KGAN still has audio dropouts (during Grammy's) via Mediacom on channel 802 and also via Mediacom QAM.

Good up in CF - cfu QAM. don't want to check ota - since I'd be going from big system to little lcd - but if qam is ok, then CFU is getting it ota ok. (I would think)

KGAN still has audio dropouts (during Grammy's) via Mediacom on channel 802 and also via Mediacom QAM.

IMHO, it must be some sort of Mediacom issue -- the Grammys OTA were fantastic -- probably the best HD broadcast I've seen on KGAN.

A few dropouts on QAM and OTA tonight, until things went completely FUBAR during 2 1/2 Men. It was either HD picture and 2.0 audio, SD picture with Digital audio. Or both, with a FULL 1-2 second delay in the audio.

So, I REALLY hope something broke on its own tonight. I REALLY hope that this didn't happen because someone was trying to "tweak" something during PrimeTime programming...

What was the deal tonight?

Looks like KWWL got "tweaked/upgraded again yesterday (2/12 @3:30pm) :)
http://www.cfu.net/CyberNet/HD/index.php?station=kwwl

As for KGAN....I'm calling Mediacom. Not only are there audio dropouts, but some of them pixilated the video also last night.

Just talked with Mediacom. The dropouts on KGAN 802 and via Mediacom QAM in Iowa City are a known issue.....with no eta. "There working on it as we speak"....Yea-right....in a snowstorm. :eek:

How are some of you grounding your rooftop antennas. I had a retailer install one today and noticed there is not ground.

How has KWWL been for everone. I' getting a signal in the low 70's. I can't keep a good lock. Either I need a preamp or the antenna needs to be turned more to the east.

How are some of you grounding your rooftop antennas. I had a retailer install one today and noticed there is not ground.

You would need a 10ga wire from the mast/tripod to a 4' ground rod placed at least 4' out from the roof overhang (you want the rod in moist soil). you should also have a ground block on the cable just b4 it enters the home also.

Thanks.

The retailer that hooked up my dish and ota antenna didn't ground either one of them. No ground block for either and no ground wire for the ota antenna. What is being protected with these grounds.

Thanks.

The retailer that hooked up my dish and ota antenna didn't ground either one of them. No ground block for either and no ground wire for the ota antenna. What is being protected with these grounds.

Your house, the dish, and the antenna. And they're being protected from lightning strikes which would then a) destroy the equipment, b) destroy whatever they're connected to, and c) probably start your roof and/or attic on fire.

Who did the install? I want to make sure that I stay as far away from that company/installer as possible if I ever need anything hooked up.

Isn't a licensed installer supposed to ground things? Isn't there a building code about it or something?

Isn't a licensed installer supposed to ground things? Isn't there a building code about it or something?

National Electric Code requires grounding of TV antennas. I don't know of any jurisdictions that haven't adopted NEC as a local code, although sometimes they are a version or two behind, but the code for grounding antennas has been in there for a long time.

Just wanted to report that last night, in the 5 minutes before "Criminal Minds" started (at 8 PM Central), there was almost NO center-channel signal on my 5.1 system during the end of the previous show, and the commercials and previews that followed.

During Criminal Minds, OTA, there were intermittent dropouts in the audio. When this normally happens on QAM, there is also pixelization in the video, and I can see my Audio receiver drop out of 5.1 and back into 5.1. During the audio dropouts OTA, the video did not stutter, and my audio receiver did not hiccup at all.

I'm wondering if people had pixelization and audio dropouts on QAM at the same time as the audio droputs OTA. That would point to an issue at KGAN rather than Mediacom, IMHO.

Still curious as to what happened during the fiasco on Monday night...

I just got an hdtv with reciever so I can now get ota signals. I hooked up a small set of rabbit ears and got a few stations. Thinking of getting a roof antenna and wanted to know what networks and or stations can we get ota in CR?

PS I saw the fact but was not sure what networks were involved like wgn?

I just got an hdtv with reciever so I can now get ota signals. I hooked up a small set of rabbit ears and got a few stations. Thinking of getting a roof antenna and wanted to know what networks and or stations can we get ota in CR?

PS I saw the fact but was not sure what networks were involved like wgn?

www.antennaweb.org

That will show you what kind of antenna, etc. you need at your location, and where to point to get a signal.

If you can pull WGN OTA, then more power to ya. I think you would need some pretty favorable atmospheric conditions and a pretty tall and powerful antenna to get it, though, considering Chicago is ~250 miles away...

I was really hoping to get wgn but I can see the problem.
I guess what I need to find out is what are guys in cr using for an antenna and what are they getting. I was at rat shack today looking and they had the big fold out outdoor antenna and some smaller round types. I am going to put it in the atic so room is not a factor.

I recommend against the rat shack models.

Go Channel Master or Winegard.

I have the Winegard HD7080P with no preamp and I get all the majors at almost 90% and above out of Waterloo.

I wouldn't necessarily dismiss the Radio Shack antennas so out-of-hand.

I have the "B-2 Bomber"-looking model in my attic and got it on sale for 33% off MSRP last year. It's powered, with a remote power injector. I get 90% signal on all locals with the antenna in the attic of my single-story house, under 6 layers of shingles with 80+ year-old trees and a huge hill (the Daniels Park hill) within a block of my home between me and the broadcasts.

Using their cheapo U-75R (UHF Only, total after tax under $30), I get the same signal quality in the same location for half of what I paid for the B2 Bomber, without any amps.

You may not think that space is an issue, but if you go with a large yagi-style antenna (the fold-out style you mentioned), it will be very directional, and you'll likely need a rotor. Those antennas, at almost 8 feet, have a pretty big sweep radius.

If you have the time and patience and money (none of which were things I had the week before the SuperBowl), you can go with one of the CM panel-style antennas, which work rather well. They're a bit taller, which might be an issue in an attic, but they have a much smaller sweep radius on a rotor. You usually have to order them online, though.

If you're going to go the Radio Shack route, I recommend the Lindale Crossing store (by Bed, Bath, Beyond) first, and then the Westdale store. The Lindale Mall location is worthless, IMNSHO -- rude and less-than-knowledgeable employees every time I've tried to work with them.

Has anyone tried the Wineguard Squareshooter from MidState in Hiawatha? $80 but mounts like a dish and about the same size 16"x16". They have one on the floor (eye level) pointed straight West and get all the OTA channels.

You can search the forums for more info, but from what I hear the Squareshooter isn't that great. Of course ANY antenna will "get all the OTA channels" if they are located in a conveniant location to the antenna farms. I think MidState would fall under that category.

If you are located similarly in a good location, then I'm sure it would work just fine for you. I also would bet that rabbitt ears would do dang near just as good....

Has anyone tried the Wineguard Squareshooter from MidState in Hiawatha? $80 but mounts like a dish and about the same size 16"x16". They have one on the floor (eye level) pointed straight West and get all the OTA channels.

I have the Squareshooter and it works really well here in Fairfax (except my ongoing problems pulling in KWWL). I get all channels at 90+, but cannot reliably pull in KWWL. BUT... this has been the case with all antennas I've tried, not just the SS. Doesn't make much sense.

I can get KWWL digital on rabit ears in NW CR (not that far from you)

Time for my quarterly plug for the CM 4228 - after reading all, finally got one last summer. It is one of the bedspring looking, upright square ones. Danged directional, but worked for me in the house, in the bedroom, in a river valley, behind some trees, 40+ miles from the towers.

Finally got it outside, above house on a homeade mast, and it is spectacular. Someone in Quad Cities was selling them online for under 70 bucks - maybe under 60 - I forget. Great deal at that price. Outperforms my large old style antenna that is on a rotor, and 20' taller.

Has anyone tried the Wineguard Squareshooter

Works fine in Independence. I get all the locals and even get KWKB which is 60 miles away from me. I mounted mine on the SE side of my house about 5' above ground. I wasn't expecting much, but it seems to work very well.

I'm using the SS-1000 non-amplified version.

Just wanted to add another data point for comparison. I'm on the south side of Iowa City, near highway 1 and 27. Antennaweb says I'm between 45-55 miles from most of the transmitting towers to the north. This fall I was using an amplified indoor antenna split to my HDTV and Sony HDTV DVR without major issues other than some pixelation and/or dropouts when someone walked in front of the antenna..., but when the KWWL transmitter power dropped around the new year, I started looking for something a little better.

First I bought that RadioShack U-75 for about $25. I put it on a tripod indoors near a window to the north until something more permanent could be worked out. My reception was only slightly better than the $30 small powered indoor antennas I was using. Then I bought a Winegard 8275 pre-amp for the U-75 with 50 ft. cable run, split to two receivers at the end (older RG-59U, since I had it laying around). This gives me all the channels within 60 miles (an NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, WB, and two different PBS, and the ion thingy too), with between 70-94 signal strength.

But then I picked up a Channel Master 4221 for $36 shipped, the smaller 4-bay sibling of the 8-bay 4228, and that gives me a signal strength equal or greater to the U-75/8275 without even using the pre-amp! Next step is to try the 4221 with 8275 sending the signal to 4 different HDTV receivers around the house, and hopefully get rid of the bulky and somewhat ugly (for inside a house) U-75!

So, the moral of the story for me is: the 4221 is only $10 more, and loads better than the U-75 for fringe reception, at least in my case. I wish I would have been patient enough to just order the 4221 in the first place online, instead of going with the U-75 since it was available locally. Also, the 4221, at 40x20x4" in a vertical orientation, takes up way less space!

This probably goes to show just how much OTA TV I actually watch, but I was pulling KWWL just fine before Xmas. But I went to watch something on NBC the other weekend and I didn't have any luck. I am picking up CBS, etc. just fine.

Did they drop their signal strength, or did the wind move my antenna a little out of wack? With the snow, I can't exactly get up on the roof to try adjusting the direction it's pointing.

Outdoor mounted "old school" style antenna, on the SE side of town (East Post and Mt Vernon).

This probably goes to show just how much OTA TV I actually watch, but I was pulling KWWL just fine before Xmas. But I went to watch something on NBC the other weekend and I didn't have any luck. I am picking up CBS, etc. just fine.

Did they drop their signal strength, or did the wind move my antenna a little out of wack? With the snow, I can't exactly get up on the roof to try adjusting the direction it's pointing.

Outdoor mounted "old school" style antenna, on the SE side of town (East Post and Mt Vernon).

I beleive there have been comments indicating they were doing some work on their signal and had dropped power for a period of time (a few pages back in the thread).

My observation has been that I lost the ability to receive KWWL-DT most of the time via my DirecTV HD-Tivo sometime last fall. My DirecTV Samsung TS160 HD receiver in the basement continues to pull their signal in just fine all the time. So I don't think it's so much an antenna reception issue - I'm of the opinion that something is up with their PSIP data that makes KWWL's signal unwatchable on some recievers.

From your location in CR KGAN, KCRG, IPTV and KWWL are pretty much all in the same direction. KWWL's tower is just a few miles farther to the north. I'd do a visual check of your antenna (just to make sure the wind hasn't totally blown it the wrong direction, but I don't think trying to adjust your antenna is going to result in any improvement.

I have no audio on 2.1. Anyone else?

KWWL has also dropped 10-12% since yesterday.

I have no audio on 2.1. Anyone else?

I can confirm the same (as of 11:42a Monday). 2.2 seems to be fine. (Samsung OTA DTV receiver at work).

Just came back after a high pitched noise... They must be working on it.

Audio sync was off last Monday night during 2 1/2 men. Watched it on my Tivo this weekend and at one point they had local commercial audio running over network commericals (assuming while they worked to correct the issue).

Audio on 2.1 is back, but it's way out of sync.

What is the deal with KWWL now? I've neen getting is in the upper 80's since I adjusted my antenna last week. Now this morning it's been terrible again.

I beleive there have been comments indicating they were doing some work on their signal and had dropped power for a period of time (a few pages back in the thread).

My observation has been that I lost the ability to receive KWWL-DT most of the time via my DirecTV HD-Tivo sometime last fall. My DirecTV Samsung TS160 HD receiver in the basement continues to pull their signal in just fine all the time. So I don't think it's so much an antenna reception issue - I'm of the opinion that something is up with their PSIP data that makes KWWL's signal unwatchable on some recievers.

From your location in CR KGAN, KCRG, IPTV and KWWL are pretty much all in the same direction. KWWL's tower is just a few miles farther to the north. I'd do a visual check of your antenna (just to make sure the wind hasn't totally blown it the wrong direction, but I don't think trying to adjust your antenna is going to result in any improvement.
Maybe I was just unlucky and tried watching it a couple of times when they had the power dropped. I will try it again.

I didn't figure direction was the cause, since I thought the towers were in roughly the same direction and I am getting everything else fine.

I have an integrated tuner in my Samsung HC-R4755W.

Basically, I am trying to decide if I want to add PVR functionality to my HTPC. Not sure if QAM or OTA will be best for me (I would really like to cut my Mediacom bill down).

Well life is just wonderful.

The embedded audio equipment has arrived and in house at the KGAN-TV studios. KGAN is in process installing embedded audio to test this method to see it helps some receivers with lip sync and drop out issues.

We were in the process of looking at the configuration files on the hard drives of audio section our HD-switcher when the hard drive failed. We now need a new hard drive to return to what we had or push ahead as fast as we can to wire the station for embedded audio.

We hope to have the embedded method working before prime time tonight. Sorry about the inconvenience that may caused

Regards,

Randy Schildmeyer
CE KGAN-TV
600 Old Marion Rd. N.E.
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402

Ph (319) 395-9060 Ext 328

Last week Saturday, during "CrimeTime Saturday", I think during CSI, the audio converter went out. It went to the "high-pitched static on top of audio" problem. This wouldn't have ben a problem except for the fact that I could have driven to Broadcast park, rebooted the audio processor myself, and driven home in the amount of time it took me to get through on the phones to a live person. The newsroom didn't pick up the phone for over a half an hour of me ringing. And Randy wasn't at his desk (as well he shouldn't be on a Saturday night).

Is there any other way for viewers to report issues? The Newsroom method has always served me well in the past, since it usually ticks off the reporters enough that they actually get a hold of engineering right away if someone calls them, but if nobody answers, what is the consumer supposed to do?

Anyone know if Mediacom offers an HD/DVR receiver with HDMI output connection? I'm had my mediacom HD/DVR receiver with DVI outputs for a few years, and I bought a new TV recently that has HDMI inputs and would like to use those. Thanks!

Yup. 6412 & 6416 Phase III boxes are HDMI.

Thaks Duke. Few more questions. I'm checking my box and it says on a label underneath that it's a DCT6412/2000. How do I know if this is a phase II or phase III model? I have 2 IEEE 1394 ports on back which I believe are firewire ports and not HDMI right? Also, in the service menu, whats the 4:3 Override do? Thanks in advance for your help.

The Phase III boxes have "Phase III" on the front panel.

Those are firewire ports.

The 4:3 overide is to set how you want sd 4:3 to be output to your tv.

You can get the manual here under user guides at the bottom right of page... http://broadband.motorola.com/dvr/dct6412.asp It was too large to upload here.

The manual isn't update for phase III, but on page 10 of manual(17 of 44 on the pdf) it talks about the 4:3 overide

One other note about the Phase III - SD channels look noticably better on them.

Sounds good. I think I'll take my Phase II box and trade it in for a Phase III box with HDMI tomorrow.

I turned the channel from KWWL to KGAN and about had a heart attack. The audio is through the roof. I had my volume on a normal level and had to cut it in half for KGAN.

I"m having the same thing happen with mediacom ch.2 HD. Looks like audio is normal on their SD ch.2

I turned the channel from KWWL to KGAN and about had a heart attack. The audio is through the roof. I had my volume on a normal level and had to cut it in half for KGAN.Same problem here in Iowa City via mediacom box or qam tuner. The real problem seems like the 5.1 on ncis and the unit are WAY louder than all the other hd channels. :eek: Also the center speaker audio didn't sound just quite right. Maybe it's because the volume is cranked up too high at KGAN. It's not near as bad with the tv's 2.0 stero speakers, but still loud. As for lipsinc, it looked real good tonight, and I only saw a couple split second video dropouts, and maybe 1 audio dropout. :)

I turned the channel from KWWL to KGAN and about had a heart attack. The audio is through the roof. I had my volume on a normal level and had to cut it in half for KGAN.
Same here - I had recorded the unit tonight and the volume was way loud and slightly distorted like the source material was being played too loud. About 10 minutes into the recording, it got all choppy on me both video and audio. Reminded me of the days before the locals went to full power on their signals. Anybody else have the same problem?

The Unit definately had OTA audio issues last night.

In regards to my previous posts, I am still not pulling in KWWL HD. I get the analog station perfectly and all other HD channels.

I did move the antenna a bit to insure that CBS was comming in perfectly for the super bowl. Only other thing I can think of is that I added a splitter to my cable feed when I moved TVs around, doesn't seem likely. The fact that I don't watch a lot of live TV really makes it hard to troubleshoot when the issue started.

Will we always be forced to watch such poor Analog TV on our HD sets? The analog channels are so grainy? The local station programing like the news and look like streaming video on my PC. Will they be able to increase the picture content to at least look like my CRT set. Do any HD sets display the analog channels with any quality? Is there just not enough picture content for the large screens? Seems like a waste of money when 75% of what's on TV looks worse than a $100 CRT set from Walmart.

Will we always be forced to watch such poor Analog TV on our HD sets? The analog channels are so grainy? The local station programing like the news and look like streaming video on my PC. Will they be able to increase the picture content to at least look like my CRT set. Do any HD sets display the analog channels with any quality? Is there just not enough picture content for the large screens? Seems like a waste of money when 75% of what's on TV looks worse than a $100 CRT set from Walmart.

All depends on your TV and how well it's calibrated.

I have both a Sony XBR960 and a Samsung 3082, and both of them look just fine on analog cable. Analog OTA is another matter entirely, and I avoid it at all costs, because it's bad to begin with.

What channels specifically are you having problems with? OTA, Cable, or Satellite? I watch KCRG news, According to Jim, Scrubs, and Becker on my Samsung every night, on 9-1, cable analog 9, and cable WGN, and never see any "streaming video" type of quality on them.

If your TV has a lot of overscan issues, has very few scan lines, or a poor upscaler, then it will certainly bring out the flaws in analog TV. Garbage in, worse garbage out.

But a blanket "this looks like garbage" statement is pretty pointless without specific examples.

I didn't get a chance to watch 2.1 last night, but I wouldn't be surprised if the new equipment that Randy installed was to blame for the "WAY TOO LOUD" problems... Since it's an embedded audio processor instead of external, they might have had the gain turned up too far. Hopefully Randy's still checking the boards, as it's fairly clear that their techs really don't seem to pay much attention to the programming quality when they're at home. If they did, it wouldn't have taken 45 minutes to fix an audio problem Saturday night, and you wouldn't have had volume issues all night last night, either.

Will we always be forced to watch such poor Analog TV on our HD sets? The analog channels are so grainy? The local station programing like the news and look like streaming video on my PC. Will they be able to increase the picture content to at least look like my CRT set.

Wouldn't count on it - sd often looks like crap on a plasma or lcd panel; it can be good, but a lot depends on how much money you throw at the set, and, as above, how good the set's internal processor is.

If your HD set is a crt, analog/sd signals should look as good as you are used to on an old school tv. Panels are different. Projection LCDs and DLPs are different. Many people resort to buying external video processors to make the signal look good on their lcd or dlp units, not to mention plasmas. In order to meet a price point, corners are cut - unfortuneatly, this is often done in the tuner and/or processor section.

Example - my el cheapo Insignia HD CRT looks fine for SD, excellent for HD. What corner did they cut? - No internal HD tuner, the world's worst ota NSTC tuner, and horrid scaling of 720p source material. I solved all of that by feeding it with an LG tuner at 1080i. In those circumstances, it looks surprisingly stunning. (Also had to go into factory tech menu and do some serious adjusting. ;) ) My Vizio lcd? - lots of features, most work, but its QAM tuner won't pickup Fox HD, and reliability is unbelievable bad - I'm on my 3rd set in 4 months. Can't wait for the warranty to expire. :eek:

KGAN Audio: Got an email from Randy saying "We are working on this.
Last night we lowered the audio 6 vu units coming from the network's digital path."
I'll guess it will be fixed b4 this weekend. Will have to see what's like tonight.

KGAN Audio: Got an email from Randy saying "We are working on this.
Last night we lowered the audio 6 vu units

I was flipping between Leno and Letterman last night and the audio levels were much better than Tuesday, but still maybe a little louder on KGAN. Overall, not bad now. Thanks Randy.

No that I like bugs.... But I'm sure glad to see KFXA got their own bug displayed now instead of the big blue "FOX"!

No that I like bugs.... But I'm sure glad to see KFXA got their own bug displayed now instead of the big blue "FOX"! Speaking of the big blue "FOX", on several Fox programs in the past all I could see was the upper 2/3's of the "F"and "O" and I think a small corner of the "X" Was this normal, or is my tv out of adjustment?

Most sets are cropped somewhat to ensure no overscan. How much depends on the set. Some allow you to adjust this some, and others do not without getting into the service menu.

When I view recorded HD material from my Fusion or MyHD card on the PC, you see the full display with the entire FOX, but like you some gets cropped on the TV.

I always thought that the cropping of the FOX logo was a problem with FOX, not with overscan... Hrm... Because that also means that my overscan on Fox in 720p is a LOT worse than the overscan on 1080i sources. Which is possible, I suppose, because there are different settings in the service menu for both, but still...

Every so often, I put my TV on "Twin View" or "Freeze", to see just how bad the overscan is. It doesn't appear to be THAT bad, though, that it would create those issues with the FOX network logo.

I really need to work on my overscan, in either case.

OK, you've got me sufficiently curious to double check. I'm running a crt pj, with a vp. I can do anything I want with over and underscan; that said, I don't think getting the entire fox logo onscreen is an option. right now I have my blanking just to the edge of cutting off the extraneous crap. If I go any farther out, I start getting wierd things that only techs can know, understand, and love. :) But just in case I'm confused (again) - I'll go to fox and check it out.

-now that football is gone from Fox, I truyly don't think I've watched FoxHD in a month, so I'll check before confirming all.

IPTV guys - Soundstage still remains great. Just wish you had the funds to get 5.1 working. Can we earmark our annual donations to that purpose? ;)

OK, you've got me sufficiently curious to double check. I'm running a crt pj, with a vp. I can do anything I want with over and underscan; that said, I don't think getting the entire fox logo onscreen is an option. right now I have my blanking just to the edge of cutting off the extraneous crap. If I go any farther out, I start getting wierd things that only techs can know, understand, and love. :) But just in case I'm confused (again) - I'll go to fox and check it out.
Well like I said, KFXA now has their own bug so the big blue FOX is gone. I think I have some older FOX recordings on the hard drive though. I will post a screenshot later after work that shows the FULL FOX for those that don't believe....

I would tend to think it's more of a issue with KFXA's process of retransmitting the network feed.

I should have also stated that espn, abc, cbs, nbc's HD feeds all look OK with their "bug/s" and espn's narrow scroll on the bottom of their HD is all viewable.

wasn't trying to pick a fight, hdtv - I just didn't think they had broadcast with that much overscan. And I really don't recall being able to squish it all on. But if that is the case, I'll have to program a separate memory block, just for Fox. As soon as they have something on that I care enough to watch in HD> :D

( I only chimed in, cuz with my rig I can easily tweak any display properties, much as you can with your HD card.) Sounds like I'll have plenty of time at home this weekend - if I can pickup Fox thru the weather, I'll see what happens. :D

I would tend to think it's more of a issue with KFXA's process of retransmitting the network feed.How could that be if I recorded it from kFXA?


I should have also stated that espn, abc, cbs, nbc's HD feeds all look OK with their "bug/s" and espn's narrow scroll on the bottom of their HD is all viewable.Because they set them to be viewable in the "safe areas". I do NOT believe that the big blue "FOX" is intended for the viewing public and is supposed to be replaced by the locals own bug. Dell stated long ago to me that it wasn't one of their priorities, so the default FOX shows up. When I post the screencap you will see that it fits perfectly in the bottom right corner starting where the 4:3 signals ends out to the edge of a full 16:9 display (assuming no cropping).

FULL Big Blue FOX Logo!

FULL Big Blue FOX Logo!
Mine would look like this.

Does anyone else have problems with KWWL OTA. I had been getting upper 80's now it's in the mid to lower 70's and won't stay locked. A signal in the 70's should be plenty stong to hold lock on it.

I think the ice took most of them out - I no longer have 7 or 28. But, IPTV is still on. :D As is KGAN - whoda thought. wtg, guys.

Uh - duh, just found Joe's graphs. Guess we haven't had Fox all morning. fwiw, our power went out this morning. Don't know about you guys, but I'm sure spoiled. Thought I was gonna freak out. Thanks, CFU, for rapid restoration. REALLY hoping it doesn't go again.

Add my mast to the collection! :(

KRIN just went AWOL in Cedar Falls along with KGAN. Either the ice got them - or it got us.

802,807,809,811 are all out in Iowa City via mediacom. I'm guessing fiber from the CR to IC headend. Analog 7 is out also.

KRIN just went AWOL in Cedar Falls along with KGAN. Either the ice got them - or it got us.

KRIN analog and digital, KCRG digital, KGAN digital, all off air due to loss of power at the Walker tower. None of those have generator power. It would take a small power plant to run them, KRIN analog alone needs about 350kW of juice.

I believe KFXA is running on generator. KWWL must be running on generator as most of REC land was dark.

KRIN analog will not return to air until the storm is out of the area and the roads get better, assuming the power is even restored by then. It will require a site visit and a few hours of prep to get it back online. Since it is water cooled, with no power at the site the water system had to be drained to prevent freezing. The digital can be restarted by remote control once the power comes back on.

Thanks for update. Good luck - didn't think of the coolant freezing. Was going to make a smart remark about how they wouldn't need the cooling....

Does the system work with anti-freeze mixed in? Only asking, might help in the future. We have done that in our heating system, just in case we lose power and no one can get out to drain. Good luck.

btw - thanks to KWWL for staying on air, plus the hourly updates. The only inconguity is when they tell people without power where the shelters are. -We were without for a while this morn, had my trusty battery operated radio. OT, but has anyone tried to get actual information off a radio in the last year or two? Even our local "talk" station only had NASCAR on; I finally called, they informed me that they didn't know anything, and couldn't get the utilities to give them any info to pass on. Nice to know that everything is either automated or syndicated. So again, thanks to the KWWL gang for filling a void. Now if I only had a battery operated tv.

Does the system work with anti-freeze mixed in? Only asking, might help in the future..
No. The klystron type transmitters are actually steam cooled, so they rely on boiling the water off. The water has to be very pure as well, if it has anything mixed in it becomes too conductive. The transmitters normally use distilled water or something close to that in purity, such as de-ionized water.

The newer IOT type transmitters do use a glycol cooling system. The KRIN digital transmitter is air cooled.

I just wanted to chime in, since about 8pm last night almost all of McLeod has been dark. Still getting 2 (KGAN), 8 (KFXA), 9 (KGAN) the TV Guide channel (short of video content) and Bloomberg... I can't get any digital OTA right now (basement apartment, the snow has blown up against the window with my HD antenna and is almost higher than the antenna, not a surprise), so let me tell you, the DVD player has gotten a workout :)

On an unrelated subject, iWireless has been flaky during this whole thing too. Sometimes the phone loses signal, sometimes it reports network busy... Verizon (1xRTT at least) and Nextel seem to be running as normal though.

I wonder what the odds of KFXA-DT being back online before the 2pm race. The CFU charts show all of the digital OTA's offline.


http://www.cfu.net/CyberNet/HD/index.php

we get KWWL via fiber - so that is still on the air on CFU, but the rest are AWOL.

I wouldn't expect them getting electrical service to the towers anytime soon.

we get KWWL via fiber - so that is still on the air on CFU, but the rest are AWOL.

I wouldn't expect them getting electrical service to the towers anytime soon.

Guess it's time to fire up the QAM rig. Thanks Joe. Also, thanks again to you and CFU crews for excellent service on a horrible day. :D

No. The klystron type transmitters are actually steam cooled, so they rely on boiling the water off. The water has to be very pure as well, if it has anything mixed in it becomes too conductive. The transmitters normally use distilled water or something close to that in purity, such as de-ionized water.


Ok - I'll blame my previous comment on it being a long day. Really should have know n that it wouldn't be that easy, or you would have already done it. :o

Anyone know where Fox is at on qam through Mediacom in Waterloo?

Is KRIN back on, or just the carrier? Joe's graph shows them, but I'm still getting noting ota. KCRG and KGAN are back, so I reckon power is there. Not really worried - just want them back by Thursday night.

Heads up to all - Mark Knopfler on Soundstage. 9:00 pm. May have to buy a DVR before then. :D

KGAN-DT, KCRG-DT, and KFXA-DT have been on and off all day via Mediacom in Waterloo. KDIN-DT is still dead.

KGAN-DT, KCRG-DT, and KFXA-DT have been on and off all day via Mediacom in Waterloo. KDIN-DT is still dead.

KDIN-DT is dead in the water due to a microwave issue. Awaiting a replacement unit. KTIN-DT(LP) receives it's signal OTA from KDIN.

KRIN-DT was back in service at 17:30, KYIN-DT(LP) gets it feed OTA from KRIN, so it is back on.

KRIN analog was back in service at 18:15

Power.... sweet power!!!! Sorry, I'm just so excited to have TV back. Oh, and heat. :D

Congrats, uhf. Good work. (so what were we seeing earlier? Just the carrier without a feed?) I know it makes no difference - I'm just nosily curious. Since I know nothing useful, it is nice to know little tidbits. Thanks again.

kandera - dang right. Not to mention heat, stereo, lights, and water. :D (I really missed the water, and the heat. In the country, with a well, water goes shortly after the power.)

so what were we seeing earlier? Just the carrier without a feed?

Pretty much. The DT transmitter came back on by itself, but the MPEG switcher had a brain fart and was not sending any data through. Since it was sending nothing, master control didn't see a return signal on their monitor so didn't notice that the power had come back on.

Looks like KFXA-DT is coming back online. Hopefully it's running smooth before 24 tonight.

You people are kidding, right? Over half the state is under a declared State of Emergency, power crews are in from neighboring states, over a hundred thousand of your neighbors are still without power until later this week, and you're worried that you might miss a television show or two in High Def? I'm thankful that my TV even turns on right now, when I know plenty of people who have lost food and are staying in hotels and on cots in gymnasiums because they haven't had heat for the last 2 days.

Unbelieveable...

Kidding about what?

Nobody is making a big deal out of it.

Kidding about what?

Nobody is making a big deal out of it.

Exactly... Just because there are some people without power means we should stop talking about the state of HD programming in our area? That is what this thread is about, after all. I looked at most of the posts in the past couple of days and they are all posts about what they are seeing in terms of service. I didn't see any posts about people complaining that channels weren't on yet or questioning the competency of station employees.

cr_client - don't think so. afaik, we're just discussing what we can discuss. Its a lot easier to say, "Such and such a station is back ota." No, don't think anyone here is saying that is our only goal. But at least here, we are getting information. Better than Alliant and MidBuffet just throwing out numbers, and telling us they don't even know what's broken, so they have no idea when it'll be fixed.

I'm thankful I have power so I can get water to drink, wash, and flush. I'm thankful for heat. Have said so earlier. Can't we still be interested in what we can see? I can go back, but I don't recall you lamenting the fate of all the folks in Missouri last fall/early winter, when they were going thru the same thing.

For me, its just a way of focusing on something else. Yes, the ice storm sucked big time. Wish I had a concession on generators, so I could sell a truckload at 6 bills a pop, like they did at Home Depot. What topic do you want to hit?

It's one thing to talk about which stations are on or off the air. It's another to say "what's up with KWWL's signal? It's down low again" or "I hope I can watch NASCAR in HD this weekend" or "I hope they get things running smoothly in time for me to watch 24" in the middle of and immediately following a major ice and snow storm that crippled half the state.

Missouri has nothing to do with this, given that I don't live in Missouri, and from what I recall, NOBODY talked about them in this thread when that happened.

I hope you didn't mean to imply that you think Alliant and MidAm are stonewalling by claiming that they don't know what's broken. The fact that ANYone has power right now means that they have at least a little bit of a clue. It takes more than 5 minutes to install a new line pole in frozen ground, let alone try to raise 20 miles of new metal high-tension towers, which are usually shipped in and installed by helicopters.

Maybe I'm still on edge over having to deal with the weather all weekend, and took the many things I posted above from tsduke the wrong way (he's the only one that said anything close to what I put above). But it seems pretty petty to complain about signal strength or to publicly post that you hope you can watch a particular show in High Def, considering what a lot of other people went through over the weekend, and are still going through now.

It's one thing to talk about which stations are on or off the air. It's another to say "what's up with KWWL's signal? It's down low again" or "I hope I can watch NASCAR in HD this weekend" or "I hope they get things running smoothly in time for me to watch 24" in the middle of and immediately following a major ice and snow storm that crippled half the state.

Missouri has nothing to do with this, given that I don't live in Missouri, and from what I recall, NOBODY talked about them in this thread when that happened.

I hope you didn't mean to imply that you think Alliant and MidAm are stonewalling by claiming that they don't know what's broken. The fact that ANYone has power right now means that they have at least a little bit of a clue. It takes more than 5 minutes to install a new line pole in frozen ground, let alone try to raise 20 miles of new metal high-tension towers, which are usually shipped in and installed by helicopters.

Maybe I'm still on edge over having to deal with the weather all weekend, and took the many things I posted above from tsduke the wrong way (he's the only one that said anything close to what I put above). But it seems pretty petty to complain about signal strength or to publicly post that you hope you can watch a particular show in High Def, considering what a lot of other people went through over the weekend, and are still going through now.

Maybe I missed something, but I thought that's what this forum was for. I didn't have a whole lot of anything else I could over the weekend as the freezing rain fell. I never onced complained about not having this or that. I only questioned and stated that I hoped. Should I stop wanting to do the things I enjoy because there are people without power? If I was bitching about the stations response or inability to bring the towers back online then you might have something, but I wasn't.

You seem to have plenty of time to waste bitchin about my posts while poeple suffer without power.

By the way, if you are going to quote me, please don't change what I said.

Well, this is the hd forum. If there is such, I'm sure folks would post in a forum about where is power, who has it, who doesn't. No, I am not, and will not, say anything bad about the line crews - I know too many guys working at MidAm. They are just as dedicated and professional as those I know over at CFU. I don't want their job.

I'm much more ticked about the state of radio - point me to the correct forum, and I'll gladly bitch until I get carpal tunnel. My power went out. I had done the right things - had my battery operated radio, fresh batteries, etc. Do you think I could find a single station that had any usable information? (admittedly, situation wasn't helped by the fact that several of the better stations were also dead, off the air.)

KWWL-TV was doing an excellent job getting information out - to the extent of stepping on the golf broadcast to do it. Again, good job. But a shame that I had to have electricity to watch KWWL in the first place. But I have learned - tonight I'll have a battery operated tv set. I don't like being in the dark, and I hate being in the dark about being in the dark.

But I have learned - tonight I'll have a battery operated tv set.

Good idea. I have several battery operated TV's. Fortunately, I haven't had much need to use them. We rarely have a power outage in Independence, and we seemed to dodge a bullet this past weekend. But if it goes out, I'm mostly ready. Today I've started researching small generators. I think I'll have one in time for next years winter storm season. (For now I'll let the folks that really need one buy them.) Seems like it would be worth having a generator on hand that can at least run the furnace and keep a TV and a light going.

[I'm much more ticked about the state of radio - point me to the correct forum, and I'll gladly bitch until I get carpal tunnel. My power went out. I had done the right things - had my battery operated radio, fresh batteries, etc. Do you think I could find a single station that had any usable information? (admittedly, situation wasn't helped by the fact that several of the better stations were also dead, off the air.)


Amen, brother. if there is a forum out there on the sad state of radio, let me know where it is.

Something came to mind after I posted... If right now was 2009, a battery operated TV would have been useless. There wasn't a single DTV station on the air, and there are no battery operated DTV sets on the market.

Once the transition is over I'm sure more DT stations will have generators as they go back to their old VHF transmitters for digital service.

we get KWWL via fiber - so that is still on the air on CFU, but the rest are AWOL.

I wouldn't expect them getting electrical service to the towers anytime soon.

Folks, we are having commercial power problemw at the Rowley transmitter site (one phase is low) so the digital transmitter does not like coming on under those conditions. Hopefully East Central Iowa REC , who have been pretty busy the past couple of days, will get the problem fixed soon. Our analog transmitter is still on the air but is running on our stand-by generator because of the same phase problem. The generator only runs the analog transmitters. Hopefully we will be back up soon.

Dick Owens

Something came to mind after I posted... If right now was 2009, a battery operated TV would have been useless. There wasn't a single DTV station on the air, and there are no battery operated DTV sets on the market.

Once the transition is over I'm sure more DT stations will have generators as they go back to their old VHF transmitters for digital service.

If everything would go just the way it is supposed to(tm)...

Then analog would be dead, and the engineers would have hurriedly switched the generators to feed their DTV transmitters. I hope. :)

As for the state of radio, head to radio-info.com or radioinsight.com and scream away.

And here's a thought: get a UPS to power your DTV tuner, and send the output to the battery operated TV. It should work for quite some time.

Good idea. I have several battery operated TV's. Fortunately, I haven't had much need to use them. We rarely have a power outage in Independence, and we seemed to dodge a bullet this past weekend. But if it goes out, I'm mostly ready. Today I've started researching small generators. I think I'll have one in time for next years winter storm season. (For now I'll let the folks that really need one buy them.) Seems like it would be worth having a generator on hand that can at least run the furnace and keep a TV and a light going.


UHF, I you looking for a good generators, go to Home Depot or Lowe's they have a nice home standby generator by Generac. It may look very costly but they are not if you really sit down and look at it. It comes with auto transfer panel. It can run on Natural Gas, LP gas or gasoline. They got a nice worksheet that you wrtie down what you want to power when local power is down. You would want the furance to run of course but add like sump pump, well if out in country, A/C and fridge and of course the TV (as long the OTA TV station is not down but if have Sat that would be great too). some light though out the house. You wouldn't need the wash n dryer runing so you would not need to add that to generator load. If hook up to Natural gas you would not have to worry about fuel refill and it will run as long you have gas. They had a show on the "ASK this Old House" last week. go the website and click on the story. It really cheap for what you getting for that price. You would not have to get up in the middle of night to fire it up it auto start and auto transfer and vice versa. Auto runs once a week for self test. My dad was glad he got it so he would not have to go to the basement and haul water outside from the sump Yep even in the cold snap the water still come in the sump hole. Check it out.


Willie

Want to say thanks to our neighbors. I made a trip to IC today and along the way passed NUMEROUS utility trucks Northbound on 380. I did notice one was from Mexico, Mo. Also saw about 4 semis at the rest area loaded with utility poles.

I guess I was lucky enough to only go 23 hours without power, but it made me feel good to see all the help on the way.

And here's a thought: get a UPS to power your DTV tuner, and send the output to the battery operated TV. It should work for quite some time.


Gilbert, That is good thought on using the UPS and other good thought is getting a power inverter and just buy some good deep cycle marine battery and hook the two togeter to get longer running time. but gotta remember to hook it up to the battery charger when power comes back on. I use Vector 400 amps from Farm & Fleet cheap I think it was on sale $19.95 and brought a 13" NTSC Sayno from the Wally Store for $59.00 and put in my sleeper in the big truck. Cheaper than those 12vdc TV set. But I would go with a generator so you can get heat in the winter or A/C in summer time. I am sure by late 2008 they will be a small battery operated TV out in the market.


Willie

Something came to mind after I posted... If right now was 2009, a battery operated TV would have been useless. There wasn't a single DTV station on the air, and there are no battery operated DTV sets on the market.

Once the transition is over I'm sure more DT stations will have generators as they go back to their old VHF transmitters for digital service.

I thought of that this weekend, as I was gleaning info from tv broadcasts. But figured I'd wait til things settled down before starting a new crusade. ;)
Dick - or Randy - can we count on the DTV rigs working thru a storm, once they take away your analog freqs? Scary to think the answer would be no...

I thought of that this weekend, as I was gleaning info from tv broadcasts. But figured I'd wait til things settled down before starting a new crusade. ;)
Dick - or Randy - can we count on the DTV rigs working thru a storm, once they take away your analog freqs? Scary to think the answer would be no...

KWWL is going back to Ch7. VHF uses a lot less electricity than the UHF transmitters do, plus DT on VHF requires very little transmitter power. So I'm sure they will have DT on the generator. Same for KCRG. KGAN is staying on UHF so not sure what they will do. The current generator at that site can't handle that much load, and it's on it's last leg anyway. Sounds like there is a plan to replace the generator at some point before it conks out entirely. At this point is still sorta works, some of the time.

There is no point investing in the huge amount of money it takes to run the DT's on generators when they are in many cases temporary transmitters.

There is no point investing in the huge amount of money it takes to run the DT's on generators when they are in many cases temporary transmitters.

Fair enough. And works just fine for me that way - by all means, please save whatever money is required, so that when we do need the DTs to be running, they will be. :) Keep forgetting that they are temporary - but as such, you are completely correct - they are just a luxury (or teaser - whatever) until DT becomes permanent. If they will work when needed, great. I can go back to worrying about more important things. ;)

btw - heard on the news about the lineman. Now that really sucks. Sorry for him, sorry for his family. No one should have to die, just to do his job. You are correct cr_client - there are more important things in the world.

The people who are actually willing to sign up for a job like that, my hat's off to them.

It's thanks to them that we're getting our lights back.

Hey gang,

I'll bring this on-topic in a moment. First, by trade, I'm a professional meteorologist at Northern Illinois University. You guys are going to get slammed
(Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Omaha) by this next system. As a result,
the Iowa Department of Homeland Security just activated every NOAA All-Hazards
weather radio in the state of Iowa with the SAME technology or legacy 1060 hz tone with this announcement:

WOUS43 KDMX 272002
CDWIA
IAC000-282015-

URGENT - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
CIVIL DANGER WARNING
RELAYED BY NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DES MOINES IA
202 PM CST TUE FEB 27 2007

THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE IS TRANSMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE OFFICE
OF THE GOVERNOR AND IOWA HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT.

AS A RESULT OF THE RECENT SEVERE WINTER STORM...60 COUNTIES HAVE
BEEN DECLARED DISASTER AREAS. AN ESTIMATED ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND
IOWA HOMES REMAIN WITHOUT POWER. WE STRONGLY URGE ANYONE WITHOUT
POWER TO SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. DIAL 9 1 1 TO FIND THE SHELTER
NEAREST YOU.

TWO MORE ROUNDS OF SEVERE WINTER STORMS WILL HIT PARTS OF IOWA STARTING EARLY WEDNESDAY CONTINUING THROUGH FRIDAY.
AS A RESULT...IT MAY BE DAYS OR WEEKS BEFORE ALL POWER IS
RESTORED. IF YOU ARE STILL WITHOUT POWER...WE STRONGLY URGE YOU TO
SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. AGAIN...DIAL 9 1 1 TO GET SHELTER AND
TRANSPORTATION ASSISTANCE.

$$

BF

----

Now, to bring this on-topic...a few have thought about generators to power DTV tuners, or a big UPS, so that they can port that to battery-operated TV's. My advice, folks: BUY IT NOW. Wednesday 2/28/07 late afternoon will be too late.
This is going to be as intense a storm as the last one. You are under a flood watch now.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dvn/

Can handle the snow... Don't need more ice. While not a meteorologist, I am a wx buff and deal closely with it at work. Latest AFDs make it sound as if a little ice, lots of rain, then some snow. I can handle that.....

Now, to bring this on-topic...a few have thought about generators to power DTV tuners, or a big UPS, so that they can port that to battery-operated TV's. My advice, folks: BUY IT NOW. Wednesday 2/28/07 late afternoon will be too late.
This is going to be as intense a storm as the last one. You are under a flood watch now.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dvn/

Gilbert - I sure hope you're wrong - the local "experts" are all saying we'll get something, but not as much. Great - last thing we need is a repeat of last weekend.

But, thanks much for the headsup. That's what these forums are for. ta.

OT, where's Craig Johnson, when you need him? ;)

I'm much more ticked about the state of radio - point me to the correct forum, and I'll gladly bitch until I get carpal tunnel. My power went out. I had done the right things - had my battery operated radio, fresh batteries, etc. Do you think I could find a single station that had any usable information? (admittedly, situation wasn't helped by the fact that several of the better stations were also dead, off the air.)

I'm with you on that one. WMT AM had pretty solid coverage up until around 9pm... then it was nearly impossible for us to find decent updates on the situation. It's a good lesson for generators and battery powered TVs, etc. Of course, about the time you equip yourself with that you'll never use it. So goes life, I guess.

It's a good lesson for generators and battery powered TVs, etc. Of course, about the time you equip yourself with that you'll never use it. So goes life, I guess.

That's ok - the big Honda generator my folks got for Y2K still fired up Saturday - just had to wait a bit longer than they had figured to use it. :p But that's sort of like good disability insurance - nice to have, but you never want to use it.

That's ok - the big Honda generator my folks got for Y2K still fired up Saturday - just had to wait a bit longer than they had figured to use it. :p But that's sort of like good disability insurance - nice to have, but you never want to use it.

Ah, yes. Y2K... If all goes well, maybe they'll have the opportunity to use it for the new Daylight Savings Time! :D

Of course, about the time you equip yourself with that you'll never use it.
I just ordered a Honda EU2000i this afternoon. I hope I never really need it, but if i do, it will patiently waiting in my garage :D It's quiet enough and light enough that I know I can find some uses for it other than powering a few things in the house when the power fails.

Well, it looks like things are cockeyed again.

As of this post, the DTs for 2, 7, 9 and 32 are all down. Their analogs are working.

KFXA-DT is back up but for some reason it's mapping to 23-1 and 23-2.

The two West Branch DTs -- KWKB and KIIN -- are operating, so if you're looking for PBS HD, you could give 12-1 ("actual" channel 45, in case it's not in your tuner's memory) a shot, assuming they stay up and connected to the IPTV network.

Oddly enough, KWKB-DT 20-1 is up but 20 analog is off the air. Go figure.

(Makes about as much sense as anything else we've experienced this week.)

My antenna seems to be pointed correct, and I'm getting 100% on KFXA - are 2, 9, and 32 suddenly down? They were up when I left for work this morning.

Something's going on.

My Olevia monitor/TV is mapping KFXA as 23.1/2, as is my DTV receiver.

I'm also picking up 12.1/2 fine, 20.1, and 4.1 out of the Quads - was there some sort of changeover to new mappings scheduled for today I don't know about?

Yeah, they went down, hopefully just a temporary power failure or a side effect of the storm recovery efforts going on. We're getting strong wind gusts in Cedar Rapids which may also have something to do with it. The good news is that we may at least initially escape the worst of it, but the worst of it isn't all that far west; we've got a blizzard watch just two counties west of C.R. and a blizzard warning one county west of Waterloo.

Hopefully tonight we can stay above 32 and keep it as rain for tonight. Cross your fingers ...

Something's going on.

My Olevia monitor/TV is mapping KFXA as 23.1/2, as is my DTV receiver.

I'm also picking up 12.1/2 fine, 20.1, and 4.1 out of the Quads - was there some sort of changeover to new mappings scheduled for today I don't know about?
23.1 is the only mapping change I know of, and it's probably some kind of mistake.

12.1 (IPTV) and 20.1 (KWKB, CW/My) are both licensed to Iowa City with transmitters near West Branch -- those mappings are where they usually are.

4.1 (WHBF, CBS) is, in fact, out of the Quad Cities, and that is also its normal mapping.

FYI: Mediacom qam in Iowa City, KWWL & KFXA are on , but no KGAN & KCRG.
Also WHBF is on mediacom qam.

This is my "new" antenna set up (the storm took down my prior mast - the wind bent in half a 10 foot 1.5" brass mast!). The Radio Shack yagi style UHF from about 5 years ago is now on a 5 foot mast with the rotor. Its small compared to my Antennacraft yagi I had on before. I now pull(ed) in all the CR's except for KWWL (I figure they must be down altogether and it ain't an antenna issue), they haven't come up once since the storm, usually it'll at least pop in and out, but I'm getting zilch - never had an issue pre-storm for the last few months), and am getting 4.1 and 8.1 from the Quads at night, plus 20.1 now comes in even on the back side (weather?) as well as 12.1.

I knew that getting WHBF was a good sign I didn't have antenna issues again.

I called KCRG's newsline, the girl that answered knew nothing about them being down.

Its gonna be a hurricane around here about this time tomorrow. Seems like it is already.

So, is anyone getting KWWL since Saturday (OTA)?

My antenna seems to be pointed correct, and I'm getting 100% on KFXA - are 2, 9, and 32 suddenly down? They were up when I left for work this morning.

Lost power in Walker again this afternoon, from about 3:30pm to 7:15pm.

Must be tough being a broadcaster nowadays in eastern Iowa...

bagdropper - read Dick Owen's post - page or so back; no, none of the KWWL-DT are back OTA yet.

otoh, as of this moment, everything else is coming in, OTA for me. Too bad KCRG doesn't still have Cap'n Bobby (or maybe they do?) - I'd really like to see the 20 miles of transmission towers that are down in Montezuma (?) County - can't think of any better way to get an idea of the damage, without a nice long aerial shot. I've seen the rows of normal poles across the roads around Waterloo - one can hardly even get to Dunkerton, as the county roads are covered with downed poles.

So while we want it all back, and yesterday, is pretty amazing that much of anything is up and running. (OT - scalper watch - went to Sam's Club today - all the generators you could want, for a grand apiece.)

Too bad KCRG doesn't still have Cap'n Bobby (or maybe they do?) - I'd really like to see the 20 miles of transmission towers that are down in Montezuma (?) County - can't think of any better way to get an idea of the damage, without a nice long aerial shot. Almost completely forgot about the KCRG helicoptor. You suppose it's still in storage? Captian Bobby took a job down in the Gulf flying 'coptors for an oil co. (back and forth to off shore oil rigs) Here's a little food for thought: Since CR is doing away with their police helicoptor program, there are/would be a couple of people that would qualify to fly it locally, but depending on their present jobs as also being police officers....Put a HD camera on it in a couple of years....

Capn Bobby was up a month or so ago demoing the helicopter for a possible buyer.... Don't look for the eye in the sky to return.

Capn Bobby was up a month or so ago demoing the helicopter for a possible buyer.... Don't look for the eye in the sky to return.

darn - I really liked the coverage a year or two ago, when the crazy dude was actually playing tag with a tornado. THAT was cool. Especially when he hit some gust fronts, and started to get scared himself. Shoulda got an Emmy. :p

My understanding is that the old news copter is for sale. It doesn't sound to me like it will be back anytime, which is really too bad. It was a really nice feature for their news department, but I imagine that is was pretty expensive to maintain that program, and this is a pretty small market.

Vee-

I agree with you. I've been waiting to see pictures of those 20 miles of lines and towers since I heard about them. It's one thing to try and picture it in my mind, but another entirely to see it. Would probably drive home the point to a lot of people in Iowa and the rest of the MidWest about the impact of what actually happened around here this past weekend, and how tornadoes aren't the only thing we have to worry about.

If there's any consolation, it's that we're back to a full set of channels again as of this afternoon.

Of course, there's still plenty of weather out west -- enough to close Iowa State University this afternoon, and I can tell you from experience that rarely happens.

Capn Bobby was up a month or so ago demoing the helicopter for a possible buyer.... Don't look for the eye in the sky to return.Got a reply back from the Gazette. There going to look and see what KCRG's plans are.

Got a reply back from the Gazette. There going to look and see what KCRG's plans are.
Several KCRG employees have told me that the copter is for sale.

Here you go guys - its not much, but its better than driving to Montezuema. DSM Register has videos online; one includes the large power lilnes that are down.

http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070301/VIDEO01/70301068/1001

If that doesn't work, just got to DSM front page, hit videos, and click the one about "Fixing Power Lines." You'll see the towers about 2/3 of the way thru. -- from the video, they look pretty darn flimsy - no wonder they went down.

Vee-

I can't imagine they're any different than most standard towers out there, like the ones running along the old tracks in CR near Terex/Cedarapids. It's thin metal, to be sure, but the strength comes from the shape of the structure; triangles, etc, just like broadcast towers.

Broadcast towers are thinner in stature and are tied to the ground to keep from collapsing, though, instead of having tons of wire hanging from them. There's simply more surface area for ice to collect on a power tower than a broadcast tower.

Towers made of steel I-beams would probably be 20x as strong, but weigh so much that you'd never get them into place, and probably end up being about 15x as strong as they'd ever need to be.

Can anyone using QAM with CFU tell me what the channels are for the HD stations? My auto program isn't picking them up and I want to see if I can manually add them...

depends, slyk. If you have a smart QAM tuner, it will map them to the correct numbers - 2-1, 2-2, 7-1, etc... OTOH, if you have an older LG, it won't map, and they come out with bizarre numbers - I'd have to fire it up and check, but stuff like 105-7, and stuff like that. But I'm surprised auto doesn't pick them up - it should. I have 4 qam rigs, they all pick them up on their own.

Duh - saw a question, forgot why I came here in the first place. Thanks to KGAN-DT - back in the wayback, I was whining cuz no one had a test pattern in HD. Got home late tonite - saw that KGAN had one on. Complete with pluge - cool. Course, when I adjusted my settings to where the test pattern showed them, when I switched channels to something with program material, all my shadow detail was crushed....:( Oh well - I did get my color set better. Thanks again.

:D :D :D

You guys can all keep your Lost, 24, and Desparate Housewives. Other than than HD sports, whenever I want to impress friends with my theater, I have them come over when something good is on IPTV. (something besides the history of postcards in Romanis - it isn't ALL good.) The Mark Knopfler Soundstage wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped, but Sheryl Crow on Austin City Limits last night more than made up for it. Nice. Not very often something on tv can make me smile for the whole hour.

Now all I need is to get my 165 to record via firewire, and I'm home free. :p

I currently have Mcleod for my high speed internet and was considering adding their digital cable to my package. Anyone else use Mcleod? My 61" RCA can use a cable card. Is that an option for Mcleod or do you still need a box? Thanks, Bear

Actually, Vee, you also need to convince IPTV to broadcast in 5.1, and THEN get your 165 to record via firewire. ;)

Actually, Vee, you also need to convince IPTV to broadcast in 5.1, and THEN get your 165 to record via firewire. ;)

You are entirely correct; but one step at a time. The show looked great - better than either of my dvds. But you are correct - at least the dvds are in 5.1. Chances are, IPTV will get around to 5.1 broadcasting about as soon as I work out the windows kludges needed to record from firewire. :o

You are entirely correct; but one step at a time. The show looked great - better than either of my dvds. But you are correct - at least the dvds are in 5.1. Chances are, IPTV will get around to 5.1 broadcasting about as soon as I work out the windows kludges needed to record from firewire. :o

The Crowe episode will replay on March 9 at 2:00pm.

Awesome. :D Thanks.

Lip sync seemed to be off on KGAN last night during Letterman.

--Uh, I take it KWWL-DTs transmitter is running on three cylinders again? ota it is unwatchable here - normally it is fine. If anyone is getting good ota, lemme know -I'll take advantage of the good weather and do some checking. But realistically, everything else is coming in fine, so I reckon it is 7-1 (and family) again.

Good thing bb games and NASCAR are on other channels. ;)

I'm getting KWWL OK here ...

KWWL-DT is fine here, too. But then I'm only about 5 miles from the transmitter...

Then I guess it's up on the roof..getting the pixelazation that others had been complaining about. Admittedly, I'm on the NW edge of CF, but had been ok for quite a while. Maybe my antenna moved a touch in the big wind - since I was afraid it would blow over, I'd settle for just having it change orientation. Thanks - letcha know if it gets fixed.

I know I have been one to criticize Kwwl in the past. This may seem really crazy, but I just bought a new LCD for upstairs. I use E* sat. and on my high def tv downstairs I get my ota from an amplified antenna in my attic. That signal varies a lot . On my new high def tv upstairs I hooked up a $5 pair of rabbit ears and the digital signal from KWWL is 98%. Go figure. Also on the attic antenna 32.1 is 98% and on the rabbit ears it's the low 60's. I guess what I'm trying to say is who knows what is going on half the time?

Hey guys/gals
just started learning about the possibilities of OTA HD after I discovered that Dish Network doesnt carry our local stations in HD. Thats about the only good thing Mediacom had going before I switched. The Dish guys never mentionned the locals wouldnt be coming in HD :(

So now im left to fend for myself to get my local HD channels, but from what it looks like it shouldnt be too hard. I've been reading a lot but I still have some questions and would like some input from locals.

My main question is what hardware local folks are using and how well is it working for you? I bought and tried a Radio Shack set-top rotating antenna and the signal was unreliable. It didnt seem like a reliable setup. Preferable I'd like to mount an antennae on the side of my house, point it and get the major 4 (ABC/CBS/FOX/NBC) in HD. I know NBC is in Waterloo but I hope it makes it this far. Any reccomendations or input must appreciated :)

Then I guess it's up on the roof..getting the pixelazation that others had been complaining about.

Shorlty after I posted last night I did see a drop out (not an RF signal dropout, this was coming from either NBC or KWWL) and some pixelation. I'm not sure it's on your end. I had it on for about 30 minutes and noticed it pixelize several times during SNL, I wasn't really paying any attention to it, so for me to have noticed it several times when I glanced that way, it must have been doing it quite a bit.

I had been getting all the hd/dtv channels but since the ice storm and power outage I have not been able to get KGAN 2.1 for some reason. I still get KCRG, KWWL, and FOX. I haven't changed anything with my HDTV and just get a 'no signal' on the top of my screen? Not sure if this has happened to anyone else or if anyone has any thoughts, I would greatly appreciate any input with the basketball tournament coming up. I have re-scanned the channels. I have a Sony LCD rear projection.

I'd suggest you check your antenna alignment and/or tv setup. KGAN has been just fine....

I had been getting all the hd/dtv channels but since the ice storm and power outage I have not been able to get KGAN 2.1 for some reason. I still get KCRG, KWWL, and FOX. I haven't changed anything with my HDTV and just get a 'no signal' on the top of my screen? Not sure if this has happened to anyone else or if anyone has any thoughts, I would greatly appreciate any input with the basketball tournament coming up. I have re-scanned the channels. I have a Sony LCD rear projection.

The last couple times I scanned 2.2 hasn't come up for me. This has all been since the storm.

Interesting that I didn't show 2-2 in my MyHD list, but a rescan found it.

Both 2-1 & 2-2 shows fine in the stream. The only thing that appeared incorrect was their EPG data that is 1 hour off.

KFXA seem to be jumping around tonight. It was dropping out on me in Waterloo during 24.

KFXA seem to be jumping around tonight. It was dropping out on me in Waterloo during 24.No 24/KFXA problem in Iowa City via mediacom cable.

I should have mentioned I'm watching OTA.

My TiVo S3 recorded "24" OTA in Waterloo and when I watched it a bit later I didn't notice any problems.

No 24/KFXA problem in Iowa City via mediacom cable.
I watched "24" on CR Mediacom QAM with no problems last night.

KFXA is jumping aroung on CFU's charts too.

http://www.cfu.net/CyberNet/HD/index.php?station=kfxa

I adjusted my antenna last week to gain more strength on KWWL, but I still had mid to high 80's on KFXA until last night.

I wish I had an antenna that could recieve an alternative to KWWL, I am getting tired of their poor treatment of HDTV.

Watching Heroes during the big storm in bad sd because they must run the text crawl in sd was fun (why they cannot run it in hd I don't know). But the real killer is their Friday Night Lights news overun that forces us to watch a bad sd copy of Leno really makes my day.

What, they can't afford an HDTV recorder?

What, they can't afford an HDTV recorder?

Putting aside the fact that high school football ended 4 months ago, I'll just say that it's not as easy as hooking up a PVR and replaying it. This was discussed earlier in the topic, with regards to not only KWWL's treatment of Leno, Conan, etc, but also in regards to KCRG and KGAN pre-empting HD programming for Alford and company. The equipment for broadcasting and rebroadcasting network programming in a television station's terminal is a little bit beyond the type of equipment that most people have sitting on their A/V racks or under their desks.

Unfortunately, with KWWL, there's not much alternative at this point, since they're using their sub-channels for Weather and The Tube. But, come 2009, you can bet that there will be a lot of people like me asking how long it will take for KGAN and KCRG to move their college hoops to, in KGAN's case, their unused sub-channel (yes, I know they use it for an SD simulcast like KFXA does. But that's not really USING it, the way that KCRG and KWWL do), and in KCRG's case, their "local" sub-channel.

Along those lines, does anyone know of any laws or regulations that would prevent this situation from happening once the entire country is converted to DTV? KCRG already re-broadcasts Oprah on 9-2 at night, so would there be anything keeping them from moving basketball to 9-2 once everyone had access to it?

But, come 2009, you can bet that there will be a lot of people like me asking how long it will take for KGAN and KCRG to move their college hoops to, in KGAN's case, their unused sub-channel (yes, I know they use it for an SD simulcast like KFXA does. But that's not really USING it, the way that KCRG and KWWL do), and in KCRG's case, their "local" sub-channel.

Along those lines, does anyone know of any laws or regulations that would prevent this situation from happening once the entire country is converted to DTV? KCRG already re-broadcasts Oprah on 9-2 at night, so would there be anything keeping them from moving basketball to 9-2 once everyone had access to it?
Sounds like a great idea. And I would like to add that after the plug is pulled on analog, that all local channels just put a small flashing light or have their station logo blink then there's a weather alert, which would imform the viewer to switch to one of the sub channels for all those weather delays/closings/watches/warnings....and just leave the network programming alone. :)

Sounds like a great idea. And I would like to add that after the plug is pulled on analog, that all local channels just put a small flashing light or have their station logo blink then there's a weather alert, which would imform the viewer to switch to one of the sub channels for all those weather delays/closings/watches/warnings....and just leave the network programming alone. :)

Also a great idea. The same should go for Election results, as I usually couldn't care less who won the uncontested seat on the Walker School Board elections when I live in CR, and they usually leave that crawler up 100% of the time on any election night and bump all programming down to SD quality. Most of the locals have "local bug" capability on their HD signals now, so it shouldn't be hard to come up with an unobtrusive "W" in the corner like KFXA does, or something similar.

I don't have a lot of pull anywhere, but I'll be sure to mention this to the people I know that have some connections to the stations (and hopefully the KGAN and KWWL techs here can also pass some of this along).

Along those lines, does anyone know of any laws or regulations that would prevent this situation from happening once the entire country is converted to DTV? KCRG already re-broadcasts Oprah on 9-2 at night, so would there be anything keeping them from moving basketball to 9-2 once everyone had access to it?As a general rule (for any station, not just KCRG), that's a matter between the station and whomever holds the copyright to the programming. Some small-market stations run entire networks like CW, My and even Fox on subchannels.

Watching Heroes during the big storm in bad sd because they must run the text crawl in sd was fun (why they cannot run it in hd I don't know)...In order to do that they would need an HD character generator, which most stations do not have yet. At least a few area stations can super a station ID over HD programming, but that's about it.

The other issue is that at some stations, the cancellation ticker has to go through the news control room. This means that the master control operator must "toss control" to the news control room, which has all the fancy equipment needed to run the ticker. By doing this, master control must switch away from network, and it's my understanding that, depending on the way the station is wired, the HD switcher will sense that master is no longer on network and switch to upconvert because network is the only source with an HD counterpart.

As with my last post, this is just generally speaking. I don't know for sure what their particular setup is or whether it was a policy decision instead.

fwiw, at least on my end the corruption of KWWL-DTs signal is gone. At least last night, I was able to watch Leno without problems. Never did climb up on the roof - I always had the sneaking suspicion that the problems might be on their end; looks like I might have been correct. (Now Mr Owens, don't go messing with the signal, just to make it look like I'm wrong ;) - I'm glad you have fixed whatever was unfixed.)

back to my favorite topic, I still think there are going to be a lot of unhappy non-cable viewers, once analog goes and everyone is stuck with the flakiness that is currently digital broadcasting. Or, if we're lucky, the switch back to VHF will fix all of our problems. Or maybe no one will care - last week, KWWL analog OTA was almost totally gone, but when I called in, I was told (by receptionist) that no one had been calling in, since locals were getting their feed via fiber, so cable companys still had a fine picture. Gaaa

NCAA Basketball Tournament scheduled to start at 11 a.m. Thursday morning and may have Dolby sound problems.

We here at channel-2 have been working with CBS and Dolby to resolve this issues for the last couple of weeks. Our Dolby encoder seems to be having clocking problems.

We believe we have isolated the buzzing sound to this encoder. An over night replacement has arrived at 10:50 a.m. this morning, ten minutes before the start of NCAA tournament. We are trying to replace and configure the unit before the tournament starts. If we do not have it replaced in time please view us on 2.2 until we get this unit replaced. We are working as fast as we can so you can enjoy the HD and 5.1 audio without the intermittent buzz.

Thank you,


Regards,

Randy Schildmeyer
CE KGAN-TV

Is that why David Letterman show voice does not match mouth?

No, that's why there was no audio for the last HALF HOUR of Criminal Minds last night. Audio started buzzing around 8:35, then went dead during the commercial. I was the only one that had called in when I called at 8:50. Audio was back by 9:01.

It was out on both Cable and OTA, so I guess that nobody was watching the rerun in HD.

Which, again, begs the question: Is there nobody at the stations or in the station's employment pool that monitors the QoS or outbound signals 24x7 or at least 16x7?

Why the mis match on Letterman than? Other programs on two have no sync problem.

Which, again, begs the question: Is there nobody at the stations or in the station's employment pool that monitors the QoS or outbound signals 24x7 or at least 16x7?

wouldn't count on it - when I was in radio, I ran the board, but often no one from the station was actually listening, on an external radio set. Heck - if you can find a gig where I can get paid to watch, I'll be down for that - even if it means I have to watch network tv. :p

Sheesh - see one post, forget why I'm here. Working too hard. ;)

Thanks for the heads up Randy - hope you get it fixed. At least now we know what is going on, and that is worth a lot. If I have to, I'll watch 2-1, and listen to 2-2. In a pinch, I'd rather see the pretty picture - even tho I know the audio streams will be horribly out of synch.

Thanks, Randy and crew. Sounds like you got it running - if I can't watch an Iowa team, at least I can have some eye candy. Indiana game looks so good, makes me want to crawl into the screen of my lcd. Congrats - now can you guys just sit back and watch the game? (Uh, I mean, do some QC of the signal? :D) - if any of you or your techs are in CF, give me a call, you can check out signal quality on a 10' screen. :)

Anyone else having trouble with KWWL HD audio OTA?

Anyone else having trouble with KWWL HD audio OTA?

Yes.

Anyone else having trouble with KWWL HD audio OTA?
Yes.

Well, with that amazingly detailed description, I'm sure it will be fixed in no time... :rolleyes:

What kind of audio problems? Not that I can check, since a) I'm at work, and b) my OTA signal for KWWL has dropped to about 20% during the day, and 2% at night, but I'm sure that the engineers that keep their eyes on this thread can help if they had a little bit better description of the issue.

Well, with that amazingly detailed description, I'm sure it will be fixed in no time... :rolleyes:

What kind of audio problems? Not that I can check, since a) I'm at work, and b) my OTA signal for KWWL has dropped to about 20% during the day, and 2% at night, but I'm sure that the engineers that keep their eyes on this thread can help if they had a little bit better description of the issue.


It was pretty obvious. Not that anyone was going to do anything, but all you had to do was listen.. It was audio!!

It was pretty obvious. Not that anyone was going to do anything, but all you had to do was listen.. It was audio!!

What specifically is/was the audio problem?

What program is/was affected?

Is it a problem with 5.1?

Is it on local programming?

Is the problem just on 7.1 or is it on the subs also?

I would be happy to run this problem down as soon as I know what to look for.

Thanks,

Dick Owens

That's great and all, but one of the nice things about logging issues in this forum is that we can use it as a timeline to go back and mention "hey, this is what happened before, and this is how it got fixed." Which means mentioning whether it was a high-pitched squeal instead of audio, if channels were missing, if all the sound was gone, if it was lip-sync, etc. To wit, KGAN has audio problems all the time, but there are 3 or 4 different issues that they have to chase down.

Also, as a note to EVERYONE that reads this thread (not trying to single anyone out), if you are having issues with the sound or picture on the HD channels or subchannels over the air (or even on cable), then it's a good idea to call the station and report it, so that they can work on it. The sooner it's reported, the sooner it can get fixed, and posting it here without any details and without calling the station won't do anyone any good.

Again, to wit, when I called KGAN Wednesday night after their audio died, it had been out for almost 20 minutes, and I was the FIRST caller to report it, and nobody was yet aware of an issue at KGAN. Everyone else must have just assumed it was getting fixed.

What specifically is/was the audio problem?

What program is/was affected?

Is it a problem with 5.1?

Is it on local programming?

Is the problem just on 7.1 or is it on the subs also?

I would be happy to run this problem down as soon as I know what to look for.

Thanks,

Dick Owens

My TiVo S3 recorded "The Office" on KWWL-DT (OTA in Waterloo) from 7pm to 8pm and when I watched it, I did not see or hear any problems.

However, I started watching "Raines" later that evening, the 5.1 audio cut in and out about every 2 to 10 seconds *throughout* the entire program, *including* during commercials. Before it was done recording, I even switched it over to Mediacom QAM channel 114.1 (KWWL-DT) and found the audio cutting in and out, as well, so I ruled out my antenna/reception as the source of the problem.
Given those facts and that someone else reported the same audio problems on KWWL-DT yesterday, at least I now know the problem isn't with my equipment.

I recorded Raines and can confirm the same on 7.1 with the 5.1 audio. Obviously couldn't check against analog since it was recorded.

I still have the recording (transport stream - sub channel only) if it would help anyone. Better speak up quick though, so I can delete it...

Trying to get my brother-in-law hooked up in Cedar Falls. Do all of the channels come in OK? Do you need 2 antennas? Primarily he wants to get the main 4 networks. I know the Fox tower isn't near the others. Also do any of you know if you can use a diplexor twice on one coax line? He only has one coax cable to TV/Sat Receiver and the Dish installer is using a diplexor to send back a TV2 signal on the same cable.

Thanks!

I think we got him hooked up OK with just one antenna. NBC and Fox were only at about 75% signal on his Dish 622, but they seemed to be OK.

KWWL gets pretty shaky at about 75% or below on the 622 for me. Hopefully that's not the case for him.

......started watching "Raines" later that evening, the 5.1 audio cut in and out about every 2 to 10 seconds *throughout* the entire program, *including* during commercials. Before it was done recording, I even switched it over to Mediacom QAM channel 114.1 (KWWL-DT) and found the audio cutting in and out, as well, so I ruled out my antenna/reception as the source of the problem.
Given those facts and that someone else reported the same audio problems on KWWL-DT yesterday, at least I now know the problem isn't with my equipment.

It turns out that we had installed a new HD character generator system in the HD rack but did not realize that the equipment did NOT pass 5.1! The folks at Mediacom called Master Control and we re-positioned the audio to the unit the next day, up-stream from the Dolby encoder.

Thanks for giving me some detail so I could track the problem down!

It turns out that we had installed a new HD character generator system in the HD rack but did not realize that the equipment did NOT pass 5.1!
Dick,

Can you give us lame folks an idea of what the "HD character generator" will provide? Is this what is used for crawls, bugs, etc?

And on that note, any chance with the upcoming weather season coming up that a simple little bug about weather info being available on wx-plus instead of crawling the entire program in SD?

Yes, the character generator will provide sports and closing crawls, EAS messaging, squeeze-backs, etc. over the HD programming. It actually also does the audio inserting of Amber and NWS alerts

The specific formats we will use for weather alerts and closings is still in the discussion stage.

As far as weather and other emergency information, such as Amber Alerts, is concerned we will have to abide by the FCC rules that such information shall be available both visually and aurally to all viewers of all our services immediately. This includes WeatherPlus and The Tube.

Directing HD viewers go to another source for information, such as our analog channel, I don't think would pass muster with the commission's intent of the rules.

I see this as only impacting the HD programming during severe weather. I understand some folks will be upset, but the priority is to keep viewers informed under such conditions and at hat point the programming becomes a secondary factor.

Thanks for the info Dick. If you can crawl in HD, that will at least be better than the past.

I understand having to follow FCC rules for emergency type situations. What I do not understand is why closings have to be not only crawled, but crawled during an entire program. If I want to know about closures, I certainly know to watch for those on the news and they certainly must not be considered "emergency" type messages since they are taken off during commercial breaks.

Much appreciated Dick!

Glad to see an HD crawl is coming.

..... If I want to know about closures, I certainly know to watch for those on the news and they certainly must not be considered "emergency" type messages since they are taken off during commercial breaks.

This is a typical "damned if you do-damned if you dont" situation. We would certianly err on the "more information" side of the issue.

Not many our viewers would want to wait for a newscast to find out if thier school was closing or opening late.

This is a typical "damned if you do-damned if you dont" situation. We would certianly err on the "more information" side of the issue.



Agreed. I think the best solution would be for you to crawl the information until I saw the specific bit that I was interested in, and then turn it off so I could enjoy the program. :rolleyes: Course, your other viewers might have their own opinions. :D

Seriously, you can't stake out the territory of being the "go to" source for information without providing it. While I'm sure you'll cut into the Office and Earl when I don't want you to, keep it up. We still need information - there are hundreds of stations out there that just put up programming. Keep up the good work.

I think one of the biggest problems of the "crawl" over the past few years is not the crawl itself, BUT THE SIZE OF IT HAS GROWN WAY TO LARGE. It doesn't need any graphics, no maps, no radar, no "Logos", no "provided by's, no "squeezing up " the programming, and only needs to be one line in height. And the height of the crawl only needs to be about 2.5" high.....and that's measured on a 61" screen.

I don't know about the crawl, but if we're going to bitch at poor Mr Owens, I'll jump in re the bug during the news. fwiw, when they are showing highlights of bb games, the NEWS 7 bug pretty much obscures the entire score - so while they show action, and the superimposed score from whatever feed of whatever game, no one can see the score. I think it is a morning news problem - for instance, on the ISU women's game last night, on the night time news, could see the score evolve in all of its painful glory. Tried to get the wife to watch this morning, see how Ga blewout the clones, and the score was eclipsed by a humongous bug.

Once the games are gone, and they don't have a score in the bottom RH corner, I won't care. But right now the station's advertising is hiding the information.

(Idea - put the bug in the middle of the picture when Chris Carter is on. :D) -Oops, did I say that out loud? ;) Just kidding.

I think one of the biggest problems of the "crawl" over the past few years is not the crawl itself, BUT THE SIZE OF IT HAS GROWN WAY TO LARGE. It doesn't need any graphics, no maps, no radar, no "Logos", no "provided by's, no "squeezing up " the programming, and only needs to be one line in height. And the height of the crawl only needs to be about 2.5" high.....and that's measured on a 61" screen.

True. And how about pausing it during commercials? They always seem to cut to a commercial just as the information I want to see is about to come on. It sometimes takes 3 or 4 cycles to see the bit I'm looking for due to it being skipped over during a break.

Well, it finally happened. Got a letter in the mail yesterday from MediaCon that will now be paying $1/month PER CHANNEL for my basic-basic cable package, before taxes and fees. After taxes and fees, it will be around $25/month for 20 channels of analog glory.

Thank you, Sinclair and MediaCom.

I don't know about the crawl, but if we're going to bitch at poor Mr Owens I'm not bitching at Mr Owens or anybody else or any one station. I thank Mr Owens for his imput in this forum, and to a whole bunch of you other members here that have been here a whole lot longer here than I (and know alot more about broadcasting). It will be nice to see the crawl on/in HD, rather than the trick of going back to SD during a HD broadcast, as long as it doesn't take up to much real estate. :cool:

Well, it finally happened. Got a letter in the mail yesterday from MediaCon that will now be paying $1/month PER CHANNEL for my basic-basic cable package, before taxes and fees. After taxes and fees, it will be around $25/month for 20 channels of analog glory.

Thank you, Sinclair and MediaCom. http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070320/NEWS/70320007/1001/NEWS WOW 55% increase. :mad: I guess if you have family cable, then the cost of expanded basic would have gone down, but you can't get that seperate. Media-con must think $12bucks/month was to cheap.....since it has to carry local HD.....oh my media-con can't charge extra for that HD via qam :) ...so they raise basic 55% amazing. :mad: Don't know the legal process media-con has to go through here in IC, but basic here only went up $1.00/month. It maybe some formula in the franchise agreement on basic price increases, not sure.

http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070320/NEWS/70320007/1001/NEWS WOW 55% increase. :mad: I guess if you have family cable, then the cost of expanded basic would have gone down, but you can't get that seperate. Media-con must think $12bucks/month was to cheap.....since it has to carry local HD.....oh my media-con can't charge extra for that HD via qam :) ...so they raise basic 55% amazing. :mad: Don't know the legal process media-con has to go through here in IC, but basic here only went up $1.00/month. It maybe some formula in the franchise agreement on basic price increases, not sure.

Feeling it on the broadband side too. My bills are now $8 more per month. :mad:

I'm a D* customer, so not feeling the cable side.

Since we are picking on Mr. Owens I might as well chime in. :D

It would be nice if the bug didn't cover the sports scores during sports news.

As for MediaCon, I haven't seen any anouncements about rate hikes for Waterloo yet. Glad I'm a E* customer though. I tried to dump the Mediacom HSI and phone today, but they offered some decent discounts to keep me for a few more months anyway.

I must be the only one that notices KGAN hd lip sync problems during Letterman.

http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070320/NEWS/70320007/1001/NEWS WOW 55% increase. :mad: I guess if you have family cable, then the cost of expanded basic would have gone down, but you can't get that seperate. Media-con must think $12bucks/month was to cheap.....since it has to carry local HD.....oh my media-con can't charge extra for that HD via qam :) ...so they raise basic 55% amazing. :mad: Don't know the legal process media-con has to go through here in IC, but basic here only went up $1.00/month. It maybe some formula in the franchise agreement on basic price increases, not sure.

I wonder how many new TV antennas will be heading back into attics and rooftops...should be fun to track over at Lowe's and other local stores...

This is interesting.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/03/20/cable_tv_embraces_an_old_foe_antenna/

How would the broadcasters like Sinclair battle this?

DES MOINES — The state could grant a statewide cable television franchise under a measure approved today by the Senate.
http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070320/NEWS01/70320009/1079

This is interesting.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/03/20/cable_tv_embraces_an_old_foe_antenna/

How would the broadcasters like Sinclair battle this?They would all get together and twist arms and get the FCC to add a OTA tax on all antenna's sold in the US..... :) :mad: :mad: since the current law doesn't give a hoot about us....the taxpayers.

I must be the only one that notices KGAN hd lip sync problems during Letterman.

I've mentioned it before too.

I've mentioned it before too.

I thought it was pretty much fixed - at least wasn't bad last night, with Joss Stone. And you know I was watching her lips... ;)

KWWL-DT must be making more adjustments, since I'm getting unwatchable broadcasts OTA. Trying to watch the 10pm news, and lucky to get 1 second of sound and motion out of 5. My lcd panel is kind of limited, so there is no signal strength meter on it. But golly, is it a pita. Same thing it was doing before, then I prematurely said it was fixed. Actual freeze of video, dissolving into pixelization - pretty cool effects, as long as one doesn't want to actually watch the program.

OK - I waited, and Leno HD is just as bad as SD news. So switched over to Letterman.

I take it back, UHF. There is still a bit of lip-synch delay - I thought they had it fixed?

I noticed the lip sync problems during the commercials and half-time of the NCAA tourney. I hardly watch any CBS prime time, but it would drive me crazy. How can anybody stand watching any CBS show? Is it CBS or KGAN?

IKWWL-DT must be making more adjustments, since I'm getting unwatchable broadcasts OTA. Trying to watch the 10pm news, and lucky to get 1 second of sound and motion out of 5.........

FYI - We are not making any adjustments to the digital transmitter, in fact, it has been remarkably stable since the exciter synthesizer was replaced about a month ago. That unit causes the SNR (signal-to-noise) of the system to go down the tubes when it drifts and the power output to drop wich causes some "set- selective" problems on home systems. In other words, some TVs can handle a lower SNR better than others.

Everything is looking good here, at the present.

I noticed last night on KWWL QAM that a number of HD commercials had a significant echo in the audio, as if the rear channels of the 5.1 were delayed similar to the delay of ALL of the audio channels on KGAN.

Anyone else hear the same thing? I know it's not my receiver, because the audio of the programming last night (L&O: CI and SUV) didn't have the issue, only certain commercials.

And, as far as "set-selective" problems, my Samsung can apparently handle a 10% signal better than my Sony can handle a 60% signal... Which is a good thing, since my Samsung doesn't have a QAM tuner.

The news story about the set-top tuners... Looks like the cable companies are catching on to what the satellite providers already do. I'm sure that Dish gets charged a much lower fee to only carry the analog signal, and you can get OTA HD since most of their STB's have an antenna input, too. Interesting...

I noticed last night on KWWL QAM that a number of HD commercials had a significant echo in the audio
Anyone else hear the same thing?

Yes, I hear that. The actual programming sounds fine though, it's only during local inserts that I hear it.

Thanks for response, Dick. If that's the case, then I have to go back and do something then, since I couldn't get a signal to lock long enough for me to experience the audio problems others are getting. Dang - you had it looking so good, just a week or two ago...

Anyone noticing lip sync issues on Medium tonight on KWWL DT? It's way off..

In my enraged blur over MediaCon, I almost forgot to mention that I really like the new weather alert chyron on KCRG. It shows the counties affected by the various watches/warnings, but then also has the same small county map with a radar loop overlay, and a zoomed in weather loop of any counties in a warning status.

It's a pretty slick addition to what used to be a boring graphic.

Anyone get OTA over using Vip622 from E* and also get the new software update? UHF, I think I saw you post DBStalk about it. I wasn't expecting big changes in OTA with this update but hopefully it's an improvement.

I'm still getting all my same OTA without a rescan, but the signal level jumped quite a bit.

I used to get KGAN at 88-92% and now it's 99-100
KWWL was 88-91, now 95+
KCRG was 100 and still is
KFXA was 86-91, now 93+
KRIN was 100 and still is.

Sorry for showing my frustration here, but after a while it just gets ridiculous.

Three things:

1. What is the deal with KGAN and lipsync issues? It is fixed, then its not, etc etc. Can we please just take care of it?

2. What was the issue during the Butler-Florida game? The screen was jumping all over everywhere during the second half. Not just me - confirmed with 2 others.

3. WHY does KGAN insist upon switching to SD just to scroll something across the bottom of the screen? I could honestly give a crap who is coaching Iowa. During severe weather season, they should FIND A WAY to do this on the HD feed.

Even though the engineers at KGAN may be attempting to make things better on their HD feed, I just do not see any results. Aside from NCAA and NFL, I do not watch CBS, but would appreciate better performance when I do.

On another note: DirecTV has been previewing National Geographic HD and it is really nice. I am not sure how great it will be to watch a lion eat the guts out of an antelope close up in HD while hearing the crunching sounds in 5.1 dolby digital.

~HDA

KGAN was jumping around for me too. Seemed the worst at about the top 6" of my 52" tv. I wasn't sure if it was KGAN or a software update to my Dish 622 receiver that was to blame.

Edit-I'm wondering if the jumpy picture wasn't a network feed issue. I'm not seeing it at all in the USC-UNC game.

Yep... I was getting the jumping around here too. And as tsduke said, it seemed to be only the very top portion of the screen.

The jumping was a network issue. KGAN should have received a message through the CBS alert that gave alternate transponder frequencies to tune in that weren't jacked up.

Anyone get OTA over using Vip622 from E* and also get the new software update? UHF, I think I saw you post DBStalk about it.

Yes, I'm using a Vip622 here in Independence. I lost KWKB-DT after the update. KWWL went up a bit, others all stayed the same. Would be interested to see reports from anyone else.

The tuner in my TV isn't seeing KWKB either, but I don't know if it ever did or not. I hadn't tried it before.

Off topic, but,

TSDuke or anyone else using a Vip622- Has anyone else been seeing a loss of satellite signals today from Dish? In my case I am not actually losing the signal, but the 622 says I am. Other boxes work fine.

If I recall, TSDuke and I were both installed on the same day, so we should have similar setups, DPP1000.2 Dish.

I've reported this bug to the beta team.

[Shameless Plug!]:D

For all you MyHD & FusionHDTV users out there.... Check out this scheduling program:

CW_EPG Scheduler (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=659993)

Off topic, but,

TSDuke or anyone else using a Vip622- Has anyone else been seeing a loss of satellite signals today from Dish? In my case I am not actually losing the signal, but the 622 says I am. Other boxes work fine.

If I recall, TSDuke and I were both installed on the same day, so we should have similar setups, DPP1000.2 Dish.

I've reported this bug to the beta team.

I have the 1000. Not seeing signal issues on my 622. OTA loss has not happend today either.(knock on wood)

What kind of signals do you get on the 129 sat? I have 81 on TP30 right now.

Does anyone have a professional recommendation on antenna type and minimum gain for Marion? I doubt I'll have to worry about reflections but I am concerned about adding a rotor. I was wondering if it's possible to set up two or three bow-tie-in-front-of-reflector types and combining their signals, or do I have to bite the bullet and put up a rotor. If the rotor is the only solution, does a Yagi pull in a cleaner signal? Maybe put up three, low-medium gain Yagi, instead.

Any advice based on practical professional experience is welcome. I'm not sure why there isn't a moderated sticky for CR antenna choice in CR but that may be a forum limitation.

I have installed several Channel Master 4224/7777 antenna pre-amp combinations in Marion with good results. Mounted both in attics and on roof mounted masts. I am assuming you are only trying to get the CR market channels that originate north of you. Have not had great reliability in receiving 20-1 or 12-1 without a rotor. Can say I have seen bad results in trying to combine multiple UHF antennas pointed in opposite directions without filtering of the unwanted channels. The phase of the southern pointing antenna is out of phase enough on the channels to the north that end result is reduced signal at the tuner for everything.
Usually, fudging the antenna to the west ( to better pickup 27, KFXA-DT 28-1) after peaking on ch. 55 (7-1 et al, KWWL-DT) has been working. This best done using a RF signal level meter other than what is available in your HD receiver (but, you got to use what you got) and can have to be varied depending on the terrain in your neighborhood. Antenna sighting pages at TitanTV have been very helpful in the past if they are still available. Free registration.
Good Luck.

Why is KGAN switching Letterman to a later time spot?

Why is KGAN switching Letterman to a later time spot?
I don't watch Letterman (can't stand him personally), so I have no idea what you're talking about... Any clarification? Did they put another entire 30 or 60 minute show on at 10:35 Mon-Fri? Is this happening now, or an announced future change?

If you're talking about this coming Monday, then Letterman isn't in a "later time slot", it's "after the local news", which will be "after the NCAA Championship game".

And, since it will be getting pushed back by national network coverage, it should still be in HD.

It was a mistake in the Guide. Letterman came on at it's regular time.

Why is KGAN switching Letterman to a later time spot?

I think it was just an inaccurate TV Listing. At least that's what I noticed when looking up the listings for last night. Letterman aired in its normal time period last night at 10:35pm.

Ha, did freak me out when I saw it.

Thanks KGAN for not getting into the "dueling radar" fight between KCRG & KWWL :)

Thanks KGAN for not getting into the "dueling radar" fight between KCRG & KWWL :)

I have no issues at all with the stations actually providing a public service and showing severe weather when it's occurring.

Thanks KWWL and KCRG!

I have no issues at all with the stations actually providing a public service and showing severe weather when it's occurring.

I don't have any problems with a drag once every 15-20min, but when network programming is cutoff for 5-30 min or longer, then it is overkill, especially when there's nothing confirmed. Hopefully in 2 years when analog is dead, then the stations can just display a "W" in the corner of the screen. Then the viewer can flip over to the subchannel for all the weather/delay "info".

I suspect that KGAN's lack of weather coverage has more to do with their skeleton staffing and other percieved ineptitudes than their desire to "stay out of the duel". That, and they ticked off enough people this past winter with their strongarm tactics against MediaCon, so I think they're a little gun-shy when it comes to interrupting a big-time sporting event. (note, this has everything to do with my displeasure with $inclair Acquisitions, and nothing to do with KGAN's engineering crew)

Once every 15-20 minutes could have meant a higher number of injured and dead people in Iowa City in April, 2006.

Any time the NATIONAL Weather Service issues a Tornado Warning, they're somewhat serious about it. I couldn't care less if the Bird Flu Movie or even the SuperBowl got interrupted if it meant saving lives. 15-20 minutes is MUCH too long a time frame to wait for updates when there's a tornado or suspected tornado moving through an area.

I believe that it's GOOD policy to have full-time weather coverage any time there's a Tornado Warning. During a severe thunderstorm warning? Not necessary.

If there's an issue with the number of tornado warnings compared to severe thunderstorm warnings, then you'll need to take that up with the NWS (or AlGore), but I doubt they'll budge, as they're rather risk averse when it comes to people's lives and tornadic activity.

Why take the chance at risking people's lives for a basketball game?

I'd say to ask me tomorrow how I feel about this, as there are thunderstorm predictions for tonight, but with The Game on KGAN tonight, I'm not sure I'll have to worry about interruptions.

What's the current status on the audio sync issue on KGAN? It's still significantly off for me. I'm watching OTA through E* 622 receiver.

Audio is out of sync in CF for CFU subscribers as well. We are getting our signal OTA.

Anyone else seeing brief dropouts on KCRG? Happened quite a bit last night between 6 and 11pm

While I'm happy the Hawks found a new coach, I don't want to have to switch to SD to be informed about it.

Considering the station has HD scroll switching to SD seems real odd.

Watching the game on WHBF-HD via mediacom and the station runs their weather drag on the bottom of the screen................only during commericals. :)

Anyone else seeing brief dropouts on KCRG? Happened quite a bit last night between 6 and 11pm
I didn't see any dropouts on Dancing /Stars, but I had many on Deal/no Deal. I quit watching on 7-1, although didn;t see any on Black Donnelly's later on.

Whither KGAN's new "HD character generator"? Most of the last half of the game was in SD because of rolling thunderstorm warnings... But at least they weren't playing "duelling radars"... :rolleyes: Also saw quite a few dropouts on QAM during the postgame and postgame local commercials.

And what's the deal with KWWL? They take up the left 30% and lower 30% of the screen for their weather crawl on SD, which made Leno and Conan about 16" diagonal (including letterbox bars on Conan) on my 30" widescreen. I tried switching over to HD, where there was NO weather info, but my antenna wasn't having too much fun with atmospheric interference from the storms, and my bedroom TV doesn't have QAM, so it was of little use.

Thus begins another fun season of inclement midwest weather and all the hassles that come along with it. Can't wait for January's caucuses and next November's elections... :rolleyes:

Can't wait for January's caucuses and next November's elections... :rolleyes:

Doh! Don't remind us. :( We need to postpone those thoughts as long as possible.

Reported before - and reported again... NCIS on KGAN last night had about a 1/2 second of audio delay.

It's the only show I watch on CBS.

Stranger and stranger - last night there was some pretty hefty audio delay on KWWL SD. - I've taken to watching that more than I would like because DT no longer comes in as well as it used to before they "didn't make any changes" a month or so ago. I still have pretty hefty pixelazation and lockups, both audio and video, with most OTA KWWL-DT. Which is a real shame, since PAX comes in clear as a bell. :( But lipsynch problems on SD take things to a new level. At least with KGAN, I can at least watch a nice HD signal while being annoyed by their lipsynch issues. (which were also cured before the ice storm. are you guys still recovering?)

Stranger and stranger - last night there was some pretty hefty audio delay on KWWL SD. - I've taken to watching that more than I would like because DT no longer comes in as well as it used to before they "didn't make any changes" a month or so ago. I still have pretty hefty pixelazation and lockups, both audio and video, with most OTA KWWL-DT. Which is a real shame, since PAX comes in clear as a bell. :( But lipsynch problems on SD take things to a new level. At least with KGAN, I can at least watch a nice HD signal while being annoyed by their lipsynch issues. (which were also cured before the ice storm. are you guys still recovering?)I understand that some networks have switched or are switching to digital delivery on their SD (for the affiliates' analog channels) as well as HD, though I don't know firsthand about NBC's main network feed. Although I do remember a time in the late 90s when there was a brief lip-sync problem with a live award show on NBC, so you can't really rule it out even with pure analog.

As for KWWL-DT, it's been there everytime I've wanted to watch it, but I noticed that the guide data -- which had been missing for a while -- is now back on all three services. Sometimes when something is added to a signal it can throw stuff off.

Maybe its just negative karma on my part - last night, watched Office over QAM - at the start of the season, back in Sept, the HD dropped out just as Pam and Jim were explaining that they weren't going to be an item - the moment everyone was waiting for all summer. Last night, watched over QAM, and I'll be danged, but signal dropped out and completely disappeared just as Roy came storming in to beat down Jim....so again, I miss the moment that NBC had been promoting for two weeks.

I think its a ploy to get me to buy the dvd box sets. :)

I am so disappointed in KWWL. I watch OTA and the same thing happened last night to me. KWWL is consistently the worst station in our market. I knew of no weather reason last night that the dropouts should have occurred. I am patiently waiting for locals to go HD via DTV. If you are having problems via QAM won't the same thing happen to satellite?

One would have to guess that the problem is somewhere between the network and what KWWL is putting out. Since my cc gets QAM via a fiber link, has to be either in what KWWL is receiving or somewhere in their system, before they send it back out to us.

Lip sync was just terrible this week watching Law & Order: CI and SVU via Mediacom. It was so bad I just deleted both shows from my DVR. I noticed it last week on CI, but the audio was fine during SVU. I hope they get this fixed before Heroes comes back on the 23rd of this month.

On Wednesday, April 4th, I recorded "Crossing Jordan" from KWWL-DT OTA on my TiVo S3 and when I played it back the audio was slightly out of (lip) sync for the whole show. Quite annoying, to say the least.

Thinking of switching to a Satellite company, but can I get ABC, NBC, etc in HD from satellite?

Thinking of switching to a Satellite company, but can I get ABC, NBC, etc in HD from satellite?
Not yet.....

Not yet.....


any idea when? Also, what does anyone think of their satellite service?

any idea when? Also, what does anyone think of their satellite service?

I have Dish and I've been pretty happy with it. I get the local HD's OTA though. No word on when our local HD's will light up on Dish. They have been pretty quiet about them and haven't delivered on some markets they said would be done by now.

Will you Hawk fans with Dish change to Direct ,if Dish does not pick up the Big Ten channel? It appears Dish and some of the cable companies do not want to put the Big Ten on their basic package like Direct is going to do. I am a big Hawk fan and I will do whatever I need to to see the games. I would like to know now, if Dish is not going to do this, so I can look for a good deal from Direct.but I am afraid this decision will go right down to the wire. If the Big Ten is going to carry all the games they will have to have five channels. Information is hard to find about the Network.

I live on the east side of Iowa City. Has anyone here in Iowa City besides myself lost the signal to KWWL-DT? I receive all my DT channels over the air. As of maybe a week ago channel 7 DT has left me and my Panasonic simply says poor signal quality. All the other DT channels are still being received as before. Thanks.