Posted by JMartinko
Don't forget, from the LCG's point of view there is no reason to rush as long as they are on the air by the switch-over deadline, and frankly, if they didn't quite make that I doubt seriously the FCC would do anything anyway. I am sure the LCG is aware of that. The only reason to rush would be to get their signal up for the good of the public in the greater metropolitan area, and of course we already know that is very low on the priority list.

I think if you read the "Commission Acts on Requests Filed by 145 Television Stations Seeking Additional Time to Complete Construction of Their DTV Facilities" document dated May 18, 2007 of the FCC web site you'll find that KCNC, KMGH, and KTVD were granted six month construction deadlines and KRMA and KUSA were granted extensions 30 days beyond the effective date of amendments to Section 73.624d adopted in the Third Periodic Review proceeding. Only 4 stations, located in NV, NC, SC, and FL, were granted construction permit extensions through 2-17-09.

I think you're going to see the LCG stations on the air well before 2-17-09 and that our office pool is alive and well. Just my 2 cents.

I wouldn't be so sure.

If LCG construction "runs behind," what is the FCC going to do, yank the licenses of the local "big three" network affiliates when they can claim hardships that required federal legislation to resolve?

I think not, and further should a Democrat be sworn in as President in January, 2009, I wouldn't count on the Feb. 2009 date to stand at all.

Only if it is "fast tracked" - Somehow I don't think the Digital changeover will be at the top,of national matters at that time.

I'm afraid that we are not completely ready for the "Digital Transition", but also....we are never going to be fully ready, either.

We are just "as ready as we will ever be" though, since any attempt to delay the date will just result in even more procrastination. It's kinda like, when your kid first attempts to dive in the deep end of the pool and learn to swim. He's gonna keep putting it off, until someone throws him in....then, if he doesn't drown, he learns to swim and enjoys it.

I guess the bottom line is that no one really knows when LCG will complete construction, including them, but they probably have some timeline in place in order to schedule contractors, order equipment, etc.

I think we've all been somewhat guilty, including me, of being too pessimistic with a glass half empty outlook regarding the tower issue. While we were all complaining on this forum, LCG was quietly backdooring sCARE with a federal law. Right after that, the attitude on this forum brightened somewhat, but now it seems we're back to the negative, procrastination mode.

What I've learned from all of this so far is that our comments are fun to post and read but have little effect on reality. I know we all want to see the construction completed and full power transmitters on the air well before 2-17-09. I think we should monitor, as best as we can, the progress of LCG's construction efforts and see what bona fide conclusions we may draw from that. Perhaps folks like our friend from SLC, Ken, can give us some guidance on what needs to take place as construction proceeds and how much time it will take, based upon his experience at KSL.

I also think it's somewhat baseless to continue to think that the 2-17-09 analog shutdown won't happen. Even with a Democratic president, I don't think you're going to see Congress move that date within the month between swearing in and 2-17-09. Congress doesn't move that fast, analog TV's will be off the market, stations operating a full digital power will want their electric bills reduced via analog cutoff, etc.

I know it's hard to think on a positive note, but I'm keeping my office pool date of 5-21-08.

I also think it's somewhat baseless to continue to think that the 2-17-09 analog shutdown won't happen. Even with a Democratic president, I don't think you're going to see Congress move that date within the month between swearing in and 2-17-09.I agree. At most you'll see them make some token gesture to beef up the subsidy program and leave it at that.

There's been a lot of talk about not being ready for the DTV transition. In Washington it's all about petty political bickering. But things are falling into place. The converter program is now moving froward. TV's must come equipped with digital tuners. Legacy TV's must be identified as such. Broadcasters, many that are ready now, want this to be over. Consumers are becoming aware. This thing is slowly building momentum.

The FCC has set expirations on most the construction permits although they have granted some extensions (not past the DTV date) for special situations like yours in Denver. Otherwise, they will not listen to pleas of hardship and they are firm about everyone being ready in 2009; anyone who cannot flip the switch then simply will not have a license to broadcast.

Since the legalities are now settled, I think your Denver tower will be completed in time. LCG does not a difficult schedule if they did sufficient planning and ordered long lead time items. Your stations might even make the switch easier then those that must juggle equipment at existing facilities.

--- CHAS

I agree. At most you'll see them make some token gesture to beef up the subsidy program and leave it at that.
???
:confused:

I wouldn't be so sure.

If LCG construction "runs behind," what is the FCC going to do, yank the licenses of the local "big three" network affiliates when they can claim hardships that required federal legislation to resolve?

I think not, and further should a Democrat be sworn in as President in January, 2009, I wouldn't count on the Feb. 2009 date to stand at all.

Yes that is EXACTLY what will happen - if you can't broadcast digitally on Febuary 17, 2009 - you will no longer have a liscense to broadcast. Pitiful as it is with their lowpower Republic Plaza installation, the Denver stations ARE at least broadcasting something, even if it isn't at "full power" yet. At most, they might lose their "digital protection" coverage. Some stations will just be going dark, claiming financial hardship is very difficult to get approval for now.

Yes that is EXACTLY what will happen - if you can't broadcast digitally on Febuary 17, 2009 - you will no longer have a liscense to broadcast. Pitiful as it is with their lowpower Republic Plaza installation, the Denver stations ARE at least broadcasting something, even if it isn't at "full power" yet. At most, they might lose their "digital protection" coverage. Some stations will just be going dark, claiming financial hardship is very difficult to get approval for now.
I think you're living in fantasyland.

I think that not only will a number of NTSC stations allowed to keep broadcasting under "emergency waivers," as I mentioned the Feb. 2009 date will itself likely become soft once the majority of Americans find out analog broadcasting will be going away; polls have consistently shown that a vast majority of Americans still aren't aware of the cutover, and let's be honest, neither brodcasters nor, amazingly enough, TV manufacturers have made any real attempt to inform them.

(If you were a TV maker, wouldn't you be running a big ad campaign to let people know they should upgrade?)

(If you were a TV maker, wouldn't you be running a big ad campaign to let people know they should upgrade?)

I don't think TV manufacturers have much to do with the analog shutoff. They are not domestic industries that set any kind of policy and they are not proactive in this scenario but rather reactive. With the cutoff still some 21 months away, the foreign manufacturers see no rush to get into fire sale mode. How many non-HDTV's do you see in the BB, CC, Ultimate Sunday Post flyers? There's a few SDTV's and virtually no analog TV's featured. Do you see HDTV ads in the Sunday Post for Super Bowl Sunday in August?

I respect your opinion but I don't think folks like Scooper, HIPAR, I, and others with similar opinions are living in fantasyland. You need to read the Third Periodic Review of the Commission's Rules and Policies Affecting the Conversion to Digital Television dated May 18, 2007 on the FCC website. Stations have already lost applications for construction permit extensions, interference protection, etc. Financial hardship rules have been tighened up and several stations have already declared they will go dark on 2-17-09.

I don't believe there will be any "emergency waivers". And just what would constitute an emergency? Perhaps a constant blizzard on Lookout for the summers of 2007 and 2008? Ain't gonna happen.

(If you were a TV maker, wouldn't you be running a big ad campaign to let people know they should upgrade?)

If I were having trouble selling TVs I would.

Nobody seems to have this problem; new TVs continue to sell very well. Ironically, the manufacturers are all complaining about too much competition from too many brands with prices dropping to levels where no one is realizing a sufficient profit.

This 'education' phase is all about the best timing for it to commence. Now, it's a petty Democrat vs Republican issue. When the coupons and converters become available next year, a major portion of the over-the-air viewing public will pull their heads out of the sand.

--- CHAS

Even most of the SDTVs being sold now fall into one of 2 classes -

1. "Firesale" TV's without the ATSC tuner (and labeled as such)
2. SDTVs with 480i displays and ATSC tuners, sometimes even QAM tuners for unencrypted digital cable (pretty much limited to the local broadcast stations). I have a 14 inch one of these (no QAM, but it does have ATSC/NTSC tuners), purchased at Best Buy less then 2 months ago.

I'll predict that 6 months from now - you won't be able to find a TV with a screen larger than 13 inches without an ATSC tuner. The small handhelds may still be out, but they will be going away.

And yes - I believe that NTSC broadcasting will be going away on Feb 17, 2009. Personally, I'll still be using NTSC inside the house over my own modulated channels, but all OTA will be ATSC only. Also, non-digital cable may still be using NTSC for quite some time. It would not surprise me to find local channels going to many cable subscribers to be downconverted ATSC broadcasts, remodulated to NTSC for the cable plant.

Deb's trip to Washington D.C. (http://www.c-a-r-e.org/)

Deb's trip to Washington D.C. (http://www.c-a-r-e.org/)Perfect. Hot Air goes to the city of hot air.

I wonder why this hasn't made it on the sCARE website yet - www.mountainlake.org. The devastation, downed power lines, and burned buildings, was unbelievable! NOT :D

I can't speak for other services, but the D* HR20 started out with a lot of bugs, but in the last few months the software updates have really smoothed out the operation. I did not previously own a TiVo or DVR of any kind so I can't compare the HR20 to other brands, but I am happy with mine at the moment. Now if only D* will improve their picture quality when they get the new sat up and convert to MPEG4 for the nationals, all will be well. Of course the other consideration is programming. I have D* mostly because of the NFLST, so that influences my decision for services. YMMV.

And that really is the point. Each service has its own HD DVR. I personally am happy with my DISH 622, although the tower situation limits what I can receive on it OTA here in Ft Collins. The Comcast folks have a Motorola DVR that doesn't seem to please anybody much. I've never used one. I expect that all three boxes will handle OTA just fine, so the difference is in programming from the services. Lots of threads around on that topic. If you want simple OTA HD recording, your options are pretty limited right now.

I didn't think that the Comcast box did OTA???

I wonder why this hasn't made it on the sCARE website yet - www.mountainlake.org.


Simple. The tower collapsed as designed. It debunks what CARE has put forth over the last few years. CARE maybe dumb, but they aren't stupid.

I didn't think that the Comcast box did OTA???
The Comcast box does not do OTA. But Comcast offers all of the local HD signals (which is most of the DTV channels) anyway and if you get their box you get those channels at no additional charge.

KRMA and KUSA filed applications which were accepted by the FCC today to extend their construction permits. The actual applications have not been posted yet. It'll be interesting to see what time frames they are asking for.

Tower Construction Moving Full Speed Ahead

Construction of the consolidated tower on Lookout Mountain is proceeding with expected completion in mid 2008.

With my situation, attic mounted mid-size antenna in Louisville, CO my ability to get a clean KCNC-DT 4.1 has been iffy since I got my first TV with a digital tuner about a year and a half ago. However, my newest set has always been able to get it clean until last night during the heavy winds. There was lots of noise (I presume its actually packet loss) on the received signal on all of my TVs. This morning it was significantly better, but still not as good as it usually is. The other OTA digital stations looked normal.

Did anyone else note anything similar?

I can't think of anything that would be different at my end. Is anyone aware of any issues at the transmitter?

With my situation, attic mounted mid-size antenna in Louisville, CO my ability to get a clean KCNC-DT 4.1 has been iffy since I got my first TV with a digital tuner about a year and a half ago. However, my newest set has always been able to get it clean until last night during the heavy winds. There was lots of noise (I presume its actually packet loss) on the received signal on all of my TVs. This morning it was significantly better, but still not as good as it usually is. The other OTA digital stations looked normal.

Did anyone else note anything similar?

I can't think of anything that would be different at my end. Is anyone aware of any issues at the transmitter?For about the last 6-8 months, I have noticed the 4-1 signal strength is considerably lower than the other stations also located on Republic Plaza. I consistently get signal strengths of 90s plus from both channels 7-1 and 9-1 but only see 40s from channel 4-1. I have seen no logical explanation of why it should be so much less since I have a CM4228 and a good LOS to RP.

I'm in Highlands Ranch and I've had problems the last few evenings with KUSA. I have lost its signal at least once each night this week since Monday. I assumed it was the weather. I have not seen any difference in KCNC. I normally get a signal of about 70-71 on my E* receiver and it hasn't changed.

I'm in Highlands Ranch and I've had problems the last few evenings with KUSA. I have lost its signal at least once each night this week since Monday. I assumed it was the weather. I have not seen any difference in KCNC. I normally get a signal of about 70-71 on my E* receiver and it hasn't changed.
The reception issue sure is hard to understand at times. For me, KUSA(9-1) is normally fine. I am much more likely to have problems with KCNC(4-1).

It sure will be nice when these stations get into their final configurations.

If I am interpreting the FCC site correctly:
For the current DS/STA transmitters, the power and Height above sea Level is:
KCNC 11.0KW 1816M
KUSA 10.9KW 1816M
The DT/CP Mod transmitters which will eventually become the Licensed versions will be:
KCNC 1000KW 2383M
KUSA 1000KW 2326M
With almost 100 times the power and an extra 500 Meters in altitude, our problems should go away.

Just wanted to say hello from the Ecuadoran Jungle!
Out here shooting HD in the middle of Ecuador at an oil pipeline. A video about Cat generators that power the pipeline.

Oh, gas is about a $1. a gallon in Ecuador and Diesel is about .80/gallon at the pumps.

http://www.santellaproductions.com/dtv/jungle.jpg

Just wanted to say hello from the Ecuadoran Jungle!
Out here shooting HD in the middle of Ecuador at an oil pipeline. A video about Cat generators that power the pipeline.

Oh, gas is about a $1. a gallon in Ecuador and Diesel is about .80/gallon at the pumps.



I thought for a second the picture was of the work on Lookout for the new tower. Be honest Ernie, you just went to Ecuador to get away from all the RF radiation on Lookout, didn't you! How is the HD reception down there?
:D

Those are about the size they'd need for Lookout Mountain, but I think they'll need more than a carport for Denver weather :) .

BTW, is that you, Ernie (with the camera)?

Yeah, that's me. The camera adds 10 pounds.

Yeah, that's me. The camera adds 10 pounds.So how many cameras were on your butt? :D

Looking to upgrade my parents' attic-mount rig. They have an old VHF antenna with 300 ohm cable running down. They also have a set-top UHF triple bowtie. As you might expect, they are seeing mixed results. They don't have HDTV but I want to get them set up to receive all the digital channels. They live in Aurora, and according to antennaweb the weaker downtown transmitters are at 280 and 8.5 miles. The Lookout Mtn transmitters are at 265 and 20 miles. I understand that eventually all the bigger stations will be transmitting at higher power out of Lookout. Antennaweb shows all of them as Yellow. A couple of questions:

1. Will all digital transmissions be UHF in the future or will some be VHF? (I live in the DC area now and it seems that all the digital OTA stuff here is UHF)
2. Since they live relatively close and there is only 15 degrees of separation between the Lookout and downtown locations, will a non-amplified antenna be sufficient?
3. Is there somewhere on AVS where people recommend installers?

TIA!

Didn't anyone else happen to read the headline article on the "FRONT PAGE" of the Denver Post today????

Stealthy Alliance Behind Tower (Denver Post Front Page Headline, 06/11/07) (http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_6110129)

It sounds like Deb sponsored this article.

I thought for a second the picture was of the work on Lookout for the new tower. Be honest Ernie, you just went to Ecuador to get away from all the RF radiation on Lookout, didn't you! How is the HD reception down there?
:D

I imagine its the about the same as it is in Denver.

I imagine its the about the same as it is in Denver.
ROFLMAO
:D

Didn't anyone else happen to read the headline article on the "FRONT PAGE" of the Denver Post today????

Stealthy Alliance Behind Tower (Denver Post Front Page Headline, 06/11/07) (http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_6110129)

It sounds like Deb sponsored this article.


Actually, I thought it was a fair representation of how such legislation gets passed. The side with the best support team, and the best argument, usually wins.

I don't think LCG did anything underhanded; they just worked the system as it is. They got salient information into he hands of the legislators. Happily, "our" representatives all agreed on what was in the best interests of all concerned.

CARE worked the system,too, on a local level, for a long time. LCG just took it to the next, and ultimate, level.

I found the timing and placement of the article to be strange ("It sounds like Deb sponsored this article"). This is pretty much an old dead story, and although I agree it is an interesting view of the way many things are passed by Congress, didn't you find it odd that it made the front page months after it actually happened? This might have been a good article a week after the bill passed, but why now, and why not in the business section or local news section???? It appears that someone with a hidden agenda is trying to keep this dead issue in the public eye with the hopes that 'public outrage' will get the bill reversed. Just my own $0.02.

I found the timing and placement of the article to be strange ("It sounds like Deb sponsored this article"). This is pretty much an old dead story, and although I agree it is an interesting view of the way many things are passed by Congress, didn't you find it odd that it made the front page months after it actually happened? This might have been a good article a week after the bill passed, but why now, and why not in the business section or local news section???? It appears that someone with a hidden agenda is trying to keep this dead issue in the public eye with the hopes that 'public outrage' will get the bill reversed. Just my own $0.02.
Maybe she's planning to start the process of filing a suit in Federal Court to raise her "constitutional issues" that Judge Jackson didn't rule on. My favorite of those was the fifth amendment claim:
Public Law 109-466 forcibly deprives residents of their life and liberty and of the full use and enjoyment of their property without notice, hearing or just compensation, by eliminating zoning protections, requiring the people to submit to the nuisance, trespass and physical occupation of their property by broadcast noxious levels of radiation.
He probably didn't rule on it because he was annoyed that he had sprayed his coffee all over his chambers while reading that.

I agree that this morning's front page placement of the tower story didn't merit that much attention, especially at this late date. I seriously doubt Deb had anything to do with it though. The Post and 9News have a working relationship, with a story in "next morning's Post" always appearing on the 10:00 news.

The only remote link I see to this story and current news is the debate about Amendment 41 and lobbying legislators, albeit at the federal vs. state level.

I agree that this morning's front page placement of the tower story didn't merit that much attention, especially at this late date. .......The Post and 9News have a working relationship, .......................

It sure wouldn't make a lot of sense for 9News to follow up on this story now either. I just still think the timing and placement were strange. It surely wasn't THAT slow of a news day yesterday.

JMartinko, I had to laugh when I read your post. I was thinking along the lines of a slow news day when I posted but decided to leave that comment out. Great minds.......

Ok, who wrote the comment about handing out aluminum foil suitable for making hats? That was a good one. :D :D

A comment and a question about KUSA's OTA digital broadcasts.

First, on my almost 4-year old HDTV it looks like KUSA did something to improve their HDTV broadcasts. Local and national (Brian Williams) HDTV news broadcasts seem sharper and more color saturated than they did a month ago. I can now clearly see what appears to be Adele's trichotomy scar. Anyone else notice this PQ improvement or is it just my imagination?

Second, on channels 9-1 and 20-1, when they broadcast local SDTV content (4 x 3), the digital broadcast on my HDTV has a bright blue vertical line at the left edge of the of the 4 x 3 box. I don't see this on network stuff like Deal or No Deal, just the locally generated SDTV digital content. Anyone else see this? Anyone know what causes this? I'd like to know if it is the broadcaster and not my DLP HDTV before I call out service and have them try to realign the digital image (I've had that done before to affect other repairs and it is a real PITA for them to get the positioning correct. So, I don't want to open that box if I don't need to).

Thanks,

Carl

Second, on channels 9-1 and 20-1, when they broadcast local SDTV content (4 x 3), the digital broadcast on my HDTV has a bright blue vertical line at the left edge of the of the 4 x 3 box. I don't see this on network stuff like Deal or No Deal, just the locally generated SDTV digital content. Anyone else see this? Anyone know what causes this? I'd like to know if it is the broadcaster and not my DLP HDTV before I call out service and have them try to realign the digital image (I've had that done before to affect other repairs and it is a real PITA for them to get the positioning correct. So, I don't want to open that box if I don't need to).
I've seen the blue bar on occasion, but not all the time. I've never paid too much attention to it, since it isn't consistent and I'm sure it's not a TV issue.

What kind of DLP do you have? Realigning the Samsung DLP's is pretty easy from the service menu.

..........They live in Aurora, and according to antennaweb the weaker downtown transmitters are at 280 and 8.5 miles. The Lookout Mtn transmitters are at 265 and 20 miles. I understand that eventually all the bigger stations will be transmitting at higher power out of Lookout. Antennaweb shows all of them as Yellow. A couple of questions:

1. Will all digital transmissions be UHF in the future or will some be VHF? (I live in the DC area now and it seems that all the digital OTA stuff here is UHF)
2. Since they live relatively close and there is only 15 degrees of separation between the Lookout and downtown locations, will a non-amplified antenna be sufficient?
3. Is there somewhere on AVS where people recommend installers?

TIA!
1) Currently all of the DTV channels are UHF, but some of the stations plan to revert back to their current assigned frequencies, there will likely be at least 2 (don't remember for sure which ones, [6 & 9 ??] but I am sure someone will post who knows for sure) VHF stations, so yes they will likely need an antenna that does both.
Additional information can be found at
http://www.santellaproductions.com/dtv/denverdtv.htm
although I don't think the final channel assignments are there. Most of us are currently using UHF only antennas, but you might consider trying a VHF/UHF combo from Aurora so they do not have to replace everything when the DTV goes full power from Lookout. I doubt a simple bow tie will work during the interim. I used a UHF only antenna from Rat Shack which works from Boulder, and plan to switch back to my VHF/UHF only antenna already in the attic when things go to full power from Lookout. FWIW, I would not expect the 300 ohm twin lead to work as a cable, you will need a good low loss shielded coax (RG-4) for the UHF signals since they are so weak. I would try an antenna from Rat Shack first to see if it works, since you can return it for a refund if it isn't enough gain. Due to our miserable circumstances here, reception is very much a hit and miss proposition in town. Be ready to try several positions and pointing at various angles to see what you will get. Many of us have found that sometimes a few inches either way will get reception or not.

2) For the low power stations, reception is often hit and miss depending upon the contour of the land between your parents and the Republic Plaza (RP). Most likely from Aurora, they should be able to receive the low power DTV without and amplifier. The medium power stations on Lookout (2 & 31) will most likely be easily received even with the antenna pointed directly at the RP unless the signal falls at exactly the null between two sidelobes. If the direction is really only 8 deg apart, most likely that will not be a problem. After everything is full power from Lookout, reception should be very simple with the single antenna and no amp.

3) I know there are people in the area who do that. Could someone who has used an installer here please post for broncofan63??

Sorry I don't have all the answers, but I didn't want you to think your request was being ignored because of the newspaper article and I was afraid your post would slip into history before someone responded.

Regarding some recent posts:

Channels 7 & 9 will revert back to these channels at the analog cutoff. They will both have, as of now but I expect them to ask for an increase, about 35 kW of ERP. Even at that level, they should be receivable with most UHF only antennas. I receive KDEV from a transmitter near Ft. Collins on DT-11 with my UHF antenna and it only has 16 kW ERP.

I emailed Don Perez at KUSA regarding the blue vertical bar on SD programs back in the middle of the winter. He replied twice, and had this problem fixed. If I remember correctly, he told me that the blue line was non-video data that was being sent in the wrong area of the 6 mHz band of the channel's tranmission and was showing up as video data. I also noticed that this blue line was back a few days ago when my wife was watching Ellen in the afternoon. I believe Don Perez has retired from KUSA now, so it looks like the problem has regressed to the situation prior to his fix. Perhaps someone (maybe me) can email KUSA again about it so it can be fixed. As they used to say "The problem is not in your set".

I emailed Don Perez at KUSA regarding the blue vertical bar on SD programs back in the middle of the winter. He replied twice, and had this problem fixed. If I remember correctly, he told me that the blue line was non-video data that was being sent in the wrong area of the 6 mHz band of the channel's tranmission and was showing up as video data.
This problem has never been fixed.

It's only on syndicated content and I remember reading here it was an artifact of the distribution system.

I've seen it every night on Extra for over a year now.

Well, I don't want to get argumentative about it, but the blue line problem WAS fixed. I remember checking the Ellen show that my wife watches nearly every day after I got the second email from Don Perez. Since then, I really haven't paid much attention to it since I really don't watch any syndicated programming on KUSA or any other station for that matter.

Looking to upgrade my parents' attic-mount rig. They have an old VHF antenna with 300 ohm cable running down. They also have a set-top UHF triple bowtie. As you might expect, they are seeing mixed results. They don't have HDTV but I want to get them set up to receive all the digital channels. They live in Aurora, and according to antennaweb the weaker downtown transmitters are at 280 and 8.5 miles. The Lookout Mtn transmitters are at 265 and 20 miles. I understand that eventually all the bigger stations will be transmitting at higher power out of Lookout. Antennaweb shows all of them as Yellow. A couple of questions:

1. Will all digital transmissions be UHF in the future or will some be VHF? (I live in the DC area now and it seems that all the digital OTA stuff here is UHF)
2. Since they live relatively close and there is only 15 degrees of separation between the Lookout and downtown locations, will a non-amplified antenna be sufficient?
3. Is there somewhere on AVS where people recommend installers?

TIA!

It appears that you are 3 miles farther west than I am. I live in a valley along tolgate creek and I get all the Denver stations with a $20.00 uhf-vhf from Home Depot that is mounted in m attic. I would change out the 300 ohm flatlead tho.

I seriously doubt Deb had anything to do with it though.I thought she retired to Boca Del Vista.

It sure wouldn't make a lot of sense for 9News to follow up on this story now either. I just still think the timing and placement were strange. It surely wasn't THAT slow of a news day yesterday.


Frankly, I doubt the reporters could have gotten that level of information -- about the lawmakers, the fees paid to the FCC related lobbyists, etc -- the week after the vote. But I was interested in the machinery that made the wheels move, however late in the game the information surfaced.

But I also think the papers had better get busy spreading the news that 15% or so of the TVs in metro Denver will go dark in 18 months. I am very, very sure most of the people who will be hit by this black-screen-plague have no idea what's coming.

I am also convinced that those who don't know will blame the stations when the digital-only switch is thrown.

I emailed KUSA today regarding the vertical blue line on syndicated shows. The only show I checked today was ET at 6:30 and it didn't have a blue vertical line although I recollect seeing it on Ellen at 3:00 on Monday while my wife was watching.

I received two replies from Don Trapp at KUSA. He apparently has taken Don Perez' place since his retirement. He asked me a lot of questions regarding how I was receiving the signal, whether the blue line appeared on analog and digital, whether it was observed on KTVD, etc. If you want to give him some specific information, his email is don.trapp@9news.com.

A short extract from his second email:
I won’t be available to check on this until Thursday afternoon. That signal passes through probably 50 boxes on its way to the transmitter, so I’ll need to see the problem to have any chance of figuring out where the problem lies, or to determine whether the problem even lies in our building.

I'll post any updates I receive from Mr. Trapp.

Does anyone else have issues with channel 6-2, PBS V-Me (KRMA's hispanic subchannel)?

An ATSC TV I have receives it just fine, but though it scans it, my S3 TiVO just displays a grey screen without displaying any type of error message.

Well, I don't want to get argumentative about it, but the blue line problem WAS fixed. I remember checking the Ellen show that my wife watches nearly every day after I got the second email from Don Perez. Since then, I really haven't paid much attention to it since I really don't watch any syndicated programming on KUSA or any other station for that matter.It's never been fixed for the late night (2:15 AM) run of Extra!; I can't say I normally watch Ellen.

Mr. Video posted the reason for the line here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9220013&&#post9220013) :

That is a result of the Warner Bros. GDMX encoders. All of the video streams on the Warner Bros. mux (6 of them ) have the cyan color on the left edge. All KUSA has to do to eliminate the problem is to crop the 720 pixel image to 704 and all will be well. This means that any program they get from the Warner Bros. GDMX DVB-S feed will have the problem. Any program they get from the Pathfire feed will not.

This problem has been there, if I remember correctly, ever since they combined two satellite muxes into one.

Mr. Video posted the reason for the line

I'll pass that along to Mr. Trapp.

Does anyone else have issues with channel 6-2, PBS V-Me (KRMA's hispanic subchannel)?

An ATSC TV I have receives it just fine, but though it scans it, my S3 TiVO just displays a grey screen without displaying any type of error message.I have a similar situation - my LG4200A ATSC receiver gets 6-2, but my mythtv setup does not. Not that 6-2 has anything I really want to watch or record anyway.

This is a somewhat recent problem, since I was able to watch 6-2 with mythtv in the past. The error messages that the mythbackend spits out when playing 6-2 say "Wrong PMT..." - which makes me think that KRMA has make some change to their PSIP data which triggered the problem.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the ATSC spec has enough ambiguity in it that there can often be incompatibilities between some stations and some receivers. Perhaps there will be more focus on fixing these issues when Feb '09 gets closer.

Does anyone else have issues with channel 6-2, PBS V-Me (KRMA's hispanic subchannel)?

An ATSC TV I have receives it just fine, but though it scans it, my S3 TiVO just displays a grey screen without displaying any type of error message.

My Vizio VX32L and Philips 42PF732A ATSC TVs can display 6-2 OK. My new Philips DVDR3575H DVD recorder with its built in ATSC tuner can display the video of 6-2 but there is no sound.

With the DVD recorder, when I go to 6-1, I have 2 audio choices.
1/2 English - Normal sound in English
2/2 Spanish - Slightly muted sound in English
With the DVD recorder, when I go to 6-2, I have 2 audio choices.
1/2 English - No Sound
2/2 English(Not a typo) - No Sound (I wonder if KRMA has something configured wrong that the TVs ignore but the DVD recorder doesn't. I can't find any options on any of the TVs that change the sound on 6-1 or 6-2.)

On the DVD recorder, the video does show a bit of noise, but if it had sound and I understood Spanish it would be watchable.

I am also in Louisville. I have an medium size VHF/UHF attic mounted antenna pointed just about due South with a Channel Master 7777 preamp, but the feed to the Philips TV and DVD recorder in the family room goes through 3 splitters(2/1) and about a hundred feet of co-ax.

Didn't see any "blue lines" on 9-1 or 20-1 this evening. Recently it has been the late morning and afternoon SD programming on these DTV channels that has had the blue line. Ellen, Judge Judy, and the gossip show following KUSA news at noon each day. I'll try to get a better read tomorrow.

I brought this up because I only noticed the blue lines recently. My "old-timers" caused me to forget that it was an issue 6 months ago. However, I didn't see the blue lines in March and April and I was watching a lot of daytime TV then (busted up my shoulder skiing).

New story in the City & Mountain News rag. Same old wining. GET A LIFE!!!!

http://www.citymtnviews.com/AT_Update_June07.php4

Staff members were not informed of excellent alternative sites for HDTV antennas or the CSU health study of Lookout Mountain residents completed in 2005.

Footnote: Broadcast professionals from Ukraine met with CARE representatives at Buffalo Bill’s Grave near 1000 antennas on March 5, 2007. The Eastern Europe visitors were shocked by the extreme EMR density (thousands of times higher) allowed by the FCC than is allowed in Eastern Europe and most governments around the world.

Looks like Deb is not only still trooping around with that CSU study (which concluded there was no evidence of any cancers actually caused by the Lookout radiation), but now she is even enlisting 'professionals from the Ukraine'. I guess that means she ran out of US Scientists who were willing to listen to her bs.

In addition, I love the comment

but the Representatives’ staff are not comfortable with the federal preemption intended to increase rental profits for a special interest

which conveniently ignores the potential of millions of dollars of profits for the special interests of the property holders on Lookout if she can get someone to buy her story.

I am sure glad to see that Deb is still able to work the issue on the expense account of (S)CARE. Otherwise she might have to get a real job.
:rolleyes:

I don't know if this will help with those looking to tune KRMA's Spanish channel, 6-2, but I discovered by channel surfing tonight on my Insignia (Best Buy brand) that channel 6-2 shows up as channel 18-2, even though I also receive it on 6-2. I don't get anything on 18-1. That seems to indicate there is a PSIP problem with the subchannel.

On the saga of the blue line on KUSA, I received two additional emails from Don Trapp Wednesday evening. He apparently works the second shift, as all 4 emails I've received from him have been dated after 5:00 pm. I did notice the blue line during Extra that was on at 12:30 pm after the noon news.

Here's the relevant portion of the first email I received from him today:
We isolated the problem to an IRD inside the KUSA plant. I don’t know that there is much we can do about it; it is inherent to the design. In SD, this is not a problem because it falls outside the safe title area, but as you note, upconverted HD sees it.

Since this is legacy SD gear, I don’t think we will be replacing it with new gear in light of the upcoming SD going off the air. The reason it went away last year was that they started using another receiver. Here is what I can do: in the short-run, I will ask the operations supervisors if they can use the alternate receiver, although I don’t know if that is even an option. Nevertheless, I will ask.

We have a budget for SD equipment replacement later this year; maybe we could address it then. I can’t make any promises.

After I received this email, I asked him what he meant by SD and upconverted HD. His response in the second email was a little lengthy, but in summary he stated that the station uses a 270 MHz Standard Definition serial digital signal to carry SD programming "around the station". This digital signal carries more information than is needed for an analog transmission. At the transmitter, some of the color bits in this digital signal are "thrown away" and then this digital signal is converted to NTSC for analog transmission. But, for the digital signal, these color bits are not thrown away (the blue line). The signal is converted in its entirety to 8-VSB at the transmitter for the digital transmission. The net effect of this is that the analog signal does not show the blue line but the digital signal does. As an aside, he also stated that all HD programming is sent on a 1.485 GHz high definition digital signal that has imbedded audio channels, captioning, etc. This signal is also converted to 8-VSB at the transmitter.

I thought the responsiveness of KUSA on this issue was excellent. Some stations, like KGWN in Cheyenne and KTVD before they were acquired by KUSA (in my experience), never get back to you when you contact them.

It allows Denver TV Channels 4, 7, 9, and 20 (Lake Cedar Group) to consolidate analog and digital transmitters on Lookout Mountain.She really has no clue to what she is writing about. They are not consolidating both Analog & Digital, just Digital.

Yo, Carole Lomond, Jerry's Dead, Phish Sucks... The towers going up!

Broadcast professionals from Ukraine met with CARE representatives at Buffalo Bill’s Grave near 1000 antennas on March 5, 2007...

Are there really 1000 antennas on Lookout? Even counting cell phone and emergency services antennas, this seems awfully high.

The anti-tower folks all seem to ignore two facts: that a net reduction of 3 towers will take place on Lookout, and that the analog EMR is going away. Oh, wait, I forgot, those facts don't support their mantra. ;)

The anti-tower folks all seem to ignore two facts: that a net reduction of 3 towers will take place on Lookout, and that the analog EMR is going away. Oh, wait, I forgot, those facts don't support their mantra. ;)
I still think there is a net reduction of 2 towers on Lookout. As I see it, the antennas of KCNC, KMGH, and KUSA will be removed at some point, and the new tower will go up. -3 + 1 is -2. The KTVD tower on Mt. Morrison is also likely to be removed. So a net reduction of 3 towers, but 2 on Lookout.

If KRMA goes elsewhere it would be 3 on Lookout, but we have not heard from KRMA here in a long time. They may have been at one point a Denver HDTV leader but they have fallen off the radar, running only 6 hours of HD a day (3 hours repeated actually) of stuff that is mostly reruns.

I still think there is a net reduction of 2 towers on Lookout. As I see it, the antennas of KCNC, KMGH, and KUSA will be removed at some point, and the new tower will go up. -3 + 1 is -2.

Go over to hdtvcolorado.com and click on 'Before and After' on the banner. The videos there explain the tower tally.

--- CHAS

She really has no clue to what she is writing about. They are not consolidating both Analog & Digital, just Digital.

Yo, Carole Lomond, Jerry's Dead, Phish Sucks... The towers going up!


Jerry's Dead???? Since when?

BTW, Phish didn't suck, but they did split up, and the latest jam band is Umphree's McGee.


As far as Deb and the analog/digital conversion, I think the original plan DID include the combination of all of the signals in the new tower, otherwise they could not have taken down the old KCNC tower next to the new one for several years. I think she is conveniently ignoring, or pretending to forget, that at this point, the plan has changed since the new tower will only operate a few months before the old analog stations go dark, and obviously, the stations will not move the gear for that short time. It makes a better story if you pretend they will all be still transmitting for many years to come.

Go over to hdtvcolorado.com and click on 'Before and After' on the banner. The videos there explain the tower tally.

--- CHAS
OK, its the KUSA Doppler tower that is being counted. That was highly controversial when sCARE said it produced hundreds of megawatts of ERP all by itself.

I just got around to watching (TiVo) Traveler from last week and yesterday.
Did anyone else have audio sync issues? The audio was about 5 seconds behind the video up until the first comercial break.

It was recorded by time off the QAM (Comcast-Longmont) channel.

The analog version was fine thruought.

# Matt

OK, its the KUSA Doppler tower that is being counted. That was highly controversial when sCARE said it produced hundreds of megawatts of ERP all by itself.I thought sCARE said the radar tower's power was 1.21 Jigawatts? ;)

I thought sCARE said the radar tower's power was 1.21 Jigawatts? ;)

I don't know what kind of weather radar is up there but a NEXRAD Doppler weather radar, in use all over the US by NOAA, has a klystron that outputs a peak power of 750 kW (0.75 MW). The antenna has a gain of 45 dB or a gain factor of about 32,000. WOW .. 24,000 megawatts peak effective radiated power!!!

--- CHAS

I thought sCARE said the radar tower's power was 1.21 Jigawatts? ;)

I think they were referring to Dr. Emmett Browns' 'Flux Capacitor". I think he has a lab up there on Lookout somewhere in one of the TV transmitter huts.
:D

I just got around to watching (TiVo) Traveler from last week and yesterday.
Did anyone else have audio sync issues? The audio was about 5 seconds behind the video up until the first comercial break.

It was recorded by time off the QAM (Comcast-Longmont) channel.

The analog version was fine thruought.

# Matt

OTA was the same. This week they had the exact same issue.
Channel 7 needs better trained monkeys.

On the saga of the blue line on KUSA, I received two additional emails from Don Trapp Wednesday evening. He apparently works the second shift, as all 4 emails I've received from him have been dated after 5:00 pm. I did notice the blue line during Extra that was on at 12:30 pm after the noon news.

Here's the relevant portion of the first email I received from him today:

After I received this email, I asked him what he meant by SD and upconverted HD. His response in the second email was a little lengthy, but in summary he stated that the station uses a 270 MHz Standard Definition serial digital signal to carry SD programming "around the station". This digital signal carries more information than is needed for an analog transmission. At the transmitter, some of the color bits in this digital signal are "thrown away" and then this digital signal is converted to NTSC for analog transmission. But, for the digital signal, these color bits are not thrown away (the blue line). The signal is converted in its entirety to 8-VSB at the transmitter for the digital transmission. The net effect of this is that the analog signal does not show the blue line but the digital signal does. As an aside, he also stated that all HD programming is sent on a 1.485 GHz high definition digital signal that has imbedded audio channels, captioning, etc. This signal is also converted to 8-VSB at the transmitter.

I thought the responsiveness of KUSA on this issue was excellent. Some stations, like KGWN in Cheyenne and KTVD before they were acquired by KUSA (in my experience), never get back to you when you contact them.

IMHO, he may have been responsive, but I don't think he is on the right track. Today I noted only two daytime shows that had the blue line, Extra and Ellen. Both were on Channel 9-1 and both we WB syndicated. Nothing I checked on Channel 20-1 today had the blue line, but I didn't check every show on both channels. I think the prior post about something in the WB syndicated stuff was spot on. Mr. Trapp's explanation doesn't fit the observed occurrences of the blue line. If his explanation were correct, we would see it a lot more than we do.

New story in the City & Mountain News rag. Same old wining. GET A LIFE!!!!

http://www.citymtnviews.com/AT_Update_June07.php4

Yeah right, the Government can't determine if working in a glovebox with Pu at Rocky Flats caused those workers to get various cancers, but they are expected to conclude that RF radiation from LOM does cause cancer. What planet are Deb and that crew from anyway?

Posted by CEBII:
IMHO, he may have been responsive, but I don't think he is on the right track. Today I noted only two daytime shows that had the blue line, Extra and Ellen. Both were on Channel 9-1 and both we WB syndicated. Nothing I checked on Channel 20-1 today had the blue line, but I didn't check every show on both channels. I think the prior post about something in the WB syndicated stuff was spot on. Mr. Trapp's explanation doesn't fit the observed occurrences of the blue line. If his explanation were correct, we would see it a lot more than we do.

I agree that I also saw the blue line today on Ellen while my wife was watching. All I can say is that KUSA's chief engineer, Ken Highberger (who is the successor to Don Perez), along with others, were aware of the email responses I received from Mr. Trapp. He did say that unless he could swap out some equipment, the blue line would not go away. And he did reiterate that the blue did disappear a while ago with different equipment. Apparently, so far, the equipment swap has not taken place.

I took the initiative to contact KUSA and I passed along their explanation. I don't think there's much more that can be done to address the situation.

Another letter to the editor in the Denver Post regarding the tower. You knew these would be coming after the front page article the other day. This one is another claim that alternative sites (translation: somebody elses back yard) were presented and ignored.

Denver Post Letters 6/14/07 Scroll down the page for "Golden tower dispute" (http://www.denverpost.com/letters/ci_6143266)

What these morons don't understand is no matter where they would have built a tower, someone would have been upset. Be it Squaw Mt., Eldorado Mt. Highlands Ranch or even out of the front plains, there's NIMBY's everywhere. So, the best alternative was to improve the existing site by reducing the number of towers that have been there for over 50 years. vs. adding a new tower to an a community that may have never had a tower before.

Someone needs to take a clue-by-four upside Mr. Vall's head. Sheesh...

Anyone live near North 119th St. and Billings Avenue just west of Erie? If so, what kind of OTA DTV do you get? Can you pick up any of the RP stations? What antenna setup are you using to receive OTA DTV?

Thanks,

Carl

I live near Arapahoe and 287 in Lafayette. I get all of the RP stations using a Radio Shack Double Bow Tie Antenna on my shelf next to the TV, pointing out a window towards RP.

It is very picky, and at times I need to play with it a lot to get a solid signal. But I'm sure if I put it up in the attic or roof, I'd get it the signals a lot more reliably.

When I set this up back in like 2004, I didn't want to work that hard because the KMGH lawers assurred me (and the FCC) that they would resolve the local zoning issue and be able to start high power DTV broadcasting in the near future ;)

When I set this up back in like 2004, I didn't want to work that hard because the KMGH lawers assurred me (and the FCC) that they would resolve the local zoning issue and be able to start high power DTV broadcasting in the near future ;)I used the same argument back in 2003 to convince my wife to let me mount our antenna outdoors - it's only for a few months! :)

I am in the same neighborhood as 'oxothuk' (north Boulder off of Lookout and 75th), and get all of the RP channels with my Rat Shack UFH only antenna.

The pole holding my "temporary" antenna is lashed to a post on the deck in my back yard. As I recall, I put up this "temporary" fixture in the fall of 2000 to see if I could get KRMA. I am a bit uncertain, because at the time they were simply mirroring the HD signal from the Ku-Band national PBS feed which I could receive on a special HD MPEG receiver attached to my C/Ku Band TVRO dish out back. I remember it was set up for sure when KRMA picked up the CBS Super Bowl feed which (I think I remember) was Jan 2001. At any rate, that "temporary" antenna setup has been there a long time, and likely with be there at least another year of so until I can get back to using the VHF/UHF antenna in my attic which is locked into pointing at Lookout. Yep, I remember back when I set it up, it was only going to be for a year or so until the Lookout antenna tower was completed. So much for that idea.
:rolleyes:

Anyone live near North 119th St. and Billings Avenue just west of Erie? If so, what kind of OTA DTV do you get? Can you pick up any of the RP stations? What antenna setup are you using to receive OTA DTV?

Thanks,

Carl

I am moving just south of there this fall (119th & Austin Ave) and am intereseted in any successes and failings you may have.

Gakon ran a topo (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9765959#post9765959) to RP and I have no Line of sight at the new place due to the hill in Thornton.

# Matt

I was just curious if anyone gets the KBDI digital stations reliably from Louisville. I went to AntennaWeb and gave it my address which is on Tamarisk CT just east of Washington and did not get a listing. I occasionally pick them up on my most sensitive tuner.

I also tried an address on Trail Ridge DR which overlooks Via Appia. That is only about a half mile south of me, but on the other side of the that ridge. The LCG stations are green for that address and violet for me. It didn't have a listing for KBDI digital either.

I just have an attic mounted antenna, but I recently installed a CM7777 and a new UHF antenna that I can easily swing +/- 30 degrees of South. Pointing it 30 west of South made no significant difference for KBDI. According to AntennaWeb the orientation for KBDI is 211 degrees and according to the FCC website, the KBDI analog and digital transmitters are on the same location (Squaw Mountain)

The AntennaWeb results are interesting, since the sCare people keep saying that Squaw Mountain is a wonderful alternative to Lookout Mountain(which I receive very well). The sCare people also conveniently ignored that KBDI was off the air for about a week last winter because of the power outage that effected the Squaw Mountain area. I don't think it got a lot of media attention either. I think power restoration would have gotten substantially higher priority and resources if it was Lookout Mountain which provides the vast majority of OTA TV and radio. I presume that Lookout Mountain is serviced by Xcel, and that they would put it just after hospitals, fire, and police on their priorities.

I was just curious if anyone gets the KBDI digital stations reliably from Louisville. FWIW, I recall someone saying once that KBDI puts a truck up at the overlook on Davidson Mesa whenever they need to relay a signal BACK to Squaw Mtn. from Boulder. Which would say to me that you probably need to be fairly high up (or to the east) to get their signal reliably in Louisville.

I was just curious if anyone gets the KBDI digital stations reliably from Louisville. I went to AntennaWeb and gave it my address which is on Tamarisk CT just east of Washington and did not get a listing. I occasionally pick them up on my most sensitive tuner.

I also tried an address on Trail Ridge DR which overlooks Via Appia. That is only about a half mile south of me, but on the other side of the that ridge. The LCG stations are green for that address and violet for me. It didn't have a listing for KBDI digital either.
If you take a look at the attached coverage map, you'll see that your problem actually caused by Mount Tom blocking the signal from KBDI. The mountain casts a fairly long shadow covering a large area to the north and north-east of of the transmitter. You happen to be just inside the edge of that shadow.

Even though the signal is blocked, it still looks like there's enough signal left to receive the channel if you move your antenna to the roof. That will improve your signal strength enough so that you'd probably get the channel on all your receivers.

Best regards,
Andy

If you take a look at the attached coverage map, you'll see that your problem actually caused by Mount Tom blocking the signal from KBDI. The mountain casts a fairly long shadow covering a large area to the north and north-east of of the transmitter. You happen to be just inside the edge of that shadow.

Even though the signal is blocked, it still looks like there's enough signal left to receive the channel if you move your antenna to the roof. That will improve your signal strength enough so that you'd probably get the channel on all your receivers.

Best regards,
Andy
Thanks for the info. Can I ask where/how you got that coverage map.

The coverage map is from Andy's website, TVFool.com. It's much more sophisticated than antennaweb.com. Go to the "sticky" thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=821480 in the HDTV Reception Hardware forum of Avs for more info.

FWIW, I recall someone saying once that KBDI puts a truck up at the overlook on Davidson Mesa whenever they need to relay a signal BACK to Squaw Mtn. from Boulder. Which would say to me that you probably need to be fairly high up (or to the east) to get their signal reliably in Louisville.

As a former (long time ago) employee of KBDI, I can verify this statement. You cannot hit Squaw from Boulder with microwave, and the analog reception was so poor we had a translator in Boulder. Having been on the inside with the coverage from Squaw issue, I always shook my head when sCare called it a good alternative site.

sCARE would say anything, truth or facts didn't make any difference.

sCARE would say anything, truth or facts didn't make any difference.
:eek:
Geez, you make is sound like they might have an some motivation other than public safety.
:eek:

This whole alternative site thing is such a bogus argument. No matter what site you chose there will be people living nearby.

sCARE would say anything, truth or facts didn't make any difference.

You also make it sound like sCARE actually knows any truth or facts.

I take immense pleasure in the fact that the tower is actually going up and they pretty much got f*cked.

I was just curious if anyone gets the KBDI digital stations reliably from Louisville. I went to AntennaWeb and gave it my address which is on Tamarisk CT just east of Washington and did not get a listing. I occasionally pick them up on my most sensitive tuner.

I also tried an address on Trail Ridge DR which overlooks Via Appia. That is only about a half mile south of me, but on the other side of the that ridge. The LCG stations are green for that address and violet for me. It didn't have a listing for KBDI digital either.

I just have an attic mounted antenna, but I recently installed a CM7777 and a new UHF antenna that I can easily swing +/- 30 degrees of South. Pointing it 30 west of South made no significant difference for KBDI. According to AntennaWeb the orientation for KBDI is 211 degrees and according to the FCC website, the KBDI analog and digital transmitters are on the same location (Squaw Mountain)

The AntennaWeb results are interesting, since the sCare people keep saying that Squaw Mountain is a wonderful alternative to Lookout Mountain(which I receive very well). The sCare people also conveniently ignored that KBDI was off the air for about a week last winter because of the power outage that effected the Squaw Mountain area. I don't think it got a lot of media attention either. I think power restoration would have gotten substantially higher priority and resources if it was Lookout Mountain which provides the vast majority of OTA TV and radio. I presume that Lookout Mountain is serviced by Xcel, and that they would put it just after hospitals, fire, and police on their priorities.

The coverage map shows it well, but I'm in Lafayette (Arapahoe Rd. between 95th and 287). I cannot get KDBI digital. My antenna is NOT on my roof, however, so I think it is possible that going on the roof may help (in the coverage map, my location looks like it is in the same color region as yours). I do get the led on my SIR-T150 to go from red to "blinking orage", but it needs to be green before it recognizes ANY signal strength (and even then it wouldn't actually get a picture until the signal strenght meter showed 4 or 5 bars of strength).

I do get the analog signal OK, so I do hold out some hope that I'll get it if they ever go to a higher power. But I also realize the 12 and 38 are quite diffferent frequencies, so even then it may not work.


Greg

My 3000th post - WooHoo!

I was driving on 6th Ave today and saw quite a lot of activity on Lookout. Tractors and construction going on everywhere. They are moving ahead full speed! I wonder how long until we see the first bit of tower going up?

I was driving on 6th Ave today and saw quite a lot of activity on Lookout. Tractors and construction going on everywhere. They are moving ahead full speed! I wonder how long until we see the first bit of tower going up?
We need a:
CAM! CAM! CAM!

I'll ask the boys if they are considering that.

I recently started using Windows Media Center, with a digital tuner, to receive and record local digital television over the air. (Turns out I can get 9 digital OTA stations at my house North of Boulder - woo hoo!) The guide information in Windows Media Center for KRMA-DT is incorrect - the analog station schedule is being used rather than the digital. I understand Media Center gets guide data from Zap2it, and their web-site has both the analog and digital schedules for KRMA, so I don't know where the problem lies. I used the 80503 zip code when setting up the Media Center guide, if that makes any difference. Is anyone aware of this problem, and hopefully, how to fix it?
Thanks

I'll ask the boys if they are considering that.
HDTVColorado.com says "This website will track the progress as the tower is built. " It seems to me 'the boys' already claim that they will do that, so I would just ask them to do what they said they would do on their website. Maybe they don't care about their public image and PR now that they have the congressional approval to proceed.
:rolleyes:


BTW Ernie, congratulations on your 3000'th post. I would bet that only about 2000 of those had to do with Colorado not having full power HD.
:)

I understand Media Center gets guide data from Zap2it, and their web-site has both the analog and digital schedules for KRMA, so I don't know where the problem lies. Very strange. I don't know too much about Windows MCE, but I do have a MythTV setup which also (for now) gets its listing data from Zap2it. And the listings I get for KRMA-DT are perfectly accurate (they don't have any listings for V-me as yet).

Do you have any way to check what XMLTV station ID is setup for KRMA-DT in Windows MCE? I have 10669 for KRMA analog, 21723 for KRMA-DT.

HDTVColorado.com says "This website will track the progress as the tower is built. " It seems to me 'the boys' already claim that they will do that, so I would just ask them to do what they said they would do on their website. Maybe they don't care about their public image and PR now that they have the congressional approval to proceed.
:rolleyes:

I can tell you from experience, when you are full bore into a project like this, you don't have the time to think about things like updates because you are too busy getting on with the business at hand. Right now, they are up to their eyeballs.

My 3000th post - WooHoo!

I was driving on 6th Ave today and saw quite a lot of activity on Lookout. Tractors and construction going on everywhere. They are moving ahead full speed! I wonder how long until we see the first bit of tower going up?

Thanks for all you have contributed around here Ernie, it's people like you that make this place great.
Now get busy and ask your buddy to get some more of those cool helicopter photos!:D:D:D

I got an email from the boys. Sorry, but no WebCam planned at the moment. Oh, well. If I get any more chopper shots, I'll pass them along.

I got an email from the boys. Sorry, but no WebCam planned at the moment. Oh, well. If I get any more chopper shots, I'll pass them along.

It is great to hear that construction is well under way. I can understand why they would prefer not to display the construction to the scary world via webcam.

Out of curiosity, has the building permit been issued yet?

Don

Out of curiosity, has the building permit been issued yet?President Bush says they don't need one. ;)

President Bush says they don't need one. ;)

He says anyone with a DTV station construction permit can build. Is there anyone else with current plans to do so?

The FCC is not issuing licenses for new TV stations until the DTV transition is complete. Does the Act allow construction towers for new stations? I don't believe it contains an expiration date.

If you're interested in broadcasting technology, as are those here who have been following the saga, a webcam would be lots of fun. But, the remaining 'front rangers' couldn't care less about the tower.

--- CHAS

Some time back someone on this thread noted that they had tried out one of the USB connected ATSC tuners on their notebook computer. Has anyone tried one of these devices on a Mac? I'm looking at the Pinnacle TV for Mac HD Stick or the Elgato Systems EyeTV Hybrid, but both claim you need a G5 or better to view HDTV. I'm here with a lowly last of the Power Mac G4 MDDs, that seems to be a little under their system requirements for HDTV. Anyway, just wondering if anyone on this thread has run one of they HDTV USB devices on a Mac of lesser horsepower.

Some time back someone on this thread noted that they had tried out one of the USB connected ATSC tuners on their notebook computer. Has anyone tried one of these devices on a Mac? I'm looking at the Pinnacle TV for Mac HD Stick or the Elgato Systems EyeTV Hybrid, but both claim you need a G5 or better to view HDTV. I'm here with a lowly last of the Power Mac G4 MDDs, that seems to be a little under their system requirements for HDTV. Anyway, just wondering if anyone on this thread has run one of they HDTV USB devices on a Mac of lesser horsepower.


I have threatened to try one of those boards on a few occasions, but I am running on a 2.7 GHz G5 so I haven't looked at the issue. You might try asking the question on the AVS thread for MAC's.
HTPC---MAC Chat---AVS Forum (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=115)

There are several threads on the subject there, and you should be able to find a quick answer from someone who has tried.

Some time back someone on this thread noted that they had tried out one of the USB connected ATSC tuners on their notebook computer. Has anyone tried one of these devices on a Mac? I'm looking at the Pinnacle TV for Mac HD Stick or the Elgato Systems EyeTV Hybrid, but both claim you need a G5 or better to view HDTV. I'm here with a lowly last of the Power Mac G4 MDDs, that seems to be a little under their system requirements for HDTV. Anyway, just wondering if anyone on this thread has run one of they HDTV USB devices on a Mac of lesser horsepower.

CEBII,

I currently have the Migilia TVMini that I use with both my Macbook (2Ghz Core Duo) and Mac Mini. Works great with both of them at all HD resolutions. I did use the EyeTV with my G4 Powerbook, before I upgraded and it worked fine except for 1080i. I could watch and capture 720p with no problems, but 1080i was too much for it to handle. These are great devices to take with you while traveling to enjoy HD, especially since most of them don't require an external power adapter. Those telescoping antennas that come with them work surprisingly well too.

Steve

Kudos to Channel 7. Traveler didn't have the audio sync issues at the start of the show as they had in previous weeks.

Last summer one of you guys reported on CBS starting to buy HD cameras for the affiliates. Is there any update on this? Does anybody have a source at KCNC to see if there's any progress on hd equipment buying?

To JMartinko and b5lurker,

Thanks for the responses.

Carl

Last summer one of you guys reported on CBS starting to buy HD cameras for the affiliates. Is there any update on this? Does anybody have a source at KCNC to see if there's any progress on hd equipment buying?

It was only for their O&O's (CBS owned and operated). Not sure if KCNC is one....KUTV in Salt Lake was one, but got sold recently.

KCNC is a CBS O&O.

My 'source' over at KUSA forwarded these to me. I know people on the forum are interested, so here you go. FWIW, these two pix were taken on June 27th by KCNC's helicopter.

This is the most beautiful hole in the ground I've ever seen :)

Enjoy!

Thanks for the pics!
I was wondering what the long tube sitting up there was? It looks like a tunnel from the building to the tower. Very cool!.

What are the 3 hot tubs in the second photo for?

I hadn't been reading the postings since early January, figuring (incorrectly) that the thread would slow down a little, since the fight was basically over and that construction could start.

A whole new part has been started (only through page 2 :-) in the meantime. Of the pages that I've read, I've not seen anything further on the complaint about the image quality problems with the local NBC affiliate.

Is the problem still there?

I still believe that the feed from NBC has zero pixelization/macroblocking issues. Yes, the datarate at the venue is extremely high. Most, not all, datapaths from the venue to New York (L.A. for Fox) use extremely high bitrate fiber. If satellite is used, a mux bitrate of at least 45 Mbps is used (QPSK), higher if 8PSK is used.

NBC uses 8PSK Ku to the affiliates, with two video streams. I do not know the exact bitrate used, as our local NBC affiliate chief engineer does not know and I haven't dug into further. But, it is higher than the maximum possible via ATSC.

Locally, when the basketball finals were on CBS, which is 1080i like NBC, local Madison viewers were bitching about the horrible pixelization/macroblocking issues that were happening over the local CBS affiliate, which has a secondary SD channel.

When I read the posting, I was hoping that there was still something going on, as it was close to the end of the game. I tuned in the CBS network sat feed and they were doing after game stuff, but there was lots of replays of the game. I saw zero problems with the feed. CBS runs a 45 Mbps QPSK mux, average video bitrate of about 35 Mbps. I then tuned in the local affiliate OTA via my computer's OTA card. It only took seconds of watching the replays to see the problems.

Since your local NBC affiliate is robbing precious bits from the HD stream for the SD stream, it is completely within the realm of things that the problems are local, not national.

I've always said that the bitrate for ATSC is not big enough to support MPEG-2 HD and by adding sub channels, the problem gets worse.

As for Fox, keep in mind that the MPEG-2 encoding for ALL Fox network video, HD or SD, is down out in L.A. and the local affiliate just passes that through from the 8PSK receiver to the DTV transmitter, via the Fox provided splicer system. They've already encoded the stream for the local station to add a single SD stream, if they do so or not. The Fox MPEG-2 encodings have tons of problems, due to their encoder and limited bitrate, which averages 8-9 Mbps, 10, if you are lucky.

Way back in the previous thread, late January :) there was a posting (17787, page 593) bitching about the black pillar bars when 4:3 material was upconverted to 16:9.

The poster posted that 4:3 should be sent as 4:3 and 16:9 should be sent as 16:9.

I've not seen a response that fully responds to this posting (which surprises me since the technical knowledge definately exists with Denver members who know that it is impractical).

The stations are broadcasting in 16:9 all the while they are on the air. Therefore, the only way to get 4:3 material into 16:9 and keep the aspect ratio is to add pillar bars.

Technically it is possible to switch the encoder back and forth between 480i SD and 720p/1080i HD, but how the particular receiver/STB responds to that change and how fast it responds, depends upon the hardware/firmware of the device.

It is bad enough that some affiliates cut a fine line when returning to network programming after a local commercial break, are you willing to put up with potential glitches and/or delays when returning to the network show and possibly missing a piece of the show?

Personally, I prefer to keep the DTV stream at 720p/1080i and see upconverted 4:3 video with pillar bars.

BTW, a capture of such a stream would be basically uneditable. Many people have OTA ATSC cards in their computers and capture HD programming and then edit out the commercials before watching it. The popular sofware for editing such captures is VideoReDo. You cannot edit mixed streams with that package. Which makes perfect sense. Best to leave the DTV stream in HD mode.

As to the people who bought 720p 4:3 CRT sets. Their problem not mine. IMHO, the making of HD sets with 4:3 screens was a bad idea. You get what you pay for.

Were you thinking of a blanket picnic, with wine (not whine) and cheese under the tower?

Let me guess, instead of not showing up for the picnic date, calling the cops and getting her arrested for tresspassing :D

Here is my take on when you will see full power digital at Denver.

Facts as I understand them:

3) They cannot turn on their new full power digital stations until they pull the NTSC plug. Obviously they cannot simultaneously operate NTSC and ATSC on their elected VHF channels.

Bingo. You hit the nail on the head.

The following is MHO.

Can it technically be accomplished? Yep.

Can it economically be accomplished? Nope

The following would have to technically happen for the new tower to do in-the-meantime digitial and after-the-cutoff-date digital.

1) Install two UHF full power transmitters for each UHF station.
2) Install a single UHF waveguide from the two mixed transmitters to the UHF DTV antenna. Before you ask, yes, both stations can use a single UHF DTV antenna. As an example, look at http://vidiot.com/TVTower-05.html There you'll see the new DTV antenna that is for digital channels 19 and 32. I don't know the spread of the Denver stations, but more-than-likely a single antenna could be built.
3) Can the UHF tansmitters be changed/retrofitted for VHF? I do not know. But, let's go with the best case option, in that that can.
4) The antenna for channels 7 and 9 (that too could be a single stick, does anyone know if they are going to use a single stiuck?) would have to be put on the tower as well.
5) The transmission line for the VHF stick would have to go in at the same time. There is only so much space available in which to put all this stuff. At only 730 feet, it doesn't have to be as large as the tower referenced in the above link. There are other stations to go on the tower as well.
6) After the cutover, the UHF antenna and waveguide would have to be removed from the tower. You just don't keep unused stuff on a new tower.
7) The UHF transmitters would have to be retrofitted for VHF and reconnected to the VHF transmission line, which has never been tested under load. Sections of transmission line had to be replaced in the tower referenced above. The stations need to go live immediately and I can say with certainly that that will not happen. Physically impossible.

If the UHF transmitters can't be retrofitted, that means valuable space has to be configured for two transmitter that will have, at most, 6-9 months of life.

To do all of the above would be extremely expensive. There would be zero ROI for the 6-9 months this would be occuring. The legal battle has cost the stations way too much as it is. You think they can afford to throw away this kind of money for 6-9 months?

They are currently satisfying their DTV requirements, even though the situation is ******. As has been mentioned, it is only 6-9 months. You've gone years without full power DTV, a few more months aren't going to kill you (even though it might feel like it).

BTW, you don't just rent DTV antennas. They are pretty much made to order. The transmitters, yes, since they are retrofittable.

In my town, as in many locations, going full power digital was a lot easier. Two of the stations are one channel below their analog, so they could use the same antenna. The other two stations on the one tower, had to add antennas, but the tower was built to handle the analog/digital load. The other two stations are on the tower shown being built on my website. The old channel 15 tower could not handle the load of a full power DTV antenna and would have been happy to continue for years on a waver. The local station manager was just happy as it was. It was the owner of the station that forced the new tower on the station. The new tower is owned by Acme, the owner of channel 57. They even got a 99 year lease on the land. All of the local stations are NOT going back to their analog channels.

I asked if the DTV antenna was going to be moved to the top and the two analog sticks taken down. As of a couple months ago, that has not been decided. My guess is that they'll leave everything as is. Cheaper that way and no downtime. Neither of the two analog antennas can be used for DTV, even though the channel 57 analog was brand new. It was cut for 57.

So, my money is on the new tower being configured strictly for after cutoff configuration. It is more cost effective that way. It will allow them to do digital testing on the new setup in the wee hours of the morning (after turning off the analog during that time). When cutoff day arrives, you'll have a smooth transition to full power DTV from 7 and 9.

I know you want your full power DTV now, but I just do not see it happening, logistically or economically.

My blast doors are now closed, so fire away :D

Now then, once the facilities are built there is no way in hell, and I mean absofrickinlutely no way in hell, the FCC is going to allow KMGH and KUSA to not power up because they want to wait until they can use channels 7 & 9.

Wanna bet Deb's life on this? :) What the FCC may want and what the FCC may get, are two different matters. Just look at the recent court rulings against them.

All it would take is a simple lawsuit that we all know would take longer than the amount of time left before cutover, to be resolved.

Yeah, I've noticed the SD Jeopardy HD. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that we get any syndicated HD - apparently the East and West coast stations don't have any HD timeshifting capability at all.

Hey, don't forget the midwest. We don't have it here either. :D

Me, I watch the Jeopardy! feed during lunch, since it feeds at 13:30:30 ET.

There is one station in town, the ABC affiliate, that actually has the ability to record HD feeds and even play them back separately from the analog signal. The station that has the Jeopardy!/Wheel contract does not.

Has this been discussed already? 9news HDTV promo (http://www.9news.com/company/promo/hdtv/)
I wonder how many people will be turned off by the size of the antenna Koebrich uses inside the station.

I'm surprised that no one noticed this quote on that webpage:

-The HDTV programming provided by 9NEWS free over-the-air is the best picture you can receive. Since it's not compressed like digital cable or satellite-- you'll see more detail, for FREE!

Isn't this the same NBC affiliate that most there are bitching about? Over compression of the HD stream because they have an SD stream eating up valuable HD bits.

How will they do that, via cable?

The whole reason for the analog shutdown is that the government is going to sell off the NTSC frequencies for other uses. That means WSEE's analog broadcast license goes bye-bye.

I think you have misunderstood the frequency selloff. There is no such thing as a NTSC frequency or a DTV frequency.

What is happening is that all of the TV channels will be 55, or below (I think 55 is the cutoff). Channels 56 through 69 will be sold off.

If that low power station has a current channel that will stay, they are just fine. If they are on a channel that is being sold, they have to move to a different channel.

Did anybody else watch 'Bones' on Fox tonight? Throughout the last half of the show, they kept cutting from HD to SD to run an insipid crawl at the bottom promoting some web thing about American Idol.

I'm surprised that Fox Broadcasting let them get away with that. It would have been a local thing, as it wasn't Fox net.

Most networks have a hard and fast rule about crap like that, other than emergency weather stuff.

Scott,
I fixed your date in the pool. You are pessimistic! And you're not the only one with Dish weather issues, check this out. I had a huge chunk of ice fall off the roof and take out my Dish and air-conditioner.

You need one of those ice guards, the kind they use on TV towers:

http://vidiot.com/images/TVTower/DSC03143.jpg

Ok, I have a question, anybody watch Fox tonight? I was watching Idol and some of the commercials were pillarboxed. But, at the very top, you could see about 10 scan lines of a wide-screen version of the spot. It was like they were showing a WS spot and 'cropping' the center with black bars. I've not noticed this until tonight. What's up with that? It was the network doing it and not local spots. That's weird!

Look very carefully at those very few scan lines. Those lines are nothing but the 4:3 scan line stretched to 16:9 width. I too thought that something was amiss. Then I carefully watched what was in those lines and what was in the 4:3 content.

You aren't missing any HD content.

Way back in the previous thread, late January :) there was a posting (17787, page 593) bitching about the black pillar bars when 4:3 material was upconverted to 16:9.

The poster posted that 4:3 should be sent as 4:3 and 16:9 should be sent as 16:9.

I've not seen a response that fully responds to this posting (which surprises me since the technical knowledge definately exists with Denver members who know that it is impractical).

The stations are broadcasting in 16:9 all the while they are on the air. Therefore, the only way to get 4:3 material into 16:9 and keep the aspect ratio is to add pillar bars.

Technically it is possible to switch the encoder back and forth between 480i SD and 720p/1080i HD, but how the particular receiver/STB responds to that change and how fast it responds, depends upon the hardware/firmware of the device.
I believe I also responded to you back then that a local station, KRMA-DT, does just that.

When they run the PBS HD feed in the evening, they send out 1080i 16:9.

When they run "PBS Create" or kids' shows the balance of the time, they send out 4:3 480i.

Actually, 16 times the resolution. Big freaking tower! ;)

Nah. the ATSC and the FCC will require that the video still fit within the 6 Mhz channel. :D

Well, I don't want to get argumentative about it, but the blue line problem WAS fixed.

Sorry to inform you, but the problem has not been fixed. It is NOT the fault of the local stations. The vertical blue line is a result of the GDMX 4:2:2 SD C-Band satellite feed out of LA. As luck would have it, right after I read these posts, I tuned in the GDMX mux and a feed was just starting. The vertical blue line, on the left, is alive and well. The "quality" that Warner Bros. is supposed to have at the GDMX site is obviously lacking. First there is the blue line and the bitrate they are using for the 4:2:2 video streams on the mux are below what they should be. Plus, there are lots of bits being wasted in the null packets bucket. It is currently 14.3 Mbps. The program is getting 3.5 Mbps. Not only that, the mux payload is only 35.94 Mbps. The transponder can do at least 45 Mbps. Oh, the blue bar is even there when they are doing nothing but bars on the stream (there are 5 FTA streams and 1 encrypted).

That said, the station can do something about it. They can control the edges of the pillar bars. They can make the left bar 8 pixels wider and mask the blue bar.

I emailed KUSA today regarding the vertical blue line on syndicated shows. The only show I checked today was ET at 6:30 and it didn't have a blue vertical line although I recollect seeing it on Ellen at 3:00 on Monday while my wife was watching.

You won't see it on ET, as that is a Paramount property. They don't have the problem. Only feeds from GDMX.

I received two replies from Don Trapp at KUSA. He apparently has taken Don Perez' place since his retirement. He asked me a lot of questions regarding how I was receiving the signal, whether the blue line appeared on analog and digital, whether it was observed on KTVD, etc. If you want to give him some specific information, his email is don.trapp@9news.com.

All he has to do is look at any of the FTA streams on the GDMX mux, using underscan if viewing on an analog monitor.

It's never been fixed for the late night (2:15 AM) run of Extra!; I can't say I normally watch Ellen.

Mr. Video posted the reason for the line here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9220013&&#post9220013) :

I thought I posted something in the past. My posts above indicate that GMDX has not fixed the problem, and more-than-likely never will.

IHere's the relevant portion of the first email I received from him today:

Write him back and let him know that it isn't his IRD and that it isn't a problem with the design of the receiver. As posted above, GDMX has a problem at their plant, which results in the vertical blue line being encoded into each and every video stream.

As I explained in an above posting, all he needs to do is tighten the pillar bar over the left edge of the upconverted SD video and cover it up. Problem solved.

If necessary I can provide an image of a GMDX feed that contains the blue line.

I wonder how long until we see the first bit of tower going up?

Not until you've seen the concrete poured for the guy wire bases and the tower base itself. Since your tower isn't as tall, the base doesn't have to be as big, nor do the guy wire locations.

Here are images of the specs for a 1250' tower:

http://www.vidiot.com/images/TVTower/DSC02366a.gif
http://www.vidiot.com/images/TVTower/DSC02366b.gif
http://www.vidiot.com/images/TVTower/DSC02367.gif

You just don't place those towers on a simple slab of concrete :D

What amazes me is that 1250 feet of tower can rest on a single point:

http://vidiot.com/images/TVTower/DSC02106.jpg
http://vidiot.com/images/TVTower/DSC02127.jpg

I believe I also responded to you back then that a local station, KRMA-DT, does just that.

When they run the PBS HD feed in the evening, they send out 1080i 16:9.

When they run "PBS Create" or kids' shows the balance of the time, they send out 4:3 480i.

Correct. But that is for whole blocks of time. The poster in this particular case made it sound like that whenever 4:3 video is being sent, it should switch to 480i. To me that means during local commercial breaks, or when the network is doing one of their news magazines or reality shows :-)

I would find that extremely annoying.

Plus, I read complaints about how the master control person on duty has a problem remembering to go to HD programming. Imagine adding the choice of 480i or 720p.

If the original poster, or others are worried about burnin from pillar bars, when a program is SD, which is a majority of programming outside of primetime, just tune in the analog signal :) That'll get you 4:3. That signal is nice and strong, compared to most of the Republic Tower transmissions.

When they run "PBS Create" or kids' shows the balance of the time, they send out 4:3 480i.

BTW, our local PBS affiliate has added insult to injury. There are four SD streams and 1 HD stream. During the day, when PBS-HD has nothing, they put it to black and turn down the bitrate. The four SD stgreams now do their stuff. One being the repeat of the analog channel, the create channel, a food channel and something else.

At night, the analog duplicate is left running, but the other three SD channels say to tune in tomorrow, at a low bitrate and the HD stream is brought up. Unfortunately, pixelization and macroblocking is the norm, since there still aren't enough bits to go around.

At least you get full bandwidth HD. We don't.

BTW - the channel range after analog shutoff will be 2-51, not 55.

BTW - the channel range after analog shutoff will be 2-51, not 55.

Thanks. I indicated that I wasn't sure. :)

Thanks MrVideo for the interesting posts.

Thanks MrVideo for the interesting posts.

Didn't mean to do so many, but there was 6 months worth pent up and needed to be released :D

Too bad I don't live in the area, because then the TV stations could have hired me to do photos and videos of the construction. I've had experience shooting tower construction :) :)

MrVideo, Unfortunately in Denver would would have been unemployed for the past few years or so, if not more......

MrVideo, Unfortunately in Denver [you] would have been unemployed for the past few years or so, if not more......

Ouch, is the unemployment rate that high in Denver?

My profession is not photography, computers are, specifically Unix computers.

I think what pookers meant was that with no tower construction activity, you wouldn't have had any photography work. Maybe you'd be working overtime now, though.

I think what pookers meant was that with no tower construction activity, you wouldn't have had any photography work. Maybe you'd be working overtime now, though.

I was thinking of that meaning as well, but went with the other, probably unlikely, meaning.

Hey, I'd shoot it for the cost of gasoline to drive there all the time, + $1, to officially get on the payroll and get covered under the construction site insurance.

I did the local build for free. Then again, I live about a mile away, as the crow flies, and at the time, it was on my path to/from work. Your new tower site is a wee bit out-of-the way :)

Hey, maybe you can get one of the local hill residence dwellers to take the photos. :D

mrvideo, I took your advice and recontacted the KUSA engineers regarding the blue line on syndicated SD shows. Below is the latest reply I received from them:

My tech reports that we have no way to remove that line using existing gear. We are seeing it on all our Tandberg Alteia receivers with video guard.

I’ve talked to several engineers here, and none of us are aware of a module that can delete the edges of the SD video without illegally widening blanking. More accurately, we could find no module that is reasonably priced; we obviously can fix it with a control room full of equipment, but that isn’t practical.

Unfortunately, even if we found a cheap module to do this, it will be useless on February 2009, so that makes a tough sell to justify buying them.

I’ll keep looking, but I think we may have to accept this blue line unless we can find a different solution. For now, I have requested operations to avoid the Alteia receivers when possible, but when we have no choice but to use them, we have to use them.

Any comments? I'm a little confused as to why they would say the problem will go away with the analog shutdown. Seems to me that that would not have any effect on this problem.

Any comments? I'm a little confused as to why they would say the problem will go away with the analog shutdown. Seems to me that that would not have any effect on this problem.

It won't. I do not understand why they can't accept the fact that it isn't their receiver, but the MPEG-2 video coming from GDMX in LA (the Warner Bros. satellite video control room).

It is very possible that they never bought the equipment that allows then to adjust the pillar bar border. Our local Fox affiliate did and have it set to cover up the front porch and back porch video areas (the areas right before and after the active video in a NTSC video line).

Just to prove one last time that it is not their receivers and that as long as GDMX has their equipment set wrong, they will have the blue line problem, even after analog shutoff (though it might be possible that they'll route things differently after the shutoff and the front and back porch areas will get stripped, but time will tell).

Send them the two images shown below. I'd attach them, but they are too large. They need to stay this size. Tell them to open the files in Photoshop and to look at the left edges of each of the thumbnails (zooming in as necessary). They'll see the blue lines in all thumbnails, except the one for GDMX 6/2. For some reason, that encoder is right. Tell them that the feed was captured with a DVB-S card in a computer. No Alteia was harmed in the capture of the feed.

To get it fixed, they need to call GDMX and log a problem report with them. Maybe, just maybe, they can get GDMX to fix it on their end.

http://vidiot.com/GDMX-1.png
http://vidiot.com/GDMX-2.png

I'd put up a 720x480 image of one of the video streams, but the program I use does not display 4:2:2 video correctly and gets a still capture wrong as well. It would take extra work to get the 4:2:2 video into 4:2:0 video that can be captured as a still image. What I have above should be enough to convince them that it is caused by GDMX (Warner Bros.), not their receivers.

Channel 4, CBS is doing a great job with the Boston Pops & the fireworks.

Channel 4, CBS is doing a great job with the Boston Pops & the fireworks.

OK, how can that be? CBS is still only allocating an hour to the event. About a half hour is for the actual fireworks, with the first half hour being the Boston Pops. Have you ever seen it when it was on A&E for HOURS? OK, a lot longer than CBS. Back then, the Boston Pops could do justice to the music, specifically the 1812 Overature. They did the WHOLE overature, not just the "good" part with the canons.

I gave up on what CBS has butchered. It used to be worth watching.

This year I actually went to local fireworks events. The main Madison fireworks was on Saturday (always on the weekend before the 4th, to maximize attendence), and the local Elver Park fireworks tonight (which almost didn't happen because Clear Channel, who was footing most of the bill, backed out this year). I photographed them because I finally got a camera to do them justice. Both well worth watching.

Denver must have had some excellent fireworks. I can image them being shot from the front range, to give them lots of extra height.

UPDATE: Just finished watching the CBS coverage of the Boston fireworks (west coast feed). I see that they've completely given up on doing the 1812 Overature during live coverage. I suspect that it was done before CBS coverage started.

The fireworks themselves did indeed look good in HD, except where the couple of cameras (one main) that needed the lens to be cleaned of the water spots. :(

The best fireworks on HDTV were on NBC's broadcast of Macy's July 4th event. They loaded up the commercials at the front and back ends to allow their super fireworks display to be shown uninterrupted. They also had appropriate music (not sure if it was live) played during the fireworks, unlike past years in Boston where they played pre-recorded elevator music.

The 1812 Overture on PBS's coverage of a Capitol Fourth was also excellent, although the rest of the show was lacking for entertainment value.

Not much fireworks in these Colorado mountains due to the extreme fire danger. Of course the fire danger didn't stop the folks living along Ralston Creek near Ward Road from risking all of our properties with their all out amateur fireworks efforts. It is dry as a bone here and it wouldn't take much to start the whole, un-landscaped section of the creek trail on fire, which would ignite all of our dried-out cedar fences and so on.

when I tune to OTA ch 20-1 on my HR10-250, it always locks up my system to the point where I have to unplug it and start over. Is this due to bad PSIP data?

when I tune to OTA ch 20-1 on my HR10-250, it always locks up my system to the point where I have to unplug it and start over. Is this due to bad PSIP data?I don't know the reason, but I would be curious as to what version of software you have on the HR10-250. The reason I ask is that I had the same problem with the receiver freezing and required a hard reboot every time I tuned to channel 20-1 until I upgraded the software to 6.3d

when I tune to OTA ch 20-1 on my HR10-250, it always locks up my system to the point where I have to unplug it and start over. Is this due to bad PSIP data?
Channel 20-1 also locks up my MythTV box. I did some investigation a couple of months ago and one thing I noticed was that, unlike other channels, the datastream for 20-1 contains TWO different Program Map Tables (PMT), each with their own sequence of continuity counters. The Myth software only seems to expect ONE PMT with continually ascending continuity counters, so having these two different PMTs triggers the Myth logic for a continuity break every time it sees a PMT.

Of course this may or may not hbe the cause of the problem on your HR10-250 (which sounds like may have been fixed).

I don't know the reason, but I would be curious as to what version of software you have on the HR10-250. The reason I ask is that I had the same problem with the receiver freezing and required a hard reboot every time I tuned to channel 20-1 until I upgraded the software to 6.3d

I have 6.3d and I still have the problem. Bummer.

I have 6.3d and I still have the problem. Bummer.You got me curious since I have not been using the HR10-250 that often since I got my HR20s. I switched the HR10-250 to channel 20-1 and left it overnight. The next morning the picture was frozen and it would not respond to the remote at all. I had to pull the plug to reboot it. So the bottom line is that 6.3d did not fix it, you were correct.

I now have an HR-20 on another TV and it seems to handle 20-1 with no problem.
Interestingly, the OTA tuner on the HR-20 seems to be a little better than the HR10-250 at my location. I need to test it for a couple more weeks but so far .so good!

I now have an HR-20 on another TV and it seems to handle 20-1 with no problem.
Interestingly, the OTA tuner on the HR-20 seems to be a little better than the HR10-250 at my location. I need to test it for a couple more weeks but so far .so good!I concur. Neither of my HR20 OTA tuners have had any problem with 20-1 since I got them in March. I occasionally was getting a brief "Searching for signal on the off-air tuner (771)" when first tuning to some OTA channels, but the latest software seems to have solved that. I have not seen that message for some time.

I concur. Neither of my HR20 OTA tuners have had any problem with 20-1 since I got them in March. I occasionally was getting a brief "Searching for signal on the off-air tuner (771)" when first tuning to some OTA channels, but the latest software seems to have solved that. I have not seen that message for some time.

Smuuth, Have you been updating the software through the "Cutting Edge" program? My new HR-20 is on the 168 software version and I still get the 771 message on some of the OTA channels.

Smuuth, Have you been updating the software through the "Cutting Edge" program? My new HR-20 is on the 168 software version and I still get the 771 message on some of the OTA channels.Yes, I am participating in the CE updates. Both of my HR20-700s are on software version 0x179.

Yes, I am participating in the CE updates. Both of my HR20-700s are on software version 0x179.
Same version here with my HR20 and I have not experienced any problems with 20-1 that I have noticed (I honestly don't switch to it very often).

Does anyone here own an S3 TiVo? If so, can you receive 6-2?

All the other ATSC tuners I own pick up 6-2 just fine; my S3 TiVo can scan 6-2 and "knows" it's there, yet displays a grey screen with no audio indefinitely if you attempt to tune it.

I'm just curious if this is the case with all S3 TiVos or just mine.

Does anyone here own an S3 TiVo? If so, can you receive 6-2?

All the other ATSC tuners I own pick up 6-2 just fine; my S3 TiVo can scan 6-2 and "knows" it's there, yet displays a grey screen with no audio indefinitely if you attempt to tune it.

I'm just curious if this is the case with all S3 TiVos or just mine.

On a related note, can anyone recommend a cheap OTA ATSC tuner with component output?

Thanks,
David

On a related note, can anyone recommend a cheap OTA ATSC tuner with component output?

Thanks,
DavidWhat do you call cheap?

If you just need over-the-air ATSC (no digital cable QAM) then the Samsung SIR-T151 and SIR-T351 usually have lots of listings on e-bay for under $100.

What do you call cheap?

If you just need over-the-air ATSC (no digital cable QAM) then the Samsung SIR-T151 and SIR-T351 usually have lots of listings on e-bay for under $100.

Thanks, that's what I'm looking for. I'm just pulling OTA ATSC (don't have cable) so I guess this will work. Much difference between the 151 and the 351?

David

Does anyone here own an S3 TiVo? If so, can you receive 6-2?

All the other ATSC tuners I own pick up 6-2 just fine; my S3 TiVo can scan 6-2 and "knows" it's there, yet displays a grey screen with no audio indefinitely if you attempt to tune it.

I'm just curious if this is the case with all S3 TiVos or just mine.
My Philips DVDR3575H/37 DVD recorder also has no sound on 6-2, although my Philips 42PF7320A TV and my VIZIO VX32L TV can get the sound OK. I suspect that KRMA has something configured strangely on 6-2.

Does anyone here own an S3 TiVo? If so, can you receive 6-2?

All the other ATSC tuners I own pick up 6-2 just fine; my S3 TiVo can scan 6-2 and "knows" it's there, yet displays a grey screen with no audio indefinitely if you attempt to tune it.

I'm just curious if this is the case with all S3 TiVos or just mine.
Same thing - grey screen with no sound.

Interestingly, 18-2 will remap to 6-2, so it's interpreting that much of the PSIP correctly.

Much difference between the 151 and the 351?IIRC, the 351 also has a digital (DVI) output. But if you plan to use component, either one would do. Not sure about any other differences.

Made the mistake of going to 20-1 with my HR-250 same result, bad lock up!

I recently started using Windows Media Center, with a digital tuner, to receive and record local digital television over the air. (Turns out I can get 9 digital OTA stations at my house North of Boulder - woo hoo!) The guide information in Windows Media Center for KRMA-DT is incorrect - the analog station schedule is being used rather than the digital. I understand Media Center gets guide data from Zap2it, and their web-site has both the analog and digital schedules for KRMA, so I don't know where the problem lies. I used the 80503 zip code when setting up the Media Center guide, if that makes any difference. Is anyone aware of this problem, and hopefully, how to fix it?
Thanks

This is unfortunately a limitation of Windows Media Center. ATSC support in MCE was originally slated to be in Windows Vista. The delays in the Vista shipped date forced the Microsoft eHome team to reconsider that decision and release ATSC support as part of Windows Media Center Edition 2005.

It was a good decision, but one of the features that was dropped is support for separate guide information for ATSC channels. Instead, MCE generally uses the equivalent SD channel for the guide information. This limitation lives on in Windows Vista, though it will hopefully be resolved in a future update.

I can only say this authority because I was likely the first person in the Denver market to watch ATSC programming via MCE (using a tweaked version of
Windows Media Center 2004). Thankfully, it is much easier today than it was then, but this limitation lives on.

You can read more about the history of MCE and ATSC here (no, it's not my blog):
http://blogs.msdn.com/peterrosser/archive/2006/02/03/AtscInMce.aspx

I just purchased a Panasonic 1080p plasma with a QAM tuner built in. can I expect to get some HD channels thru comcast? I have the basic package with internet. Im in Greeley.

Thanks

I just purchased a Panasonic 1080p plasma with a QAM tuner built in. can I expect to get some HD channels thru comcast? I have the basic package with internet. Im in Greeley.

Thanks
The short answer is yes. Suggest you go to the Denver Comcast thread. Here is a good place to start because there is a list of QAM channels in the Denver market. The Greeley market may have stations on different channels, so YMMV.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11058593&&#post11058593

Wow, top of the page too!

Here is a recent shot of the work on Lookout, from the helicopter. Thanks, Steve!

Tim

Nice picture, Timay. But I, at least, can't tell what's what on this picture. I went to the LCG website a couple of days ago. It doesn't look like they've done any updating of it lately. Most of the latest stuff is dated in May. Can anyone describe the picture? Or have knowledge of why LCG apparently isn't following through on its commitment/promise to keep us updated on construction progress?

Can anyone describe the picture?
I'm not 100% sure, but in the bottom right, it looks like a red tipped(white body) sCARE missle flying by, harmlessly missing it's target. :p

But, in reality, the 'missle' looks to be above the transmitter facility, and the hole to it's left, could be for the foundation of the tower.

I have no more knowledge than most of you here, heck you have more info than I do, but I love looking at pictures like this. The "missile" is a crane arm to lift material into the building area that is already going up. Guess that is the "bunker" they have to build. As far as the long wide ditch, I don't think that is the tower base. Tower bases are usually cylindrical holes in the ground. It could be a guy anchor deadman hole but I think it is too close to the building to be that. Maybe underground fuel storage tank area? It looks like the cleared area between the new building and the existing tower/building could be the base area of the tower. They usually like to put new towers fairly close to existing towers to make threading the guy wires easier in install for the new tower and easier disassembly of an existing tower.

These are all just guesses except for the crane. As time goes on, you should be able to tell better what is what and where.

I was doing a little show prep on fark.com and came across another wonderful article on our favorite subject:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/4983826.html

discuss

I knew someone would come up with something about sCARE and the construction site picture. Thanks for the humor on a Sunday night, TPW :D

The pictures of post #1115 show what appears to be the foundation for the tower. It looks to be out of view but to the bottom right of the new picture. If that's the equipment vault, it is being well concealed from view per the agreement LCG made with the rest of the world (sCare). Looks to me like things are progressing well on Lookout.

--- CHAS

I was doing a little show prep on fark.com and came across another wonderful article on our favorite subject:

The article immediately starts out on the wrong note:

Consumers' TV rabbit ears won't cut it anymore as the U.S. moves from analog signals in 2009

Wrong! There's nothing wrong with those rabbit ears. They will work fine in the digital system and will result in an even better picture than before! Again, the only problem is with the TV. Spend 20 bucks + coupon on a converter box and you're back in business even better than you were before. Why does everyone always focus on the antennas?!? It's just a piece of wire tuned to resonate in a given frequency band. It will continue to resonate in that frequency band long after the switch to digital.

I like the whole "jab at the rich" class-envy this reporter feels obliged to include too:

household income is not a factor

and

"Meanwhile, the manufacturer makes money on the box," Perlin said. "I wish I owned stock in one of those companies."

If wish you owned stock in one of those companies, go out and buy some. It's really not that difficult.

-Glen

The picture's rather fuzzy right now but your current analog TV will go dark if you continue to use rabbit ears after Feb 2009. But everything should come into focus after the FCC auctions off the analog spectrum. Then you will need a digital antenna. I hope that clears up the picture for you all.

Hi Hi

--- CHAS

The picture's rather fuzzy right now but your current analog TV will go dark if you continue to use rabbit ears after Feb 2009. But everything should come into focus after the FCC auctions off the analog spectrum. Then you will need a digital antenna. I hope that clears up the picture for you all.

Hi Hi

--- CHAS
Uh,.......
I'm speechless. Is the "Hi,hi" ham laughter, or is the guy clueless?

Someone call sCARE!

I bet many of you thought I was being facetious when I said they should protest WiFi in schools!

From the UK Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/google_wifi_hearings/):

The city-wide Wi-Fi network being pushed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom faces two important hearings this week as a motley band of critics mount a series of challenges to the project, which would be jointly operated by Google and Earthlink.

The concerns include the health effects of antennas, whether proposed terms would jeopardize the privacy and free speech of those who use the network, and the appropriateness of the city entering into an exclusive contract that some say amounts to a giveaway of public resources.

A meeting scheduled for Tuesday before the city's Board of Supervisors will discuss whether officials must conduct an environmental review of the proposed network before it could go into place. In April, San Francisco's planning commission said the network was exempt from such a requirement, but a grassroots group has since challenged the decision.

San Francisco is part of a growing number of cities grappling with the challenge of providing its citizens with dependable and affordable access to the internet. Under an agreement Newsom reached in January, Earthlink would pay the city $2m over four years in exchange for the right to build, own and operate a wireless network.

Newsom has made the proposal a centerpiece of his administration, arguing that it will help bridge the digital divide without saddling taxpayers with exorbitant costs. Others have been considerably less sanguine, complaining - among other things - that the proposal is based on antiquated and unreliable technology.

A vote requiring the review could prove fatal to the proposed network, which is becoming an increasingly contentious issue between Newsom and his critics. Environmental reviews can take as long as a year to complete, a sizable delay that could ultimately cool enthusiasm for the project.

It would also provide ammunition for the San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU), which warns that the blanketing of access points on city light poles could harm residents' health. The group - which has been active in the past in protesting the introduction of cellular phone antennas - says studies suggest the microwave radiation that would be generated by more than 2,000 access points throughout the city could cause headaches, lowered immune responses and even cancer, according to this (http://youtube.com/watch?v=FuihsjWmJ8I) YouTube video.

Uh,.......
I'm speechless. Is the "Hi,hi" ham laughter, or is the guy clueless?

Hi Hi

--- CHAS WA2DYA

Someone call sCARE!

I bet many of you thought I was being facetious when I said they should protest WiFi in schools!


Yet another off topic post...

The cat is already out of the bag on WiFi in Fort Collins. The city is using WiFi to link traffic-monitoring video cameras into their traffic control network. At some intersections in town, there's a short mast attached to the boom the lights are hung on. At the top of the mast is an integrated wireless access point and patch antenna. Look down the street in the direction the patch antenna is pointing and there's another short mast, an access point, and a video camera. Drake and Taft Hill is one such intersection. Look at the stop light boom for traffic moving West on Drake then look south on Taft Hill. Anybody know if they're linking IP video back into the network or just traffic flow data?

I'll head out and take pictures with the big zoom lens sometime if anyone is interested in seeing what they look like. I think it's a Cisco Aironet 1300 series, but my eyesight isn't the best at 25 feet and 40mph.

Hmm, how to make this on topic...I don't think those patch antennas would work very well for watching over-the-air digital television. Maybe they'll have to replace them when the analog signal goes dark. Or maybe they'll only be able to pick up IP video like youtube...

-Glen KC0VXL (since we're passing around Ham radio call signs)

Someone call sCARE!

I bet many of you thought I was being facetious when I said they should protest WiFi in schools!



Another thought, maybe we can hand these neanderthals a scope probe and show them the 60Hz coursing through their veins in THEIR OWN HOUSES! If we can just get 10% of these fools to disconnect their electricity out of fear of radiation, that would go a long way toward solving any perceived energy crisis.

I'd much prefer they be shown how much more UV radiation they're subject to as well as natural radiation from rock they're subject to because they choose to live on Lookout (or any other mountain.)

I'd much prefer they be shown how much more UV radiation they're subject to as well as natural radiation from rock they're subject to because they choose to live on Lookout (or any other mountain.)

Average exposure is 360 millirems/year of ionizing radiation (about 36 chest xrays). 200 of that is from Radon. It's probably higher than that on Lookout Mountain though. And that's actual cancer causing ionizing radiation.

Every day, those well-to-do Lookouters walk around cell phones glued to their ears, surf the web over their Wi-Fi, talk on cordless phones and work garage door openers. Their radiation argument was a ploy to stop DTV station construction with the attendant result of all TV towers being removed from the mountain. We know that and they know that.

--- CHAS

LCG has posted a couple of pictures (http://www.hdtvcolorado.com/) on their web site.

We want more pics!!! I get great satisfaction that every new pic is like sticking a pin into a Voodoo doll of Deb.

Did anyone else have problems with OTA reception last night? I lost KUSA for a short time at the dinner hour, KMGH's signal strength was much lower than normal, and I lost KCNC's signal for the entire evening. If no one else had these problems, I'm thinking I need to check my connections. Maybe water related issues.

I lost KCNC totally for a while, but the others were OK. I didn't check signal strength tho. KCNC finally came back with no problems, but I don't remember when... maybe during Letterman.

LCG has posted a couple of pictures (http://www.hdtvcolorado.com/) on their web site.
:D

Only about 5 years too late, but it is still great to finally see some progress. It's about time they finally posted some pictures on the website.

As for the locals last night, I wasn't really watching much on them, but I do remember noticing that KCNC was down both on OTA and on D*. On the D* version of the channel they had a poster that said they knew the channel was down, not to call them. I only noticed it once when I switched to see who was on Letterman and really didn't wait to see when it was back.

Did anyone else have problems with OTA reception last night? I lost KUSA for a short time at the dinner hour, KMGH's signal strength was much lower than normal, and I lost KCNC's signal for the entire evening. If no one else had these problems, I'm thinking I need to check my connections. Maybe water related issues.

Since 7/26/07, KMGH (ch 7 digital ) has been very weak, going in and
out of lock. Up until that time, it had been satisfactory, hasn't lost lock since it went to Republic tower.
Is there a recent prob with with this channel?

Did anyone else have problems with OTA reception last night? I lost KUSA for a short time at the dinner hour, KMGH's signal strength was much lower than normal, and I lost KCNC's signal for the entire evening. If no one else had these problems, I'm thinking I need to check my connections. Maybe water related issues.I lost KUSA as well during the NBC National News (5:30-6:00). I did not check any other local OTA stations. BTW, I also lost the HD LIL signal on DIRECTV at the same time. It was out about 10 minutes.

I lost KUSA as well during the NBC National News (5:30-6:00). I did not check any other local OTA stations. BTW, I also lost the HD LIL signal on DIRECTV at the same time. It was out about 10 minutes.
I DVR'd the news last night and watched it this morning and it seemed fine. Go figure?

Did anyone else have problems with OTA reception last night? I lost KUSA for a short time at the dinner hour, KMGH's signal strength was much lower than normal, and I lost KCNC's signal for the entire evening. If no one else had these problems, I'm thinking I need to check my connections. Maybe water related issues.

I had the same issues. KCNC was off for quite a while. KRMA had issues too.

I looked back through my monitoring logs, and KCNC was off for about 10 minutes at 7:30pm, came back on, then went out again shortly after 8pm. It then came back on around 11:25pm.

The other channels, KRMA, KUSA, KMGH, and KTVD are all showing their normal signal levels for the past week. The signal levels normally have ups and downs here in Longmont (up at night, down during the day), but my graphs are all showing a very predictable pattern, with normal highs and lows for the last month. So the signal levels appear to be the same as they normally are. Maybe you are getting a new multipath signal from somewhere, or maybe it is due to some atmospheric condition. Hopefully it is just temporary.

B.J.

I have been experiencing a recent problem with KMGH-DT (7-1).
I have a Philips 42PF7320A TV, a Philips DVDR3575H DVD recorder, and (2) Vizio VX32L TVs, all equipped with ATSC tuners on an attic mounted antenna system. The feed to one of the Vizio TVs is very similar to the Philips units in terms of cabling and splitters. The other Vizio is significantly closer to the antenna with less splitting.
I first noticed the problems on Friday night when there were numerous OTA issues. The Philips TV reception of KMGH-DT showed a lot of noise. I believe that is when I first checked the Vizio TVs on that channel and they would go to 7-1 and report "No Signal". Saturday and today, everything is fine on the Philips units. The Philips TV is the only unit I have that can display signal strength, and this morning the KMGH-DT signal was as strong as I have observed. The Vizio TVs cannot pick up KMGH-DT. I did a re-scan on one of the Vizio TVs, and it has completely lost 7-1. The other still can step to 7-1 but reports "No Signal". Everything else is normal on all of the units. I get 2-1,2-2,4-1,6-1,9-1,9-2,20-1,31-1, 53-1, and other digital stations that are skipped.
I wonder if KMGH-DT has altered the configuration information in some way that the Vizio units cannot handle.

Is anyone else experiencing anything similar?
Is anyone receiving KMGH-DT OTA on a Vizio VX32L? (That would send me up the attic to play with the alignment.)

I have been experiencing a recent problem with KMGH-DT (7-1).


Is anyone else experiencing anything similar?


Yes, see above post. It's Sun night July 29, and I'm still having
probs, continuing since July 26. On my dish 622 sig strength meter, it goes from
67 ish to '0 not locked' then back to 67, back and forth.

I have had no such probs since ch 7 went on the Republic Plaza
tower back in early '06. Also, all my other channels are normal,
so It isn't my reception HW. I think Ch 7 digital has
a prob, I'll call back tomorrow when I can get engineering
person.

I just checked and on my LG LCD with ATSC tuner I am getting 7.1 with no more problems than usual (A tree has grown into my signal path and occasionally causes breakups) It was very watchable, just a couple signal issues to cause pixelization, no audio drops.

On my two E* receivers, I'm having problems with KMGH OTA this evening. I either get a no signal message, or the signal is weak with lots of dropouts. The E* signal meter is reading in the low 70's When I'm able to lock the signal. I normally have a reading of 88-90 on KMGH. The E* feed of KMGH HD on channel 6330 is fine.

On my Insignia HD set with built in tuner, I'm getting a signal strength of 100% from it's signal strength meter. The Insignia is the most reliable tuner I have - it can lock stations that have screwed up PSIP info, like KRMA does sometimes and KDEV DT 11 always has. (KDEV does not remap to analog 39 as it should.)

So I'm thinking that perhaps KMGH's PSIP info might be the problem here.

I have been experiencing a recent problem with KMGH-DT (7-1).

Is anyone else experiencing anything similar?
Is anyone receiving KMGH-DT OTA on a Vizio VX32L? (That would send me up the attic to play with the alignment.)I checked after I saw your post. I am having exactly the same problems. The Vizio ATSC tuner was displaying no signal for 7-1 and when I re-scanned, it failed to even find 7-1. The ATSC tuner in my DirecTV HR20 picks up 7-1, but with a lot of video/audio breakup and pixellation.

Yep. I'm having the same problems with KMGH-DT on my Dish 921. It comes in but with audio and visual hiccups ever 5-10 seconds.

My Hauppauge three in one ATSC/NTSC tuner does not have a problem with KMGH DT.

However I checked my old Voom tuner & It's breeaking up. It did lock it up too.

I just sent KMGH an email. Hopefully, I'll get a reply.

I just tried KMGH and am getting a better signal level than usual but still getting breakups. KUSA has a lower signal but a better picture.

I've got to think it's either an antenna issue or some interference to the south.

I haven't seen any issues with KMGH-DT in Louisville since last Friday, when their signal went out about 10 minutes into the rerun of Jericho.

I just watched a recording my S3 TiVO made of How I Met Your Mother and saw no breakups at all.

I've got to think it's either an antenna issue or some interference to the south.

I haven't seen any issues with KMGH-DT in Louisville since last Friday, when their signal went out about 10 minutes into the rerun of Jericho.

I just watched a recording my S3 TiVO made of How I Met Your Mother and saw no breakups at all.
I am also in Louisville. The signal strength looked OK after Friday. The problem I have is that my (2)Vizio VX32L TVs report "No Signal" and display a blue screen. My Philips TV and DVD recorder display KMGH-DT fine. I belive that the Vizio "No Signal" message is not literally true. Rather, something about the signal cannot be interpreted by the Vizio TVs. I suspect that something in the PSIP has changed, and some tuners can handle it, and others cannot. Smuuth has reported exactly the same problem on a Vizio VX32L.

The problem I have is that my (2)Vizio VX32L TVs report "No Signal" and display a blue screen.
How do you guys like your Vizios? Would you buy one again? And, is the tuner better than others that you've had?

Thanks,
....jc

Further information on channel 7-1: The ATSC tuner in my HR10-250 DirecTivo has no problems at all with it and reports a signal of 92 when I check the signal strength. This leads me to believe it is not a signal strength issue but something in the PSIP information that is causing the problems apparent on other ATSC tuners. As I stated earlier, the ATSC tuners in my 2 HR20-700 DVRs receive 7-1 but with audio breakups and video pixellation. The ATSC tuner on my Vizio VX32L will not receive 7-1 at all, and when I rescanned, it did not even detect 7-1.

How do you guys like your Vizios? Would you buy one again? And, is the tuner better than others that you've had?

Thanks,
....jcI love the Vizio VX32L. I have it wall-mounted in the bedroom and it is primarily used as a display for the HR20-700 DIRECTV DVR, but the OTA tuner has been excellent as well, at least until this recent trouble with KMGH 7-1. I would buy one again, especially at the price of $599, which is hard to beat for a 32" LCD HDTV. (Though I am coveting the new Vizio GV52LF 1080P that just came out.)

How do you guys like your Vizios? Would you buy one again? And, is the tuner better than others that you've had?

Thanks,
....jc
Personally, I rate it as a very good value. The VX32L sells for about $600. The picture quality is not as good as a $1200 Sony, but it is not different enough to justify the price differential, for me, for bedroom TVs. The default sound is a little tinny, but can be adjusted so that I find it acceptable. The tuner seems to be comparable to my others, but I have noticed one issue. You cannot directly tune to the underlying channel. In order to tune KMGH, you have to go to 7-1 after a successful scan. If you go to 17-1, it will not find the station. I did not view this as much of an issue until now. If a problem develops with a station, and you do a scan, the only way to check if it has come back is to scan again which does take several minutes when you include the time to reset the skips for all the unwanted channels.
My Philips TV is the same way. Only my Philips DVD recorder can directly go to the actual frequency assignment for the digital stations. The tuner in the DVD recorder cannot get the sound on KRMA 6-2, which I suspect to be a PSIP issue also.

...scan again which does take several minutes when you include the time to reset the skips for all the unwanted channels.
When I have re-scanned, I have not had to reset the skips for unwanted channels, it has retained my previous skip settings.

I just checked KMGH again. I get nothing on my E* 211 & 222 receivers - 0 signal. My Accurian receives the signal but has constant breakups and pixelation. The SNR meter on the Accurian jumps around from about 18 up to 29. My Insignia built in tuner receives KMGH perfectly.

I haven't heard back from my email to KMGH yesterday and it's apparent that they have not fixed what appears to be a PSIP problem.

I just checked KMGH again, this time on both tuners. On my Dish 811, I continue to get the same as I've seen the past few days. I get a picture and sound with a lot of breakups. Signal strength, which is usually near 90, swings wildly second to second with the highest noted being 82 and the lowest 60.

With my LG LST4200A I get perfect picture and sound. Signal strength is reported as Good, which is the normal reading.

Obviously something changed in KMGH's output signal, probably the PSIP data, and only a few receivers can handle it. Glad someone sent them an email, otherwise I'm sure they would be oblivious to the problem.

When I have re-scanned, I have not had to reset the skips for unwanted channels, it has retained my previous skip settings.
The rescan I did was with the older of my Vizio VX32L TVs. I don't plan to try a rescan on the other until the KMGH problem is resolved. I can only assume that they made an update to the scan routine, which would be good news.

The rescan I did was with the older of my Vizio VX32L TVs. I don't plan to try a rescan on the other until the KMGH problem is resolved. I can only assume that they made an update to the scan routine, which would be good news.
Rescanned again and had to reset the skips for the analog channels I had skipped before. Some of the analog skips were still there though, so I am not sure what it keeps. :confused:

It still did not find 7-1 :mad:

Rescanned again and had to reset the skips for the analog channels I had skipped before. Some of the analog skips were still there though, so I am not sure what it keeps. :confused:

It still did not find 7-1 :mad:
That sounds like my experience. The VX32L seems to automatically skip the weak analog stations.

I received a reply from my email to KMGH. They said they thought they "had a heat related problem" on Republic Plaza and asked me to get back to them if I continued to have problems, insinuating it was fixed. Since it isn't fixed, I emailed them back.

Thanks for the update and for emailing KMGH back. Hope you noted that all ATSC receivers are not affected equally; some not at all.

I did describe the situation with my receivers to KMGH. I received another email from them and they stated that the heat problem affected their exciter but they have "mitigated" that problem, which I presume is a temp fix. They also stated that no changes have been made to their PSIP.

I'll probably email them back again. Perhaps others could do also - rick_craddock@kmgh.com. That's and underline between the first and last name.

Having the same problem with KMGH. I have not been able to receive the channel since the storm on Sunday evening. During the storm, I checked the major channels 4, 7, and 9 - and lost all of them, but 4 and 9 returned - not 7.

I sent an email to the address provided. My tuner is a Dish 622.

Hope KMGH sorts it out soon.

I did describe the situation with my receivers to KMGH. I received another email from them and they stated that the heat problem affected their exciter but they have "mitigated" that problem, which I presume is a temp fix.
Geez. No doubt it's caused by Global Warming! And, to think that sCARE thought that radiation was a problem.


http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/gallery/d/13663-1/un-radiation-symbol.jpg

In their little world it would be better to be living underground(due to the heat), and preserving their precious mountain scenery(shrivelled & dead), than to be subjected to fictional doses radiation.

I received a reply from my email to KMGH. They said they thought they "had a heat related problem" on Republic Plaza and asked me to get back to them if I continued to have problems, insinuating it was fixed. Since it isn't fixed, I emailed them back.
I got a similar email from Rick_Craddock@kmgh.com with a 3:50PM time stamp.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Thanks for your report and interest in Denver's 7, KMGH-TV/DT. We
believe we had a heat issue at Republic Plaza. Please let me know if
you continue to experience problems.

Thank you
Rick Craddock
Director of Engineering
Denver's 7, KMGH-TV/DT
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
I noticed a slight change in my situation. The last 3 days, when I went to 7-1 on my Vizio VX32L it displayed a "No Signal" message after about a half minute. Tonight, I have seen it provide a "Retrieving data ..." message for about 20 seconds and then display badly corrupted and slowly changing frames with no audio.
My Philips 42PF7320A TV continues to receive solid audio and video.

I just put up a CM 4221 4 bay uhf antenna today for Denver dtv's. I'm waiting to receive a Winegard 28db uhf amp, which I should receive in a few days.

I live in Milliken, near Greeley. Right now I get really good dtv signals on KWGN, KDEV, KBDI, KTFD, KDEN, KDVR. Since swapping out a small combo vhf-uhf antenna with the 4221, I noticed a tremendous improvement in signal. I actually have 'sniffs' of signal from KCNC, KRMA, KUSA, and KTVD. Haven't noticed anything from KMGH.

After I get the 28db amp put up, what are my chances of snagging KCNC, KRMA, KMGH, KUSA, and KTVD? I'm patient to wait for the tower to be built - just curious :-)

Several of us seem to have gotten email from Rick_Craddock@kmgh.com similar to the one I received.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Thanks for your report and interest in Denver's 7, KMGH-TV/DT. We
believe we had a heat issue at Republic Plaza. Please let me know if
you continue to experience problems.

Thank you
Rick Craddock
Director of Engineering
Denver's 7, KMGH-TV/DT
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
It now seems likely to me that the problems we noticed during the storms on Friday were actually caused by a failure of an air-conditioning system at Republic Plaza that services multiple equipment vaults for transmitters located on that building. That would explain why several stations would act up at the same time. Based on the email, they may have only been able to partially restore the air-conditioning. Some of the transmitting equipment may be handling the elevated temperature better than others or some may have been damaged by overheating.

I was totally confused by the idea that a PSIP change would cause some people to lose signal and others to break up. It seems more reasonable to me now that a transmitter might not be working properly and having a problem of an analog nature, such as carrier frequency drift, which could appear as additional unintended modulation of the signal. Some tuner designs may be better able to demodulate the signal with the specific problem that currently exists. This seems reasonable to me. Different success levels in demodulation would result in different packet loss rates which cause the receiver results to vary from no picture at all to some amount of break-up or even a solid picture.

Anyone with some current broadcast engineering knowledge care to comment.

After I get the 28db amp put up, what are my chances of snagging KCNC, KRMA, KMGH, KUSA, and KTVD? Probably not that great, although it's worth a try since you are getting at least some signal already. You'll want to optimize the antenna orientation toward Republic Plaza, which hopefully will still be "good enough" for the other stations like KDVR, KWGN, KBDI, etc.; the angle from Greeley should be almost the same anyway.

The amp will only make up for cable losses. If the run from your antenna to receiver is short (50 feet or less), I wouldn't expect it to make any difference. You would be better off getting a bigger antenna and putting it on a taller mast (in which case you may need then need the amp to compensate for the longer cable). Or you can just say heck, it's only another 12-18 months; you already know that your current setup is good enough for the Lookout Mountain stations.

How do you guys like your Vizios? Would you buy one again? And, is the tuner better than others that you've had?

Thanks,
....jc

I have a buddy who has the 50" Vizio plasma; he likes it a lot. A whole lot.

However, IMO, it does not touch my Panasonic 5O" commercial panel for PQ. But then, neither does my son-in-law's LG.

OTOH, the Vizio costs much less, so, you pays your money and you takes your chance!

KMGH 7-1 seems to be fixed. I tuned to it on my HR20-700 DIRECTV DVR and there was no pixellation or audio breakups. I then re-scanned OTA with my Vizio VX32L and it found it again. Picture and audio are back to normal on the Vizio. :)

Actually, KMGH seemed to have gotten the problem under control last night and completely fixed some time this morning. Late last night my Dish 811 was finally able to lock a clear video and audio signal from KMGH, although the signal strength still was doing wild swings from around 70 to the low 80s. Currently, audio and video are fine and the signal is back to its normal 85 to 87 readings.

I was not surprised that my Dish 811 had a problem with the signal while my LG LST4200A did not, as the LG has a newer and better ATSC tuner. What is surprising is that those with the latest Dish receivers couldn't lock a signal. Those receivers have been noted as having some of the best ATSC tuners available. That's why it looked like a PSIP issue to me, as it was the receiver software/firmware having the problem, not the ATSC tuner hardware. But, who am I to argue with their explanation of over-heated equipment.

I just put up a CM 4221 4 bay uhf antenna today for Denver dtv's. I'm waiting to receive a Winegard 28db uhf amp, which I should receive in a few days.

I live in Milliken, near Greeley. Right now I get really good dtv signals on KWGN, KDEV, KBDI, KTFD, KDEN, KDVR. Since swapping out a small combo vhf-uhf antenna with the 4221, I noticed a tremendous improvement in signal. I actually have 'sniffs' of signal from KCNC, KRMA, KUSA, and KTVD. Haven't noticed anything from KMGH.

After I get the 28db amp put up, what are my chances of snagging KCNC, KRMA, KMGH, KUSA, and KTVD? I'm patient to wait for the tower to be built - just curious :-)

You are pushing the range for that size antenna, but you'll never know until you try. I get zilch from Republic Plaza with an attic mounted AntennasDirect XG91 without a pre-amp (cable run ~30 feet) because my signals are partially blocked and I have to rely somewhat on bounced signals. But, by adding the low noise CM7775 pre-amp I get all the RP signals with readings in the 80s on my Dish 811 and I get KWHD out of Castle Rock in the low 80s. The key is "low noise" for the pre-amp more than the total amplification provided.

Good luck and let us know how it works out.

Carl

What ho, top of the page!

KMGH 7-1 seems to be fixed. I tuned to it on my HR20-700 DIRECTV DVR and there was no pixellation or audio breakups. I then re-scanned OTA with my Vizio VX32L and it found it again. Picture and audio are back to normal on the Vizio. :)
Ditto here in Louisville. At 12:30PM I noticed that the VX32L that I had not re-scanned was getting 7-1 solid. I immediately did a re-scan on the other and it found 7-1. Both Vizio TVs and my 2 Philips tuners are now getting 7-1 well.

KMGH 7-1 seems to be fixed.

Agreed. Audio and Video are good on my E* 921 for the first time in nearly a week. If I'm reading the thread correctly, I guess we owe a thank you to HVAC people at Republic Plaza. ;)

However, IMO, it does not touch my Panasonic 5O" commercial panel for PQ. But then, neither does my son-in-law's LG.
Wow. I helped my parents pick out an LG 42PC1DA(has all the bells & whistles) and it's picture was sweet. And one thing that I really liked about it, was the fact that it had a separate F-Connector for both Cable & an Antenna. Sweet TV, sweet.
....jc

I guess the KMGH saga is over with. I've got it back at full strength on all of my receivers now also.

Posted by CEBII:
I was not surprised that my Dish 811 had a problem with the signal while my LG LST4200A did not, as the LG has a newer and better ATSC tuner. What is surprising is that those with the latest Dish receivers couldn't lock a signal. Those receivers have been noted as having some of the best ATSC tuners available.

I've got the E* 211 and 222 receivers. They are the worst OTA ATSC receivers I have. My Accurians are better but my Insignia built-in tuner is the best. The Insignia was the only receiver I have that could tune KMGH during its recent heat exhaustion. If the PSIP is messed up, the E* receivers can't lock a signal. My Insignia is nice because I can directly input the transmit channel and it will tune the station. This comes in handy when KRMA doesn't remap to 6-1, which it has a history of doing. I just input 18-1 and it comes in fine.

Wow. I helped my parents pick out an LG 42PC1DA(has all the bells & whistles) and it's picture was sweet. And one thing that I really liked about it, was the fact that it had a separate F-Connector for both Cable & an Antenna. Sweet TV, sweet.
....jc

It is more than possible that my son-in-law has his connected wrong. But since he knows everything, I do not offer criticism.

Anyone else notice that the local channels on D* went away last night? At first I thought it was the rain we got in FTC but I was not getting a searching for sat signal - only a black screen. So I suppose the HD signal from the stations was being interrupted.

Is KRMA-DT gone or is their signal level just really low?

They've been "No Signal" for me for about the last 48 hours now.

Is KRMA-DT gone or is their signal level just really low?

They've been "No Signal" for me for about the last 48 hours now.

Just checked and it is working here at the moment. Can't say I looked yesterday.

Is KRMA-DT gone or is their signal level just really low?

They've been "No Signal" for me for about the last 48 hours now.

There was a s/w update for the D* HR20 last night that included improvements to the OTA error handling (better multipath rejection?? not exactly sure what it means), and I am now getting 6-1 KRMA for the first time ever at more that 25-30% BER. It is now in the 60's for me and very stable. Many of us are having a hard time believing that the s/w update could actually do this. So I came over here from DBSTalk, to see if any others were experiencing this, and it seems that you are seeing the opposite. Very strange.

If anyone else has noticed any change with 6-1 KRMA-DT, please let me know.

There was a s/w update for the D* HR20 last night that included improvements to the OTA error handling (better multipath rejection?? not exactly sure what it means), and I am now getting 6-1 KRMA for the first time ever at more that 25-30% BER. It is now in the 60's for me and very stable. Many of us are having a hard time believing that the s/w update could actually do this. So I came over here from DBSTalk, to see if any others were experiencing this, and it seems that you are seeing the opposite. Very strange.

If anyone else has noticed any change with 6-1 KRMA-DT, please let me know.

I took in the software update for the HR20-700 last night and still have 6-1 functioning this morning, but I have not experienced any previous problems receiving 6-1 with the earlier versions either. It may be a sensitivity issue with a low level signal.

I see that hdtvcolorado.com is now saying "completion in Spring 2008." I think it used to say "mid 2008." So, maybe my optimistic prediction in the pool has a chance. :)

Does anyone know what KRMA's plans are?

Mark

Is KRMA-DT gone or is their signal level just really low?

Seems to me like low signal. Everything was ok on Wednesday, but sometime on Thursday I lost them also.

With a bit of antenna fiddling I was able to get them back on my LG4200A receiver, but the DVICO card in my MythTV box can't pull them in any more.

Is KRMA-DT gone or is their signal level just really low?

They've been "No Signal" for me for about the last 48 hours now.
6-1 has been a problem for me also during that time(mostly no signal). When I checked about an hour ago, I was getting a picture, but with a quite a bit of break up.

I doubt that there is any relationship, but it is funny that 6-1 became a problem about the time that 7-1 cleared up. I believe they both transmit from Republic Plaza. Since they are adjacent UHF channels (17 & 18) I would not think it would be atmospherics.

There was a s/w update for the D* HR20 last night that included improvements to the OTA error handling (better multipath rejection?? not exactly sure what it means), and I am now getting 6-1 KRMA for the first time ever at more that 25-30% BER. It is now in the 60's for me and very stable. Many of us are having a hard time believing that the s/w update could actually do this. So I came over here from DBSTalk, to see if any others were experiencing this, and it seems that you are seeing the opposite. Very strange.

If anyone else has noticed any change with 6-1 KRMA-DT, please let me know.

I noticed yesterday or was it the day before that KRMA signal was much lower than it had previously been. I was surprised that I wasn't getting any breakups as the picture looked good even though my signal strength meter was only registering 40% to 50%. Normally as I recall it's up around 90%. I was checking signal strengh for channel 7 and just thought I would look at the other channels as well.

Wow. Everyone seems to be having a different experience than I did. After d/l of version 0x184 for the D* HR20, my BER on 6-1 went from ~25% and unstable to >65% and very stable. Maybe they actually did fix something with the update. :)

Getting 0% on 6-1, usually it is at 70%.
6-1 = 0%
7-1 = 72%
9-1 = 81%
20-1= 80%

Well, I think KRMA-DT is having transmitter issues… or have they now fired up the Mt. Morrison site?

I've played with my antenna and I can now lock in KRMA-DT fine here in Louisville, with an indoor antenna; I'll have to play with the yagi in my attic later today.

However, to do so I've noticed it detuned my Republic signals slightly (4-1, 7-1, 9-1), but very noticeably improved the signal strength of the channels already on Lookout (2-1/2 and 31-1). For example, using my S3 TiVO's signal meter, 4-1 dropped from 72 to 65, but 31-1 jumped from 67 to 85. Of course KRMA-DT went from 0 to 55.

I know low power DTV is a game of inches, but this is ridiculous - unless KRMA-DT's moved. Then it makes perfect sense, given Morrison is, for me, between Republic and Lookout and aiming for it would give a slightly worse look angle to Republic but a slightly better view of Lookout.

This article (https://nab2007.bdmetrics.com/portal/ViewPressRelease.aspx?id=23709&cid=2375995) also made me wonder:

KRMA-DT in Denver recently selected RF Technologies LLC - a Ferrite Company to supply its ultra low downward radiation SFNstarTM antenna for the station's new Mt. Morrison transmitter site. The new antenna is going to be mounted on the site's ice bridge just 39 feet above ground level. The 32 element patent issued and pending, SFNstarTM antenna has less than 0.005 of peak field at -90 degrees below the horizon, and less than 0.024 of peak field from -45 to -90 degrees below the horizon. With the 115 kW ERP of KRMA-DT, the antenna produces less than 0.35% of maximum occupied exposure, and less than 1.75% of the maximum public exposure level on the ground near the antenna.
Also, anyone know what the deal with KRMT-DT is? Their PSIP data must be way off, as I get 40-1 through 40-17 mapped, but only 40-17 has a signal that's actually tunable.

Well, I think KRMA-DT is having transmitter issues… or have they now fired up the Mt. Morrison site?I think you may have nailed it. I just checked reception with my old garage antenna (oriented toward Lookout), which has never picked up anything other than KWGN-DT, KDVR-DT, and KTFD-DT. Sure enough, I'm now getting a solid signal from KRMA-DT from this antenna. But as you said, they've been messing with their PSIP data also - my MythTV system still doesn't have them figured out.

I don't think 40-17 is KRMA. I'm also getting a strong lock on 11-1 and 11-2. I haven't seen a signal from them in a while. I think that is KDEV-DT but I'm not sure as that frequency as changed owners/stations so many times my head is spinning.