Chicago, IL - OTA [Text View] - Page 23

saxhound

06-13-09, 03:43 PM

That thing, for some reason, gets a bad rap around here. I think mostly because it looks too "gimmicky' for some of these old-time experts around here to take seriously (plus, the specs themselves don't make it look too good, either. But every reviewer that's tried it was somewhat surprised at it's performance).

When I tried one a few years back (Gilbert would probably still remember that, as well as some other oldsters), it worked fantastic for hi-VHF and very well for UHF. The only gripes I had about it at the time were the wind load, and the total bi-directionality of it (which wasn't a problem in my case, but I could see where it might be for someone else. Don't imagine it would be a good choice at all for someone in the inner city because of the multipath).

Yes, I'll have to see how it holds up through the winter. I haven't picked up any noticeable signals from the west side.

I did the Solid Signal online antenna selection thing last year, and that is what they recommended. A piece of cake to install, since it only weighs about 5 pounds. My roof has a 2x8 beam that projects out about 12 inches from the ridge, so I put the J mount on that with 4 bolts - no penetration of the roof. I used a 3 foot steel pipe as an extension, so the thing is about 40 feet in the air. I also like the fact that the pre-amp is enclosed in the body of the antenna.

TWinbrook46636

06-13-09, 03:46 PM

Location: Geneva, IL
Antenna: ClearStream 4 mounted on tripod in corner of room on 3rd floor ;)
Tuner: TiVo Series 3 (HD)

_ 2.1 (12) WBBM-DT @ 68% (steady) *was fluctuating 0-28% with no picture prior to switch*
_ 5.1 (29) WMAQ-DT @ 87% (steady)
_ 7.1 (7) WLS-DT @ 57-63% (fluctuates, occasional pixelation) *was steady at 70% prior to switch*
_ 9.1 (19) WGN-DT @ 93% (steady)
11.1 (47) WTTW-DT @ 58-65% (fluctuates, occasional pixelation)
20.1 (21) WYCC-DT @ 0-30% (fluctuates, no picture)
23.1 (39) WWME-DT @ 0-33% (fluctuates, no picture)
23.1 (27) MeTV @ 87% (steady)
26.1 (27) WCIU-DT @ 87% (steady)
32.1 (31) WFLD-DT @ 88% (steady)
35.1 (10) WWTO-DT @ 0-31% (fluctuates, no picture)
38.1 (43) WCPX-DT @ 82% (steady)
44.1 (45) WSNS-DT @ 85% (steady)
48.1 (27) MeToo @ 87% (steady)
50.1 (51) WPWR-DT @ 77% (steady)
56.1 (17) WYIN-DT @ 47-52% (fluctuates, occasional pixelation)
60.1 (50) WXFT-DT @ 43-57% (fluctuates, frequent pixelation and occasional breakups) *was steady at 67% prior to switch*
62.1 (36) WJYS-DT @ 60% (steady)
66.1 (38) WGBO-DT @ 39-48% (fluctuates, frequent breakups, often no picture)

2.1 WBBM-DT http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/images/icons/icon14.gif 7.1 WLS-DT http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/images/icons/icon13.gif 60.1 WXFT-DT http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/images/icons/icon13.gif

So after the switch 2.1 WBBM-DT was definitely better as there was no reception of it all previously though at 68% it's cutting it close. 7.1 on the other hand is much worse now but then my antenna is really for UHF frequencies. Most surprising was 60.1 WXFT-DT as they supposedly increased power and moved to better frequency yet it is no longer watchable.

155

06-13-09, 04:00 PM

For those of you looking for a good VHF/UHF indoor antenna:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1037779.

I would just like to point out that the tests of antennas on specific channels in this thread are all UHF channels (no VHF channels are tested) and the graphs in post 12 of this thread only show the gain in UHF for indoor antennas. The origin of these graphs is labeled zero, but only refers to the Y axis. The X axis ends at 13, but this is not clearly labeled.

The VHF antennas reviewed and graphed all appear to be outdoor or attic models.

I'm only pointing this out cause I misread this thread the first time that I read it and now own an antenna that doesn't perform well on vhf.

hvs10trk

06-13-09, 04:07 PM

"That" being a test card now would use very little. When you add actual content that's when I think they all may suffer. Any info on the bandwidth breakdown per sub channel on 27?

26.1 is roughly 9-11mb
26.2 is roughly 2-4mb
26.3 same
26.4 same
26.5 :eek:
26.6 :eek:

Keep in mind we use VBR so bandwidth constantly changes when needed.

hvs10trk

06-13-09, 04:13 PM

It's actually "What's up with THAT?" and its "coming soon" card is being carried on six subchannels of RF 39 and one of RF 27.

I still think it's a mistake for the subchannel of 39 labeled "23.8" to be PSIPped to virtual channel 28.8, but when I mentioned that above, HVS responded with only a smiley icon.

Probably a glitch in PSIP programming. Like I say, nothing in the Digital world is perfect.

hvs10trk

06-13-09, 04:17 PM

Is there by chance that WWME-LD might get a power increase to say 15KW. I noticed there are no other 39's in Milwaukee, Madison, Rockford, or South Bend so it seems pretty wide open. If WWME could get 15 KW, hopefully that would help in the fringe areas in Kane, Lake, Mchenry, Kankakee county as well as Lake & Porter counties in Indiana.

Stay tuned.............

Acteng

06-13-09, 04:28 PM

Lord_Zath

06-13-09, 04:40 PM

Thanks for the report. I'm in Grayslake. It's nice to know there's hope for me.

Do you have multiple fixed antennas aimed to both Milwaukee and Chicago?

I have to put up a tower because I have no way to mount the antenna on the house. I have a concrete tile roof.

I was shocked that I could get so much. Go to tvfool.com and enter in your address to see if you're able to get as much (or more).

I'm only using one antenna - the RadioShack budget antenna. I literally just threw it into the attic the first time and was amazed that it picked anything up. I then subsequently used a compass to properly aim the antenna and spent a good 30 minutes adjusting the VHF dipoles while the wife called out signal strengths.

Semaphoric

06-13-09, 04:41 PM

I just rescanned.

WOCH is apparently still broadcasting in analog and running programming (not nightlight).

They are a "Class A" station, so are allowed to continue analog transmission, I think.

Good thing, too, since I am located in the Notch of 13-2:(

NTNgod

06-13-09, 05:15 PM

Broadcasting and Cable: WLS Sorts Out Signal Problems (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/279337-WLS_Sorts_Out_Signal_Problems.php)

After an initial rough start to fully DTV broadcasting, ABC O&O WLS Chicago is having an easier time of it. Chicago topped the list of calls to the FCC hotline by percentage of TV households. With relatively low operating power, market leader WLS was having trouble reaching some high-rise and downtown with a digital signal, according to an FCC staffer, who said the FCC was working on technical fixes.

VP of Local Programming Tom Hebel says the phone lines have slowed to a much more manageable level than yesterday as Chicago’s problem viewers get their converter box and antenna issues ironed out. He says there have been signal issues with viewers located 30-plus miles out—a combination of the station’s signal and viewers’ antennas.
...
The ABC station group, which selected VHF channels as the permanent home for all 10 of its DTV stations, had expected some reception problems in Chicago and New York when WLS and WABC began broadcasting DTV on their old analog VHF assignments. That's because given the sheer volume of RF transmissions in those markets, the stations are forced to transmit VHF at a less-than-optimal power level

andyross63

06-13-09, 05:21 PM

Maybe not too useful, but here's my report.

I'm in Schaumburg (Schaumburg/Plum Grove roads). I'm in an apartment and using a master antenna feed, no amp. I have Comcast, so the OTA is mainly for backup and nerdiness.

One TV has a Zenith DTT-900 (newer version with pass-thru), and the other is a Samsung LN19A450.

All of the main Chicago stations come in pretty much full strength. The DTT strength hovers under the 'Good' text abpve the bar. The Samsung shows 10 bars. WXFT is 7 bars on the Samsung.

WWME hovers at the color break between good and fair on the DTT, and about 6-7 bars on the Samsung. In the past, it's been hit or miss, depending on atmospheric conditions.

WYIN is hit or miss, and is about 0-1 bar on the Samsung. WJYS is currently about 3-4 bars.

I have a 47-7 and 47-8, but they are just blank, but strong signals.

It's also interesting the analogs I can pick up, mostly LP's I guess. Other than the 23 and 48 I know of, there is: 61 (TV Azteca?), 41 (KBC?), 40 (religious), 34 (Eden), 25 (HSN), and 6 (?? Overmodulated audio, slideshow of Chicago pics, occasionally a card that says WLFM, 87.7, Smooth Jazz.).

One thing I noticed on the Samsung is that it does get program descriptions OTA. It looks like Comcast loses that when they convert it to QAM. I do get program names on Comcast. No 26.5 on Comcast.

Trip in VA

06-13-09, 05:23 PM

VHF in all 10? KFSN viewers would be surprised to hear that.

- Trip

jojo11

06-13-09, 05:31 PM

Hey guys, I am originally from Chicago now living in Kansas, but my family still lives there (in Kankakee County). I was wondering if there is someone who lives in Kankakee or at least the Kankakee Valley can pick up the Chicago stations? I am asking because my family lives on a farm in Chebanse and back in the day they can pick up the stations not only in Chicago, but from Chambana (Champaign-Urbana), Decatur and Peoria-Bloomington-Normal. Please holla back....thanks.

surf_fun85

06-13-09, 05:32 PM

I cant get the new WLS digital rf 7 on my DirecTv HR20-700 where the box receives the PSIP data for the channels from Directv's database from the satellite stream :(

allthough i can receive rf 12 WBBM :)

tvropro

06-13-09, 05:34 PM

26.1 is roughly 9-11mb
26.2 is roughly 2-4mb
26.3 same
26.4 same
26.5 :eek:
26.6 :eek:

Keep in mind we use VBR so bandwidth constantly changes when needed.

Let me guess on 26.5 and 26.6...

26.5 0.8mb
26.6 1.6mb

I'm probably pretty close ;)

Thank's for the data :D

tvmicrowave2002

06-13-09, 05:41 PM

neilkaz

06-13-09, 05:44 PM

VHF-Hi Antenna - Winegard YA 1713 in attic
Preamp - Channel Master CM 7777
Tuner - TIVO HD

WBBM coming in great!
Signal Strength: 84 - 86
Signal was 68 -72 with occasional breakups previously with large DIY yagi.

WLS looks good so far.
Signal Strength: 74-78
Signal lower than before, but no break ups yet.

It seems quite a few are reporting lower signals from WLS 7 now. I am hopeful that my mother-in-law (in bewteen Lake Zurich and Hawthorn Woods can still get it) I have her set up with an old 4228 which is only mediocre for RF7, so I have my doubts, but am out of town and can't deal with it at the moment.

My personal opinion is that RF7 could have used somewhat more power and that even up WBBM RF12 a bit wouldn't have hurt, nor caused undo QRM elsewhere.

.. neilkaz ..

tvmicrowave2002

06-13-09, 05:50 PM

It's actually "What's up with THAT?"* Its "coming soon" card is being carried on six subchannels of RF 39 and one of RF 27.

I still think it's a mistake for the subchannel of 39 labeled "23.8" to be PSIPped to virtual channel 28.8, but when I mentioned that above, HVS responded with only a smiley icon.

Caught the WCIU sign off, very interesting tour of the station and transmitter room. Glad to see somebody have fun with this instead of just turning the transmitter off and being done with it. Now, on the WCIU DT subchannels the last day or so the audio is sounding a little off kind of like a lower quality MP3. I noticed it more on the commercials than the programs themselves (I guess that is due to older source material). WCIU 26.1 sounds fine though.BIFDNWI, thanks for the input. You're the first to notice. To make room for 26.5, I backed the audio bit rate of 26.2/3/4/6 down so I could add the .5 without affecting the total video bitrate of the pool. Anyone else notice?

sebenste

06-13-09, 06:07 PM

All stations are working well for me in Batavia (35mi west of transmitters) except for WLS-DT which is unwatchable even after the weather cleared up. Complete pixelation. Heading up to the roof to reposition and possibly shorten up the coax run.

Looks like multipath with the signal meter jumping around between 0% and 30%. Co-channel interference? Is it worth moving from from RG6 to quad shield RG6?

Acteng,

I don't think so. Do you have a preamplifier on it? If not, a modest one would probably do the trick. You lsoe 2 dB of signal in a 50' cable run on channel 7, plus 2 dB or more with connectors, and 3 dB with any splitters.
Increasing your signal by 10 or 15 dB will overcome that loss and should fix your problem. It would also "pad" your other channels during bad weather to keep them going.

https://www.tselectronic.com/winegard/ap_preamp.html

The AP-8700 would work well, and it also guards against overloading and will "back off" if necessary.

sebenste

06-13-09, 06:42 PM

neilkaz

06-13-09, 08:08 PM

Hey Jojo,

About 30 posts up, someone from Chebanese is getting all the stations except for WLS. The FCC is now looking into helping WLS with their reception problems.

This is good news as I have been surprised at WLS 7's low power all along.

Hopefully a 50 to 100% increase will solve any issues.

retromzc

06-13-09, 08:34 PM

Gilbert, aka sebenste....regarding post #2 (locations and power levels)....isn't WBBM now on the Sears (Willis) Tower having taken over some of WTTW's equipment? I could be mistaken. Oh yeah, saw ya last night on The U despite very bad tropo conditions.

Inspector 13

06-13-09, 09:10 PM

The location here is near the I-55 & I-80 interchange and so far both WBBM and WLS are doing far better now than before the transition. Both of them had a lot of problems here with breaking up but after the transition things are going much better. Both show 90% to 95% on my Insignia NS-DXA1-APT connected to a Winegard HD7082 and an amp ahead of a splitter for my distribution system. The antenna is only about 23 feet above ground level with a number of 40+ feet high trees in front it. Even the DTV-13 channels come in at 40% to 50% with few breakups. I don't expect that all will be this good all the time but at least its an encouraging sign.

jmdomini

06-13-09, 09:17 PM

Well, the digital transition has been a bust for me here in West Aurora using an indoor antenna. All I can get is 26,32,50 and some Spanish language channels. Prior to the transition I could pick up everything but channel 2.

I thought I might be able to give Comcast the boot after the transition. Disappointed that it has in fact reduced my reception!

jldet5

06-13-09, 09:35 PM

veets

06-13-09, 09:51 PM

The FCC is now looking into helping WLS with their reception problems.

I hope that means more wattage in the cottage.

Lord_Zath

06-13-09, 10:06 PM

Those of you having reception issues - it could be because your antenna is no longer in the optimal setup for receiving the signals. Have you guys tried repositioning the antenna? Are you sure your antenna is set up well for VHF-hi and UHF? Maybe it's not pointed in the right direction?

I'm sure many of you have already tried, but just trying to help...

sebenste

06-13-09, 10:07 PM

I hope that means more wattage in the cottage.

I'm hoping so too, but no word on anything yet. Retro: Thanks for catching that! Fixed.

jpeckinp

06-13-09, 10:47 PM

PBS analog is gone. But TVGOS analog data (Guide v7) is still being sent on channel 32. I got new listings and a clock reset last night on my LG 3410a DVR. I assume this will end when 32 signs off on June 26. Others have indicated that digital versions of the TVGOS guide data are being sent on WBBM-DT.

32 signing off on the 26th? OK did I miss something?

stwhoges

06-13-09, 11:00 PM

I was just looking at that antenna on www.solidsignal.com, and they want $30.00 less for it (total).

I think that's the antenna that we just had put up that replaced our old one that messed up.

rec630

06-13-09, 11:09 PM

32 signing off on the 26th? OK did I miss something?

WCBS and WNBC in New York; KCBS, KNBC, KTLA and KWHY in Los Angeles; and WFLD in Chicago — all are among 118 stations in 85 markets that have volunteered to provide so-called nightlight service for up to 30 days after the planned shutoff of regular analog broadcast service tomorrow at midnight, the FCC announced late Thursday.

While other stations turn off their analog signals at midnight and complete the transition to digital-only service, the nightlight stations will continue broadcasting an analog signal containing only emergency and DTV transition information.

http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2009/06/11/daily.17/

slowlybuilt

06-13-09, 11:17 PM

Channel 7 is coming in fine on my Samsung, Vizio, Hauppauge 2250, and trusty MYHD card. Would not come in at all on my Fusion 5 so I swapped in a Fusion 7 board.

So tuner capability definitely has something to do with getting 7 in.

I'm out of town until tomorrow night, but as of about 3pm today I was no longer able to get ABC 7 on my Hauppauge 2250. I also wasn't able to pick it up with the built in tuner on my bedroom set, an Astar <shudders>

Same story with CBS 2 on the Hauppauge, but was able to get an an intermittent signal with the Astar.

Someone else on here pointed out that it may be the way Media Center looks for channels. I hope the software updates soon!

PhilJSmith67

06-13-09, 11:39 PM

I am chiming in with my personal experiences from the east end of Beecher, which is about 35 miles directly south of State & Madison.

Until Friday, I had been using a Zenith Silver Sensor to get 90 to 100% on every UHF station from the Chicago market, indoors. For CBS-2, I used a homemade dipole with balun, cut to length for Channel 3, which gave me about 80% signal.

This morning, I had nothing at all from ABC-7, and 30% from CBS-2. I need about 45% to lock. I tried amplified rabbit-ears, with adjustable gain, which brought in CBS-2 at 55% but zilch from ABC-7. Not a trace of signal. I used to get analog 7 fairly well this way.

I went to Best Buy down in Bradley. One of the guys there said that people who live south of Manteno have been returning antennas all day long, including the amplified ones, because they just don't get much indoors down there. I figured I would skip the whole amplified-antenna deal because I live 1 mile from 102.3 WYCA, which causes overload hell. I bought the un-amped $9.99 rabbit ears.

After searching the room for a "hot spot" that was common to ABC-7 and CBS-2, with the radials set just right (almost fully collapsed!), I've got ABC-7 at 60%, CBS-2 at 65%, and the rest of the UHFs at 80 to 100%. Of course I'm not far above the threshold for getting a clean lock for 2 and 7, so I'll have to see if this works day after day.

My tuner is an Autumn Wave / OnAir HDTV-GT, connected to a PC running Windows 2003 Server.

Munkeung

06-14-09, 12:10 AM

My 19 yr old radio shack 120" antenna in the attic is pulling in all stations fine including 2 & 7.

2 had a lot of drop out before the switch and is doing fine now.

Tuners include Samsung 46" HDTV, Samsung T151, Accurian (Radio Shack), Fusion 5, MyHD 120.

The only problem is rescanning with the MyHD 120 and some stations need to be added manually.

House is ~30 WSW of Sears Tower. 2 story.

George Mari

06-14-09, 12:31 AM

I've been travelling yesterday and most of today, just got home this evening, so I am just now assessing how my reception is turning out after the big transition.

I am in Vernon Hills, about 30 miles NNW of Chicago transmitter sites.

For antenna, I have a CM 4228 (old style, not HD) for UHF, combined with a home-made folded dipole made from 300 ohm twinlead, cut-to-length for Ch. 3. Both of these are fed into a CM 7777 pre-amp. The antenna and pre-amp are in my attic.

With this setup, I could recieve all "full-power" digital stations at 90 to 100% before the transition. WBBM-DT came in at 50% to 75% consistently.

After the transition, my only changes are with WLS on 7 and WBBM on 12. I am getting the opposite experience of almost everyone else on the board - I can get WLS just fine at 90%, while WBBM fluctuates between 0 and 25%. WWME-LD comes in at about 25% to 30%, just above my set's threshold for locking.

I am guessing that I need to adjust the size of my home-made, cut-to-length folded dipole - it's great for low-VHF, but probably not for Hi-VHF. I get 7 well on this antenna, at the low-end of the Hi-VHF band, but not 12, at the upper end of the band.

So just to give an idea of how good that folded dipole is for VHF-low, I am getting that analog 6 station out here with medium snow, some occasional picture rolling, audio with some static. I think I remember a few pages back someone said it's broadcasting at 300 watts? Of course it helps that there is no other analog stations interfering with it.

So I think I will be back up in the attic in the next few days, after I figure out how long a folded-dipole should be for the VHF-Hi band.

So if my theory is correct, I think I am the first person that can seriously claim that they have an antenna that is too big for good reception of WBBM. :)

One other note - remaining analog stations coming in:

41, 32 and 23 - perfect! Virtually digital quality!
6 - not quite watchable, but almost
49, 40, 34 - something is there, but can't really tell what

netringer

06-14-09, 12:36 AM

...I have to put up a tower because I have no way to mount the antenna on the house. I have a concrete tile roof.

While I'm asking does anybody know a good source for an antenna tower and possibly installation? I'm thinking a 40 foot tower, although tvfool is telling me that even 10 feet would be enough. I could brace it to the house but it would have to have a base on the ground.

Does Tri-state have towers?

NTNgod

06-14-09, 12:47 AM

So just to give an idea of how good that folded dipole is for VHF-low, I am getting that analog 6 station out here with medium snow, some occasional picture rolling, audio with some static. I think I remember a few pages back someone said it's broadcasting at 300 watts? Of course it helps that there is no other analog stations interfering with it.

WITI out of Milwaukee is still blasting away on analog 6 as a nightlight station, actually.

Rammitinski

06-14-09, 12:49 AM

I would just like to point out that the tests of antennas on specific channels in this thread are all UHF channels (no VHF channels are tested) and the graphs in post 12 of this thread only show the gain in UHF for indoor antennas. The origin of these graphs is labeled zero, but only refers to the Y axis. The X axis ends at 13, but this is not clearly labeled.I didn't realize that. Maybe EV doesn't have any VHF stations himself to test.

He's supposed to be testing a new batch this weekend, including one that's modeled after the famous Radio Shack 15-1880 (possibly the best VHF/UHF antenna ever - I have one myself - still use it, in fact - and I can vouch for it. If anyone here can find one used, I'd suggest trying it).

Maybe you can ask him over there if he can specifially test the VHF out on the new ones that have it.

CruelInventions

06-14-09, 12:55 AM

It's ugly out here guys. Even for places much closer in than Beecher. Damn, I should have have invested in some cable & satellite stocks.. they're gonna make a killing from the digital transition.

If you don't have the ability to place a rooftop antenna with decent line of sight to the broadcast towers and you were using analog OTA, you're now basically screwed. Apt., condo, townhouse dwellers for starters. Amplified rabbit ears aren't gonna cut it for a lot of these people.. Just in the last day, I've attempted to help a few different people with their OTA setups who are struggling mightily. One person could only get in a few digital channels, another I spent over an hour with helping.. the best I could do is get at most half of the channels they were receiving before in analog. That's after multiple channel scans & rabbit ears repositionings. And this is just me, joe laymen having nothing to do with the tv business, casually encountering these panicked, frustrated people; neighbor lady, niece, co-worker, etc.

It's gonna take a lot of patience and experimenting with different equipment and positioning to get decent reception for thousands upon thousands of people. Most don't have the patience for it. They're gonna be forced to sign up for cable or satellite service. And then vote out the politicians who will be blamed for allowing all this in the first place. Obama could solve the economic crisis and still end up losing re-election just from this one issue alone. Just like old Chicago mayor Bilandic and the snow-plowing crisis, and what some are now saying could very well doom Daley, the parking meter fiasco.. there are and could remain a lot of angry people. :eek:

Rammitinski

06-14-09, 12:56 AM

All I can get is 26,32,50 and some Spanish language channels. Prior to the transition I could pick up everything but channel 2.Well, well - the prodigal son returns. ;) (How's it going :)?)

I can see losing 7 - but I can't understand why you'd lose any of the others. :confused:

(And that's "lose" and not "loose" - two different words with completely different meanings - just for the whole internet population in general.)

Rammitinski

06-14-09, 01:03 AM

...and what some are now saying could very well doom Daley, the parking meter fiasco.. there are and could remain a lot of angry people. :eek:You mean like the person going around spraying expanding foam in the coin slots of the meters all over the city? ;):D

Rammitinski

06-14-09, 01:13 AM

Does Tri-state have towers?I don't see them anywhere on their site. But they do carry some different things in the stores. I would call them and ask.

Solid Signal does carry them for sure, though.

dattier

06-14-09, 01:30 AM

21 hour day yesterday. I typed too quick. 28.8 should have been 23.8! Fixed now.Thanks for fixing it. Around 7 PM I had seen that it was corrected but this was my first chance to visit AVS Forum and say so.

DJ Matt

06-14-09, 01:56 AM

I am disappointed. I can no longer get WLS. I can get CBS at about 40% now though so I guess I have to take the good with the bad. Seems like numerous people are having issues picking up WLS.

sebenste

06-14-09, 02:29 AM

Hey everyone,

Watch this...

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/video?id=6863745

It isn't just WLS, folks...

pm3839

06-14-09, 02:32 AM

You mean that recorder doesn't have manual clock setting? That would be highly unusual.

yes....a manual setting can be done....but i want to be able to disconnect the power to it on most days.... which then kills the clock/date info....before 6/12/09 this recorder would automatically correct the date/time after power was restored within a minute or so....i didnt even have to turn it on, which was very convenient...

tvropro

06-14-09, 07:17 AM

yes....a manual setting can be done....but i want to be able to disconnect the power to it on most days.... which then kills the clock/date info....before 6/12/09 this recorder would automatically correct the date/time after power was restored within a minute or so....i didnt even have to turn it on, which was very convenient...

I don't think a converter box can pass the VBI signal if WTTW still is transmitting it. I do the same as you by killing the power strip where that VCR is located. It's a Sony and even if I left it powered up and set the clock manually it don't keep good time. In the latter years they cut costs by leaving a crystal out that kept the clock stable. My primary VCR is a Panasonic 1997 vintage before the auto set came about. That thing looses only like a minute a year. That's what I use for 99% of my recording anyway.

Oh well I guess we need to to throw the old VCR technology away like our old analog tv's. :mad: I don't think so, with the video tape library I have built since 1981 I could never get it all transferred to another media. :eek:

andyross63

06-14-09, 08:48 AM

pgartung

06-14-09, 09:22 AM

Wireman134

06-14-09, 09:54 AM

Hello, all. Since all thats changed is WBBM and WLS for the most part my setup is working great. That little Antennacraft VHF high band is the cats meow, pulling in WWTO-DT 10 (35.1) a solid 60% from 50 miles out at 258* from my location, receiving 80%+ of both WBBM-DT 12 (2.1), and WLS-DT 7 (7.1). Yea WLS is a little lower power but it's in VHF now. Whats WLS transmitting at 4kw anyone know what there full power is limited to? I am 38 miles out at approx 650 elev. with my DIY 4 bay UHF combined with 2 VHF Yagi's (one no longer needed for low band VHF). The DIY 4 bay picks up South Bend's WSBT-DT 22 (22.1) 93 miles out at 82* from my location when thinks are clear and uncluttered. I would imagine my results would not be good if I tried to use a indoor antenna or one at a low elevation. Got to get those antennas in the attic or outside fellas.:rolleyes:

Munkeung

06-14-09, 09:55 AM

I am disappointed. I can no longer get WLS. I can get CBS at about 40% now though so I guess I have to take the good with the bad. Seems like numerous people are having issues picking up WLS.

I can get WLS just fine and CBS is much improved. I am a block east of Naperville-Plainfield between 87th and 95th. I use an attic VHF/UHF antenna with a Winegard preamp.

retromzc

06-14-09, 09:59 AM

WBBM continues to be just great here! WLS can be a bit flaky when tropo kicks in. On Friday night when there was extreme tropo in the area the WLS signal went down to 13% but still locked. If these tropo conditions ever leave the area, then that should provide better conditions for all of us to judge the new signals more realisticly.

tvropro

06-14-09, 10:31 AM

Got to get those antennas in the attic or outside fellas.:rolleyes:

Yep that's the winning ticket. Height and a good antenna system outside is a must for good digital if you are experiencing any problems.

usmaak

06-14-09, 10:44 AM

Yep that's the winning ticket. Height and a good antenna system outside is a must for good digital if you are experiencing any problems.I envy those with a choice. Unfortunately some of us don't have one.

pgartung

06-14-09, 10:55 AM

I envy those with a choice. Unfortunately some of us don't have one.

I have mine in an upstairs bedroom hanging on the east wall. Works for me with no amp.

tvmicrowave2002

06-14-09, 11:15 AM

Located near Fargo and Randall Rd: I have a Channel Master 4228 and an Antenna Craft mid-gain grade Hi/Lo VHF combined in the attic precisely aimed downtown in the attic. To lazy to grab my Sencore portable analyzer from work to get real MER/EVM readings (Tony have you tried @ your home?) I've found that my Samsung STB's signal strength is not just power, it's a combination of power and the quality of the 8VSB signal; A factor of the tuning of the transmitter. All stations the same as before except:

WBBM-DT 2: On channel 3 I locked about 50% of the time and had 4/10 signal strength. On channel 12 now 10/10 solid lock.

WLS-DT 7: I have a great deal of respect for the top two engineers there but have NO idea why they and the O&O group elected to go back to VHF. 1980's logic. Even if they double the power to 8 kW, mark my word, it will not help. The glory days of VHF are over. People want small, compact antennas and those are not catered to VHF. If mobile DTV takes off, and I think to a degree it will, this will be the final OTA nail in the coffin for VHF broadcasters. Lo Band VHF? Save your money and fiber to cable and sat and sign off. Speaking to several cell phone manufactures @ NAB this year, they have no intent of making VHF tuners in their phones. On channel 52 had 10/10, now fluctuates between 5-6/10 on channel 7.

WXFT-DT 60: On channel 59 was 10/10 but now on channel 50 is 6/10. I think their SNR is too low thus the low signal. Looking at their setup Friday night, it will come back once they optimize a little more. Likely to 10/10.

WGBO-DT 60: On channel 53 was 10/10 now on channel 38 10/10.

WWME-LD: Cheap plug for Chicago's first Low Power DTV station to sign on the air. Was 10/10 before still 10/10 after.

155

06-14-09, 11:23 AM

So why didn't the FCC just eliminate VHF and only use UHF?

I've never had a problem receiving UHF channels. The difficult ones are always VHF. Most of our market could use indoor antennas easily if they dumped it and I'm sure most markets are the same.

rec630

06-14-09, 11:25 AM

I have Comcast, including their DVR, but still have a VCR for occasional old stuff, as a plain clock, and when I need to record 3 programs simultaneously. It used to lock onto WTTW (It's a JVC and I can force the channel), but I noticed it was way off a few days ago. I tried forcing a sync, but it wouldn't. I then put it in full auto. After 3 hours, it was still blinking 'Auto' and I went to bed. In the morning, it had a time, but was way off. I don't think there is any channel carrying a time sync on analog cable anymore.

This did happen a year or so ago, too.

I can set the VCR manually, but it tends to run slow and lose a few seconds per day!

I've got a VCR that takes only an analog time signal and a DVDR that will supposedly set time from either an analog or digital signal. It's hooked up to a Comcast feed but it quit getting the correct time on Sat at 12 am after first transitions occurred. I've got both clocks manually set now, but I'm still experimenting trying to find a digital time signal that works to set the DVDR.

I'm wondering now if it could be because I have analog cable i.e. no STB and I should try the timesynch with the OTA feed I'm using for my CECB TV. Is PBS (or others) still sending a time signal post conversion? Is the digital equivalent PSIP, TVGOS or something else? (and is this question better suited for the technical forum?)

Thanks

TheKorn

06-14-09, 11:40 AM

WLS-DT 7: I have a great deal of respect for the top two engineers there but have NO idea why they and the O&O group elected to go back to VHF. 1980's logic. Even if they double the power to 8 kW, mark my word, it will not help. The glory days of VHF are over. People want small, compact antennas and those are not catered to VHF. If mobile DTV takes off, and I think to a degree it will, this will be the final OTA nail in the coffin for VHF broadcasters. Lo Band VHF? Save your money and fiber to cable and sat and sign off. Speaking to several cell phone manufactures @ NAB this year, they have no intent of making VHF tuners in their phones. On channel 52 had 10/10, now fluctuates between 5-6/10 on channel 7.

I think that's a most appropriate content. WLS had a just fine frequency allocation, then for no other logic that I can find other than "well we're 7 we should be on 7" upended the apple cart with a stupid frequency request. They might as well have asked the FCC, "how can we halve our signal strength for the greatest number of people?"

Well, that's what happens when management's hubris makes technical decisions. You get totally f'd up technical decisions.

Trip in VA

06-14-09, 11:46 AM

bigdnwi

06-14-09, 12:35 PM

BIFDNWI, thanks for the input. You're the first to notice. To make room for 26.5, I backed the audio bit rate of 26.2/3/4/6 down so I could add the .5 without affecting the total video bitrate of the pool. Anyone else notice?

Thanks for the explanation. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't me. Like I said I didn't really notice on the shows, just commercials so that's good.

bigdnwi

06-14-09, 12:39 PM

Um, WLS did not have a "just fine" frequency allocation. Channel 52 was auctioned off by the federal government. They'd have had to move either way.

What channel they should have moved to is up for debate, but they could not have stayed where they were.

- Trip

I'm guessing moving back to 7 was not a local decision, but a network decision. Same thing with the Livewell HD bandwidth reducer. Regarding Livewell, I can see a female audience for it, but does it have to be in HD. 480i SD would have been fine. The local engineers are just having to follow orders from ABC corporate.

Trip in VA

06-14-09, 12:41 PM

I'm guessing moving back to 7 was not a local decision, but a network decision. Same thing with the Livewell HD bandwidth reducer. Regarding Livewell, I can see a female audience for it, but does it have to be in HD. 480i SD would have been fine. The local engineers are just having to follow orders from ABC corporate.

Agreed. ABC moved every station they had back to the analog channel, whether they had to or not. All but two of their stations are doing the dual HD thing, and the two that aren't, I imagine it's on the way.

Agreed on Livewell HD, too. Should have done widescreen 480i and fed the HD to cable.

- Trip

gjvrieze

06-14-09, 01:07 PM

Agreed. ABC moved every station they had back to the analog channel, whether they had to or not. All but two of their stations are doing the dual HD thing, and the two that aren't, I imagine it's on the way.

Agreed on Livewell HD, too. Should have done widescreen 480i and fed the HD to cable.

- Trip

I am really glad that KSTP in the Twin Cities is owned by Hubbard and not O and O, so no Livewell HD (at least I hope)

fccgrant

06-14-09, 01:41 PM

Would not come in at all on my Fusion 5 so I swapped in a Fusion 7 board.

So tuner capability definitely has something to do with getting 7 in.

I have a preamp connected to my Fusion 5 card. The antenna is a master antenna system supplied by the condo association. Just for grins I removed the preamp. Ch 7 went from 92% to 62% and was unwatchable. Ch 2 was 70% and was watchable. The preamp will stay on.

Samsung TV & Magnavox DVR H2160 had no issues locking in 7 with both at full scale. I believe these both have built in preamps.

I setup a neighbor who is using the Insignia box and she was able to get 7 and 2 with no problems with the master antenna. A second box that she has was connected with rabbit ears and built in splitter. Ch 2 and 7 failed to come in.

fccgrant
Carol Stream
President and Geneva

WarrenN

06-14-09, 01:52 PM

Last night I noticed some slight pixelization on WLS. At that point I was getting the following readings:

WLS
Signal Strength: 64 - 75
SNR: 21 - 25 dB

WBBM
Signal Strength: 79 - 81
SNR: 26 - 27 dB

I decided to clean up my attic installation today. I took down my giant ch3 yagi and moved the Winegard 1713 into the former yagi location. This resulted in a shorter run to the preamp which enabled me to replace the rg6 with quad shield.

Things look much better now. I am getting the following readings on my TIVO HD:

WLS
Signal Strength: 79 - 87
SNR: 25 - 28 dB

WBBM
Signal Strength: 95 steady
SNR: 30 dB steady

I guess location in the attic does make a big difference. I think I'm just going to leave it alone now.

sebenste

06-14-09, 02:09 PM

Kyle, Chief Engineer at Weigel has definitely thrown his gauntlet down. :D I have to admit, it was the 100 pound elephant in the engineering room, and there's not any more room with a Thales transmitter sharing the space with the elephant!

OK, let's go there.

4.75 kilowatts is what WLS is using; 8 kilowatts is what WBBM is using. My opinion, and I'm not an engineer and I may be flat wrong, so do not take this as educated: *in my opinion*, the FCC did not allocate enough power to VHF stations east of the Mississippi, and I don't know if they could do more. So many stations went off of VHF-LO (channels 2-6) that fitting everyone else in was a very difficult job.

I've emailed with Kal Hassan, WLS VP of Engineering offline, and I won't say what we discussed about the matter. But I will say this: He's very unhappy about all of this. Believe me, they more than know about this mess at 190 North. As Kyle noted, Kal is an engineer's engineer. He's tops. Whenever I think of WLS (nee WBKB), even as a kid, I wondered why 7 had a better looking picture, and a stronger signal, than anyone else...although WGN was very close. Kal bleeds quality. He hates anything less than excellence. He continues the WLS and ABC O&O engineering tradition of it. This breaks his heart, believe me!

And WLS is not alone: WABC-DT in New York is in the same boat: back on 7, and even worse: 7% of their signal is gobbled up by interference from other stations. The northeast is so packed with RF that almost everyone is directional or at a lower power.

So what can be done? Well, this is what you can and should do. Most of you here are above average in being your own "engineers" by getting the signal into your homes or apartments. If you aren't getting signal, or if it's not a solid lock...CALL THE FCC, *NOW*. They need to know that you can't get
WLS (or WBBM, or any other stations for that matter, especially you, apartment dwellers!). 1-888-CALL-FCC (that's 1-888-225-5322). Reach for that cordless phone or cell and tell them you aren't getting the channels,
or they are not stable, even though you've rescanned. I'm telling you...PILE ON! Let the FCC know that your stations aren't coming in. That way, when WLS or any other station applies for power, the FCC may be more gracious in allowing more juice. But they have to know this! So whether you're the chief of a TV station in Chicago, or you've just started watching over-the-air for the first time, call them if you aren't getting a good signal and you've tried everything! (Re-scanned, moved the antenna, etc).

Remember: DeKalb, Kankakee and McHenry counties are in Chicago's ADI/market, according to Nielsen. Of course, the signal will be weaker there, but it still should be usable at 60 miles out with a proper outdoor antenna!
If it isn't, give the FCC a call!

Now, the mobile DTV/VHF thing. I agree. I do think CBS and ABC will be burned if they don't go back to UHF, somehow...in a year or two. People will want to watch their shows everywhere, including on "Dick Tracy" telephones.
And Kyle's right: they're coming. You don't want to be behind that curve when it happens...in this competitive age and challenging economy,
any signal disadvantage could bury you. So, I'll hope the CBS and ABC headquarters folks realize this. BTW, just because someone has cable on one or two or even 3 TV's doesn't mean you ignore any other TVs (again, speaking to corporate HQ, not Kal, to Tom, or anyone here with this comment). Your signal HAS to be there. Give your local engineers the fighting chance to hit a home run! Yeah, low power bills would be nice. But would you rather have low power bills and low profits, or higher power bills with higher profits? Rocky Wirtz knows it really well: get your product out and expose it as much as possible, now and for the future. He's already mad as heck at the NHL for putting a lot of games on Versus instead of ESPN; that was very short-sighted of the NHL to do that. But I digress for the sake of example.
I hope the suits in New York wake up and get it. I bet they will once mobile TV starts taking off. And hopefully, it won't be too late for the O&O's.

Again, this is NOT a slam against anyone. Still, that should get me a ton of hate mail. ;):D My $.03, adjusted for inflation.

gjvrieze

06-14-09, 02:19 PM

Kyle, Chief Engineer at Weigel has definitely thrown his gauntlet down. :D I have to admit, it was the 100 pound elephant in the engineering room, and there's not any more room with a Thales transmitter sharing the space with the elephant!

OK, let's go there.

4.75 kilowatts is what WLS is using; 8 kilowatts is what WBBM is using. My opinion, and I'm not an engineer and I may be flat wrong, so do not take this as educated: *in my opinion*, the FCC did not allocate enough power to VHF stations east of the Mississippi, and I don't know if they could do more. So many stations went off of VHF-LO (channels 2-6) that fitting everyone else in was a very difficult job.

I've emailed with Kal Hassan, WLS VP of Engineering offline, and I won't say what we discussed about the matter. But I will say this: He's very unhappy about all of this. Believe me, they more than know about this mess at 190 North. As Kyle noted, Kal is an engineer's engineer. He's tops. Whenever I think of WLS (nee WBKB), even as a kid, I wondered why 7 had a better looking picture, and a stronger signal, than anyone else...although WGN was very close. Kal bleeds quality. He hates anything less than excellence. He continues the WLS and ABC O&O engineering tradition of it. This breaks his heart, believe me!

And WLS is not alone: WABC-DT in New York is in the same boat: back on 7, and even worse: 7% of their signal is gobbled up by interference from other stations. The northeast is so packed with RF that almost everyone is directional or at a lower power.

So what can be done? Well, this is what you can and should do. Most of you here are above average in being your own "engineers" by getting the signal into your homes or apartments. If you aren't getting signal, or if it's not a solid lock...CALL THE FCC, *NOW*. They need to know that you can't get
WLS (or WBBM, or any other stations for that matter, especially you, apartment dwellers!). 1-888-CALL-FCC (that's 1-888-225-5322). Reach for that cordless phone or cell and tell them you aren't getting the channels,
or they are not stable, even though you've rescanned. I'm telling you...PILE ON! Let the FCC know that your stations aren't coming in. That way, when WLS or any other station applies for power, the FCC may be more gracious in allowing more juice. But they have to know this! So whether you're the chief of a TV station in Chicago, or you've just started watching over-the-air for the first time, call them if you aren't getting a good signal and you've tried everything! (Re-scanned, moved the antenna, etc).

Remember: DeKalb, Kankakee and McHenry counties are in Chicago's ADI/market, according to Nielsen. Of course, the signal will be weaker there, but it still should be usable at 60 miles out with a proper outdoor antenna!
If it isn't, give the FCC a call!

Now, the mobile DTV/VHF thing. I agree. I do think CBS and ABC will be burned if they don't go back to UHF, somehow...in a year or two. People will want to watch their shows everywhere, including on "Dick Tracy" telephones.
And Kyle's right: they're coming. You don't want to be behind that curve when it happens...in this competitive age and challenging economy,
any signal disadvantage could bury you. So, I'll hope the CBS and ABC headquarters folks realize this. BTW, just because someone has cable on one or two or even 3 TV's doesn't mean you ignore any other TVs (again, speaking to corporate HQ, not Kal, to Tom, or anyone here with this comment). Your signal HAS to be there. Give your local engineers the fighting chance to hit a home run! Yeah, low power bills would be nice. But would you rather have low power bills and low profits, or higher power bills with higher profits? Rocky Wirtz knows it really well: get your product out and expose it as much as possible, now and for the future. He's already mad as heck at the NHL for putting a lot of games on Versus instead of ESPN; that was very short-sighted of the NHL to do that. But I digress for the sake of example.
I hope the suits in New York wake up and get it. I bet they will once mobile TV starts taking off. And hopefully, it won't be too late for the O&O's.

Well, that should get me a ton of hate mail. ;):D My $.03, adjusted for inflation.

Sebenste, I could not have said it better, great post... I for one, will not disagree with you on the VHF DTs... I know that UHF is a little less effective then VHF, even with the adjusted power levels for each band, but I think the UHF rule of 1/5 power of analog would be fitting in the VHF world too...

squeeze87

06-14-09, 02:30 PM

sebenste

06-14-09, 02:45 PM

OK, here's a further update.

I did call the FCC hotline above to tell them that my signal levels with WLS were low compared to everyone else. And, that I was worried that in bad weather, I could lose it (indeed, just wait until tropo from Michigan blows in, and Grand Rapids channel 7 knocks it out. Don't believe me? Last year, I watched WLS-TV analog 7 disappear several times due to digital hashing from 7 in Grand Rapids...and once this year before analog shutdown!).

The nice operator I spoke with noted that *ALL* of her calls today were about ABC stations, "they're really having a lot of trouble", as she put it.
Then, she encouraged me to call WLS' DTV reception hotline. OK, folks, let them know you're having trouble...

WLS DTV reception problem hotline: 1-312-750-7052

After you are done calling the FCC (do that first), THEN call WLS. They need to know how bad it is. They've got a good idea, but this lets them know you're out there and that you are using over-the-air.

I got a "all representatives are busy"message, and thn, without putting me on hold, they asked me for my name and callback number, and they would get back to me ASAP. I called at 1:30 PM; I doubt they'll call back today, but who knows...they're still very busy. So call them as well. If everyone here on AVS having trouble with WLS called them, I betcha we'd help the case for WLS to get more juice.

Macfan424

06-14-09, 03:11 PM

I'm in Skokie near Lincoln and Oakton. Someone posted a detailed report from near here, far superior than anything I could do, but I thought I'd throw in a more mundane one anyway.

My main set, a Pioneer PDP-5080, uses an outside antenna (a 40-something year old antique :o) connected to both its internal tuner and a D* HR20 via RG6. As expected, both worked beautifully after the switch. (Cool that it wasn't necessary to rescan the D* receiver.) Signal strength on the TV's tuner is fine on channel 2 and 7, not pinning the meter, but adequate. (I've had severe multi-path problems here since the Sears Tower went up.) I haven't taken the time to catalog everything that I get, but I did notice a couple of presumably low power analogs are in the mix.

In an upstairs guest room, I have a Zenith DTT900 with an old Jensen 920 indoor antenna. I'd never seen Channel 2.1 with that setup, and some of the other English-language stations were skittish. (The Spanish and Korean stations always have come in well there and still do. :rolleyes:) Now I get everything, 2.1 and 7.1 included.

My bedroom is on the ground floor, and there things are less sanguine. I have a Philips MANT510 amplified rabbit ears connected to a DTT901 there, but, not unexpectedly, have never been able to pull in many stations. At first, things were worse after the switchover than before. I was missing 2.1, 7.1, and 11.1. However, after experimenting with various element lengths and amplifier settings, I now can get all the stations I want there, with the notable exception of the 26 complex :( . For the first time in that room, all the network stations now come in, albeit with mediocre signal strength. And I didn't seem to lose anything on fm, which shares the same antenna.

OTA_GUY

06-14-09, 03:13 PM

What is with the slide show and jazz on RF 6?

never tuned it in before sat?

sebenste

06-14-09, 03:25 PM

I thought the original post said 6/09, now it says 8/09? Did it change? This is my favorite channel, and I live 61 miles out over the lake in SW MI, and can usually pull it in only about 50% of the time. I can have 4 bars of signal one minute, and gone 1 hour later. I know South Bend broadcasts on 27 also, but I have a 40' tower, a directional winegard, and rotor for fine tuning. Can anyone say weather the power increase should make the station more reliable? I see WTTW is at 300W and I still can't always get that either. If I can rely on WCIU being there 100% of the time, good bye Directv. Thanks

Steve

Post-transition upgrades I listed as 6/09. I shouldn't have done that, or said "post 6/09" instead, which would have been correct. I was told their power boost would be this summer. WTTW is as high as it will go, they can't afford any more electric bill other than for the 300 kw they're putting out now.

hvs10trk

06-14-09, 03:27 PM

I thought the original post said 6/09, now it says 8/09? Did it change? This is my favorite channel, and I live 61 miles out over the lake in SW MI, and can usually pull it in only about 50% of the time. I can have 4 bars of signal one minute, and gone 1 hour later. I know South Bend broadcasts on 27 also, but I have a 40' tower, a directional winegard, and rotor for fine tuning. Can anyone say weather the power increase should make the station more reliable? I see WTTW is at 300W and I still can't always get that either. If I can rely on WCIU being there 100% of the time, good bye Directv. Thanks

Steve

Well now that the analog is off the air, we have some work to do and hopefully sooner than later we'll turn up the power.

sebenste

06-14-09, 03:29 PM

Whats WLS transmitting at 4kw anyone know what there full power is limited to?

4.75 kilowatts. If they go any higher they will need to have a special waiver from the FCC, as WBBM did when they were 4,400 watts from Sears on channel 3.

sebenste

06-14-09, 03:38 PM

Kyle Walker/TVmicrowave2002

Even if they (WLS) double the power to 8 kW, mark my word, it will not help.

I think it will help some, but for perspective, the CBS affiliate in the Quad Cities
went from 1 megawatt on rf channel 58 to 24 killowatts on rf channel 4. People out there are screaming bloody murder. WOI-DT in Des Moines (ABC) went from 1 megawatt at 2,000' on channel 59 (you could get them in northern Missouri!), to about 25 kilowatts on channel 5. Now, they can't be seen two counties over. Out there, though, people knew about it and have seemingly resigned to the fact they won't get it anymore.

However, KCCI-DT on channel 8, 2,000' in the sky with 28.3 kw, goes gangbusters.

Acteng

06-14-09, 05:15 PM

Just called the FCC to let them know about my WLS-DT reception issues. The operator said to check back tomorrow between 12:30 and 3pm -- they will be boosting power.

Where is this nitelight station on RF6 coming from? It is just showing slides of chicago right now -- pretty decent picture! Probably clashing pretty good with RF7!

NTNgod

06-14-09, 05:25 PM

Where is this nitelight station on RF6 coming from? It is just showing slides of chicago right now -- pretty decent picture! Probably clashing pretty good with RF7!

WLFM-LP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLFM-LP) is the station you're describing.

Northern areas (the midway point between the MIL and CHI transmitters is somewhere in northern Lake County, I believe) probably are able to grab WITI 6, which is the nightlight out of Milwaukee, and is still putting out a pretty good signal.

Thinking about things in general, I'm not sure how much adjacent channel interference will actually be a problem. I had forgot that Milwaukee has three of their main DTV stations in a row from 33 to 35, and I've never seen a problem.

squeeze87

06-14-09, 06:09 PM

Well now that the analog is off the air, we have some work to do and hopefully sooner than later we'll turn up the power.

Great! Thanks much for the reply.

sebenste

06-14-09, 06:20 PM

TWinbrook46636

06-14-09, 08:15 PM

surf_fun85

06-14-09, 08:19 PM

For some reason i am not able to tune to Ch 26.1 on my Directv HR20-700
did directv remove the channel listing from its database ?

Lord Vader

06-14-09, 09:27 PM

Did you rescan your local channels? Some changed frequency, and DirecTV remapped their locals as a result.

miasis

06-14-09, 09:35 PM

hey everyone! i've been a lurker on these forums for a while but decided to post today because i've been having some of the same problems after the digital transition as some of you.

before the transition i'd been receiving a ton of channels including WLS-DT (ABC 7) via my Winegard pre-amp and SquareShooter antenna that i have mounted on top our fridge inside our first floor one bedroom condo in Yorkville :) in fact, ABC 7 used to be one of the most reliably strong signals we received. the only big network i was unable to get was CBS. which from what i've seen, was the only major network with a pretty weak signal.

anyway, after the digital transition we've gotten some improved signals from just about all our channels but completely lost ABC 7. it's pretty upsetting that ABC 7 didn't warn us about their new lower broadcast signal and most of their OTA viewers were left in the dark after noon on Friday.

we've called the FCC and WLS to voice our dismay over the loss of our ABC 7 digital signal. but we also submitted a message on Oprah's website and wanted to encourage members here to do the same. our thought is that maybe if we can all get Oprah on our side we might have a bigger voice to express our point of view. think of all the Chicagoland viewers she just lost because of this change over.

oh, and we also submitted a 'breaking new story' with a picture of our TV tuned to 7.1 and a message displaying 'failed to receive broadcast' to the ABC 7 news website :)

we are doing our best to make our voice heard about this issue so maybe some change can happen! if we all speak up hopefully they'll hear us!!!

ProjectSHO89

06-14-09, 09:44 PM

For some reason i am not able to tune to Ch 26.1 on my Directv HR20-700
did directv remove the channel listing from its database ?

Perform a delete all channels from the OTA list firsr before rescanning.

The HR20s appear to be a bit brain-damaged when the broadcasters switch real channels

NTNgod

06-14-09, 09:52 PM

before the transition i'd been receiving a ton of channels including WLS-DT (ABC 7) via my Winegard pre-amp and SquareShooter antenna that i have mounted on top our fridge inside our first floor one bedroom condo in Yorkville :) in fact, ABC 7 used to be one of the most reliably strong signals we received. the only big network i was unable to get was CBS.

The SquareShooter's VHF performance isn't particularly good (IIRC, worse than rabbit ears), which could explain why your two problem stations are the VHF stations (WBBM and post-transition WLS).

surf_fun85

06-14-09, 10:00 PM

Perform a delete all channels from the OTA list firsr before rescanning.

The HR20s appear to be a bit brain-damaged when the broadcasters switch real channels

Done that.. and still nothing :mad:

bellbm

06-14-09, 10:04 PM

BIFDNWI, thanks for the input. You're the first to notice. To make room for 26.5, I backed the audio bit rate of 26.2/3/4/6 down so I could add the .5 without affecting the total video bitrate of the pool. Anyone else notice?

Yes, I noticed today. It sounds pretty bad. I had some programs that were recorded from METV last week, and I played them for comparison. It's like the difference between listening to a CD and AM radio.

FunkyBoss

06-14-09, 10:19 PM

Anyway, for thosse of you who missed it, here are the final minutes of WCIU-TV, as it happened, over-the-air. Your host is tvmicrowave2002, aka Kyle Walker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SbizfeDRYQ
That was epic! I'm sad I was out of town to miss it. :(

sebenste

06-14-09, 10:19 PM

fccgrant

06-14-09, 10:29 PM

Where is this nitelight station on RF6 coming from? It is just showing slides of chicago right now -- pretty decent picture! Probably clashing pretty good with RF7!

RF6 won't interfere with RF7. RF6 is the last channel in the VHF Lo band before switching to VHF-Hi band where RF7 starts. You can receive the audio portion of RF6 at 87.7 Mhz FM. The station is picking up where 95.5 Smooth Jazz left off. Because it is near TV Channel 6 the station is required to send video...in this case, a slide show.

miasis

06-14-09, 10:30 PM

The SquareShooter's VHF performance isn't particularly good (IIRC, worse than rabbit ears), which could explain why your two problem stations are the VHF stations (WBBM and post-transition WLS).

oh wow, i didn't know that. do you know of an antenna that is much better at picking up the VHF hi signals?

and i was wondering if there was anyway to use my SquareShooter in combination with another antenna that would be better at picking up those VHF signals.

or maybe an antenna that would be great at picking up both :)

i've got to be able to use it inside our condo so it can't be too big.

thanks for the reply and thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer!

goaliebob99

06-14-09, 10:31 PM

For some reason i am not able to tune to Ch 26.1 on my Directv HR20-700
did directv remove the channel listing from its database ?

Did you rescan your local channels? Some changed frequency, and DirecTV remapped their locals as a result.

Some Bone Head over at Tribune / Directv has WCIU 26.1 mapped to 48.1, Its probably the same bone head that thinks WMLW is apart of the Chicago DMA and has it mapped in to Chicago's mappings.. I really wish Directv would have let us scan for our own channels, instead of force feeding us tribune tables. I discovered this when I re did my inical antenna setup after moving my antenna on a tripod. Earlier tonight I had my antenna pointing west on my rotor right at the sun as it was setting, and I was getting something on RF 6 from the west that was like gangbusters.. It eventually went away.

miasis

06-14-09, 10:32 PM

Hi Miasis,

Welcome to the forum! Thanks for doing all of that. I'm hoping they'll get a power boost soon as others have noted. If you're having trouble, now's the time to speak up about it to the FCC!

thank you sebenste! your other posts and advice were definitely an inspiration :) hopefully we can all make some sort of difference!

neilkaz

06-14-09, 10:36 PM

I think it will help some, but for perspective, the CBS affiliate in the Quad Cities
went from 1 megawatt on rf channel 58 to 24 killowatts on rf channel 4. People out there are screaming bloody murder. WOI-DT in Des Moines (ABC) went from 1 megawatt at 2,000' on channel 59 (you could get them in northern Missouri!), to about 25 kilowatts on channel 5. Now, they can't be seen two counties over. Out there, though, people knew about it and have seemingly resigned to the fact they won't get it anymore.

However, KCCI-DT on channel 8, 2,000' in the sky with 28.3 kw, goes gangbusters.

Something tells me that many of these DTV V's could do with more power. I do believe a doubling would help WLS considerably.

FunkyBoss

06-14-09, 10:38 PM

I was one of those way-out-west folks who struggled trying to receive WBBM-DT3, who now gets it no problem. It's locked on my Dish network 622 receiver at 100% now. WLS-DT7 now fluctuates between 85 and 90% and locks pretty solid. I did notice today though it would pixelate a bit every 30 minutes or so though. All other locals seem to be 90 - 100% strength.

My setup is a ChannelMaster Stealth antenna on the roof (It was installed as part of my old Voom setup 5 years ago) feeding a couple Dish Network 622 DVR OTA modules.

George Mari

06-14-09, 10:38 PM

WITI out of Milwaukee is still blasting away on analog 6 as a nightlight station, actually.

Now that you mention it, that must have been what I was seeing - definitely the same video as I saw over on 32 analog, about how to hook up a converter box, etc. Funny thing is, I was defnitely hearing the WLFM-LP audio.

155

06-14-09, 10:43 PM

Do you think we could organize a local indoor antenna shootout?

Let members donate antennas by buying them online and having them shipped to a central location like someone who works for one of the tv networks. Also ask manufacturers if they want their antennas reviewed in the shootout and let them submit antennas.

We'd just need someone to test them in different environments like peoples apartments in suburbs north, west and south of the city with some testing equipment.

It's just a thought. It's so frustrating buying antennas and having them not work.

George Mari

06-14-09, 10:47 PM

After the transition, my only changes are with WLS on 7 and WBBM on 12. I am getting the opposite experience of almost everyone else on the board - I can get WLS just fine at 90%, while WBBM fluctuates between 0 and 25%. WWME-LD comes in at about 25% to 30%, just above my set's threshold for locking.

I am guessing that I need to adjust the size of my home-made, cut-to-length folded dipole - it's great for low-VHF, but probably not for Hi-VHF. I get 7 well on this antenna, at the low-end of the Hi-VHF band, but not 12, at the upper end of the band.

If you cut your channel 3 dipole down to 32 inches it should work well for channel 7 and good for channel 12. I got good results by cutting down the dipole from a VHF low antenna to 34 inches.

Update on this - tonight, I cut my folded dipole down to between 28 and 29 inches - this is what I calculated for the center of the VHF-Hi band (Ch. 10).

Now, WLS and WBBM both come in between 90 and 100%, so it looks like my theory - and the advice mentioned here by others - was right.

George Mari

06-14-09, 10:51 PM

surf_fun85

06-14-09, 11:36 PM

Some Bone Head over at Tribune / Directv has WCIU 26.1 mapped to 48.1, Its probably the same bone head that thinks WMLW is apart of the Chicago DMA and has it mapped in to Chicago's mappings.. I really wish Directv would have let us scan for our own channels, instead of force feeding us tribune tables. I discovered this when I re did my inical antenna setup after moving my antenna on a tripod. Earlier tonight I had my antenna pointing west on my rotor right at the sun as it was setting, and I was getting something on RF 6 from the west that was like gangbusters.. It eventually went away.

thanks for catching that :eek:

fccgrant

06-15-09, 12:32 AM

dattier

06-15-09, 12:46 AM

I was going to say hi to Ramm, Dattier, Swiat and others here on the board.I was watching on both 26 and 26.6, the latter lagging slightly behind as is inherent in ATSC, and saw Kyle introduce you decked out in yellow. It's unfortunate that you weren't interviewed, but [while of course I can't speak for anyone else who frequents this thread] I'm relieved that you didn't mention me.

WCIU/WWME and WGN are my strongest and most reliable stations. Should I be receiving 23.3 - 23.8 as indicated on the THAT? splash screen? I only get 23.1.Sounds as though you are receiving only WCIU-DT (RF27, with virtual channels 23.1, 26.1 through 26.6, and 48.1) but not WWME-LD (RF39, with virtual channels 26.2 through 26.8).

it's pretty upsetting that ABC 7 didn't warn us about their new lower broadcast signal and most of their OTA viewers were left in the dark after noon on Friday.Tvfool.com had the information, and Sebenste included it in the stickies on the first page of this thread (from which he has since removed the pre-shutoff information, but both pre- and post- were there until Friday). Did you expect them to say something on the air as well?

jpeckinp

06-15-09, 12:51 AM

Agreed. ABC moved every station they had back to the analog channel, whether they had to or not. All but two of their stations are doing the dual HD thing, and the two that aren't, I imagine it's on the way.

Agreed on Livewell HD, too. Should have done widescreen 480i and fed the HD to cable.

- Trip

I'm sure the decision to go back to the analog channel was made by some pinhead manager that has no clue about frequency propagation and when informed by the head engineers he probably shrugged them off and said but I have a PHD in business management so what do you know.;)

Trip in VA

06-15-09, 01:15 AM

I'm sure the decision to go back to the analog channel was made by some pinhead manager that has no clue about frequency propagation and when informed by the head engineers he probably shrugged them off and said but I have a PHD in business management so what do you know.;)

The sad thing is that I absolutely believe this could have happened.

- Trip

jpeckinp

06-15-09, 01:26 AM

The sad thing is that I absolutely believe this could have happened.

- Trip
I fully believe that is exactly what happened. I've dealt with too many managers that think exactly like that.
The thought that went through their minds was probably something like this: "Wouldn't it be cool if we went back to broadcasting on our original freq?" "It worked for all those years before it will work now right" and all the other managers in the room cheered and said so it shall be.
Later on after the meeting this manager was probably given a raise and a nice fat bonus and has since moved on to be a used car salesman in Boise, ID.

And now we have what happen Friday.:D

Rammitinski

06-15-09, 02:08 AM

Just thought that I'd mention that for the first time ever - I was picking up WKOW-DT tonight !!! And with my indoor antenna on top of it!!!

Did they raise the power over there or something?

miasis

06-15-09, 02:53 AM

Tvfool.com had the information, and Sebenste included it in the stickies on the first page of this thread (from which he has since removed the pre-shutoff information, but both pre- and post- were there until Friday).* Did you expect them to say something on the air as well?

hi Dattier, it's far fetched of me to think that ABC would say something on the air but i think that is what i might have hoped for. my disappointment comes from the drastic difference in reception i got with my personal set-up, but i also feel there are more people who are unaware of why they can't get ABC anymore because they don't know where to look to get answers.

this board has been so helpful to me i just wish everyone who watched ABC 7 pre transition had been made aware of all the great info here.

i think i'm also just disappointed right now because i was hoping that everything would work out great post transition. i love my OTA signal and hate to see any channel go :(

hvs10trk

06-15-09, 06:06 AM

Just thought that I'd mention that for the first time ever - I was picking up WKOW-DT tonight !!! And with my indoor antenna on top of it!!!

Did they raise the power over there or something?

Their DT is on 26 which opened up in this area when we shut down the analog on our end.

Acteng

06-15-09, 09:13 AM

Since last evening WLS has been pretty stable coming in solid at 50% on the "signal strength" meter. Maybe atmopheric or a modest power boost but at the moment seems stable enough to lock.

I'm still probably at the cliff edge --- thanks for the suggestions I'll look into a preamp.

George Mari

06-15-09, 09:44 AM

Last night, with my now optimally-sized VHF-Hi dipole, I tried to tune in WMVS from Milwaukee, about 60 miles north of me - I was surprised to see it come booming in at about 90% on my signal meter. I could never get it before, when I had the dipole cut longer for the lower frequency of WBBM.

Just to see if this was temporary effect of tropo, I tried tuning in WYIN, always hit and miss for me at about 70 miles away. It was coming in also at about 90%. Since that channel is coming in on UHF on my unchanged CM 4228, I figured it was just some tropo action causing all this.

This morning I checked again, and I'm still getting WMVS at 50%, and WYIN at 75%, so now I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing this as tropo, or just better reception overall as a result of the transition?

sebenste

06-15-09, 10:09 AM

sebenste

06-15-09, 10:32 AM

Quick report.

I just arrived at my work site in DeKalb, which requires me to have a Chicago OTA TV backup. I have a third generation LG LST-4200A model. My antennas are both ChannelMaster 4228 clasics...one is for Chicago; one is for picking up Rockford. They are both 70' in the air, one pointed towards Chicago indoors in front of an outside wall, and one outside pointednorthwest towards Rockford.

WBBM and WLS are unlockable for me at 40%. Mind you, these are UHF antennas, BUT have several dB of gain on VHF-HI. I should be locking both of them. I'm not.

Oddly enough, with my other 4228 pointed northwest, I can now easily lock WKOW-DT from Madison with it.

swiat

06-15-09, 11:02 AM

If we had time, the plan was for me to get interviewed, and I was going to say hi to Ramm, Dattier, Swiat and others here on the board. Alas, 15 minutes and two station history promos prevented that due to time constraints.

Anyway, for thosse of you who missed it, here are the final minutes of WCIU-TV, as it happened, over-the-air. Your host is tvmicrowave2002, aka Kyle Walker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SbizfeDRYQ

heh.. thanks. After I told my wife I was getting WGVU from grand Rapids now she said... "it shows how much if a geek you are that you know the call letters from Grand Rapids" 2. I attentively watched the signoff on WCIU-26. (good job, BTW) 3. I have message board folks giving me shout-outs.

Now I can officially admit I am a geek. BTW, I am an RF engineer for Motorola in Schaumburg and a ham operator (AA9VI).... if there were any questions before, I guess they have been answered. hah ha

(DOWN WITH W25DW!)

Lord Vader

06-15-09, 12:06 PM

According to this article (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/talkback/279344-ABC_FCC_Working_on_DTV_Reception_Issues.php), the FCC is aware of some of the problems WLS-7 Chicago is having.

goaliebob99

06-15-09, 12:10 PM

WLS is telling people to do a double rescan.. IE disconnect your antenna, rescan, unplug your box for one min, then connect the antenna back up, and rescan again..

There saying if you cant get it after that, to call the FCC.

kd9fz

06-15-09, 03:20 PM

Two parts to this post:

First Part:
I can verify the above process works. After completing those steps, make the following changes to these two registry keys to use the Comcast Elmhurst guide data for your guide updates:

in: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Media Center\Service\EPG]
"headend"=IL12555X

in: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Media Center\Settings\ProgramGuide]
"strProviderId"=IL12555X

Reboot for these registry settings to take effect, then dowload the guide data: MCE->tasks->settings->tv->guide->download guide

And you'll be good to go. The only guide data that doesn't show up ("No data available.") is for THIS TV (now on WCIUDT4 subchannel 26.4). Don't know why WMC doesn't map it correctly from the Comcast guide data. Oh well.

using the WMC be sure to do the two registry keys
or MS will write the guide data that has been wrong for over a year
over any corrections you made ... thanks MS !!

kd9fz
comments criticisms and questions of sanity are always welcome

swiat

06-15-09, 03:55 PM

Ok, so they have this issue with channel 7. I am only guessing the lower power allotment was to protect WOOD in Grand Rapids and vice-versa. Here's the problem... WOOD is the problem.. sorta...

WPBN in Traverse City and WLS in Chicago are both running lower power to protect WOOD. In Traverse City's case, 500 W. This means analog viewers in Central and Northern lower Michigan went from 316kW analog on VHF to 500W digital... YIKES! No joke.

Why couldn't have the FCC made WOOD go to UHF? Maybe that's a stupid question. You'd solve 2 problems with that move. Too late now.

tvropro

06-15-09, 04:07 PM

WLS is telling people to do a double rescan.. IE disconnect your antenna, rescan, unplug your box for one min, then connect the antenna back up, and rescan again..

If an antenna related issue with weak signal I doubt that would do anything.

WLS 7 is booming in by me in the 90's better that WBBM 12 which is 82.

WLS would have to at least double there power to see any improvement by ones having problems. Well D day is done and now we really find out how well digital performs on a day to day basis for everyone. They may have to start giving away government coupons for antenna systems. :eek:

zzzzz

06-15-09, 04:34 PM

Too bad the FCC can't force WJYS (which I would estimate has perhaps 3 or 4 viewers) to switch frequencies with WLS.

I would assume that by now ABC is seeing how bone-headed their decision to stay on VHF was and would welcome a frequency swap such as this.

goaliebob99

06-15-09, 04:41 PM

dattier

06-15-09, 05:02 PM

my disappointment comes from the drastic difference in reception i got with my personal set-up, but i also feel there are more people who are unaware of why they can't get ABC anymore because they don't know where to look to get answers.You're much farther than I and you're in a different direction, but has WLS's signal improved for you since Friday?

When they did their tests of DT7 in December, it came in with less strength than DT52 here, and the same was true Friday, but by Saturday afternoon or evening DT7 was stronger than DT52 had been.

usmaak

06-15-09, 05:48 PM

Just called the FCC to let them know about my WLS-DT reception issues. The operator said to check back tomorrow between 12:30 and 3pm -- they will be boosting power.Is there any information as to whether this happened? I just got home and took a look and it's still the exact same signal for me.

TWinbrook46636

06-15-09, 05:57 PM

Sounds as though you are receiving only WCIU-DT (RF27, with virtual channels 23.1, 26.1 through 26.6, and 48.1) but not WWME-LD (RF39, with virtual channels 26.2 through 26.8).

Yes. It seems the TiVo first downloads a list of channels it expects to receive for the given area and then anything new found during the actual scan is added. That explains why it had 23.1 but not 23.2 through 23.8. 23.1 shows up twice for me, once on RF27 and again on RF39 but only the one from RF27 actually omes in.

Of course if I had been able to scan these in the TiVo would still not likely show listings for them. They are not aware of them from what I can tell.

TWinbrook46636

06-15-09, 06:01 PM

I guess the results I posted on page 184 was the best case scenario for me. Since then all my channels are coming in weaker. I've lost WLS-DT and WXFT-DT entirely now. Several others only come in intermittently.

sebenste

06-15-09, 06:17 PM

From a colleague of mine at work, not an AVS member:

WLS-DT-7 Reception

Location: North side of DeKalb; WNW of Kishwaukee Hospital;
N41.962767, W88.734333; 91.3 km or 56.7 mi out @ 275 deg; local altitude - 858 ft.

Receiver: Zenith DTT-901 converter box(2); Panasonic DVD Recorder;
Manual tune mode.

Antenna: Winegard YA-1713 75-Ohm unbalanced output; mounted in second story attic. Two Channel Master 4228's for UHF reception in two directions.

Pre-amp: RG-6 coaxial cable through one diplexor to Channel Master 7777.

Medium tree maturity in neighborhood.

Reception: DT-7 @ 5/10 with some drop outs daytime. More stable at night.
DT-52 was 7/10 w/ no dropouts.

Other comments: I consider the DT-7 signal weak.
The WLS-DT-7 signal pattern should be nulled over Lake Michigan to allow more directional ERP to the North, West and South.
10 to 20 kW ERP will be needed in this direction to be competitive with other O&O UHF DT's.
WGBO-DT-38, WXFT-DT-50 and WJYS-DT-36 signals are stronger here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

WBBM-DT-12 Reception

Location: North side of DeKalb; WNW of Kishwaukee Hospital;
N41.962767, W88.734333; 91.3 km or 56.7 mi out @ 275 deg; local altitude - 858 ft.

Receiver: Zenith DTT-901 converter box(2); Panasonic DVD Recorder;
Manual tune mode.

Antenna: Winegard YA-1713 75-Ohm unbalanced output mounted in second story attic.
I tried a 'Commercial-grade' 10 element cut channel 12 Yagi; 2,521 mm in length 75-Ohm unbalanced output.
There was no real advantage due to combiner losses.
Two Channel Master 4228's for UHF reception in two directions.

Pre-amp: RG-6 coaxial cable through one diplexor to Channel Master 7777.

Medium tree maturity in neighborhood.

Reception: DT-12 @ 5-6/10 Rare dropouts or pixelation during daytime. More stable at night.

Other comments: I consider the DT-12 signal of weak to moderate strength.
Most other Chicago UHF DTV signal strengths here are 8-9/10.
10 to 20 kW ERP will be needed in this direction to be competitive with other O&O UHF DT's.
The DT-12 signal strength was comparable to WJYS-DT-36, WXFT-DT-50 and WGBO-DT-38.
I've now watched more WBBM-TV OTA this weekend than I have in the past 25 years!

Ronald Beldon, PE
Mechanical Engineer

Lord_Zath

06-15-09, 06:23 PM

Why couldn't have the FCC made WOOD go to UHF? Maybe that's a stupid question. You'd solve 2 problems with that move. Too late now.

Maybe the people at the FCC like wood...

miasis

06-15-09, 06:33 PM

You're much farther than I and you're in a different direction, but has WLS's signal improved for you since Friday?

When they did their tests of DT7 in December, it came in with less strength than DT52 here, and the same was true Friday, but by Saturday afternoon or evening DT7 was stronger than DT52 had been.

unfortunately no, my WLS signal quality seems to be the same since Friday. glad to hear the reception is better for you though!

i think a lot of my problem relies on my poor VHF reception though. after looking into my set-up some more i realize my antenna isn't VHF friendly like i thought it was so i think i'm going to try another antenna or two that support VHF/UHF and test the waters some more. i feel like a bonehead for not preparing myself a little better to receive VHF post transition but here's hoping something will work.

i'm still amazed at how well i can get OTA UHF from inside a first floor condo near IL 47. just wish everything was UHF :)

NTNgod

06-15-09, 06:38 PM

Is there any information as to whether this happened? I just got home and took a look and it's still the exact same signal for me.

They didn't say anything about it during the 4PM newscast (TW up here carries Chicago stations, albeit only in centercut 4:3 - they must have to shell out extra for the HD feeds or something?).

They had a reasonably lengthy segment on the reception problems, but most of it focused on box hookup/rescanning/etc. There was a mention towards the end that they were at their maximum power allotted by the FCC, they gave the FCC phone # to report problems, and said they were working with the FCC on their reception issues.

usmaak

06-15-09, 07:39 PM

They didn't say anything about it during the 4PM newscast (TW up here carries Chicago stations, albeit only in centercut 4:3 - they must have to shell out extra for the HD feeds or something?).

They had a reasonably lengthy segment on the reception problems, but most of it focused on box hookup/rescanning/etc. There was a mention towards the end that they were at their maximum power allotted by the FCC, they gave the FCC phone # to report problems, and said they were working with the FCC on their reception issues.Yea. I found nothing useful on their website. A "double-scan" is not going to help with reception problems. At most, it would help with someone not getting it at all because their box didn't scan correctly.

Hey, does anyone think that this antenna would be worth the price?

http://www.audiovox.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=14370&langId=-1

I'm at 64 percent right now with my RCA powered antenna. It is just barely not enough for my vip722 to lock. If I could just get a bit more signal, I'd be ok.

zzzzz

06-15-09, 08:41 PM

Hey, does anyone think that this antenna would be worth the price?

http://www.audiovox.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=14370&langId=-1

That looks identical to the Terk HDTV i. Radio Shack also carries it as the Terk HDTV a. All three look like a Silver Sensor with an amplifier and VHF rods tacked onto the back.

I've not tried any of these (but I do have an old Silver Sensor). My guess is it work great for UHF but so-so for VHF.

NTNgod

06-15-09, 08:46 PM

Hey, does anyone think that this antenna would be worth the price?

http://www.audiovox.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=14370&langId=-1

For WLS 7?

Like most indoor antennas, the VHF part of that antenna is just amplified rabbit ears. Nothing more, nothing less.

Likely not too much difference in the VHF performance between most indoor antennas with rabbit ears, if the built-in amps are of similar quality.

TWinbrook46636

06-16-09, 12:23 AM

155

06-16-09, 12:27 AM

For WLS 7?

Like most indoor antennas, the VHF part of that antenna is just amplified rabbit ears. Nothing more, nothing less.

Likely not too much difference in the VHF performance between most indoor antennas with rabbit ears, if the built-in amps are of similar quality.

This looks promising:

http://www.antennasdirect.com/C5-Clearstream-DTV-antenna.html

TWinbrook46636

06-16-09, 12:45 AM

This looks promising:

http://www.antennasdirect.com/C5-Clearstream-DTV-antenna.html

That would go well with the ClearStream 4 I am using.

TWinbrook46636

06-16-09, 01:02 AM

I've tweaked the antenna as best I can so this is a good as it's going to get I suppose:

2.1 (12) is coming in at 56 - 58 % with a SNR of 17 - 19 dB
(frequent pixelation, this is cutting it too close)

5.1 (29) is coming in at 88 - 90 % with a SNR of 28 dB
(good solid signal)

7.1 (7) is no longer receivable, fluctuating between 0 - 31 % with a SNR of 13 dB at 31
(so because someone thought it would be cool to be on RF7 I must now buy a separate antenna just for them)

9.1 (19) is coming in at 94 - 96 % with a SNR of 30 dB
(this is my strongest station)

11.1 (47) is coming in at 78 - 80 % with a SNR of 25 dB

I won't detail all of them but 20.1 (21), 23.1 (39) and 35.1 (10) are not receivable but they weren't before the switch either. 26.1 and 32.1 are both coming in at 87 - 90 %

60.1 (50) is coming in at 62 % now with a SNR of 19 dB.
(frequent pixelation, it is on a knife's edge)

jmmilner

06-16-09, 01:47 AM

I fully believe that is exactly what happened. I've dealt with too many managers that think exactly like that.
The thought that went through their minds was probably something like this: "Wouldn't it be cool if we went back to broadcasting on our original freq?" "It worked for all those years before it will work now right" and all the other managers in the room cheered and said so it shall be.
Later on after the meeting this manager was probably given a raise and a nice fat bonus and has since moved on to be a used car salesman in Boise, ID.

And now we have what happen Friday.:D

Actually what really happened is the head engineer was fired for not fighting the decision hard enough in the first place to have been fired back then! If managers who screwed up really lost their jobs as a result, I'd expect to see the younger managers take notice. What they really see is screw-ups being rewarded and they repeat the observed behavior.

hvs10trk

06-16-09, 06:06 AM

This looks promising:

http://www.antennasdirect.com/C5-Clearstream-DTV-antenna.html

I have the 4-bay UHF model and it works nicely. 46 miles out shooting through a distant tree and part of my neighbors house and it locks all UHF with no problem. 2 and 7 are there and tile slightly. Not bad for a UHF panel antenna.

swiat

06-16-09, 10:01 AM

Guys, it's not the frequency that is the issue. It's the FCC's power limit and screwjob channel assignments (like with WOOD just over the lake). VHF hi actually works better for hillier terrain. Grant it, it's relatively flat here, but WLS is capped out with power. If they could increase it some, and I bet the FCC will end up allowing them to do that, things will be fine. UHF isn't necessarily better because the noise floor is lower. Path loss is much greater as you go up in frequency, i.e. your 2.4 GHz wireless LAN. Who'd want to use 2.4 GHz for TV? No one, because the path loss is too great, despite the much lower noise floor.

pgartung

06-16-09, 10:17 AM

I've never understood this. I've been told over and over in the antenna thread here on AVS that antennas do not benefit from an amp except to compensate for signal loss due to long cable runs yet I see plenty of indoor antennas with built-in amps and they seem to pull in more stations when switched on. So what's the deal? Should I get an amp for the outdoor antenna I happen to be using indoors then? The cable is only 10ft so I didn't even consider it.

:confused:

Amplification is good as long as you are not too close to the transmitters. I can only get channel 56 (17) if I use an amplifier. Unfortunately because a nearby radio tower overloads any amp I use, I need to stick with an un-amplified antenna.

tvropro

06-16-09, 12:46 PM

I put this together yesterday out of 4 broken down Winegard antenna's. I have 2 CH 9075's with broken elements, a CS-7082 busted up and a CS-7080 busted up. What I did was use the 4 pack, 8 UHF driven element section from the CS-7080, The CH-9075 boom and reflectors and the UHF power pack section from the CS-7082. I fixed broken elements where needed.

After I finished I tossed this bad boy up there to test it (pointed it at South Bend) Approx 80 miles SE of me. WSBT came booming in at about 60 to 70 % on the Zenith DTT-900. WNDU I got about 50% on. I may just toss this thing on the top of the pole (see picture) to replace a Rad Shack U-75 pointed now at Milwaukee when I put my rotor up. I was going to use a RS U-120 I have but think the Winegard Clone may smoke it since it has 8 driven elements vs 2. Anyone have experience with the Winegards vs Radio Shack? I know my CS-9095 smoked the crap out of the U-100 back in the 80's.

KML-224

06-16-09, 01:12 PM

Wow! Are you in Chicago proper with that thing? If so, how is WBBM-DT (CBS) doing for you? I heard all those horror stories about them being on channel 3 for a while.

tvropro

06-16-09, 01:26 PM

Wow! Are you in Chicago proper with that thing? If so, how is WBBM-DT (CBS) doing for you? I heard all those horror stories about them being on channel 3 for a while.

I'm in Chicago's city limits. I get WBBM at 82 on my HDTV on my regular VU antenna I have aimed at Chicago. Although the monster clone gives me a good signal around 85% on it even being pointed away from the tower and being UHF only. (this is on the Zenith DTT-900, what I'm using for DX-ing)

bakers12

06-16-09, 02:03 PM

Should I get an amp for the outdoor antenna I happen to be using indoors then? The cable is only 10ft so I didn't even consider it.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Of course, that doesn't apply to most of the people around here!

gjvrieze

06-16-09, 02:24 PM

bclbob

06-16-09, 02:24 PM

jldet5

06-16-09, 03:52 PM

Just when I thought we hit HDTV nirvana, the stations are now broadcasting a format framed for 4X3. More punishment for those that have upgraded:mad::mad:

dattier

06-16-09, 03:53 PM

23.1 (39)23.1 is on 27, not 39. 39 carries 23.2 through 23.8; 23.1, 26.1 through 26.5, and 48.1 are on 27. Whatever figures you have for 26.1 apply to 23.1 and 48.1 as well.

Rammitinski

06-16-09, 04:47 PM

(this is on the Zenith DTT-900, what I'm using for DX-ing)If it's DX'ing you're mostly interested in, you can eke out even more distance using the CM-7000.

I've had them both, and the CM performed even better for fringe reception.

Rammitinski

06-16-09, 05:00 PM

Amplification is good as long as you are not too close to the transmitters.He's gotta be over 20 miles out, so I think a weaker one might help with 2 and 7, and possibly those others that he can't get now at all.

I don't think it would hurt to try, anyway.

tvropro

06-16-09, 05:02 PM

If it's DX'ing you're mostly interested in, you can eke out even more distance using the CM-7000.

I've had both myself, and the CM was the only one to get stations all the way from Peoria (and other areas in downstate IL - IN, too) last summer (and I'm in Crystal Lake).

The LG is the most recommended, best all-around tuner, but it isn't necessarily the most sensitive.

My DTT-900 seems to do a very good job for DXing so far. How does the Channel Master compare to it if you live in a very high signal area (approx 8 miles as the crow flies from the loop) as far as adjacent channels throwing multipath because the antenna being pointed away from downtown. Being out in Crystal Lake the Chicago's have to be down a bit in db thus not causing adjacent problems as much. Maybe someone in the city that's a nut like me doing DXing can chime in. :)

neilkaz

06-16-09, 05:24 PM

looks like the calls might be working....

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-dtv-transition-fcc-jun16,0,3170193.story

FCC to send agents to resolve lingering DTV problems in Chicago

The FCC said it has reassigned employees from other markets to Chicago, which appears to be one of several large markets with a higher number of reported problems. In a statement issued late Monday, the FCC said it "is examining reports of signal loss" in areas including Chicago, Philadelphia and New York.

In Chicago, WLS-Ch. 7 had some "unique issues" that are being worked out with the FCC, according to the National Association of Broadcasters. NAB data showed that the station had received 1,735 direct phone calls as of Friday evening, many more than other stations.

Lots of places seem to be having issues with RF7 now for DTV. In Boston they have turned WHDH back on RF42 and I hear they are no simulcasting on 7 and 42 there !

One wonders if WOOD 7 Grand Rapids needs as much "protection" as the FCC has given it. Note that 7 in Traverse City MI is only 500 watts from what I have read.

My opinion remains that WLS 7 needs a signal boost (or a different channel with more power) and that a slight increase wouldn't hurt WBBM 2 (RF12) either.

I spent a couple of more hours at my mother-in-law's today (north of Lake Zurich and just south of Hawthorn Woods) She has severe issues with trees, but the old CM4228 I installed on her roof is superior to the combo TV antenna she had up there. However, she isn't getting 60 or 62 (not that she cares) and 56 is only occ. in. 7 and 12 are threshold and occasionally break up a bit.

I think a CM7777 amp would do the trick for her and get her 100% reception, along with some tree trimming.

... neilkaz ...

retromzc

06-16-09, 05:59 PM

WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER WITH WINDOWS VISTA

Since the transition and a few channel frequency changes....does anyone know how to edit the new correct channel numbers into Windows Media Center running Vista? I read the thread which tells how to edit the numbers in Windows XP and tried to find \documents and settings\ etc. but this doesn't seem to work in Vista. If I go into Media Center and click edit channels and click edit numbers nothing happens except for a check mark next to edit numbers. It doesn't allow me to do anything. If anyone can help, I'd sure appreciate it!

Thanks!!!

goldrich

06-16-09, 06:22 PM

My DTT-900 seems to do a very good job for DXing so far. How does the Channel Master compare to it if you live in a very high signal area (approx 8 miles as the crow flies from the loop) as far as adjacent channels throwing multipath because the antenna being pointed away from downtown. Being out in Crystal Lake the Chicago's have to be down a bit in db thus not causing adjacent problems as much. Maybe someone in the city that's a nut like me doing DXing can chime in. :)

I'm a nutty DXer in Indy who lives 3 miles from one local tower and 5 miles from the main antenna farm. Most DXers in this group www.wtfda.org , including myself, use the Zenith DTT-900 or sister Insignia NS-DXA1.

Thanks to some strong E-skip here in the Midwest on Friday, a number of DXers decoded KNOP-DT 2, North Platte, NE (770 miles from Indy) using one of these DTV receivers. I caught the attached screenshot of this station at 1:12 p.m. EDT (local time) using the DTT-900. Now that WBBM-2 is out of your way, you should be able to receive it sometime this year, too. Have fun!

Steve

winniepoah

06-16-09, 07:24 PM

Ok am I confused or just stupid
I cannot get channel 2 (cbs? i think) on a tv with a dtv pal converter box and rarely 5 (although in the rain i get it in the day no- but someone said that the weather has nothing to do with it) anyway
I rescanned and then went channel by channel to see what was on all these other channels above 60 and found that 70.1 was broadcasting channel 2
SO is this the new channel 2 or is it a rerun station . I called my dad and he said what I was seeing is what he was seeing on his tv channel 2.1

Trip in VA

06-16-09, 07:34 PM

I rescanned and then went channel by channel to see what was on all these other channels above 60 and found that 70.1 was broadcasting channel 2

You need to do a full rescan. That's something the DTVPal does sometimes.

- Trip

winniepoah

06-16-09, 07:40 PM

I did do a rescan and that is when 70 came up and no 2
so is channel 2 now 70 with the dtv and still channel 2 on an digital tv
will 70 be cbc on a digital tv too? I cannot get that channel in sometimes on my samsung and rarely 5. Guess I have to do some antenna readjusting in the attic, but was waiting till after the switch, hard to crawl up there

Trip in VA

06-16-09, 07:52 PM

It needs to be a FULL rescan, not an "update scan" or something similar.

- Trip

jimboy

06-16-09, 08:12 PM

You need to do a full rescan. That's something the DTVPal does sometimes.

- Trip

I tried that on mine and it still didn't work. We changed our digital channel (in Milwaukee) from channel 61 to channel 18 (our original analog channel) and the DTVPAL didn't know what to do when it found 18-1 on channel 18. So it placed it on 70-1. I've been instructing callers to our station that have these boxes to do the Factory Reset. The box will reboot and come up as if it were new. You will need to go through the initial setup again.

winniepoah

06-16-09, 08:51 PM

boy, wish I had stock in cable companies right now!
will try doing the factory reset
will this be the case with digital tvs also?

jasonhutch

06-16-09, 08:56 PM

I created a Google Docs spreadsheet with the results of my digital TV scan using a Terk HDTVa amplified antenna located in the attic connected to a Dish Network VIP 722 receiver.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=r79IK3_h-PGxcx3zc8nL4Kw&output=html

My only issue is with WLS Channel 7. It comes in pretty good with a signal strength in the low 70's but when watching, there are audio and visual dropouts occurring every few seconds. WBBM Channel 2's signal is also in the low 70's with no dropout issues.

Is this the same issue everyone else is having with Channel 7?

NTNgod

06-16-09, 09:14 PM

WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER WITH WINDOWS VISTA

Since the transition and a few channel frequency changes....does anyone know how to edit the new correct channel numbers into Windows Media Center running Vista?

You may want to do a manual guide update right about now, or if that doesn't work, re-run TV setup.

The problems with the listings/frequencies seem to have been ironed out in the past hour or two.

TWinbrook46636

06-16-09, 09:30 PM

23.1 is on 27, not 39.* 39 carries 23.2 through 23.8; 23.1, 26.1 through 26.5, and 48.1 are on 27.* Whatever figures you have for 26.1 apply to 23.1 and 48.1 as well.

I am receiving "something" on both RF27 (http://homepage.mac.com/philrobinson/.Pictures/avs/photo1.jpg) and RF39 (http://homepage.mac.com/philrobinson/.Pictures/avs/photo2.jpg) as 23.1 and it's not WIFR-DT out of Rockford either as that one shows up as no signal for me.

zzzzz

06-16-09, 09:31 PM

Interesting; 66.1 is off the air and 60 now shows a subchannel of 60.2 captioned "WGBO-DT" (but no picture).

Edit: As of 9pm, now 66.1 is back, but 60 is still showing (a blank) 60.2 captioned WGBO-DT.

Edit 2: As of 10:30pm, 66.1 is still back *and* 60.2 is showing the same programming as 66.1.

jimboy

06-16-09, 09:41 PM

boy, wish I had stock in cable companies right now!
will try doing the factory reset
will this be the case with digital tvs also?

Depends. If a normal scan doesn't work you could always try the double rescan trick. Rescan with the antenna disconnected, then reconnect it and scan again. Sometimes a power off (unplug) between those steps is helpful. Also, if there is an option to update or replace choose replace. I've seen quite a few devices that allow the factory reset or initial setup function.

tvropro

06-16-09, 09:45 PM

I'm a nutty DXer in Indy who lives 3 miles from one local tower and 5 miles from the main antenna farm. Most DXers in this group www.wtfda.org , including myself, use the Zenith DTT-900 or sister Insignia NS-DXA1.

Thanks to some strong E-skip here in the Midwest on Friday, a number of DXers decoded KNOP-DT 2, North Platte, NE (770 miles from Indy) using one of these DTV receivers. I caught the attached screenshot of this station at 1:12 p.m. EDT (local time) using the DTT-900. Now that WBBM-2 is out of your way, you should be able to receive it sometime this year, too. Have fun!

Steve

Cool :) when WBBM went off here at noon I had WESH Orlando Fla e-skiping in on analog. :D

TWinbrook46636

06-16-09, 09:49 PM

He's gotta be over 20 miles out, so I think a weaker one might help with 2 and 7, and possibly those others that he can't get now at all.

I don't think it would hurt to try, anyway.

I'm 33 miles west of Chicago. Any recommendations for a good amp? Too many stations are on the edge for me. They'll be fine for a while but then a few hours later they are completely breaking up. Many of my TiVo recordings are incomplete (partial) as it is losing the signal.

NTNgod

06-16-09, 10:10 PM

I'm 33 miles west of Chicago. Any recommendations for a good amp? Too many stations are on the edge for me. They'll be fine for a while but then a few hours later they are completely breaking up. Many of my TiVo recordings are incomplete (partial) as it is losing the signal.

Are you splitting the signal at all? Besides overcoming cable loss, overcoming signal loss due to splits is usually the other thing that causes recommendations for amps.

Since this would be for an indoor antenna and you're not running a long cable, you don't necessarily need a pre-amp - a good quality distribution amp could do the trick and usually is cheaper (as long as it has a decently low noise factor of around 3 or lower; most distribution amps/"signal boosters" commonly available from the large retailers are usually around 5 or greater).

surf_fun85

06-16-09, 11:17 PM

Just when I thought we hit HDTV nirvana, the stations are now broadcasting a format framed for 4X3. More punishment for those that have upgraded:mad::mad:

wait a minute.. which one ?

surf_fun85

06-16-09, 11:18 PM

Cool :) when WBBM went off here at noon I had WESH Orlando Fla e-skiping in on analog. :D

Me too.. :D

gonefishin

06-16-09, 11:41 PM

Hi guys,

Before the DTV transition I was running a DB8 and a VHF low antenna, both combined and then sent to my Tivo HD. This was all mounted in the attic of my 2 story Joliet residence.

Before the transition I would receive a good signal on all channels except Ch.2. Ch.2 would come in fine most of the time...but I would run into some pixlization problems every couple months or so.

I had talked to some of the people at Antenna's direct and they told me to hold off on buying a new antenna for high VHF, the DB8 may receive the high VHF fine. So...after the transition I'm receiving all channels solid with no breakup. Ch.2, Ch.7, all of them!

I was looking forward to taking my low VHF antenna down and free up the 20ft of cable (so I could use it on my upstairs set). But when I unhooked the low VHF antenna I lost the high VHF signals.

So I suppose it's bad news/good news. Bad news, my DB8 doesn't pick up the high VHF signals. Good news? My low VHF antenna does!

good luck all!
dan

stwhoges

06-17-09, 12:06 AM

pm3839

06-17-09, 12:25 AM

Amplification is good as long as you are not too close to the transmitters. I can only get channel 56 (17) if I use an amplifier. Unfortunately because a nearby radio tower overloads any amp I use, I need to stick with an un-amplified antenna.

heres an idea if u havnt thought of/tried it yet.....assuming your overload problem is from local fm radio transmitters, adding an attenuating fm trap might be a simple solution to allow u to use an amp to get wyin on rf 17.....just an idea....

sebenste

06-17-09, 12:36 AM

I saw that 60 had another subchannel tonight and it was just showing 66-1 on 60-2. Wonder why that is.....

I, too, saw 66 off the air earlier. They are back on, but their signal quality level is going up and down noticeably every 3 seconds. I'm guessing that the transmitter is unstable, so in case she goes kerblooey, they have a subchannel for something that viewers can fall back on.

sebenste

06-17-09, 12:39 AM

pm3839

06-17-09, 01:41 AM

I'm 33 miles west of Chicago. Any recommendations for a good amp? Too many stations are on the edge for me. They'll be fine for a while but then a few hours later they are completely breaking up. Many of my TiVo recordings are incomplete (partial) as it is losing the signal.

unless u have an unusual problem/circumstance i'm thinking that at 33 miles u should be getting very good signals without any amp....33 miles is not far for most of the full power/high tower chicago tv stations...

tell us exactly what your antenna system consists of and i bet we can find a good fix for u....and probably without any amps...

Rammitinski

06-17-09, 02:28 AM

My DTT-900 seems to do a very good job for DXing so far. How does the Channel Master compare to it if you live in a very high signal area (approx 8 miles as the crow flies from the loop) as far as adjacent channels throwing multipath because the antenna being pointed away from downtown. Being out in Crystal Lake the Chicago's have to be down a bit in db thus not causing adjacent problems as much. Maybe someone in the city that's a nut like me doing DXing can chime in. :)I really don't know for sure how the CM would do in your situation. It does tend to overload on very strong signals, though. If you had another coupon to burn, you could get it from Solid Signal for only a few bucks and try it.

I haven't had mine set up in awhile, but I don't remember it picking up a lot of the Rockford channels from the side - but then, those are 45 miles out (Chicago's 41) - not 8 miles like yours.

tvmicrowave2002

06-17-09, 08:51 AM

I am receiving "something" on both RF27 (http://homepage.mac.com/philrobinson/.Pictures/avs/photo1.jpg) and RF39 (http://homepage.mac.com/philrobinson/.Pictures/avs/photo2.jpg) as 23.1 and it's not WIFR-DT out of Rockford either as that one shows up as no signal for me.
TWinbrook, you're in my area. If you're using an indoor antenna, use only the Turk HDTV1. It's available at Best Buy on Randall and on display on the console at the front door. It's one of the best indoor antennas out there. Most of the other indoor models are junk. If an outdoor antenna or mounted in the attic like mine, try bypassing any splitters you have and feed the antenna directly to the TV and do a rescan. Often times there are old CATV splitter or in-house booster that roll-off after 550 MHz and cause issues. I have a Channel Master 4228 in the attic with no amplifier and receive all UHF Chicago stations with no issues. 80% of above for all except WXFT. For VHF stations, I have a cheap $20 antennacraft that picks up WLS and WBBM. Lower signal levels on WLS but it does not break up. PM me if you want some in-home help. I work at a local station and can leave an hour early if I'm helping a legit viewer.. ;)

tvropro

06-17-09, 08:53 AM

I really don't know for sure how the CM would do in your situation. It does tend to overload on very strong signals, though. If you had another coupon to burn, you could get it from Solid Signal for only a few bucks and try it.

I haven't had mine set up in awhile, but I don't remember it picking up a lot of the Rockford channels from the side - but then, those are 45 miles out (Chicago's 41) - not 8 miles like yours.

I wish I could get another coupon to burn. Sometimes with the most sensitivity you can run into front end overload. Im also using a Winegard high gain low noise pre-amp 80's vintage. I know back in the day it would tend to destroy Chicago analog from overload. Had to get single channel VHF and adjustable UHF traps to null out the adjacent's to get Milwaukee, South Bend and Madison good.

Acteng

06-17-09, 10:05 AM

I'm 33 miles west of Chicago. Any recommendations for a good amp? Too many stations are on the edge for me. They'll be fine for a while but then a few hours later they are completely breaking up. Many of my TiVo recordings are incomplete (partial) as it is losing the signal.

I'm close by in Batavia, down in the fox valley, maybe 50' down below the horizon. I suppose it's pretty amazing that anything comes in.

On Gilbert's suggestion I ordered the AP-8700 preamp and it should be here in a few days. My setup is terrestrial digital V21 "high gain" UHF/VHF on the roof with 50' RG6 direct to the TiVo. No splits. Currently CBS is locking @ 80% but WLS ch7 is totally unreliable -- the signal level is jumping between 0 and 40%. WYCC 20.1 is also not locking, but it's always been like that.

pgartung

06-17-09, 11:19 AM

heres an idea if u havnt thought of/tried it yet.....assuming your overload problem is from local fm radio transmitters, adding an attenuating fm trap might be a simple solution to allow u to use an amp to get wyin on rf 17.....just an idea....

The tower is just a few hundred yards from my house. I called up the station engineers and they sent me the RF traps specifically for their frequency. I got 5 total: 1 for the antenna and 4 for the TV outlets in my house. They worked to lower the overload on the amp, but I still had interference on analog 7. I ended up taking out the amp out because I didn't care that I lost WYIN and it removed the interference on analog 7.

nalawod

06-17-09, 11:54 AM

Just thought I'd post about my experience with trying to tune in WLS and WBBM from my condo in Evanston IL (just north of downtown Chicago). I'm an HTPC user with a Hauppauge HVR1600 card. Up until the sign off of analog, I could never get WBBM (CBS - channel 2) but could always get WLS (ABC channel 7). After the sign off, I couldn't get either set of channels. Since I use Comcast for my HDTV viewing, I'm not going to go as far as setting up an outdoor antenna or buying an expensive indoor one.

Curiosity got the best of me last night and I spent about 3 hours messing with tuning these stations in. My antenna is a Radio Shack 15-1868 Delta UHF/VHF. I used the Hauppauge signal strength application and tested different fine tune and orientations and was finally able to get both WLS and WBBM to lock in. But they were mutually exclusive - if I got one to work, the other would not. If I got either working, I couldn't even pick up WGN (which has always been strong and never an issue). So I guess I'm screwed until the FCC helps get this resolved. I live in a condo and have the antenna in my living room near the HTPC - which is the only place I can feasibly put it (and that my wife will let me put it!).

This situation with digital broadcasts can't be making people very happy -- after all, before the sign off, you almost didn't even need an antenna to pick up analog broadcasts. Seems to me we've taken a huge step backwards if digital is this difficult to pick up from 15 miles from the transmitters. Oprah is NOT going to be amused ;-)

TWinbrook46636

06-17-09, 12:01 PM

TWinbrook, you're in my area. If you're using an indoor antenna, use only the Turk HDTV1. It's available at Best Buy on Randall and on display on the console at the front door. It's one of the best indoor antennas out there. Most of the other indoor models are junk. If an outdoor antenna or mounted in the attic like mine, try bypassing any splitters you have and feed the antenna directly to the TV and do a rescan. Often times there are old CATV splitter or in-house booster that roll-off after 550 MHz and cause issues. I have a Channel Master 4228 in the attic with no amplifier and receive all UHF Chicago stations with no issues. 80% of above for all except WXFT. For VHF stations, I have a cheap $20 antennacraft that picks up WLS and WBBM. Lower signal levels on WLS but it does not break up. PM me if you want some in-home help. I work at a local station and can leave an hour early if I'm helping a legit viewer.. ;)

Thanks. I think I've got it as good as it's going to get as placement options are too limited. It's a ClearStream 4 (http://www.antennasdirect.com/clearstream-antennas.html) mounted on a tripod in a room on the 3rd floor. None of the indoor antennas worked for me so I'm using an outdoor antenna. I am very impressed with it as it picks up more stations than the new version of the 4228 despite being much smaller. The slightest movement however and I'll loose some channels and gain others but it's the only place in the house where I can get a signal. It's a brick townhome. Pointed east there are two more brick townhomes the signal must pass through. It's connected directly to my TiVo with a 10ft cable. The signal is split inside the TiVo to the two tuners. Unfortunately the design of the roof makes the attic too cramped and the roof is not an option.

dattier

06-17-09, 01:46 PM

I think Gilbert's right about 60.2. It was still on this morning, and 66.1 on RF38 was very erratic, while 60.2 on RF50 was steady. Curiously, it was labeled WGBODT with no hyphen, just as 60.1 is WXFTDT with no hyphen, whereas 66.1 has always been WGBO-DT.

Tannerman

06-17-09, 02:02 PM

Long time reader, first time poster :)

Some images I took of the teaser currently on 26.5...

http://forums.tannerworld.com/databank/2009/image_that_tv1.jpg

http://forums.tannerworld.com/databank/2009/image_that_tv2.jpg

http://forums.tannerworld.com/databank/2009/image_that_tv3.jpg

So is "This" officially getting a "That"? :)

hvs10trk

06-17-09, 02:05 PM

Thanks. I think I've got it as good as it's going to get as placement options are too limited. It's a ClearStream 4 (http://www.antennasdirect.com/clearstream-antennas.html) mounted on a tripod in a room on the 3rd floor. None of the indoor antennas worked for me so I'm using an outdoor antenna. I am very impressed with it as it picks up more stations than the new version of the 4228 despite being much smaller. The slightest movement however and I'll loose some channels and gain others but it's the only place in the house where I can get a signal. It's a brick townhome. Pointed east there are two more brick townhomes the signal must pass through. It's connected directly to my TiVo with a 10ft cable. The signal is split inside the TiVo to the two tuners. Unfortunately the design of the roof makes the attic too cramped and the roof is not an option.

I also have the Clearstream4 roof mounted in Crystal Lake and it works great for me too. (no puns intended :D )

hvs10trk

06-17-09, 02:06 PM

Tannerman

06-17-09, 02:09 PM

No. Just a harmless catch phrase designed to bring up curiousity. :D

Oh, you sneaky folks over at 26. It's working :)

stwhoges

06-17-09, 02:29 PM

DTV report from DeMotte, IN (about 35 miles south of Valparaiso and about 15-20 miles from Hebron, IN)

We have two different converter boxes on our two different TV's. One of them has a Zenith DTT-901 converter box and the other one has an Apex DT250 converter box.

With our newly installed antenna, I believe it's a Winegard, but I'm not sure of the model (but I think it's a HD7698 from Winegard, after looking online at different models), but once I get my laptop back, I'll post a picture of it and you all can let me know what it is, if you wouldn't mind. :)

Our antenna is an outside antenna on top of a 40 ft tower.

WBBM: From the Apex DT250 I'm getting about 85-90 of a lock on my signal strength and from the Zenith, it's in the "good" category. I'm getting solid/hard lock from both converters on WBBM.

WLS: From the Apex DT250 I'm getting about 75-78 of a lock on my signal strength and from the Zenith, it's close to the "good" category. I'm getting solid/hard lock from both converters on WLS. Occasionally I'll have a break up, but it's very rare.

WXFT: From the Apex DT250 I'm getting about a 40-45 of a lock on my signal strength and from the Zenith, it's in in the "fair" category. I'm getting a relatively good signal lock from both converters on WXFT, but sometimes, it'll break up. Depends on the atmosphere a lot it seems.

WGBO: From the Apex DT250 I'm getting about 40-43 of a lock on my signal strength and from the Zenith, it's in the "fair" category. I'm getting a signal lock with some break-ups/interactions from both converters on WGBO. As of last night, I'm getting WGBO pretty good on the subchannel of WXFT, so that part makes it a little hard to say which one to use.

WWME-LD: Occasionally in the mornings or at nights, I can sorta lock 39, but I may get it for a little while and then it's nothing again. I can't remember the numbers, but it's not huge. I'm surprised as far as I am from that transmitter, that I'm getting it at all! That in itself shocked me lol.

I know that when they installed our antenna, they ran RG-6 cable, but for the length, I'm not sure how much.

Hopefully that helps and gives a bit of an idea to everyone.