is their anything special that i need to do to rescan my channels given my PC setup?

tx!!:D
matt

I live over by dyersville 52040, and am having issues getting channel any channel 7's. I'm using a hauppauge 1600 tuner in a vista PC w/ "media center" to drive it. I also have a 80" antennae in the attic. 2's PBS (cant remember if it was 12 or 32) and 9's are perfect. I also can not get 28 (fox) or 20 (used to be WB) I'd love to get them too, but they have always been problematic for me.
antenna is similar to Model: VU-90 XR on radioshack's website, i can't post links yet here.:rolleyes:

my question is their anything special that i need to do to rescan my channels given my PC setup?

tx!!:D
matt

Have you turned your antenna? In order to get KFXA you may have to raise your antenna to your roof. I have heard that the Hauppauge is real suspect to multipathing. Are the any obstructions near your home?

KFXA tower is south of Vinton, IA. Channel 20 is in West Branch.

Also, have you rescanned your channels since channel 7 went back to VHF on Feb. 17th?

Guys,
I live in Atkins, IA and I'm having trouble on some TVs getting KWWL. The kicker is that I'm able to receive it still on a very old TV with an RCA digital converter box. However, my Vizio HD TV that I bought new about a year ago won't get it. I've got a Terk VHF/UHF antenna on the HD TV and I also have tried bringing in the antenna that is on the working TV with digital converter thinking that would rule out the antenna argument. I have the same problem with a newer HD TV that I have in my basement. The question becomes are there some TVs that won't convert the VHF signal to HD? Also, if that's not the problem is there a setting in the Vizio and Panasonic HD TVs that needs to be set to convert? I don't have any problems with KCRG, KGAN, and KFXA - all currently sending UHF signal. I'm at a loss. At first, I thought it was antenna related but now I'm not so sure.

Any help would be appreciate. Thanks voip guy.

also I've already tried doing scans, etc on all TVs not working.

voip_guy-

It's not a matter of moving the working antenna to another TV to see if it work there; it's a matter of running RG6 coax from the "working" antenna to the other TVs to see if they receive a signal.

If you have an antenna sitting on top of your basement HDTV, it's nowhere near as good as having an antenna up in your attic, or on the first or second floor of your home; moving a known good antenna to a place without signals wouldn't do you much good.

All digitally-tuned TVs will tune a digital VHF signal; it's a matter of getting a good signal to the TV to tune in the first place.

Have you turned your antenna? In order to get KFXA you may have to raise your antenna to your roof. I have heard that the Hauppauge is real suspect to multipathing. Are the any obstructions near your home?

KFXA tower is south of Vinton, IA. Channel 20 is in West Branch.

Also, have you rescanned your channels since channel 7 went back to VHF on Feb. 17th?

i have tried turning it, i haven't tried moving it. ... What is multipathing? I'm thinking to that something isn't picking backup since they went back to vhf but i just don't know what to reset. as of last summer it was working fine.

Since KWWL switched to 7.1 VHF my old ATI Wonder card no longer tunes the station. Is that because my Wonder card doesn't support VHF?

I've re-scanned in MCE, and know the Wonder card is receiving the signal, because my external Zenith tuner is fine with 7.1. (same antenna source)

Any quick words of wisdom would be appreciated. I am assuming right now it's the old Wonder card that is deficient.

Thanks,

Smokinjoe

Since KWWL switched to 7.1 VHF my old ATI Wonder card no longer tunes the station. Is that because my Wonder card doesn't support VHF?

I've re-scanned in MCE, and know the Wonder card is receiving the signal, because my external Zenith tuner is fine with 7.1. (same antenna source)

Any quick words of wisdom would be appreciated. I am assuming right now it's the old Wonder card that is deficient.

Thanks,

Smokinjoe

I assume, you have the original HDTV Wonder? I would think that it supports VHF (been a few years, since I owned one), it may just not be as sensitive in terms of tuning ability as the Zenith 901.... (the Zenith CECB, is one of the best tuners on the market currently)
My HDHRs are no match for the tuning ability of the CECBs like Zenith and DTVpals..... (and the HDHR is a way later tuner then the HDTV Wonder)

Are you running Vista? My brother-in-law went back to XP. Reloaded the ATI software
and scanned without any problems.

FCC: Stations Must Warn Viewers of Signal Loss


By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/13/2009 10:23:38 AM MT

According to sources, the FCC is poised today to release new rules of the road for the DTV transition that include requiring broadcasters losing at least 2% of their historic coverage area in the switch from digital to analog to warn viewers on-air.

The commission is said to need to get the rules out before 2 p.m.

The notification requirement will be either a crawl or PSA, and the loss in viewership will be calculated according to DTV reception maps the FCC has posted on its Web site .

The rules have now been released:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-09-19A1.pdf

Among other things, it appears that:

- The "countdown" period will be cut from 100 days to 60.

- Many stations which have already shut off analog can cease broadcasting educational information about the transition, as long as they're operating their "full, authorized post-transition digital facility."

- Educational campaigns must include information about antennas, switches between VHF and UHF, and the importance of re-scanning receivers periodically, starting April 1.

Guys,
I live in Atkins, IA and I'm having trouble on some TVs getting KWWL. The kicker is that I'm able to receive it still on a very old TV with an RCA digital converter box. However, my Vizio HD TV that I bought new about a year ago won't get it. I've got a Terk VHF/UHF antenna on the HD TV and I also have tried bringing in the antenna that is on the working TV with digital converter thinking that would rule out the antenna argument. I have the same problem with a newer HD TV that I have in my basement. The question becomes are there some TVs that won't convert the VHF signal to HD? Also, if that's not the problem is there a setting in the Vizio and Panasonic HD TVs that needs to be set to convert? I don't have any problems with KCRG, KGAN, and KFXA - all currently sending UHF signal. I'm at a loss. At first, I thought it was antenna related but now I'm not so sure.

Any help would be appreciate. Thanks voip guy.

I have a VIZIO bought about the same time as yours....................it handled the transition just fine. I agree with CR_Client that you just have to get the signal to the receiver. If you have one TV that is working fine and others that are not........................you know at least one antenna is in a working spot.

Are you running Vista? My brother-in-law went back to XP. Reloaded the ATI software
and scanned without any problems.

It is the original Wonder.

I am using XP.

The Zenith tuner is actually model HDV420. (5 years old)

I have tried to find a definitive answer on this, and am not having any luck. You would think there are original Wonder users out there experiencing the same problem.

Smokinjoe

The video on Live with Regis and Kelly is freezing something fierce, watching KCRG-DT via QAM. Video on commercials (looks like it's the national commercials) is freezing, too. Audio isn't dropping or stuttering, but the video keeps hanging up, making it almost unwatchable.

Local commercials seem to be fine, and analog 9 OTA and analog 9 via cable are fine, but haven't checked 9.1 OTA.

Anyone else home to see the same thing?

KCRG was haing an issue with an analog to digital converter in our air chain. We had to pull the card and reseat it. Seems to have fixed the issue. It was reset towards the end of Regis.

Kirk

It's fixed now, but did anyone else notice IPTV (channel 32 at least, not sure about 12 or the others) acting really goofy at about 11:30 tonight? It kept repeating the same four seconds over and over, did this for several minutes on the main channel and both subchannels.

I got a quick video of it. They fixed it about halfway through the video, so it only shows it happening on the .1 and .2 channels:

http://s287.photobucket.com/albums/ll132/bigloudnoise/?action=view&current=20090315_DSCF3502.flv

KCRG was haing an issue with an analog to digital converter in our air chain. We had to pull the card and reseat it. Seems to have fixed the issue. It was reset towards the end of Regis.

Kirk

Yeah, I noticed it all went black for a few seconds and then came back, as if it was being reset.

Unfortunately, it's flaking out again this Monday morning...

And now, for some reason, the audio on The View, and in commercials, has a weird reverb to it, stuck in 2.0, as of around 10:30 AM.

Still getting video freezes on Regis & Kelly today on KCRG. Thankfully, I tend to just listen to it, rather than actually WATCH it, but it's still rather frustrating and annoying.

Just as an FYI... Winegard set me a couple more antennas. Most of them were the big rooftop models, but they did include an HD-1080 which I wanted to check out. From the looks of it, it looks like a UHF antenna, but it worked great for both bands when I tested it out from Waterloo. The reason I was intrigued by it is because it is a smaller than the usual rooftop units. It's just under three feet wide, about 20 inches tall and 6-7 inches deep. Got great signal quality for everyone, even inside where I was testing it. The other smaller one I've had good luck with was the Sensar series antennas (GS-1100 and GS-2200). That one is built more like a wing and performs a bit better for VHF than UHF but still got everything. They do sell a wingman add on for more UHF gain, but I didn't need it here.

I've been suggesting these units to anyone who has given up on rabbit ears or trying to replace their "HD antenna" with no VHF elements. Just thought I'd pass it along here. I think any antenna that had VHF elements and is somewhat directional really helps (stupid multipath). I still haven't found an indoor I really like yet (I guess you can live with the sensar or HD-1080 inside, but it isn't pretty!).

Also, tentative install for our 30 KW rig is early May, so that will help a lot too! May can't arrive soon enough!
-Jarrett

Jarrett:
Watched KWWL-DT for a few minutes this morning, via tropo. Your HD feed looks nice..Did not do anything more then take pictures of the subs... (did not watch real long though)

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s129/gjvrieze/DX-03-17-09/KWWL-DT-7.jpg

Just as an FYI... Winegard set me a couple more antennas. Most of them were the big rooftop models, but they did include an HD-1080 which I wanted to check out. From the looks of it, it looks like a UHF antenna, but it worked great for both bands when I tested it out from Waterloo. The reason I was intrigued by it is because it is a smaller than the usual rooftop units. It's just under three feet wide, about 20 inches tall and 6-7 inches deep. Got great signal quality for everyone, even inside where I was testing it. The other smaller one I've had good luck with was the Sensar series antennas (GS-1100 and GS-2200). That one is built more like a wing and performs a bit better for VHF than UHF but still got everything. They do sell a wingman add on for more UHF gain, but I didn't need it here.

I've been suggesting these units to anyone who has given up on rabbit ears or trying to replace their "HD antenna" with no VHF elements. Just thought I'd pass it along here. I think any antenna that had VHF elements and is somewhat directional really helps (stupid multipath). I still haven't found an indoor I really like yet (I guess you can live with the sensar or HD-1080 inside, but it isn't pretty!).

Also, tentative install for our 30 KW rig is early May, so that will help a lot too! May can't arrive soon enough!
-Jarrett

Jarrett, give me a call when you find out who is installing your transmitter. How old is your current transmitter? Is (was) it an HTEL-2000?

It's fixed now, but did anyone else notice IPTV (channel 32 at least, not sure about 12 or the others) acting really goofy at about 11:30 tonight? It kept repeating the same four seconds over and over

The transmitters are fed via fiber from the studio in Johnston, and if that feed is lost it will switch over to an off-air receiver, in KRIN's case that is KIIN in West Branch. Well, for some reason the system was looking at KIIN rather than the fiber input, and then there was a power failure at KIIN.

Don't ask me why it did what it did. It should have been using the fiber feed (but in my opinion the switching system they use is flawed as it likes to randomly select between the sources for no good reason).

Hi everyone. First time posting on this site. Just wanted to let everyone know that I work at an appliance and electronics store and we sell Dish and antennas. I deal with the same questions everyone is asking on here everyday. I'm a firm believer that if someone is serious about getting as many digital channels as possible, that you need a decent UHF/VHF antenna on the roof or in the attic. We service the Dyersville area and we've had great luck with a certain antenna. It's called a DUV-F Digitenna. I believe it is made in Wisconsin. I attatched a pic, it's not a very large antenna. I use it at my house in Dyersville and I get all the digitals of 2, 7, 9, 20, 28, 32, and 48. Surprisingly the single is very high on all of them, 7 is 95%. I hope I can help.

The transmitters are fed via fiber from the studio in Johnston, and if that feed is lost it will switch over to an off-air receiver, in KRIN's case that is KIIN in West Branch. Well, for some reason the system was looking at KIIN rather than the fiber input, and then there was a power failure at KIIN.

Don't ask me why it did what it did. It should have been using the fiber feed (but in my opinion the switching system they use is flawed as it likes to randomly select between the sources for no good reason).

Is there an antenna up on the tower to pick up KIIN, or how does the off air backup work?

Is there an antenna up on the tower to pick up KIIN, or how does the off air backup work?

Yes, if I recall it's a quad-stack at approx 400'

Hi, I was getting KWWL in North Liberty with out much trouble before 2/18 but I can not get any signal now. Has anyone else had luck getting KWWL in North Liberty? Would getting a better antenna help or should I just face the fact that I'm not going to be able to get it. I'm using a powered pair of rabbit ears that receive both UHF and VHF on the second story of my house. I get 100% for KCRG and most of the other stations that I get a signal for. Thanks

Hi, I was getting KWWL in North Liberty with out much trouble before 2/18 but I can not get any signal now. Has anyone else had luck getting KWWL in North Liberty? Would getting a better antenna help or should I just face the fact that I'm not going to be able to get it. I'm using a powered pair of rabbit ears that receive both UHF and VHF on the second story of my house. I get 100% for KCRG and most of the other stations that I get a signal for. Thanks

I'm not having an issue getting KWWL in North Liberty with an attic mounted VHF/UHF combo antenna. Those I know in our area with rabbit ear antennas aren't having much luck adjusting them to pull in the new VHF digital signal.

It's possible that when KCRG's signal and the IPTV signal out of West Branch go VHF digital there may be similar issues of trying to receive them via rabbit ears. I will be getting a couple friends set up with attic mounted antennas in the near future (maybe I should go into business?). You may have luck with the antennas 4Lids mentioned earlier or just a regular roof top style UHF/VHF combo mounted in your attic like I have with good RG6 cable feeding the TV(s). You don't need to spend a lot on an antenna (mine was around $60 4+ years ago). Hope that helps.

Thanks, sounds like it is not hopeless, I'll look into putting one in the attic.

sprtfan, I just put in a Radio Shack Model: VU-90 XR 18ft off the ground and everything came in great in North Liberty. I'm pulling in KGAN and KWWL quite well. I tried rabbit ears, but they would only work when facing out a north window and not reliable enough. Best bet here is to go rooftop or attic.

Also, tentative install for our 30 KW rig is early May, so that will help a lot too! May can't arrive soon enough!
-Jarrett

Here is an article written almost a year ago that talks about the differences between VHF high and UHF power requirements. Proof will be in the pudding when you bump up to 30 kW and see the results, but this sounds encouraging!

http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/60648

I'm surprised that there are no official FCC reports published that estimate the total number of viewers affected both positivitely and negatively one month after the first transition date.

Hey Jarrett what was up with the Stand By in the middle of the Office a couple of times? Just a couple of seconds, but was really weird.

Hey, go to this page. It sounds like you are3 having the same issue I did. Media Center still thinks its looking for 55 when it needs to look for 7. These steps worked perfectly for me. I doubt your ATI card is the issue at all.

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/post/251356.aspx

Any idea when KWKB will be adding PSIP data? Heck, they don't even have the date and time sent.

According to the data I was sent not too long ago, KWKB is transmitting PSIP. I can't tell whether or not it's complete, mind you, but I know there is (or was) something there for PSIP.

- Trip

I think there may perhaps be some wrong terminology being used here. If I understand it correctly, you would not be able to lock any DT signal in if there was indeed no PSIP data as it describes virtual channel info, video/audio stream data, etc.

My guess is that oldsyd must be referring to guide (programming) info, off the top of my head I believe is EIT data within the PSIP data.

I don't recall if the data I sent Trip a while back had guide data in it or not, but my memory is that KWKB has not been sending that for quite some time, if ever....

I think there may perhaps be some wrong terminology being used here. If I understand it correctly, you would not be able to lock any DT signal in if there was indeed no PSIP data as it describes virtual channel info, video/audio stream data, etc.

Some receivers won't handle it, but others will. There are a number of low-powered stations which do not have PSIP.

My guess is that oldsyd must be referring to guide (programming) info, off the top of my head I believe is EIT data within the PSIP data.

I don't recall if the data I sent Trip a while back had guide data in it or not, but my memory is that KWKB has not been sending that for quite some time, if ever....

There's some EIT data noted in the capture I have, but who knows if it was populated with anything more than "DTV Program."

http://www.rabbitears.info/screencaps/ia-wwl/35096-0_0.htm

- Trip

Not sure what is in the stream, but currently it says it is March 10th, 2100, 2:28AM. There is captioning, but no program info showing on my Zenith CECB.

The problem with the wacky time (if they are even sending time & date) is that if you are on that channel, it shifts all other program guides in memory out to la-la land because the box thinks it's the year 2100 and no other stations have listings for that year.

I figured once they went full time with digital they would fix it, but so far nothing. See my attachment for an older sample of what I see.

Thanks KFXA..........for broadcasting BRISTOL on NASCAR in SD, since I'm a cable subscriber paying you your retransmission fee. :mad::mad::mad:

It's not coming through in HD on 28 on Directv either. At least I have the Hotpass channel to see the HD stuff.

Was corrected around lap 250.

Makes you wonder if ANYBODY monitors what is going out to customers????

I called the news room. And this is the second race this year where I have called. Just ridiculous.

It must be an epidemic....I've been listening to my wife complain for the last 25 minutes about Desperate Housewives not being in HD on the Directv feed. Looks normal on Mediacom though after I checked. Now she's happy.

Failure of a switch that tells our Fox Splicer to go to HD from our switcher.

Failure of a switch that tells our Fox Splicer to go to HD from our switcher.
Does anyone monitor whats going out?

Does anyone monitor whats going out?Somebody who is qualified should be, but that doesn't necessarily mean that person is going to immediately be able to fix something that goes wrong. In some cases they're going to have to call in a maintenance engineer.

Eric did not mention why it took almost 2 hours to correct and if your explaination is the case, then I understand and can accept that.

Just seems coincidental that tsduke mentioned that he called the newsroom and it was corrected halfway thru. That's what makes me wonder if anyone was monitoring the output and could have corrected it LONG before they did.

I have to wonder if anyone was monitoring because I didn't see any attempts to correct it until it finally went HD. Most time we'll them trying to correct this type of thing during commercial.

Just so you know, calling the news staff would probably be the worst approach. In my experience, news staff are the last people to know anything about technical issues. Someone in Master Control would be monitoring things, but with the amount of feeds to check, I could see how this would be overlooked.
Master Control can be a busy place, and with staff reductions everywhere, they might have him doing other tasks unrelated to on-air quality.

Anyone else here with locals via Directv not get the prime time programming in HD Sunday night? Not sure if it was my DVR or a Directv/local receive facility problem. The Mediacom feed was OK.

Just so you know, calling the news staff would probably be the worst approach. In my experience, news staff are the last people to know anything about technical issues. Someone in Master Control would be monitoring things, but with the amount of feeds to check, I could see how this would be overlooked.
Master Control can be a busy place, and with staff reductions everywhere, they might have him doing other tasks unrelated to on-air quality.

What needs to start happening to make these issues go away are two things to be learned from IT (which in many ways is what DTV is): automation and getting to the root cause of the problems.

I would like to hope that these switchers, splicers, A to D converters, and whatnot that keep failing would have some way of sending an alert to someone as soon as they lock up or fail. If they don't have the functionality to do this then TV stations and other rebroadcasters need to push the vendors into providing this. No one should have to be constantly watching an output stream if automation can do it for you and alert someone as soon as something fails (or even correct the problem hands off). Automation is a great way of getting more done with less staff!

Secondly, simply restarting a device or reseating a card more than likely means the problem will come up again ... either tomorrow, next week, or next month. It sounds like compatibility issues still exist in DTV equipment that needs to be shaken out. Hopefully vendors are providing software updates or whatever it takes to solve these issues. It may mean having to provide logging or similar diagnostics information before they can solve the problems. Kind of reminds me of the early days of cable modems and having to reset them every few days.

I feel for the station techs having to go through these growing pains of DTV if the vendors aren't providing good support. All I can suggest is hammering them with details to help them fix *their* problems. These repeated DTV issues are getting real old, and no one knows it more than guys like Jarret, Kirk, and Eric that have to work with this crappy equipment and support and try to keep us happy every day!

Anyone else here with locals via Directv not get the prime time programming in HD Sunday night? Not sure if it was my DVR or a Directv/local receive facility problem. The Mediacom feed was OK.
I DVR'ed all of KGANs Sunday primetime and Housewives on KCRG with my HR20-700.


No problems here......

Just so you know, calling the news staff would probably be the worst approach. In my experience, news staff are the last people to know anything about technical issues. Someone in Master Control would be monitoring things, but with the amount of feeds to check, I could see how this would be overlooked.
Master Control can be a busy place, and with staff reductions everywhere, they might have him doing other tasks unrelated to on-air quality.Problem is, the direct master control number is generally not published, nor should it be. As you said, they can be very busy at times, and their work is usually very time-sensitive. For all we know, they could be extremely busy trying to fix the problem you're calling about, and getting constant phone calls may actually slow them down further. Call the newsline or the main switchboard number. If necessary, they will route the concern to master control or a maintenance person as needed.

What needs to start happening to make these issues go away are two things to be learned from IT (which in many ways is what DTV is): automation and getting to the root cause of the problems.

I would like to hope that these switchers, splicers, A to D converters, and whatnot that keep failing would have some way of sending an alert to someone as soon as they lock up or fail. If they don't have the functionality to do this then TV stations and other rebroadcasters need to push the vendors into providing this. No one should have to be constantly watching an output stream if automation can do it for you and alert someone as soon as something fails (or even correct the problem hands off). Automation is a great way of getting more done with less staff!
Less staff than, say, the one person who is generally running master control at a time.

At least if there is a decently trained person right there, there'll be one person who'll be able to correct the situation, or work around it for the time being and call someone who can, if this automation stuff fails or is misprogrammed in advance. Because I guarantee you, it doesn't matter if you're running a cart machine or a server -- automation will not overrule Murphy's Law.

Be careful what you wish for.

Just so you know, calling the news staff would probably be the worst approach. In my experience, news staff are the last people to know anything about technical issues. Someone in Master Control would be monitoring things, but with the amount of feeds to check, I could see how this would be overlooked.
Master Control can be a busy place, and with staff reductions everywhere, they might have him doing other tasks unrelated to on-air quality.


As dline said, the newsroom is the only avenue to get a live voice. Especially on a weekend. They were unaware of the issue when I called, but he said he would call back to engineering.

There were more problems with Chuck on KWWL last night. Not sure how long, maybe 10 minutes into the show it was SD and then it just flipped to HD. It's frustrating, but not the end of the world.

Maybe Barney was asleep at the wheel :)

I DVR'ed all of KGANs Sunday primetime and Housewives on KCRG with my HR20-700.


No problems here......

I think the problem was a delayed side effect from the Guide Data problem Directv had. I did a reset on my DVR's and that seemd to solve the problem. The DVR was tuning the SD channel instead of the HD one.

Hey, go to this page. It sounds like you are3 having the same issue I did. Media Center still thinks its looking for 55 when it needs to look for 7. These steps worked perfectly for me. I doubt your ATI card is the issue at all.

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/post/251356.aspx

Thanks to bagdropper for the fix. If anybody is having issues tuning stations with their ATI Wonder card, give this a try.

When adding KWWL in MCE:
Major number = 7
Assigned frequency = 7

smokinjoe

Because I guarantee you, it doesn't matter if you're running a cart machine or a server -- automation will not overrule Murphy's Law.

Be careful what you wish for.

As a person who works in an environment where chalking something up to "Murphy's law" isn't acceptable, I take offense.

In the IT world, just like television, cutbacks are extreme. Yet, data centers can maintain a 99.999% uptime. That's because there are systems DESIGNED to monitor this stuff. Servers have watchdog timers which can kick the system if they hang, networks have monitoring systems that can page someone out at a change of even a fraction of a percent of response time. Often times only one person is watching over hundreds or thousands of servers, and they may be literally halfway around the globe.

Imagine, if you will, a system that monitored the output of a station. It should be able to tell if it is HD or SD. It should be able to tell based on timing information if the audio is ahead or behind the video. It should be able to interface with the encoders to make necessary adjustments in real time. And, if the audio or video get off sync, it should be able to automatically page an on-call tech who lives close to the station who should be there in 15 minutes to debug the issue and get it fixed. I mean, that's how it works with IT...

The problem is, the local stations don't take this HD stuff seriously enough to invest the amount of money that is required to do it properly. They figure that as long as a signal is going out, we'll lap it up, be it SD or HD, without caring. And, for the most part, that's true. Go to a major market, like Chicago or NYC and watch the HD programming there. They don't have these issues. They don't have lip-sync issues, they don't have switcher issues, they don't have tape-delay requires SD issues. Why? Because they spend the money needed to do it right. Could the stations in our market do it right? Sure. Would that require cutting into their profits. Yes. And that's why we get the quality we do.

"Go to a major market, like Chicago or NYC and watch the HD programming there. They don't have these issues. They don't have lip-sync issues, they don't have switcher issues, they don't have tape-delay requires SD issues. Why? Because they spend the money needed to do it right. Could the stations in our market do it right? Sure. Would that require cutting into their profits. Yes. And that's why we get the quality we do."

I'm sure that if any of the local stations could charge several thousand dollars per spot, as the major market stations do, they would be happy to invest in all of this new equipment. Also if you check through the other forums here, you will find people complaining about the same issues as here. I only had to look at one page of the Chicago forum to find someone complaining about lip-sync on WLS in Chicago.

The problem is, the local stations don't take this HD stuff seriously enough to invest the amount of money that is required to do it properly. They figure that as long as a signal is going out, we'll lap it up, be it SD or HD, without caring. And, for the most part, that's true. Go to a major market, like Chicago or NYC and watch the HD programming there. They don't have these issues. They don't have lip-sync issues, they don't have switcher issues, they don't have tape-delay requires SD issues. Why? Because they spend the money needed to do it right. Could the stations in our market do it right? Sure. Would that require cutting into their profits. Yes. And that's why we get the quality we do.

You are way off base with these comments. I will tell you that there is a world of difference between the IT and Television industries. Sure, they are getting closer, and more and more technology comes out each year, but there is a long way to go. Much of the broadcast gear is proprietary and is still extremely expensive. Do you have any clue how much money has already gone into just getting a digital signal, let alone anything HD, on the air? The encoding racks alone cost almost a half million; the transmission gear another million on top of that! We have proposals for a technical overhaul of about another $1.5 million... plus we have to do building infrastruture work as well... another $1.5 million. This isn't simply as easy as one guy claimed: "Just add a couple HD camcorders and an HD DVR". It is an all or nothing thing in many cases. You need an HD capable gear or things to upconvert the local legacy stuff to HD. That adds up fast... router, graphics, video, distribution, monitoring, etc.

That's not to say we don't want this... of course we do! But the money isn't there! We do plan on "doing it right", but I assure you that it isn't about cutting into profits. Heck, we just got done laying off 10% of our employees corporate wide and then had 5 furlough days to take this first quarter. They aren't pocketing the change... they are just trying to pay the bills like so many others these days. Bottom line is that the economy is down right now, and the first thing many look at eliminating is advertising dollars. We those dollars aren't coming in, capital expenditures get cut back corporate wide. Our goal was to already be well into our overhaul by now, but at the moment we are just trying to get through these tough times.

Sure bigger markets already some better gear and are full HD, but I can tell you that the big markets aren't immune to mistakes or problems either. But they also generate a lot more revenue and typically have a lot more employees and gear to address problems.

You mentioned lip sync, which has been my nemesis these past couple months... the two culprits here are actually not your local KWWL gear, but NBC's new receive racks and DirecTV (who handles Dish too and has had issues just with us for the past couple months). NBC is aware of their issue and we installed some things for them last week that hopefully keep things locked better from here on out. DirecTV is aware of their struggles too, but there is no alarm for lip sync other than you eyes. The only thing I've heard of is a device that embeds a signal early in the broadcast chain and then you can check it later in the path. If you can build something that does what you describe (monitoring lip sync and automatically correcting it) you can make a fortune. Go for it!

Things will get better, but it is going to take longer than expected for us... but don't think for a second that we are simply ignoring things so that we can roll in more profits.
-Jarrett

You are way off base with these comments. I will tell you that there is a world of difference between the IT and Television industries. Sure, they are getting closer, and more and more technology comes out each year, but there is a long way to go. Much of the broadcast gear is proprietary and is still extremely expensive. Do you have any clue how much money has already gone into just getting a digital signal, let alone anything HD, on the air? The encoding racks alone cost almost a half million; the transmission gear another million on top of that! We have proposals for a technical overhaul of about another $1.5 million... plus we have to do building infrastruture work as well... another $1.5 million. This isn't simply as easy as one guy claimed: "Just add a couple HD camcorders and an HD DVR". It is an all or nothing thing in many cases. You need an HD capable gear or things to upconvert the local legacy stuff to HD. That adds up fast... router, graphics, video, distribution, monitoring, etc.

That's not to say we don't want this... of course we do! But the money isn't there! We do plan on "doing it right", but I assure you that it isn't about cutting into profits. Heck, we just got done laying off 10% of our employees corporate wide and then had 5 furlough days to take this first quarter. They aren't pocketing the change... they are just trying to pay the bills like so many others these days. Bottom line is that the economy is down right now, and the first thing many look at eliminating is advertising dollars. We those dollars aren't coming in, capital expenditures get cut back corporate wide. Our goal was to already be well into our overhaul by now, but at the moment we are just trying to get through these tough times.

Sure bigger markets already some better gear and are full HD, but I can tell you that the big markets aren't immune to mistakes or problems either. But they also generate a lot more revenue and typically have a lot more employees and gear to address problems.

You mentioned lip sync, which has been my nemesis these past couple months... the two culprits here are actually not your local KWWL gear, but NBC's new receive racks and DirecTV (who handles Dish too and has had issues just with us for the past couple months). NBC is aware of their issue and we installed some things for them last week that hopefully keep things locked better from here on out. DirecTV is aware of their struggles too, but there is no alarm for lip sync other than you eyes. The only thing I've heard of is a device that embeds a signal early in the broadcast chain and then you can check it later in the path. If you can build something that does what you describe (monitoring lip sync and automatically correcting it) you can make a fortune. Go for it!

Things will get better, but it is going to take longer than expected for us... but don't think for a second that we are simply ignoring things so that we can roll in more profits.
-Jarrett

Jarrett, I could not be more happy that you are at least aware of the issues and take a second to spare with people in your market. I work in small computer repair shop in Rochester, and honestly, aside from the stock market/financial server systems online; I have NEVER seen any tech that even hits 99% uptime, let alone 99.999%, look at Microsoft for one... (maybe the poster works in one of these reliable areas though...)
Off Topic:
If you are friends with or know Tim Morgan, you should push him to post online, wither here or on KTTC's blog... If we could get info like this in my market, it would rock my day! (Larry the CE over at KIMT has been great to keep me informed though!)

Off Topic:
If you are friends with or know Tim Morgan, you should push him to post online, wither here or on KTTC's blog... If we could get info like this in my market, it would rock my day! (Larry the CE over at KIMT has been great to keep me informed though!)

I sent an email up to Tim for you. We'll see!:cool:

You are way off base with these comments. I will tell you that there is a world of difference between the IT and Television industries. Sure, they are getting closer, and more and more technology comes out each year, but there is a long way to go. Much of the broadcast gear is proprietary and is still extremely expensive.

So is the world of servers. If I have a 76u rack full of Sun equipment, or a Tivoli tape array, I need to buy additional components from those same vendors to have the equipment covered by warranty.


Do you have any clue how much money has already gone into just getting a digital signal, let alone anything HD, on the air? The encoding racks alone cost almost a half million; the transmission gear another million on top of that! We have proposals for a technical overhaul of about another $1.5 million... plus we have to do building infrastruture work as well... another $1.5 million.
I realize that this equipment is expensive, and the whole DTV transition has added to that some, I'm sure. The fact that DTV converter boxes cost about $5 to manufacture, and retail for $50 due to the government coupon goes to show you what government mandates cause -- price inflation. But, I won't accept that argument. The NAB should have lobbied the FCC for open standards. Do you realize that most of that 1.5 million for that rack of equipment is going to pay for license fees for stuff like Dolby, patent rights, etc, etc, etc. ATSC is not a patent free product, why we didn't implement DVB-T here like every other civilized nation is beyond me.


This isn't simply as easy as one guy claimed: "Just add a couple HD camcorders and an HD DVR". It is an all or nothing thing in many cases. You need an HD capable gear or things to upconvert the local legacy stuff to HD. That adds up fast... router, graphics, video, distribution, monitoring, etc.


I never said that. My only suggestion was to use anamorphic lenses for the cameras to allow you to shoot widescreen, then edit all the footage in 4:3 and simply stretch it back to 16:9 prior to broadcast (an idea which is commonly used, it won't give you HD video but at least widescreen video)


That's not to say we don't want this... of course we do! But the money isn't there! We do plan on "doing it right", but I assure you that it isn't about cutting into profits. Heck, we just got done laying off 10% of our employees corporate wide and then had 5 furlough days to take this first quarter. They aren't pocketing the change... they are just trying to pay the bills like so many others these days. Bottom line is that the economy is down right now, and the first thing many look at eliminating is advertising dollars. We those dollars aren't coming in, capital expenditures get cut back corporate wide. Our goal was to already be well into our overhaul by now, but at the moment we are just trying to get through these tough times.

Actually, I appreciate the steps KWWL has made. Coming on here, and standing up for the station, that's awesome, and appreciated. KWWL is probably the best of the local stations, at least in my eyes. Other stations are way behind. So, in the words of Jon Stewart "This ain't about you".

As for where I work, and what I do, any decent datacenter will have 5 9's uptime. That's really not hard to hit. Especially with VMWare, even a blade going down doesn't have to kill the server. I think you underestimate the uptime of lots of systems you use. Perhaps your Mediacom internet isn't up 99.999% of the time, but your Qwest phone line is, your bank account is, your DMV records are, your IRS information is, even your childs testing and grading systems (when hosted professionally -- hint hint) are.

Do you realize that most of that 1.5 million for that rack of equipment is going to pay for license fees for stuff like Dolby, patent rights, etc, etc, etc. ATSC is not a patent free product, why we didn't implement DVB-T here like every other civilized nation is beyond me.

The entire DTV conversion was a huge money-grab by the government. My guess is that Zenith had a huge amount of cash that they passed under the table in order to get ATSC standardized. It certainly didn't become the standard based on technical merits.

Like you said, DVB-T would have been the logical choice. When does the government ever do anything that makes sense?

I remember hearing ATSC was chosen because Zenith was an American company, or something like this. Of course, now it's owned by LG, so we see all the good that did...

- Trip

You are way off base with these comments. I will tell you that there is a world of difference between the IT and Television industries. Sure, they are getting closer, and more and more technology comes out each year, but there is a long way to go. Much of the broadcast gear is proprietary and is still extremely expensive. Do you have any clue how much money has already gone into just getting a digital signal, let alone anything HD, on the air? The encoding racks alone cost almost a half million; the transmission gear another million on top of that! We have proposals for a technical overhaul of about another $1.5 million... plus we have to do building infrastruture work as well... another $1.5 million. This isn't simply as easy as one guy claimed: "Just add a couple HD camcorders and an HD DVR". It is an all or nothing thing in many cases. You need an HD capable gear or things to upconvert the local legacy stuff to HD. That adds up fast... router, graphics, video, distribution, monitoring, etc.

That's not to say we don't want this... of course we do! But the money isn't there! We do plan on "doing it right", but I assure you that it isn't about cutting into profits. Heck, we just got done laying off 10% of our employees corporate wide and then had 5 furlough days to take this first quarter. They aren't pocketing the change... they are just trying to pay the bills like so many others these days. Bottom line is that the economy is down right now, and the first thing many look at eliminating is advertising dollars. We those dollars aren't coming in, capital expenditures get cut back corporate wide. Our goal was to already be well into our overhaul by now, but at the moment we are just trying to get through these tough times.

Sure bigger markets already some better gear and are full HD, but I can tell you that the big markets aren't immune to mistakes or problems either. But they also generate a lot more revenue and typically have a lot more employees and gear to address problems.

You mentioned lip sync, which has been my nemesis these past couple months... the two culprits here are actually not your local KWWL gear, but NBC's new receive racks and DirecTV (who handles Dish too and has had issues just with us for the past couple months). NBC is aware of their issue and we installed some things for them last week that hopefully keep things locked better from here on out. DirecTV is aware of their struggles too, but there is no alarm for lip sync other than you eyes. The only thing I've heard of is a device that embeds a signal early in the broadcast chain and then you can check it later in the path. If you can build something that does what you describe (monitoring lip sync and automatically correcting it) you can make a fortune. Go for it!

Things will get better, but it is going to take longer than expected for us... but don't think for a second that we are simply ignoring things so that we can roll in more profits.
-Jarrett

Another problem with the Broadcast Television industry, our broadcast chains are full of single points of failure. With the economy the way it is, I do not see that changing anytime soon.

On a note of ongoing issues, I finally experienced my first occurrence of the "7.1 flakes out to 7.3" issue tonight. At almost exactly 12:30 AM Saturday morning (Friday night), in the middle of Jimmy Fallon, my signal on 7.1 OTA flaked out, then came back as 7.3. At that time, channel surfing up and down gave me 7.3, 7.4, and 7.5, but nothing would come through reliably on any of those signals. 7.1 and 7.2 didn't exist when I tried to tune them.

7.1 and 7.2 came back shortly after, but I can confirm that it happened tonight. Hopefully someone else saw it happen, too.

I'm tuned in on a Samsung TX3082 TV OTA, FWIW.

To link this to the above discussion, are there any logs that get written by any of the equipment that might show the transmitter flaking out or anything like that around 12:30?

I want to thank everyone on this site who have been struggling to regain KWWL Chs 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 after the switchover in Feb and telling about their experience, etc. It was a relief to know that we weren't the only ones.

On suggestion via this discussion, we went to Radio Shack in Cedar Rapids and purchased the recommended VU-90 XR, 80" Boom Length, 32-Element Antenna (Catalog # 15-2152). This replaced the NEW antenna we had installed (rooftop) prior to the switchover and had been working just fine for all the stations except 7.1/2/3 (it was for UHF only). So far, this newer antenna (again, installed on the roof) has been receiving excellent reception for all the digital stations and we were elated that 7.1 etc. are coming in wonderfully -- so it was OUR antenna afterall...NOT THE STATION'S PROBLEM -- BUT OUR'S! We are now also able to view OTA CHs 9, 12, and possibly another station or two. (FYI--we live in Swisher.)

However, we've been having a different problem. We have a new Samsung HDTV, 40" model ln40a550 (I know...we need to change our log-in ID...), and for some reason all the KPXR channels (48.2/3/4, except the main one), do not seem to want to lock-in on a permanent basis...they disappear after awhile and we do not understand why (even after rescanning multiple times, and this has happened with both antennas). They just don't seem to want to stay in the TV's digital memory. Has anyone else had this problem?

Not to keep piling on, Jarret (if you include my report last night about KWWL flaking out and transmitting over 7-3, 4, 5), but the lip sync on CSI:Miami right now, OTA, at 12:21 AM, is HORRENDOUS. It's occasionally off a little bit, and usually not enough to bother mentioning, but this is something insanely bad.

I normally don't watch Miami, as I can't stand David Caruso, but I still had the TV on from the end of SNL, and wandered into the room and noticed the Lip-sync.

***Update:
Of course, as soon as I posted that, they went to commercial, and came back with things in sync...

As a person who works in an environment where chalking something up to "Murphy's law" isn't acceptable, I take offense.

In the IT world, just like television, cutbacks are extreme. Yet, data centers can maintain a 99.999% uptime. That's because there are systems DESIGNED to monitor this stuff. Servers have watchdog timers which can kick the system if they hang, networks have monitoring systems that can page someone out at a change of even a fraction of a percent of response time. Often times only one person is watching over hundreds or thousands of servers, and they may be literally halfway around the globe.

Imagine, if you will, a system that monitored the output of a station. It should be able to tell if it is HD or SD. It should be able to tell based on timing information if the audio is ahead or behind the video. It should be able to interface with the encoders to make necessary adjustments in real time. And, if the audio or video get off sync, it should be able to automatically page an on-call tech who lives close to the station who should be there in 15 minutes to debug the issue and get it fixed. I mean, that's how it works with IT...

The problem is, the local stations don't take this HD stuff seriously enough to invest the amount of money that is required to do it properly. They figure that as long as a signal is going out, we'll lap it up, be it SD or HD, without caring. And, for the most part, that's true. Go to a major market, like Chicago or NYC and watch the HD programming there. They don't have these issues. They don't have lip-sync issues, they don't have switcher issues, they don't have tape-delay requires SD issues. Why? Because they spend the money needed to do it right. Could the stations in our market do it right? Sure. Would that require cutting into their profits. Yes. And that's why we get the quality we do.



WOW, you take offense over a poster making a general comment that Murphy’s Law still exists at times and that there will always be some kind of inherent problems, even with the “savior” called automation at the helm instead of human personnel. But in turn you have no problem saying that local TV stations don’t take HD seriously and in general don’t care about putting out a quality product. Wow, in my opinion; how mistaken you are! Thinking that a larger station doesn’t have any of these technical issues is pretty incorrect. Automation and as much SNMP monitoring that you can get does of course have its place and can offer a number of positives, but it isn’t without its share of issues as well. Even with the best automation, the need for quality human interaction is key to its success and can’t be done properly without it. At least not until the robots take over the world.

The staff at local TV stations do actually care, more than you obviously realize, and that is why they work long hours, many times with no extra pay, spending their extra time at home trying to answer viewers questions or posting on forums to get information out to viewers and stay current. Putting in all this new technology in the middle of the night, being called in most weekends or working almost every holiday, just so we can put out a product that seems to draw a fair amount of criticism. We do love what we do and that is why we stay at it for many years, we are people who enjoy the technology and the products we work with everyday, even though they are not without their issues. We are also viewers and are actually more critical of ourselves and our products and are usually more frustrated by issues, than you are.

I do wish I lived in your world of what seems to be “IT perfection” but as of yet I have not been fortunate enough to see that world, most of the IT products we encounter are not without their share of issues. I hope one day I can look forward to the products being 100% stable but until then I guess we will just have to keep trying and doing the best we can with what we have.

Well I’m off to watch some more of that crappy local HD programming, but hey I do love The Unit on Sunday nights and wouldn’t miss it! LOL

Kirk

Wow Kirk, relax. I'm glad you're the only person in the entire world who has to work overtime on weekends or holidays. I _never_ have to come in and patch servers, perform maintenance, or any number of other things during off hours. In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic.

That's the job you have. If you don't like it, quit. I'm just saying that in many fields saying "crap happens, live with it" is unacceptable. How about if you're at the hospital and they're trying to pull up your records... what do you know, the database is down. But, crap happens. The tech decided to upgrade Oracle at 3:00pm on Monday rather than come in overnight to do the upgrade. And, they didn't bother with proper change management procedures...

Obviously you took offense at what I said. You think you're the only person who has to do a thankless job? You get to explain how to adjust an antenna to get your signal better. I spend hours explaining why someones copy of Windows 98 on their home machine is not going to be able to connect to our servers because it doesn't have the right encryption. You spend hours "watching TV" at home making sure the signal is OK. I get to sit in the office for hours running upgrade tests to make sure that when we do take a server down for an upgrade, we're not overlooking anything.

If your IT support team says that 99.999% isn't an option, then they should be fired. It's ALWAYS an option, and I don't care if we're talking analog TV, digital TV, radio, or servers. It's just a matter of how much money you're willing to spend.

Wow Kirk, relax. I'm glad you're the only person in the entire world who has to work overtime on weekends or holidays. I _never_ have to come in and patch servers, perform maintenance, or any number of other things during off hours. In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic.

That's the job you have. If you don't like it, quit. I'm just saying that in many fields saying "crap happens, live with it" is unacceptable. How about if you're at the hospital and they're trying to pull up your records... what do you know, the database is down. But, crap happens. The tech decided to upgrade Oracle at 3:00pm on Monday rather than come in overnight to do the upgrade. And, they didn't bother with proper change management procedures...

Obviously you took offense at what I said. You think you're the only person who has to do a thankless job? You get to explain how to adjust an antenna to get your signal better. I spend hours explaining why someones copy of Windows 98 on their home machine is not going to be able to connect to our servers because it doesn't have the right encryption. You spend hours "watching TV" at home making sure the signal is OK. I get to sit in the office for hours running upgrade tests to make sure that when we do take a server down for an upgrade, we're not overlooking anything.

If your IT support team says that 99.999% isn't an option, then they should be fired. It's ALWAYS an option, and I don't care if we're talking analog TV, digital TV, radio, or servers. It's just a matter of how much money you're willing to spend.


sgarringer,

Well the great thing about this country is that we are all entitled to our opinion. It’s great that you have yours and that you are passionate about it. All I can do is reinforce once again, that I’m sure the local engineers at all the stations in this area will continue to try and do the best job they possibly can, with the resources they have available to them. In the end sometimes that’s all you can do and what is truly important.

Keep watching and enjoy your HDTV!!

Kirk

sgarringer,

Well the great thing about this country is that we are all entitled to our opinion. It’s great that you have yours and that you are passionate about it. All I can do is reinforce once again, that I’m sure the local engineers at all the stations in this area will continue to try and do the best job they possibly can, with the resources they have available to them. In the end sometimes that’s all you can do and what is truly important.

Keep watching and enjoy your HDTV!!

Kirk

I'm not saying that the local engineers don't want to do (or aren't doing) the best job they can. I never, ever said that. I think they're doing a remarkable job, with what their given. That being said, to say that these glitches are unavoidable is not completely true. I say again, travel to any major market and you don't see the same issues. I'm sure those engineers are just as interested in providing the best for the public, but there they're actually given the money to do so. Will that equipment eventually be cheap enough it will be purchased and used here? Sure. But it _could_ be done today, if the stations were willing to lay out the cash.

I never said it would be economically wise, or even possible for them to get funding -- just that it is possible.

As for me, I don't really watch much local HDTV. I find it too painful to watch, instead spending time watching Dish Network and their many HD channels available. Those, also, don't seem to suffer the same issues as local HDTV does.

I, for one, wish that KGAN would do something to fix their 5.1 converter. The damn thing is set to send the entire 5.1 signal to all 5 channels. Which, I suppose, is better than when they leave it on "Stereo only" and send out audio without the dialogue from the center channel.

It's still pretty annoying to be listening to the dialogue, ambient, and other sounds coming out of all 5 channels at the same time. And it sounds even worse trying to listen to it on a stereo TV, as it ends up very tinny and over-processed sounding.

I, for one, wish that KGAN would do something to fix their 5.1 converter. The damn thing is set to send the entire 5.1 signal to all 5 channels. Which, I suppose, is better than when they leave it on "Stereo only" and send out audio without the dialogue from the center channel.

It's still pretty annoying to be listening to the dialogue, ambient, and other sounds coming out of all 5 channels at the same time. And it sounds even worse trying to listen to it on a stereo TV, as it ends up very tinny and over-processed sounding.
Something strange was definitely going on last night. Dialog seemed to be jumping between the surrounds and the front during Without a Trace. It was really weird and distracting.

NBC's/KWWL's biggest night of the year/decade coming up tomorrow night. 3 hours of ER (7-10pm) Season/Series ending.
The ratings will be interesting.

I, for one, wish that KGAN would do something to fix their 5.1 converter. The damn thing is set to send the entire 5.1 signal to all 5 channels. Which, I suppose, is better than when they leave it on "Stereo only" and send out audio without the dialogue from the center channel.

It's still pretty annoying to be listening to the dialogue, ambient, and other sounds coming out of all 5 channels at the same time. And it sounds even worse trying to listen to it on a stereo TV, as it ends up very tinny and over-processed sounding.

KGAN had one of the weirdest things I've ever seen going on this AM on the start of the Young and the Restless. My wife called me in after work to see it on the DVR.

It was almost like the SD and HD pictures were layered on top of each other. The picture in the normal SD area was dragging (not pixelizing) and smearing. There was also two faint lines where the SD picture width cut off with images in the 16:9 area slightly off from the SD images in the center.

It was corrected within a couple minutes but was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen.

NBC's/KWWL's biggest night of the year/decade coming up tomorrow night. 3 hours of ER (7-10pm) Season/Series ending.
The ratings will be interesting.

I think the Super Bowl a couple months back was quite a bit bigger... at least the advertising dollars reflect that!

I don't think it's simple.

Even a small news set is layed out for camera placement and overall space
available. How far apart the talent sits is different when you have widescreen.
Lets say Camera 1 is on anchor and a feature reporter sits down. They may
accidentally have their head pop in the shot if too close. So just changing
a lens out is not the solution. Chromakey screens (or the new plasma tv trend)
needs to be placed for a camera to move for the shot.

ENG/SNG: Well cameras, encoders, the cabling from vehicle to camera
(or wireless camera to truck) may need to upgraded for HD-SDI. The
IFB hardware may need to be replaced if the station was using a hidden
signal on their analog transmission.

Routers, Switchers and Editing/Storage: All need to be upgraded.
NLE software and computer equipment needs to be upgraded.
(I know of some churches that would love your old analog gear - hint hint)

Cameras are Best Buy priced? No, figure around $15,000 - $25,000 with
$12,000 - $18,000 for good prime lenses.

I think our stations are doing a great job managing their money.
(Other than a few friends that were let go at KCRG.)

For those who may not have heard, the FCC has launched a new website that allows you to enter your address, and it'll list the different digital channels available in your area, along with how strong their signals are in that location, and other useful information. It's sort of like a trimmed-down version of AntennaWeb, but a little more user-friendly in my opinion.

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/

KGAN had one of the weirdest things I've ever seen going on this AM on the start of the Young and the Restless. My wife called me in after work to see it on the DVR.

It was almost like the SD and HD pictures were layered on top of each other. The picture in the normal SD area was dragging (not pixelizing) and smearing. There was also two faint lines where the SD picture width cut off with images in the 16:9 area slightly off from the SD images in the center.

It was corrected within a couple minutes but was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen.

I saw that also here at the station. It was a problem with CBS. We were scratching our heads over that, then it fixed itself.

I think the Super Bowl a couple months back was quite a bit bigger... at least the advertising dollars reflect that!
"Last night’s ER averaged 16.2 million viewers and a 6.0 rating with adults 18-49 in the preliminary overnight numbers.
The ER retrospective between 8pm-9pm averaged 10.6 million viewers and a 3.5 rating with adults 18-49."

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/04/03/thursday-ratings-er-draws-163-million-viewers/15864

I saw that also here at the station. It was a problem with CBS. We were scratching our heads over that, then it fixed itself.

Glad to see it was a source problem and not some gremlin in your equipment.

I say again, travel to any major market and you don't see the same issues.

Hello sgarringer,

From market #3, Chicago, let me tell you this: you're wrong on this statement. Here's why.

Our local ABC affiliate, WLS, had a bad audio chain problem twice in a few weeks, causing out of sync or bad sounding audio. One station has problems which causes a stuttering video problem on certain TV's; they've been doing everything they can to fix it over the past few weeks. Last weekend, our FOX affiliate lost their lights during a newscast. Over the last several months, our NBC O&O's main router has died, which took the newscast off the air or forced them to do the news from the control room, sitting on stools, with paper printouts of the copy they are reading. And they just last year got a dish so that we could see some NBC programs in HD that are only sent via satellite. And on and on...

I'm *not* being critical of any of these stations, or the others that have had these issues. Digital broadcasting is a whole new animal. And unlike the massive networking centers, the local stations don't have the budget...not even close...to do what the cable networks can afford. Furthermore, most cable networks DO have major problems. A few years back, a lightning strike took out The Weather Channel for over 3 days; they just showed the local forecast over and over again until their fried computers and such got replaced. And unless you watch TV 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you'll surely miss meltdowns you've never seen.

I'm sure those engineers are just as interested in providing the best for the public, but there they're actually given the money to do so. Will that equipment eventually be cheap enough it will be purchased and used here? Sure. But it _could_ be done today, if the stations were willing to lay out the cash.

I never said it would be economically wise, or even possible for them to get funding -- just that it is possible.


And if you think very expensive data centers don't go down and have major problems resulting in less than 99.9999% downtime, head to http://isc.sans.org and see the current DNS problems which are knocking those 99.9999% reliable datacenters out today. Is it possible to be that reliable? Sure. Is it *reasonable*? In many cases, no, and it shouldn't be expected unless you pay massively for it, with redundant centers. Even in Chicago, they can't afford that. And even then, written guarantees do fail. That's why contracts are written with Service Levels of Agreement (SLA's), with refunds if they go down for X amount of time. Because they can, and they do go down.


As for me, I don't really watch much local HDTV. I find it too painful to watch, instead spending time watching Dish Network and their many HD channels available. Those, also, don't seem to suffer the same issues as local HDTV does.

Yep, many of their setups don't require live trucks, news gathering, different video and audio formats to convert from multiple sources, equipment, dishes, and microwave, RF and network connections; switchovers between network and a local station, and more, with much deeper pockets. And, I might add, they are broadcasting TWO TV stations at once. One analog, one digital, with the amount of staff needed for one. It makes a whole lot of difference. And I suspect some of the problems you see now will go away when analog broadcast TV does. Then, they can put all their eggs and budget in the digital basket, instead of having to support both.

And broadcasting with a transmitter is a whole other ballgame than beaming up to a bird. They both are broadcasters, but in different leagues of their own. And a networking data center, while complex, is much less so than a television station. It's more than just redundant blade servers, and backing up one genre of equipment with redundancy of power, A/C and servers. Broadcast stations equipment, wiring and setup are way more complicated than that, no matter how impressive a cable/sat network master control room and equipment looks like, especially as they run two different TV stations showing the same program. Oh, and with subchannels, they broadcast 3, or 4 stations...or more.
That's a lot to go wrong, and invariably, at times, it does.

This whole conversation got started after 2 occurrences of the NASCAR race not be in HD until mid way through the race, and an apparent easy fix after someone called into the newsroom making some wonder if anyone ws paying attention to what ws going out.

Obviously most of us don't know what goes on in the control room, but if it was just a matter of MC not paying attention, then shame shame. If indeed they were aware and it just took a while to remedy, then I can llive with that as I know there are still many bumps in the road ahead and technical difficulties are going to occur.

Most in the area are fully digital now, and IF the HD switcher is indeed down, why not put a crawl up saying HD techinal difficulties like we often see with network difficulties, or audio difficulties, etc... Then we at least know that they are aware of the problem and would not get the sense that they are not paying attention.

I'm going to let this topic drop, but not before I make one more comment.

Only one thing you mentioned is truly related to the digital migration. And you complained about it happening twice in a week. We have these issues daily. We have one station that can't seem to remember to pass the HD signal through, one that constantly screws up audio, and none that can manage to delay HD even by a second. I'd take two audio issues over those any day of the week.

And I just happen to work for a company with one of those data centers that maintains just that availability. Is it expensive? Sure. But that's what our SLA and customer contracts demands, that's what we give. Without going into too much detail, we even have entire data centers mirrored at other locations for disaster recovery scenario. Not even a nuclear strike would take our infrastructure offline. Do you really think KGAN is going to be broadcasting if 'broadcast park' were nuked? Probably not, but they could if they built an entire duplicate studio somewhere and staffed it...

And DNS issues are a little different than a server being down...

And I just happen to work for a company with one of those data centers that maintains just that availability. Is it expensive? Sure. But that's what our SLA and customer contracts demands, that's what we give. Without going into too much detail, we even have entire data centers mirrored at other locations for disaster recovery scenario. Not even a nuclear strike would take our infrastructure offline. Do you really think KGAN is going to be broadcasting if 'broadcast park' were nuked? Probably not, but they could if they built an entire duplicate studio somewhere and staffed it...

And DNS issues are a little different than a server being down...

Well, I can say with confidence that there is a whole lot more that goes into a broadcast television station than a data center. It doesn't excuse our shortcomings, but it should at least allow for some patience as we go through these technical overhauls. As Eric said earlier, we are all plagued by single points of failure in our plants that we would like to keep at a minimum. But with costs what they are for certain pieces of gear and the state of the broadcast economy, this is going to be a slow process.

Keep in mind that this is a FREE service to the public that is strictly funded via advertising... which is seriously lagging right now. Have you not noticed the layoffs, furloughs, and financial troubles of late of the broadcast entities around the country? Anything that gets purchased right now is a must have item... there are no luxury purchases available, and that includes a mirrored or duplicate studio. I'm sure your customers pay a premium for their redundancy. But I'm also sure that the cost of making us redundant (heck, just to get to a full digital plant) is a whole heck of a lot more than a mirrored data center!

And those DNS issues may be a different thing... but it is kind of like the KWWL issues on our satellite providers with lip sync. Our gear was fine today locally while DirecTV's gear once again was off. Not our fault, but in the viewers eyes it is. ;)
-Jarrett

Having worked in "the biz" previously, I'll sum it up like this:

I'll take the less than perfect (98.5%???) uptime of all the FREE
services of local broadcasters (AM, FM, TV, Web, etc.) over
paid services for a slight increase in uptime and not necessarily
quality.

A datacenter perpetually charges for it's services, so it is to be expected
to have almost 100% uptime.

Actually, are we talking about uptime here or quality of the service?
I don't think most TV stations or datacenters have much downtime,
do they? If you are focusing on glitches and goofups, I'm sure one
could find those in datacenters as well, but how can we tell since
what is hosted in a datacenter isn't necessarily public, is it?

And, adding fuel to the fire was this article in the Dubuque paper
I saw today:

http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=238674

I got the feeling the reporter really didn't understand the
logistics behind the question.

I keep seeing posts here about lip sync, but for some reason
I don't usually see problems on my antenna based DTV setup.

I think it would help the engineers here if people posting lip
sync issues would reference how they are viewing the channel, cable provider, DTV over the air, Dish, etc. If enough people did that,
a pattern might appear.

I haven't seen lip sync issues much with my simple setup, so I'm
wondering if it also might be something related to the end users
audio setup? I'm running an antenna into a CECB and then to a
stereo TV fed through the composite RCA jacks. Works great.

Keep in mind that this is a FREE service to the public that is strictly funded via advertising... which is seriously lagging right now.


Actually, I'm going to have to call you on this one. A good chunk of my Dish Network and Mediacom bills go to the local stations. They've "negotiated" huge fees for being carried on these services. (Which is significantly higher than most other cable networks).

I know that Echostar is lobbying congress to get the rights to carry nearby stations in markets where the local stations are attempting to extort huge amounts of cash for carrying their 'FREE' service, and I've personally written both senators to inform them that I 100% support this bill.

Actually, I'm going to have to call you on this one. A good chunk of my Dish Network and Mediacom bills go to the local stations. They've "negotiated" huge fees for being carried on these services. (Which is significantly higher than most other cable networks).

I know that Echostar is lobbying congress to get the rights to carry nearby stations in markets where the local stations are attempting to extort huge amounts of cash for carrying their 'FREE' service, and I've personally written both senators to inform them that I 100% support this bill.

Right you are... stations are just starting to do this more and more, but retransmission consents can be pretty complicated. I do know that it isn't a huge amount of the overall pie, but I stand corrected.

But this is still a FREE service in principal. You choose to subscribe and pay for the services or setup an antenna system. The cable and satellite outfits will charge you for those local stations regardless. We are just protecting our rights there and trying to get all that we can provided through them. When you are part of a group, such as KWWL, the negotiations spread over several stations. Our Eau Claire affiliate, WQOW, isn't on Dish or DirecTV yet... but that is decision of the satellite provider. Fees and must carry clauses all work into our arrangement to try to get them up on the bird finally.

Overall, we are trying to generate any revenue we can to offset the continual erosion of our audience to other sources as they become available. Like I said, things will come here, but it is not issue of stations just pocketing the profits and choosing to go the cheap route as you put it (what started this entire debate!).

KFXA 28 OTA has been gone for the last 30 minutes and counting... Since about 8:05 PM or so. Is it gone on cable and dish too?

Looks OK on Mediacom. Can't check Directtv right now tho....

28 OTA dead here too.

Working on Directv though.

Actually, I'm going to have to call you on this one. A good chunk of my Dish Network and Mediacom bills go to the local stations. They've "negotiated" huge fees for being carried on these services. (Which is significantly higher than most other cable networks).

I know that Echostar is lobbying congress to get the rights to carry nearby stations in markets where the local stations are attempting to extort huge amounts of cash for carrying their 'FREE' service, and I've personally written both senators to inform them that I 100% support this bill.

Does anyone know just how "huge" these "amounts of cash" are? What do you think Mediacom would lower your monthly rate to if the locals stopped charging for retransmission? I would guess it's a significant amount of money paid to them, but per subscriber, and when you figure out how much goes to ESPN, HBO, Comedy Central, etc., then the difference will be negligible per subscriber.

Again, for me it's still free. Mediacom and Dish Network get $0 from me, along with the local affiliates.:D

KFXA has no signal here over the air. Looks like a
transmitter problem maybe.

Ice & snow?

28 OTA dead here too.

Working on Directv though.