The official final DTV Table Of Allotments/channel change thread [Text View] - Page 29

dave73

06-01-11, 12:57 PM

If the FCC does do the repacking below channel 31, stations will have to move, again. It will make the repacking hard if stations are still requesting changes. The FCC did the same thing in 1997 when they came out with the first DTV channel allotment.

It is showing more and more that this will go to court before it happens. More and more people are coming out that this tremendous bandwidth requirement is not needed and there is plenty of non TV spectrum available that is being underutilized by the wireless industry already. If they were to use what they already have allocated, the requirement for additional spectrum would be reduced by a half. But of course, the wireless industry doesn't want that that little bit of info that they are warehousing spectrum to get out. That defeats the purpose of this land grab and that is all that it is.

Most of the spectrum the wireless companies are stockpiling are the AWS & PCS spectrums in smaller markets (not as much in the largest markets). Verizon Wireless is currently sitting on their PCS spectrum in rural markets, plus they're sitting on all their AWS spectrum. AT&T is doing the same thing. They're already trying to buy T-Mobile USA for T-Mobile's AWS spectrum, so they can use that for LTE in markets they didn't get any 700mhz band licenses.

The way I see it is that Verizon & AT&T only want the spectrum that's currently being used for TV for themselves. They don't really like the higher frequencies, & want to get rid of more TV channels, so they can have the lower frequencies. It's also a move to get rid of local TV (I stand by this statement that this is the current FCC's plan), & force people to get cable or satellite. If that were to happen, I'll just do without TV, because it's gotten too expensive for me to get. Also, for people I know who still have cable or satellite, have complained that there's still not a lot of good programming on. The current method for cramming TV stations into the existing VHF band & lower UHF band will cause a number of stations to go off the air (especially low power stations). The FCC would have to address the Land Mobile issue as they're using frequencies used by channels 14-20. For Chicago, channels 14 & 15 are off limits to TV broadcast. That likely prevents 16 too, due to being so close to channel 15. For New York & Philadelphia, I hear 14-20 are off limits. I forgot what's off limits in each market, but due to the channels being used in the other market being adjacent to those channels, the adjacent channels are off limits as well. Had Land Mobile not occupied channels 14 - 20, the Chicago market would have been allocated channel 14 for Joliet, & 66 (before it was eliminated) might have gone to Elgin instead of Joliet.

Falcon_77

06-01-11, 02:57 PM

The plot thickens. WCYB has now also petitioned to relocate to channel 29. In direct conflict with the petition from WJHL.

- Trip

What is wrong with 28? Looking at the RE search, it is available for Zone II and one could get 28 and the other 29? WCYB was on 28, pre-transition, though at lower power (182.5kW, it appears).

As it is, 29 would be short-spaced to WXLV.

Trip in VA

06-01-11, 03:26 PM

28 has adjacent channel issues with WKPT-27. When WCYB wanted to light up channel 28 as a fill-in translator they filed an interference study, and they managed to max out while keeping below 0.5% interference at the amazingly huge power level of 5.1 kW.

WKPT really should return to 19, as it would allow WCYB to light their 28 facility back up and eliminate co-channel concerns with WCCB in Charlotte, concerns which I would imagine have to exist in some of the mountainous areas of North Carolina.

- Trip

joblo

06-01-11, 05:11 PM

28 has adjacent channel issues with WKPT-27. But they wouldn't if they colocated the transmitters. Even as it is, they appear to be only a couple miles apart. I thought that was well within acceptable limits for digital adjacents. Am I misremembering or has that changed?

Trip in VA

06-01-11, 05:29 PM

It's acceptable so long as the stations are of similar power levels and antenna patterns. WCYB-28 is an omni while WKPT-27 is highly directional (http://www.rabbitears.info/oddsandends.php?request=ant_pat&ant_id=69109&rotation=0&erp=200).

Honestly, this particular case doesn't make any sense to me either given the power levels and terrain involved, plus the fact that it worked just fine before the transition. I'm just going by what the interference analysis said.

- Trip

Desert Hawk

06-01-11, 05:47 PM

In Bakersfield we have KUVI on 45 at 620,000 watts and KCET's translator on 46 at 15,000 watts. KUVI's tower is on Mt. Adelaide, I'm not sure if KCET's translator's is there or on Mt. Breckenridge. We have KBAK on RF33 at 100something thousand watts and KCBT-LP on 34 at 15,000 watts. KBAK is on Mt. Breckenridge and KCBT on Mt. Adelaide. I can receive KBAK and KCBT easily. Adjacent-channel interference doesn't seem to be an issue. I have to adjust the rabbit ears to get a lock on the KCET translator. I don't know if adjacent channel interference is the issue or not. There did appear to be some when both 45 and 46 were analog. 3ABN's low power analog 24 is drowning in digital snow from adjacent channel interference from KGET's 250,000 watts on RF25. It had even more interference when KERO was on analog 23. KVPT's translator on 18 never seemed to have any interference from KGET when KGET was on analog 17 with 5 million watts. Both were on Mt. Adelaide.

joblo

06-01-11, 05:54 PM

It's acceptable so long as the stations are of similar power levels and antenna patterns. WCYB-28 is an omni while WKPT-27 is highly directional (http://www.rabbitears.info/oddsandends.php?request=ant_pat&ant_id=69109&rotation=0&erp=200).
Yes, but they all (WJHL, WCYB, and WKPT) serve the same market, so if highly directional is acceptable for one, it should be just as acceptable for the others. This is precisely the sort of FCC idiocy I was just griping about in the spectrum thread.

Honestly, this particular case doesn't make any sense to me either given the power levels and terrain involved, plus the fact that it worked just fine before the transition.
Agreed.

Trip in VA

06-01-11, 06:01 PM

Yes, but they all (WJHL, WCYB, and WKPT) serve the same market, so if highly directional is acceptable for one, it should be just as acceptable for the others.

I still lack TSReader data for WKPT because nobody I've been able to get data from can seem to receive it cleanly, so I'm not sure "acceptable" is the word I'd use. Anecdotal, I know, but I haven't heard great things about the WKPT signal even without that.

- Trip

Trip in VA

06-01-11, 06:18 PM

joblo

06-01-11, 06:45 PM

I still lack TSReader data for WKPT because nobody I've been able to get data from can seem to receive it cleanly, so I'm not sure "acceptable" is the word I'd use. Anecdotal, I know, but I haven't heard great things about the WKPT signal even without that.
Beside the point.

In this case, if WKPT was moving to 27 next to WCYB-28 and had to accept extra interference from WCYB, it would be no problem.
It would also be no problem if WCYB and WJHL were willing to conform their patterns to match WKPT so that they could use 28 and 29.

The point is, each of them have market monopolies on major networks, and so for OTA to be competitive in the market, substantial numbers of people need to be able to conveniently receive ALL of them OTA, not just one or two. This is not the 50s, 60s, or 70s. Outside of readers and posters in this thread, most people today are NOT going to invest substantial money and/or effort to deal with individual problem stations. If they can’t easily get all the stations they want, they will turn to MVPDs.

Or in other words, OTA is really only as competitive as its weakest link. This is something the FCC and many broadcasters cannot seem to grasp. United, OTA broadcasters stand a chance of surviving. Divided, they probably will not.

justalurker

06-02-11, 12:41 AM

It is really quite simple. The high power non-directional stations have found channels where their signal fits without interference (or with acceptable interference) to other full power stations. The adjusted power directional stations (especially the highly directional ones) couldn't find a non-directional channel at the power they want to run. (They could run non-directional at the highest power possible without exceeding whatever point on the map they are protecting - but by going directional they can recoup at least some of the lost audience ... often they can cover the core audience in the market with a well designed directional and not lose audience proportional to their geographic loss.)

If you want all stations in the market to have the same power and pattern you need to find frequencies for every station in the market that do not interfere with neighboring markets. Good luck with that in a larger market.

If the FCC consolidates stations one will find more stations with the same power/pattern (sharing the same RF channel) but with less channels for TV there is a fair chance that the coverage will be less than today. Personally I believe it is good that stations can expand to cover as much geography as possible ... I certainly would not want to limit coverage to the worst signal in each market.

joblo

06-03-11, 07:17 AM

It is really quite simple. The high power non-directional stations have found channels where their signal fits without interference (or with acceptable interference) to other full power stations.
Ahem. I think the FCC found a number of those channels when it made up the transition table of assignments. Some stations were lucky and/or favored, others not so much.

Personally I believe it is good that stations can expand to cover as much geography as possible ... I certainly would not want to limit coverage to the worst signal in each market.
Well, not necessarily the worst signal, especially not in the large markets.

But in the case at hand, if WCYB and WJHL don’t want match the pattern of WKPT, then according to FCC regs as Trip understands them, 28 cannot be used.

That means that either (a) WCYB and WJHL must “share” channel 29 as the FCC is now proposing to permit, or (b) one station gets channel 29 and the other gets left in the cold.

But in case (b), the station left out will still have a local monopoly on a major network, and viewers that want that net will turn to MVPDs, thereby reducing OTA market share and strengthening the argument that spectrum should be reassigned because it is not being effectively used.

I think operating 28 and 29 at a reduced pattern would be preferable to (a) or (b).

justalurker

06-03-11, 06:37 PM

Ahem. I think the FCC found a number of those channels when it made up the transition table of assignments. Some stations were lucky and/or favored, others not so much.
The first round, decades ago (likely before you were born), the assignments were the FCC's idea. But in the years following potential stations petitioned to modify the table of allotments to add new channels and modified their licenses to expand beyond the initial coverage. In the digital conversion the FCC attempted to match the analog coverage (or so was the theory).

Well, not necessarily the worst signal, especially not in the large markets.
Don't count on it being the best signal ... especially IF the FCC condenses the broadcast band. But the point is that you're complaining that some stations have better coverage than others. The only way to make all stations in a market equal would be to give them equal facilities. The only way to give them equal facilities is to reduce the coverage to the lowest remaining station.

Combining licenses might allow the worst few stations in the market to "pair up" with better stations and increase coverage ... but to make it "fair" (as you seem to be requesting) and give equal coverage to all the best few stations in the market would have to reduce their coverage ... even if there was no interference based reason to reduce their signal.

While it may be "unfair" that some stations have better coverage than others, handicapping the stations with better coverage is not a good option. We would move from areas without all of their network stations to areas with no TV at all. Fair or not, that doesn't seem like a good choice.

Inundated

06-05-11, 08:55 AM

I doubt it. The very recent petitions are either below channel 31 or the only available "clean" channel was above 31.

So (and you know I'd ask), how does this affect WJW asking to go back to 31, one channel on the wrong side of the divide?

They presumably got their allocation request in before the freeze, but if the FCC wants 31-51 for this repacking...

Trip in VA

06-05-11, 08:56 AM

It got in before the freeze, so it should continue being processed.

- Trip

Inundated

06-05-11, 02:20 PM

It got in before the freeze, so it should continue being processed.

Understood. I'm just wondering what happens if the FCC grabs 31 and above for broadband. Will all stations, including a reallocated WJW/31, be forced to move?

Trip in VA

06-05-11, 02:43 PM

Presumably. There's really been nothing concrete said by the FCC on this.

- Trip

Trip in VA

06-07-11, 03:22 PM

A few more slipped under the door. WNCF-32 has petitioned to relocate to channel 31. KWNB-6 to 18. KSWT-13 to 16. KHGI-13 to 21.

- Trip

mgsports

06-07-11, 03:25 PM

http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/lineup_web/US:66062#lineup_1172439 KCTV5 plans to add a Digital Sub channel or 2 in the future and yes I know it will change everyday. That's why I wait for the Rabbtt Ears Update Website to see KC/Orlando pop up.

Trip in VA

06-07-11, 03:51 PM

You cannot use SiliconDust as a basis for knowing when something new is coming until you see actual images belonging to that station on SiliconDust.

When other stations are received in that local area on the same channel, it will pop up that way with the local station's call sign. That's how the Lineup Server was programmed.

- Trip

Falcon_77

06-10-11, 10:43 AM

WEAU: 38 Adopted by NPRM

POST -TRANSITION DTV TABLE OF ALLOTMENTS, 47 C.F.R. 73.622(I), EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN. Substituted channel 38 for channel 13 at Eau Claire, WI. (Dkt No. RM-11632 11-100 ). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 06/09/2011 by NPRM. (DA No. 11-1034).

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-11-1034A1.pdf

foxeng

06-10-11, 11:22 AM

Falcon_77

06-10-11, 08:35 PM

When was the original request filed?

May 13th. Very fast, huh? Probably due to the tower loss, but still...

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7021649356

foxeng

06-11-11, 11:36 AM

OTAhead

06-12-11, 12:47 PM

Happy 2nd Digital Transition Anniversary! June 12th, 2009. Two years ago all full power TV stations, except those stations performing the 30 day night light service, ceased analog broadcasting.

It is hard to believe it has been two years.

I'm celebrating my gathering up all my pixles and sending them out to be cleaned. You should do that at least once a year you know... ;)

foxeng

06-12-11, 02:16 PM

I'm celebrating my gathering up all my pixles and sending them out to be cleaned. You should do that at least once a year you know... ;)

Good one! :)

Tschmidt

06-12-11, 04:36 PM

I'm celebrating my gathering up all my pixles and sending them out to be cleaned.
I thought that only affected old style analog pixels, not the new digital ones. ;)

In all seriousness the transition has worked out well for us. Able to receive more stations then before and most are pretty stable. The one disappointment is WGBX, we watch a lot of NH and Boston PBS. Another 3 dB and I die a happy man.

itsthemultipath!

06-12-11, 11:09 PM

I agree it has worked well for many of us, including myself
Reception on 1-5 rating scale:
Local channel------before-----after
2 (58, 7) ---------3 (w/Es) --5
4 (45) ------------4 (w/Es) --5
7 (41) ------------5----------5
9------------------3 (today is still "before" in Canada)
11 (17, 11)-------5----------5
13 (19, 13)-------5----------5
20 (21)-----------3----------5
24 (49)-----------5----------5
27 (56, 27)-------4----------5 (ant)
30 (29)-----------5----------5
31 (33, 31) ------3----------5 (ant)
32-----------------4 (today is still "before" in Canada)
36 (46)-----------5----------5
38 (39)-----------1----------0 (only visible with trop)
40 (5)-------------2---------5 (ant)
50 (14)-----------3----------5
56 (43)-----------3----------5
62 (44)-----------4----------5

*(w/Es) = otherwise fair reception subject to temporary complete loss due to interference from other stations caused by sporadic-E skip.
(ant) = perfect digital reception inconvenienced by the need to aim the rotating antenna in an unusual direction.

Note that WXYZ 7 was the only Detroit station with a truly snowfree OTA signal before transition.

I'm a little nervous about CBET 9. They go digital in less than three months. I figure with their lower digital power their signal will be right on the cusp of sufficient signal. I think I'll still be able to get them with my CM 3020 aimed right at McGregor, but I may not, or I may have a signal that disappears every time the microwave oven is turned on. I also wonder if Buckeye (who gets analog CBET OTA and sends it down cable channel 59) will continue to carry it when it goes digital (misc - I suspect that the antenna they use to receive CBET is still aimed at the Windsor riverfront, not McGregor, as a trop opening harms my cable reception of CBET more than my reception OTA).

LithOTA

06-13-11, 10:00 PM

I'm celebrating my gathering up all my pixles and sending them out to be cleaned. You should do that at least once a year you know... ;)

I always try and clean one of my pixels every day.

gbynum

06-14-11, 01:07 PM

Sammer

06-14-11, 10:01 PM

I'd like to clean greed and corruption out of the FCC. Just two years and the current FCC is determined to destroy that expensive transition for no good reason.

OTAhead

06-15-11, 06:45 AM

I always try and clean one of my pixels every day.

With those 2 Megapixel displays, you need to do more like three thousand a day ... catch them all every 2 years.

I suggested 100 per hour on the PM schedule ...

I gather all of mine up at once. That way I get the bulk rate. They are so darned more expensive to clean than the old analog ones...:p

foxeng

06-15-11, 06:46 AM

I'd like to clean greed and corruption out of the FCC. Just two years and the current FCC is determined to destroy that expensive transition for no good reason.

In their eyes it is a very good reason. So their friends can get rich. End of story.

Thomas Desmond

06-15-11, 09:32 PM

I'd like to clean greed and corruption out of the FCC. Just two years and the current FCC is determined to destroy that expensive transition for no good reason.

Just the past two years?

I've been pretty unimpressed by the FCC for the past twenty plus years, under the past several presidents (both parties).

All we've gotten is an ever-shrinking television broadcast band, and ever greater consolidation of ownership in *every* aspect of the media. That's been true in the Obama, Clinton, and both Bush administrations.

Trip in VA

06-19-11, 11:09 PM

This one apparently came in at the same time WNCF did, but for some reason the PRM isn't posted. WMC-5 Memphis wants 17.

- Trip

BCF68

06-19-11, 11:27 PM

This one apparently came in at the same time WNCF did, but for some reason the PRM isn't posted. WMC-5 Memphis wants 17.

- Trip

I find it funny how both WMC in Memphis and WTVF in Nashville both insisted on using ch 5 now 2 years later they want UHF. They should have saved everyone agravation 2 years ago but going to UHF anyways. With WTVF going to ch 25 you'd think WMC would stay on 5 and just ask for a power increase.

Trip in VA

06-19-11, 11:39 PM

If WMC wants to do Mobile DTV, they wouldn't be able to do so on channel 5.

- Trip

BCF68

06-19-11, 11:43 PM

If WMC wants to do Mobile DTV, they wouldn't be able to do so on channel 5.

- Trip

Shouldn't that have occured to them before 2009? THEY were the ones that insisted to go back to 5 for the DTV switchover.

Trip in VA

06-19-11, 11:59 PM

BCF68

06-20-11, 12:06 AM

The channel election process ended in 2007, before there was a Mobile DTV standard in place.

I know it seems like Mobile DTV has been around for a while, but it's actually a pretty recent development. They might have already sunk money into the channel 5 gear before realizing they would need a signal for MH.

- Trip

Not really an excuse. The fact is MOST stations chose UHF. It was pretty well known that LOW-VHF would be an issue for DTV. They went ahead with it anyway.

Trip in VA

06-20-11, 12:15 AM

Not really an excuse. The fact is MOST stations chose UHF. It was pretty well known that LOW-VHF would be an issue for DTV. They went ahead with it anyway.

Those in upper-VHF generally chose to keep the upper-VHF, while most of those on low-VHF chose to stay on UHF where feasible. Of course, WMC's pre-transition digital was on 52, outside of the core. I would bet that if WMC had been granted an in-core allotment, they would have stayed on UHF. (WMC was Raycom's only out-of-core digital with a low-VHF analog. The other Raycom low-VHFs were all in-core for digital and stayed on that in-core channel.)

I suspect that Raycom was hoping to get away with saving the money on building a new UHF by going with channel 5 with as much power as they could manage. I still from time to time hear some people say that "channels 5 and 6 aren't that bad" which I don't really buy.

- Trip

BCF68

06-20-11, 12:25 AM

I still from time to time hear some people say that "channels 5 and 6 aren't that bad" which I don't really buy.- Trip

I will say that people like me in the fringe areas the hi-VHF and especially low-VHF are typically the strongest stations I get in. In cities where the towers are I see where there would be issues. With the few station on Ch 5 and Ch 6 wanting get off low-VHF makes you wonder if the FCC will ever allocate that spectrum to FM radio?

dr1394

06-20-11, 04:06 PM

http://download.broadband.gov/plan/fcc-omnibus-broadband-initiative-%28obi%29-technical-paper-spectrum-analysis-options-for-broadband-spectrum.pdf

Ron

Larry Kenney

06-20-11, 05:49 PM

Here's a quick summary of the proposed FCC action. Unbelievable!

Larry
SF

- - -

What Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan recommends:

Recommendation 5.8.5: The FCC should initiate a rulemaking proceeding to reallocate 120 megahertz from the broadcast television (TV) bands, including:
• Update rules on TV service areas and distance separations and revise the Table of Allotments to ensure the most efficient allotment of six-megahertz channel assignments as a starting point.
• Establish a licensing framework to permit two or more stations to share a six-megahertz channel.
• Determine rules for auctions of broadcast spectrum reclaimed through repacking and voluntary channel sharing.
• Explore alternatives—including changes in broadcast technical architecture, an overlay license auction or more extensive channel sharing—in the event the preceding recommendations do not yield a significant amount of spectrum.
• Take additional measures to increase efficiency of spectrum use in the broadcast TV bands.

With regard to timing, the Plan states that:
• The FCC should complete rulemaking proceedings on recommended steps for which it currently has authority as soon as practicable, but no later than 2011, and should conduct an auction of reallocated spectrum in 2012.
• If Congress grants the FCC the authority to do incentive auctions prior to the auction in 2012, then the FCC should delay any auction of reallocated broadcast TV spectrum until 2013. This delay would allow time to complete rulemaking proceedings on a voluntary, incentive auction.
• All reallocated spectrum should be cleared by 2015.

dr1394

06-20-11, 06:27 PM

Actually, that report is a year old. It's now being questioned by Congressman John Dingell.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/121858

Ron

BPTTV

06-20-11, 06:29 PM

Ya gotta wonder what they are smoking in DC these days...channel share?? OH yeah thats gonna happen!!!! :rolleyes:
Repack?? in major markets there IS NO channels open......they intend to do away with LP/LDs??? Thought they were created for LOCAL involvement, etc...
Sharing?? :eek:
They have their heads buried DEEP somewhere dark....and its not in the ground! :D

BPTTV

06-20-11, 06:39 PM

Actually, that report is a year old. It's now being questioned by Congressman John Dingell.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/121858

Ron

Dingell and Lung's concerns are dead on.....Broadband wont happen in the real rural areas...its not economically feasible! Its all smoke and mirrors....even in non rural areas but not near a major metro area, broadband (like 10MB and higher) isnt happening.....cable companies wont build out to new areas (like farms, etc) unless they can see a payback...with what they charge and what sat viewers get, that wont happen...in fact, more and more people are getting off sat and CATV and going OTA! Its still free......

justalurker

06-20-11, 07:10 PM

Feel free to read the existing thread on the topic: AVS Official Topic - The FCC & Broadcast Spectrum (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1216722)

It might save rehashing what we've said over the past 17 months ...

re_nelson

06-27-11, 11:19 AM

Now that the second anniversary of the DTV transition is receding, where do we stand with the UHF/VHF simulcasts of full service stations? This doesn't include the low power fill in facilities (such as WHBF, WOI and WTVF). Instead what stations are still simulcasting on both bands?

As I recall, Boston's WHDH was the first to do so with their post-transition 7 and then lighting up pre-transition channel 42 mere days afterward.

Then we had a few others for various intervals (such as WGHP and WVUE).

All of those have since settled into the UHF facility and "unlit" what was once thought to be the beachfront propery of VHF.

So, more than two years after the big day, who remains broadcasting on both bands? Here in Ft. Worth-Dallas, KTVT continues as does WLS-TV in Chicago. Are there any others? El Paso maybe?

BCF68

06-27-11, 12:20 PM

Mister B

06-28-11, 06:51 AM

Yes, in El Paso KTSM is still on both 9 and 16 as well as KVIA being on 7 and 17. It has been posted that both plan to give up their VHF's but these things seem to move at a very slow pace.

dhett

06-29-11, 12:47 AM

And that's just the stations hanging on to VHF/UHF stations, both transmitting programming on primary subchannels. It doesn't include those who transmit on a VHF channel but also simulcast on a secondary subchannel of a co-owned station. For example, in Arizona, KSAZ 10.1 is on VHF channel 10, but the Fox programming also appears on 10.2, part of KUTP's UHF channel 26.

Trip in VA

07-01-11, 09:48 AM

I hate to post an open request like this, but I'm desperately looking for two pieces of software and I can't find what I'm looking for. Perhaps someone out there reading knows of what I'm looking for and can point me in the right direction.

I'm looking for a utility on Windows and on OS X (thus, two pieces of software) that allows for the capture of complete transport streams from television stations. The HDHomeRun has a utility that will do this on Windows, OSX, and Linux; and TSReader Standard will do the trick on Windows, but I'm looking for free utilities (not TSReader Standard) to perform these functions on ordinary USB or PCI receivers (not HDHomeRun). I thought that WatchHDTV might do it which would at least take care of the Windows side, but investigating showed that it saves in the DVR-MS format, rather than the TS format that I need, unless I overlooked a setting somewhere.

Thanks, all.

- Trip

SFischer1

07-01-11, 12:32 PM

...
on ordinary USB or PCI receivers (not HDHomeRun).
...
- Trip

Hi,

with the "MyHD" PCI card in my Windows HTPC there is an option that I select to capture a full transport stream from a station to analyze using TSReader Lite.

This is a very old card now with not the greatest of tuners and is Windows XP mainly. The software development stopped years ago, but I still use it every day.

Yes I know that it is not a free solution, just to let you know that one exists.

SHF

Trip in VA

07-01-11, 12:39 PM

Thanks. Good to know that the MyHD card will do it.

Unfortunately, I'm looking for something to use with generic receivers that people already own. Particularly with laptops, so PCI receivers are not helpful to them.

- Trip

Trip in VA

07-01-11, 01:12 PM

dmatch just sent me the perfect program for Windows. :D

Now I just need something for OSX...

- Trip

coyoteaz

07-02-11, 12:01 AM

I doubt you're going to find one for OS X. There is no standardized interface for tuner access on OS X like there is on Windows and Linux, so any program you want to use needs to directly support all the different tuners out there. Apple wouldn't want to make it too easy to get free TV, because it might cut into their profit from sales of TV shows on the iTunes store.

Trip in VA

07-02-11, 12:03 AM

Really? That sucks. I had hoped that, being Unix-based or at least Unix-similar, OSX might have some standard interface similar to that of Linux.

- Trip

dhett

07-02-11, 10:25 PM

Really? That sucks. I had hoped that, being Unix-based or at least Unix-similar, OSX might have some standard interface similar to that of Linux.

- Trip

Haha - Apple doesn't do anything "similar" to anybody, or follow anyone's standards. Everything with them is proprietary - that way they can be the sole provider of whatever you need.

ProjectSHO89

07-03-11, 06:35 AM

Haha - Apple doesn't do anything "similar" to anybody, or follow anyone's standards. Everything with them is proprietary - that way they can be the sole provider of whatever you need.

And, when they create the "need", they stay in business at a handsome profit.

As Yakov says, "What a country!"

re_nelson

07-03-11, 06:49 PM

I came across this old (19 NOV 2008) posting by Trip in the New York OTA thread:

Originally, the FCC planned to make the final digital spectrum channels 7-59, so WCBS-DT would have been able to stay on 56. Stations whined and complained about losing channels 2-51 without realizing how awful they were, so the FCC changed it to 2-6. Nobody's laughing now.

1). Is the FCC document still available showing that initial allocation plan?

2). When was the change made to modify the plan to use channels 2-51?

3). Was is really the stations that pushed for low-band VHF or was pressure being applied by the telcos to get that part of the spectrum?

dr1394

07-03-11, 07:44 PM

I came across this old (19 NOV 2008) posting by Trip in the New York OTA thread:

1). Is the FCC document still available showing that initial allocation plan?

2). When was the change made to modify the plan to use channels 2-51?

3). Was is really the stations that pushed for low-band VHF or was pressure being applied by the telcos to get that part of the spectrum?

There's a discussion of this way back on page 8 of this thread.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=823166&page=8

Probably the most pertinent FCC document would be the "Sixth Report and Order".

http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Orders/1997/fcc97115.pdf

Ron

foxeng

07-04-11, 07:58 AM

Yes. The low band VHF stations pushed hard because based on experience at the time with only analog, no one wanted upper UHF. Remember, all this happened in the mid 1990s. At the time only 2 digital stations were on the air, WRAL-HD on channel 32 at 100 kw and the NAB test station WHD-HD on channel 35 I believe it was at WRC. WHD-HD only operated for several years as a test bed and then ceased operations around early 1998 while WRAL-HD became WRAL-DT on channel 53 pre-transition and then channel 48 post transition.

Amazing, the earliest OTA 8VSB tests were conducted on channel 6 outside of Charlotte on the old WRET channel 36 tower (early 90's). It was after stations came on the air in the early 2000s on low band VHF that the impulse noise issue became evident.

The VHF high issue caught just about everyone off guard post transition because in tests and with initial stations it wasn't as obvious as post transition. Some of that had to do with the analog signal of a station being available so people continued to watch it not watching the digital waiting until the end of analog to get digital receivers. Other viewers using UHF only antennas didn't help either. But a bigger problem is if you look at power levels issued to stations pre-transition verses post transition, they were 3 or 4 times less post transition and that is what the real problem is for VHF high. The FCC has never acknowledged that fact. It is now too late to worry about all that now. The FCC has pretty much let VHF digital television languish so I am not sure how the FCC is going to force, short of a gun to the head, stations back on VHF channels to clear out channels 32 and above without some major changes to the rules for VHF digital television.

SnellKrell

07-04-11, 09:03 AM

You're correct. WRC - NBC, Washington, DC was the home of a test HD station to allow congresspeople and members of the commission to see HD.

BPTTV

07-04-11, 12:26 PM

The VHF high issue caught just about everyone off guard post transition because in tests and with initial stations it wasn't as obvious as post transition. Some of that had to do with the analog signal of a station being available so people continued to watch it not watching the digital waiting until the end of analog to get digital receivers. Other viewers using UHF only antennas didn't help either. But a bigger problem is if you look at power levels issued to stations pre-transition verses post transition, they were 3 or 4 times less post transition and that is what the real problem is for VHF high. The FCC has never acknowledged that fact. It is now too late to worry about all that now. The FCC has pretty much let VHF digital television languish so I am not sure how the FCC is going to force, short of a gun to the head, stations back on VHF channels to clear out channels 32 and above without some major changes to the rules for VHF digital television.

UHF DTVs are 1MW vs the old analog limit of 5MW....I feel VHF TV should be similar...instead of 200-316KW, take them to 1/3 of their analog ERP....KPLC in Lake Charles, La is a good example of that...they are running roughly 60KW ERP (cant recall the exact figure right now) and have EXCELLENT coverage...more so than their analog did in my opinion

foxeng

07-04-11, 12:57 PM

UHF DTVs are 1MW vs the old analog limit of 5MW....I feel VHF TV should be similar...instead of 200-316KW, take them to 1/3 of their analog ERP....KPLC in Lake Charles, La is a good example of that...they are running roughly 60KW ERP (cant recall the exact figure right now) and have EXCELLENT coverage...more so than their analog did in my opinion

In my own stations case, 100 kw would have been complementary to our 316 kw analog. That is not conjecture but real world apples to apples field strength measurements between our pre-transition 1 MW channel 35 that came damn close to matching our analog channel 8 and our 11 kw channel 8 post transition allocation when the FCC allowed us to operate both post transition for 9 months. The signal strength difference at 30 foot measurements averaged out to 10 db difference. Not only did we see that on the test equipment, we also had three different vintages of STB's including a Zenith DTT-901 converter box we took along and tested them to see where the signal level dropped out. In all cases, it too averaged 10 db difference in signal level. So not only did the calibrated test equipment prove the FCC formulas were wrong, actual STB's including the converter box proved the 10 db difference.

In our case that would have increased our channel 8 to a tad over 100 kw. We had the transmitter to do it. Our analog transmitter, converted to full power digital would have gotten the needed power and the transmission line and antenna were already rated for those power levels because they had been used in analog service. As it was, to make 11 kw, I had to run the transmitter at 1.3 kw. 1/20 of the power it could make. The FCC was there the Wednesday after the transition, saw the difference and wouldn't comment on it other than to say that something wasn't right but would not go any further than that. To further complicate things, the interference rules had tightened so much from the initial allocations in the mid 90s to 2009, which is one of the reasons for the low VHF post transition powers, that when we turned back on our channel 35 five days into the transition, which had been issued to us by the FCC at 1 MW, now was only good for 150kw and we had to get a waiver to go the full 1 MW even though nothing had changed in our facility nor the other stations around us and the supposed increased interference was ALL around our transmitter site, which wasn't in the affected stations coverage! Most now believe the FCC has never had a true handle on the technical aspects of digital television and still do not to this day hence the thought that TV can be moved from 2 to 31.

OTAhead

07-05-11, 06:55 AM

In my own stations case, 100 kw would have been complementary to our 316 kw analog. That is not conjecture but real world apples to apples field strength measurements between our pre-transition 1 MW channel 35 that came damn close to matching our analog channel 8 and our 11 kw channel 8 post transition allocation when the FCC allowed us to operate both post transition for 9 months. The signal strength difference at 30 foot measurements averaged out to 10 db difference. Not only did we see that on the test equipment, we also had three different vintages of STB's including a Zenith DTT-901 converter box we took along and tested them to see where the signal level dropped out. In all cases, it too averaged 10 db difference in signal level. So not only did the calibrated test equipment prove the FCC formulas were wrong, actual STB's including the converter box proved the 10 db difference.

In our case that would have increased our channel 8 to a tad over 100 kw. We had the transmitter to do it. Our analog transmitter, converted to full power digital would have gotten the needed power and the transmission line and antenna were already rated for those power levels because they had been used in analog service. As it was, to make 11 kw, I had to run the transmitter at 1.3 kw. 1/20 of the power it could make. The FCC was there the Wednesday after the transition, saw the difference and wouldn't comment on it other than to say that something wasn't right but would not go any further than that. To further complicate things, the interference rules had tightened so much from the initial allocations in the mid 90s to 2009, which is one of the reasons for the low VHF post transition powers, that when we turned back on our channel 35 five days into the transition, which had been issued to us by the FCC at 1 MW, now was only good for 150kw and we had to get a waiver to go the full 1 MW even though nothing had changed in our facility nor the other stations around us and the supposed increased interference was ALL around our transmitter site, which wasn't in the affected stations coverage! Most now believe the FCC has never had a true handle on the technical aspects of digital television and still do not to this day hence the thought that TV can be moved from 2 to 31.

Reminds me of a guy I used to work with who retired a while back. He used to say, in reference to the management at our company that "the whole tree is run by squirrels..."

BPTTV

07-05-11, 09:10 PM

Reminds me of a guy I used to work with who retired a while back. He used to say, in reference to the management at our company that "the whole tree is run by squirrels..."

There is a good "sheet" that shows how Sh*t becomes the Company Plan....
And then there is also the cartoon showing levels of buzzards on a stand...
Looking up, you only see a$$es....look down, you only see your own sh......
well you get the point :)
In large OR small companies, I find that to be true a lot of times....companies that claim they have "open door" policy??? Yeah open door to kick you out if you make waves or try to stir up something new and better than "The Plan"
Know that 1st hand! :(

Nokorola

07-09-11, 11:55 AM

Maybe in 50 years we'll replace the ATSC disaster and have a good system again.

Thomas Desmond

07-10-11, 10:06 PM

dave73

07-11-11, 01:08 PM

For many of us, the current ATSC system works well. Unfortunately, it's not always the same people for whom the old analog system worked -- with the result that some folks who had analog service can't get the digital signal. But the reverse is also true, with some folks getting good digital service who couldn't get acceptable analog service.

This held true in Chicago. On the VHF side, WBBM-TV on RF 2 was alright, but WMAQ-TV on RF 5 had ghosting & usually saw a couple of different color streaks across the screen. WLS-TV on RF 7, WGN-TV on RF 9, & WTTW on RF 11 were also good with WLS-TV coming in the best.

On the UHF side, WYCC on RF 20 was horrible, along with WJYS on RF 62 & WYIN on RF 56. Most other UHF stations from Chicago came in fine (including WCIU on RF 26, WFLD on RF 32 *the best of all UHF's, WCPX on RF 38 once they moved to the Sears Tower, but was horrible on the John Hancock, WSNS on RF 44, WPWR-TV on 50 [reception varied when RF50 was originally operated as non-commercial station WCAE Gary], WEHS [now WXFT] on RF60, & WGBO on RF 66.

Since the digital transition, WYIN dramatically improved, as the picture is clearer than it's ever been. While they don't have the latest CODEC's, & insisting on running 2 720p HD channels along with 2 widescreen 480i channels, it looks fuzzy. Even with the antenna pointed at Cedar Lake (their transmitter location), I could not get their station in clear at all on analog. For digital, it required me to get a second antenna just to keep this station from dropping out, when being picked up by the main antenna, pointed NW at Chicago. I should point out that because I'm closest to WYIN's tower than the Chicago towers, I don't have the antenna for WYIN on pre-amp, but the main one for Chicago is a pre-amp. WJYS moved from Tinley Park to Chicago (transmitter only & not their studios), & their station comes in better than when in Tinley Park (even with the antenna pointed at Tinley Park). Too bad WJYS hasn't improved their programming. My big concern will be with WCIU. Whenever they get the new eliptical antenna up & running at 550kw, it'll be strongest to the north & west (no real change to the south), but because WCWW-LD South Bend is also on RF 27, WCIU decided to keep WCWW-LD at 15kw non-directional, & will make WCIU weaker in Indiana (WCIU & WCWW-LD I know are interfering with each other in LaPorte County & parts of eastern Porter County Indiana). I used to not need a pre-amp for WCIU, but it's now mandatory, or I don't get this station at all. I need a pre-amp for low power stations: WESV-LD on RF 40, WWME-LD on RF 39 (didn't need one for WWME-CA on RF 23), W25DW-D on RF 25, & WOCK-CD on RF 4 (I barely get this one with my current antenna, but wouldn't get it at all w/o a pre-amp).

Now if I can get a deep fringe UHF only antenna pointed at South Bend, then I have the best chance of getting WSBT on RF 22 & WSJV on RF 28 the best, & a chance at WNIT on RF 35, & WNDU on RF 42 (used to come in quite often on RF 16 during the analog days). I can get WSBT most nights with my main antenna with pre-amp pointed at Chicago. I used to get them a lot when they were analog on RF 22.

I may not watch all the TV stations in Chicagoland, but at least for me, it has overall improved once the bugs were worked out. I was one of the few people who got WBBM-TV (actually, call letters at the time ended in -DT) on RF 3 with little trouble, & without a pre-amp on the current antenna.I have no problems with them on RF 12 either.

Tschmidt

07-11-11, 06:41 PM

For many of us, the current ATSC system works well.
In general the switch to DTV has been positive for our family. I replaced our outdoor antenna - had been up for 20 years so figured it was a good time to upgrade. We are in terrain challenged Southern NH 42 miles from Boston stations.

Analog WGBX was almost unwatchable it is still weak in digital but depending on atmospherics get decent reception most of the time. WSBK is worse then in analog days, almost always a no show.

Antenna wise we lucked out. All the Boston stations are on UHF and the two NH stations WMUR and WENH are on VHF. Using separate VHF-hi and UHF antennas pointed in different direction means for the first time we are able to get NH and Boston stations without having to move the antenna.

Much has been written about FCC DTV transmission modeling assumptions being overly optimistic by perhaps as much as 10 dB. In my case a few more dB would make all the difference in the world.

Falcon_77

07-12-11, 11:09 AM

KVIA R&O for 17:

AMENDMENT OF SECTION 73.622(I), POST-TRANSITION TABLE OF DTV ALLOTMENTS, TELEVISION BROADCAST STATIONS (EL PASO, TEXAS).
Substitution of channel 17 for channel 7 at El Paso, Texas for station KVIA-TV. (Dkt No. 11-74 RM-11630 ). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 07/11/2011 by R&O. (DA No. 11-1185).

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0712/DA-11-1185A1.pdf

Trip in VA

07-16-11, 10:33 AM

http://www.rabbitears.info/blog/index.php?post/2011/07/16/LPTV-and-Class-A-Transition-Rule-Set-by-FCC

- Trip

joblo

07-16-11, 12:06 PM

http://www.rabbitears.info/blog/index.php?post/2011/07/16/LPTV-and-Class-A-Transition-Rule-Set-by-FCC

Trip,

The pronoun referent and overall meaning of this point in your summary is unclear:
The FCC will grant a single extension beyond September 1, 2015 to March 1, 2016, but all analog broadcasts must cease on that date.
The extension applies only to building the digital facility.

All analog broadcasts must cease by September 1, 2015, even if that means that the station is dark until the digital facility is completed.

Trip in VA

07-16-11, 12:09 PM

Thanks. I've made a correction; let me know if that's better.

- Trip

joblo

07-16-11, 12:41 PM

Yep, looks good, and you're welcome. :)

re_nelson

07-16-11, 01:18 PM

http://www.rabbitears.info/blog/index.php?post/2011/07/16/LPTV-and-Class-A-Transition-Rule-Set-by-FCC

The power limit for low-power VHF stations has been increased to 3 kW ERP, up from the previous rule of 0.3 kW ERP.

That's noteworthy. Can an existing 300 watter file immediately for the increased power? (There are some full service stations [WTVI and others] currently operating on VHF with less power than what the new cap will be).

Trip in VA

07-16-11, 01:22 PM

I would imagine they have to wait for the effective date of the order, but otherwise, I don't see why not.

- Trip

itsthemultipath!

07-17-11, 12:28 AM

dhett

07-18-11, 02:40 AM

I would also guess that any 300w highband LD anywhere near a full-service DT on a same, or adjacent, RF channel would have to protect the full-service DT from interference, by either going directional, reducing height, or changing TL, before they could go to 3kw - a lot of them simply would not increase power.

As long as the LPTV station is using the proper emission mask, it shouldn't interfere with an adjacent full-power station, but the increased power ought to help keep it from getting its butt kicked by the adjacent full-power.

Calaveras

07-18-11, 10:59 AM

KCSO requested and received an STA for 5KW on channel 3. I believe they are operating at that power level now.

Chuck

BPTTV

07-20-11, 12:03 AM

KCSO requested and received an STA for 5KW on channel 3. I believe they are operating at that power level now.

Chuck

With the 5KW, they will be able to actually cover their COL (but then I know a lot of LPs, etc that DON'T..One in Dallas is licensed to Corsicana which is ~50miles to the SOUTH but the station is beaming NE from the Cedar Hill tower site on the SSW side of Dallas!)

Falcon_77

07-22-11, 11:48 AM

WEAU R&O for 38:

AMENDMENT OF SECTION 73.622(I), POST-TRANSITION TABLE OF DTV ALLOTMENTS, TELEVISION BROADCAST STATIONS (EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN). Substituted channel 38 for channel 13 at Eau Claire, Wisconsin for station WEAU-TV. (Dkt No. RM-11632 11-100 ). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 07/20/2011 by R&O. (DA No. 11-1225).

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-11-1225A1.pdf

foxeng

08-04-11, 05:04 PM

Digital Television Notes
LPTV broadcaster seeks Special Temporary Authority to transmit OFDM, OFDMA signals

By Phil Kurz, Broadcast Engineering - August 4th, 2011

Low-power television station operator WatchTV filed an amended application with the Federal Communications Commission on July 27 seeking Special Temporary Authority (STA) rather than an experimental license to put OFDM and OFDMA modulated signals on air in the Portland, OR, area.

According to the application, WatchTV is requesting the STA to gather field data on "real-life propagation considerations" involved with technologies that would allow broadcasters to transmit TV as well as other services, such as multichannel IP video services and wireless broadband service.

The application asks for authority to conduct test transmission of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access (OFDMA) signals from seven transmitter sites in the Portland area. Single-frequency networks may be operated on each channel as well as multifrequency networks to compare performance. WatchTV is requesting authority to conduct the test transmission from existing fixed sites already in use by the LPTV broadcaster for analog operation by licensed stations.

WatchTV president Greg Herman also heads SpectrumEvolution.org, an advocacy group seeking to win for broadcasters the right to choose the modulation scheme of their liking. Herman, who originally sought the experimental license, demonstrated in November 2010 to commission staff at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., OFDM-modulated transmission to 12 Converged Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) receivers.

According to the amended application filing, WatchTV is seeking the STA to conduct its field trials with OFDM and OFDMA signals that are "well-known modulation schemes to the wireless industry," adding that "OFDMA is designed to accommodate two-way in-band services."

As part of its tests, WatchTV said it plans to test and evaluate methods to embed TV programming "in an alternative signal" that can be displayed on ATSC television receivers with "a very simple and inexpensive outboard or built-in adapter device."

The application also seeks permission to test up to 300 pico- or femto-cell boosters and mobile units with up to 2W ERP located within the 51dBu contour of the authorized main transmitter on the same channel.

On Oct. 19, 2010, WatchTV filed the application for an experimental license to conduct the OFDM/OFDMA tests, which was denied by the commission on Feb. 10, 2011. WatchTV filed a petition for reconsideration and will "any type of authorization" to allow its tests, "license or otherwise, independent of the prior pending proceeding," the application said.

http://broadcastengineering.com/news/lptv_broadcasters_seeks_sta_for_ofdm_ofdma_08042011/

Thomas Desmond

08-04-11, 09:01 PM

Trip in VA

08-04-11, 09:07 PM

Agreed, 100%.

- Trip

BPTTV

08-04-11, 10:15 PM

Here is the result of competition and being one's own GRID in Texas....
From: STXARES@yahoogroups.com [mailto:STXARES@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Jay Hoffman, KA5OST

FYI - ERCOT has just gone to Level 2. "Conservation critical". ROLLING BLACK OUTS MAY BE CALLED FOR.

AND the result??? (Sorry but I couldnt resist)

The Texas Grid is the place to be………
dead AC sockets is the life for me…….
Blackouts spreading out so far and wide….
Keep ERCOT and give me that Entergy side

(Sung to the tune of Green Acres!)

Entergy is part of the Eastern Interconnect and bought Gulf States Utilities in SE TX in 1994...it remains off the Texas grid and thus is not subject to "competition" which made electric prices in the ERCOT area go UP 30-50%!!!
Yep, thats good for the consumer!

BPTTV

08-04-11, 10:17 PM

The FCC needs to reject that application...reopening the old digital TV standards war at a time when OTA seems to be slowly regaining viewers just seems designed to kill broadcast TV once and for all.

While I think Greg Herman's intentions are good, this petition just seems like one more fiasco waiting to happen.

IT will get denied....OFDM was looked at and ATSC was selected as the superior mode for the US.....It aint gonna happen unless someone has a lot of cash to pay off (eeeeerrrrr make a large campaign donation!)

BCF68

08-05-11, 06:38 PM

Trip in VA

08-05-11, 06:43 PM

Hey trip I meant to ask about this. I went out of town for 2 weeks and forgot. Do these people not realize that WTVF is moving to channel 25?

TN BEP-20110713ABU

WIIW-LD 168068 U.S. TELEVISION, L.L.C.

Extension of time to complete digital construction permit:

BMPDTL-20100312ACS

E CHAN-25 TN , NASHVILLE

Here's the extension request.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Attachment/getattachment.jsp?appn=101435358&qnum=5000&copynum=1&exhcnum=1

They intend to file for channel 50 once it is abandoned by WTVF, but cannot do so for as long as WTVF holds a permit for 50. The extension is to keep the permit alive until they can file for displacement to 50.

- Trip

ADTech

08-05-11, 06:54 PM

mgsports

08-05-11, 06:56 PM

http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23kcstatic Bounce TV this Fall MYKSMOTV and also The Cool TV.

Markxxx

08-05-11, 08:18 PM

Trip in VA

08-05-11, 08:57 PM

Unless you want to do an REA and wire the nation with fiber cable the way they did in the Great Depression with electricity.

I would actually love this, but nobody's got the political will to make it happen, nor the votes, I suspect. I'd love it particularly if local stations were required to be carried in the clear on such fiber.

- Trip

BCF68

08-05-11, 09:16 PM

FWIW, I traded voice mails with the CE down at WTVF week before last. He indicated that they're still working out details with the FCC on their move to 25 and that the new construction was not imminent. Still going to need those big low-VHF antennas for a while near Nashville.

That's fine. It seems with their weird directional antenna WTVF on channel 25would be a pain to try to get in in my area anyways. At least according to TVfool. It seems for me the VHF signals come in better.

BPTTV

08-05-11, 10:33 PM

But new standards need to be looked at now. The system we have is already technologically ancient. No one wants to get a new digital system but technology will always progress. It's foolish to just sit back and pretend the system we have is OK when it's full of holes.

Yep, it happens in 2way radio too..APCO P25 is the official standard...but its 10 yrs old and outdated....newer more efficient digital modes are there...but the GOVERNMENTs (IE States) are mandating P25...especially in Texas if rural VFDs and PDs want state grants to buy new gear (AND WHO PAYS for that?? WE DO!!)

And on top of that the technology is old. We need to start thinking about implementing a new system that will be upgradeable in the future with a firmware update on the part of TV tuners.

We need to think about redoing our OTA system which is also a product of the past. As much as this board likes to think we need local TV the delivery system is outdated. Markets could have one or two independent stations and the rest should simply be repeaters of the major networks.

Aint gonna happen...too many MPEG2 OTAs out there and MPEG4 will NEVER see OTA for maybe 20yrs...I AGREE the TVs SHOULD have upgradeable firmware for new protocols...but then they cant sell NEW TV now can they???
Biz sense says dumb idea...logic says great idea...guess who will win??

OTA TV is growing? For every survey I've seen saying the numbers are up, we see another saying they are down. In urban areas like Chicago and NYC, people, such as myself lost all TV with digital. In NJ the state government has now allowed the deduction of cable to offset welfare benefits calculations due to the fact so many in urban NJ setting can't get digital signals in densely populated areas.

Yes its growing...Sat and Cable have done MAJOR price increases and a lot of people cant afford it.....so they have cut the cord and gone BACK to OTA..where I live, 90+ miles east of the Houston antenna farm, I get 64 DTVs 90% of the time with a RS VU90 (10yr+ old) at 20ft....of course 20 of those are religious or Spanish so they are out of my channel list...but the rest?? Perfectly watchable...and better than what I see on most cable/sat channels..

The same way radio had to readjust, and AM had to readjust, so will TV. We need to seriously look at a new digital system, a new way to repackage allocations and a new way to deliver content OTA.

We sat around on UHF for years till we mandated all tuners. We sat around for a decade on a digital system designed in the 90s, before we forced people to change.

AM HAD a chance when the FCC oked AM Stereo...but then they allowed 5 different formats (Belar, Magnavox, Harris, KAHN and Motorola)....only ONE maker (SONY) had a chip that could decode all...and Kahn would NOT license his rcvr design...the SONY was a reverse engineered that wasnt quite right but it worked!......Also FCC NOT MANDATING AMAX standards in rcvrs and NO Noise Blankers, etc required, killed AM Stereo (with modern DSP, AM would sound JUST as good as FM with no digital needed)...HD Radio??? Its a losing battle...noone wants to or KNOWS where to buy a HD radio..walk into Best Buy and ask for HD radio and they point at the TVs. What a bunch of hooey...BTW I AM a proponent of AM Stereo...ever heard one with music?? BETTER than analog FM! Its the rcvrs that suck...I was CE of an AM in the 70s that had audio proof out to 30kHz!!!! Now its mandated to 10kHz but still..... I have the recordings to prove it (WLS in 07 and 08's BIG89 Rewind...off the OTA logger in CQUAM stereo...sounds BETTER than any FM I have ever heard!)

Analog had/has advantages over DTV...you can watch it while moving...the audio can get through when the visual cant and sometimes viceversa...co channel interference doesnt KILL it.....(DTV?? FORGET IT!)...
See the trend with HD Radio on FM?? It aint happening....a lot of stations are turning it off, taking it out!!!...costs too much and they get little ROI...(again BIZ wins over logic)..

Americans want more of acceptable quality. This is why MP3s overtook CDs.This is why cell phone are running past landlines. Landlines are clearer and CDs sound better. But it's good enough. Those who want the high quality will have to pay more.

Spectrum is too valuable to waste. In Chicago, hospitals need spectrum, railroads need spectrum for mandated safety, GPS systems are being put in all sorts of areas. This all takes wireless spectrum.

Hospitals HAVE spectrum (both licensed and unlicensed). Class A RailRoads (BNSF, Amtrak, UP, etc) and all Class 2 and below HAVE IT...over 90 channels analog in the 160 Mhz range EXCLUSIVE for their use and they are going digital (Kenwood NDXN) so they have NO NEED for more once they go to 6.25 kHz channel spacing. GPS???? ITS SAT based...you only need a rcvr to see 3 out of the 14 birds...if you cant, you have other problems....
Dont know where you get your info but it is seriously WRONG!!

Unless you want to do an REA and wire the nation with fiber cable the way they did in the Great Depression with electricity.

I know this will be an unpopular post but it has to be done. It's like sitting on a toothache. The longer you wait, the more it costs you to fix it in the end.

Electricity is a NEEDED commodity...and even today, the REAs STILL collect from the government though it is no longer needed!!! (What a waste of OUR money!!! I USED to work for a public power company that supplied to several REAs....they had better equipment than the PUBLIC util I worked for did!!! ALL GOVERNMENT supplied...and WHO PAYS FOR THAT????)

DTV is set in stone for the next 20 yrs...nothing is gonna change..true, could have been better IF they have planned for firmware upgrades and done DSP processing..but MPEG 4 takes MORE b/w than MPEG 2....and it wont fit in a 6MHz channel....so it aint gonna fly until pigs do...

I have been a broadcast and telecom engineer for almost 40yrs. The bean counters run it now....they do the thing that makes the MOST money...and that aint the right thing 75-90% of the time! and we people have to live with it...MP3 better than CD??? BS!!!!! Hard drive space is CHEAP so storage of CD WAVs is no problem..yet MOST radio stations still use MPEG2 compression...but when they play a CD?? The processor was set for MPEG2 audio...lows and mid range are better in CD/WAV format...the processing then sounds like crap.....smart idea?? NOPE...but BIZ idea...and it AINT gonna change...PERIOD

BCF68

08-06-11, 12:15 AM

We need to think about redoing our OTA system which is also a product of the past. As much as this board likes to think we need local TV the delivery system is outdated. Markets could have one or two independent stations and the rest should simply be repeaters of the major networks.

Are the stations that spent millions coverting to digital but also HD going to be compensated for doing so? We have 2 local stations just about to go all HD for news. So you're going to tell them in 5 years their station is going bye-bye? Better pay them? Oh where is that money coming from?

Spectrum is too valuable to waste. In Chicago, hospitals need spectrum, railroads need spectrum for mandated safety, GPS systems are being put in all sorts of areas. This all takes wireless spectrum.

Plenty of spectrum out there. Hell the govenment is sitting on most of it hoarding it.

Unless you want to do an REA and wire the nation with fiber cable the way they did in the Great Depression with electricity.

Should have been doing that already. Fiber is much more reliable than wireless. My dad lives north of Chicago a few weeks ago they had a bad storm. Power out for days. Cells didn't work. Landlines did. Hmmmmmm.

Calaveras

08-06-11, 11:03 AM

BPTTV

08-07-11, 03:06 PM

I often read in these threads people commenting that they receive so many stations some percentage of the time. In the analog days you could say "I receive channel XX but sometimes it is a little snowy or has ghosts." Today that translates into receiving the station or not. Is there some percentage of time received that qualifies as "receiving the station?" It can't be 100% because nothing is 100%. Cable or satellite TV or internet is not 100%.

If I set my standard at 95% then I have a fairly large list of OTA stations I can receive. If I up that to 98% then the list is smaller and at 99.9% the list is very small.

If you truly have line-of-sight to the transmitter then you should have essentially 100% reception but there are a large number of people who don't have that luxury. What should a person in the OTA DTV era be happy with?

Chuck

Whenever they are watching it or recording it, then they should get 100%...if they are not doing either and the signal degrades, who cares??
Add some extra antenna gain or a better preamp..but still expect DTV to drop once in a while....EVEN if you have LOS to the towers, expect at most 99.999% ("Five 9s reliability" as its called in the telecom/IT/engineers fields)
Lightning and other noise WILL cause the decoder to mute at times...also MPEG2 has buffering and if it gets overloaded, it WILL through some of the bits away....so you will lose pic for a sec or two....thats the nature of the beast of any compression scheme...UNcompressed DTV would take 3-4 times the bandwidth...that aint gonna happen!

I get the Houston stations (94m west of me) MOST of the time. Sometimes I dont get the VHFs but can get the UHFs due to tropo or storm activity (MOST of the path from me to them is over rice fields and the Trinity Bay on the East side of Houston..so LOTS of water and thermals)...I get pixelation at night....ehhhh it doesnt last long but in analog it would have been watchable..

I am only up 20ft with a VU90 and CM7777.....I get 64 digital signals total on my big Haier TV (BEST DAMN tuner I have EVER seen...even my 7in portable Haier has the same great tuner..which is why I bought the bigger 1080p for the living room)...and two analog LPs..BOTH at 120deg bearing to the main antenna lobe...I like that!!! WOW! IF I was pointed right at them they would be perfect...ONE is only running a whopper 59w ERP at 180ft!! and they are 20m away! Hell a ham ATV station can do better than that :)

BCF68

08-07-11, 03:19 PM

BPTTV

08-07-11, 03:31 PM

Plenty of spectrum out there. Hell the govenment is sitting on most of it hoarding it.

Should have been doing that already. Fiber is much more reliable than wireless. My dad lives north of Chicago a few weeks ago they had a bad storm. Power out for days. Cells didn't work. Landlines did. Hmmmmmm.

When Texas got hit by Rita and later IKE, I was involved in restoration of comms during both...Some Cell phones did not work here for DAYS (ATTs DID!!)...couple of the idiots cell companies had NO BACKUP gen sets on site...except a FEW who had PROPANE (remote sites) and when they went down, no PROPANE could be trucked in...Diesel and NG sites were fine as to fuel..BUT EVEN Verizon's main tandem site in Beaumont TX which IS THE connection to the PSTN was down...and it handles calls from the TX/LA state line to Liberty 65m west and from the Gulf Coast at Sabine Pass to Jasper 80m to the north....IDIOTS didnt do maintenance on the gen set....the batteries in the room ran dead, the gen set didnt fire up and Verizon was blaming the Nat Gas company....

NOPE, the gas was STILL flowing...turns out, the cover (what little there was) over this OUTSIDE gen set was rusted through...and in the MUFFLER there was a HOLE the size of my fist...can we figure out what happened?? CAN YOU SAID THE ENGINE DROWNED before it even tried to start? YET these "experts" from Verizon were scratching their heads.....DUH!!!

After 10hours of spraying ether into the cylinders and constant cranking (they had to change the battery out 2 times!!!), the gen finally coughed and came to life...ROUGH for 5 mins and then started smoothing out..

THINK THEY FIXED IT????? NOPE!! NO NEW cover on the gen set (its on a outside ledge on the 3rd floor of the bldg)...the roof has a 100ft tower on top with m/w dishes to the various sites and of course cell antennas...it was originally a MCI microwave site for landline use..

Some sites had NO power or other services for up to 3-4 weeks!!

Fiber much more reliable?? NOT really....depends on how the fiber is installed..
OPGW (fiber running along as the top static gnd of a AC line) fell all over the place during Rita and Ike.....snapped the 48 strands like twigs...all microwave systems that hadnt had their dishes moved around (and if they did, the mounts were loose and needed fixing) stayed up...in fact an OLD 2GHZ path was turned back on after 2 yrs due to the fiber that had replaced it BROKE..

Buried fiber is ok..but is subject to backhoe fade....and that happens a lot..Fiber is HARD to locate once buried UNLESS they include a single wire embedded in the jacket..this allows locators to "hear" the wire on their detectors and thus mark the fiber route..BUT a lot of it is NOT done that way....so along comes someone else and RIP!!!!!
Cant kill wireless with a backhoe.....

Landlines work as long as the batteries are up or the gen set fires up..(some remote COs dont HAVE Gensets)...lost a 56k DDS circuit to a tower site because of that...ATT finally got a portable gen to the bldg after 3 days..it was stolen 2 days later......

NOTHING is 100% reliable except conventional SIMPLEX 2way radios and then they need power (batteries have to be charged)....which ham ops have plenty of...which is why their motto is now" When all else fails"..

and its not a question of IF, its WHEN!

itsthemultipath!

08-08-11, 07:23 PM

<snip>
AM HAD a chance when the FCC oked AM Stereo...

No, they did not really have a chance when FCC OKed AM stereo - in the mid 1980s when big owners had already moved the music to FM. AM stereo had been demonstrated and tested in 1960 - on a Mexican station, as it was illegal in the USA. If it had not been blocked back then, it would certainly would have become standard stereo equipment

but then they allowed 5 different formats (Belar, Magnavox, Harris, KAHN and Motorola)....only ONE maker (SONY) had a chip that could decode all...and Kahn would NOT license his rcvr design...the SONY was a reverse engineered that wasnt quite right but it worked!......Also FCC NOT MANDATING AMAX standards in rcvrs and NO Noise Blankers, etc required, killed AM Stereo (with modern DSP, AM would sound JUST as good as FM with no digital needed)...HD Radio??? Its a losing battle...noone wants to or KNOWS where to buy a HD radio..walk into Best Buy and ask for HD radio and they point at the TVs. What a bunch of hooey...BTW I AM a proponent of AM Stereo...ever heard one with music??

Yes! I still have my Sony SRF-A100s, and still pull them out once in awhile. I really miss some of the AM stereo stations that I used to listen to. A good AM stereo signal really did sound pretty good. I might mention at this time that almost everyone who says AM stereo sounded lousy, when pressed, will admit that they themselves never heard AM stereo.

Forgive a little nitpick: FCC never did approve Belar.
Hmmmm: Interesting you mention that Kahn would not license his ISB receiver design to Sony - as he promoted the SRF-A100 in AM stereo demonstrations.

Falcon_77

08-17-11, 10:54 AM

WJHG: 18 - adopted by NPRM

AMENDMENT OF SECTION 73.622(I), POST-TRANSITION TABLE OF DTV ALLOTMENTS, TELEVISION BROADCAST STATIONS, PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA. Substitution of channel 18 for channel 7 at Panama City, Florida for station WJHG-TV. (Dkt No. 11-140 RM-11638 ). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 08/15/2011 by NPRM. (DA No. 11-1413).

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0817/DA-11-1413A1.pdf

Trip in VA

08-17-11, 11:00 AM

Excellent. And here I thought the FCC was going to sit on all of the non-WEAU petitions.

- Trip

Tower Guy

08-17-11, 02:48 PM

And here I thought the FCC was going to sit on all of the non-WEAU petitions.

- Trip

Maybe it's just the channel 32 and up petitions that they're holding.

Falcon_77

08-18-11, 10:45 AM

WNCF: 31 - adopted by NPRM

AMENDMENT OF SECTION 73.622(I), POST-TRANSITION TABLE OF DTV ALLOTMENTS, TELEVISION BROADCAST STATIONS, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA. Substitution of channel 31 for channel 32 at Montgomery, Alabama for station WNCF(TV). (Dkt No. 11-137 RM-11637 ). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 08/15/2011 by NPRM. (DA No. 11-1414).

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-11-1414A1.pdf

dhett

08-22-11, 08:30 PM

It begins...

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0822/DA-11-1428A1.pdf

In response to a request from the wireless and cellular industry, the FCC has declared an immediate freeze on new applications for facilities on channel 51, has given channel 51 LPTV applicants 60 days to amend their applications to specify another channel, and will waive the rulemaking freeze for full power stations seeking to relocate off of channel 51.

6 MHz has effectively been taken from OTA television. So, if when the FCC implements its plan to take channels 31-50, does that also mean that channel 30 will also be taken so that wireless/cellular users have a buffer between their bought and paid for frequencies and OTA TV?

SFischer1

08-23-11, 11:00 AM

Hi,

Do we have a better answer to this request?

I have the answer for my area thanks to Larry (sfonair.htm)

Larry
SF
__________________
My complete SF Bay Area DTV Station Lists: http://www.choisser.com/sfonair.html
Lots of Broadcasting links and information: http://www.choisser.com/broadcast.html

Click to see headers

Path: border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!goblin2!gobl in.stu.neva.ru!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: me again <rick0.merrill@gmail.spamless>
Newsgroups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv
Subject: Re: Channel 9.1 missing, but 9.2 okay
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 09:43:31 -0400
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <j30aq4$ob2$1@dont-email.me>
References: <4e52403a$0$23658$607ed4bc@cv.net> <2Bs4q.136759$8G4.128259@newsfe17.iad> <j2tla0$v90$1@dont-email.me> <j2ugov$rsf$1@dont-email.me>
Reply-To: rick0.merrill@gmail.spamless
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:43:32 +0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="Mi1O8SnBmXsp37GaWunbKg";
logging-data="24930"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/kArmlaIaVE37e/+m6dwXBWILvsNhAOLY="
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:6.0) Gecko/20110813 Firefox/6.0 SeaMonkey/2.3
In-Reply-To: <j2ugov$rsf$1@dont-email.me>
Cancel-Lock: sha1:1IlAuca0GA8Wgbo2cFZ6op09CHE=
Bytes: 1974
Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com alt.tv.tech.hdtv:217661

Wes Newell wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:24:18 -0400, me again wrote:
>
>> Steve Stone wrote:
>>> On 8/22/2011 7:40 AM, Rebel1 wrote:
>>>> This morning New York City channel 9.1 was missing, but 9.2 was okay.
>>>> How can this be?
>>>
>>>
>>> WWOR and WNYW in New York City are both owned by the same corporation.
>>>
>>> 9.2 is a subchannel of the transmitter that broadcasts 5.1
>>>
>>> 5.2 is a subchannel of the transmitter that broadcasts 9.1
>>>
>>>
>>
>> How did you find out such things (and how long ago)?
>
> http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php

No, I do not see how that could tell you that
9.2 is a subchannel of the transmitter that broadcasts 5.1
or 5.2 is a subchannel of the transmitter that broadcasts 9.1

SHF

Trip in VA

08-23-11, 11:12 AM

SFischer1

08-23-11, 03:29 PM

I guess if the person is blind then RabbitEars won't tell him that. Expand WWOR and it shows 5-2 and 9-1. I'm not sure how one would make it any clearer.

I'm not aware of any other source that covers the whole country.

- Trip

Hi,

I responded with your comments and added mine.

After selecting your market which shows WWOR then click on WWOR.

05-2 38.4 480i DD2.0 WNYW FOX "Fox 5 New York"
09-1 38.3 720p DD2.0 WWOR-TV MyN "My 9"

If what you really want is to expand the main PSID and see the two different RF channels, that may not be possible.

As that may be very important in the future when RF channels above 31 go away, I will suggest that to Trip, he does wonderful things very quickly so watch his site.

SHF

SHF

Trip in VA

08-23-11, 04:29 PM

moedog

08-23-11, 09:28 PM

Isn't it odd that WNCF in Montgomery is switching to channel 31 when WGBC in Meridian MS also operates on DT channel 31? I think the two TXs are separated by only about 100 miles resulting in another seriously shortspaced situation. Meanwhile, channel 32 seems to be clear in central AL. I must be missing something....

SFischer1

08-23-11, 09:54 PM

The listing dropdowns are tied to the facility ID number, so there's really no way for me to split up subchannels like you suggest without doing a huge recoding of the whole page.

If channel sharing becomes the norm, I'm sure the FCC will adjust their database accordingly, which I will then have to work with.

- Trip

Hi,

I have memorized most of the PSID vs. RF channels for my market, but there are times that others have asked what was on a specific RF channel. A easy question to answer with Larry's reverse list to ensure the correct answer.

Larry
SF
__________________
My complete SF Bay Area DTV Station Lists: http://www.choisser.com/sfonair.html
Lots of Broadcasting links and information: http://www.choisser.com/broadcast.html

Larry in his sfonair.htmp page links to

"Transmitter Channel Listing "

http://www.choisser.com/sfonair2.html

Which is the same information but sorted by RF channel number.

It really is not too difficult a data base exercise except you would have to do it for all the markets and need to handle many more updates. When would you rebuild the reverse list for each market?

When 32+ really starts to disappear and PSID sub channels start to shift to different RF channel numbers like the current given example, then the reverse table will really be in need.

Larry's reverse table has every PSID expanded, nothing to click on except the link to the FCC entry. So nothing to expand and IMHO having everything expanded already would be understood quicker.

I am not suggesting that you do anything but perhaps think about the problem. A single link for each market to the reverse table for that market would be the only change in the page.

SHF

Trip in VA

08-24-11, 12:17 AM

SFischer1

08-24-11, 07:20 AM

I already have a sort by physical channel function, I just have it hidden mostly because I have no idea how to code anything with JavaScript in order to make it accessible in the way I want. For example, here's SF:

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?mktid=6&sorting=physical

If, instead of clicking and dropping down the market, you open the market in a new tab or new window, it will give you the option immediately below the search box to sort by physical channel. I know it's very well hidden and in a really lousy place, but I just don't know how to put it anywhere else that I want to. (I do a lot of the coding these days, but the main listings dropdown stuff was Bruce's handywork, not mine.)

What I can't do is make it so you expand out WNYW and see 5-1 on 44 and 5-2 on 38. That I can't do.

- Trip

Hi,

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?mktid=6&sorting=physical

> That I can't do.

But you have already done it all!

I am NOT suggesting that you change those pages! Well, perhaps put the Physical Channel as the first column. My mind keeps getting messed up as I am used to Larry's RF channel page.

When you click on "Expand/Contract All", which is in the wrong place and displays too much "noise" which is OK as a button (which is exactly the current "Print All" ) should be added and labeled "press for cleaner list" would produce a page of the information without the noise.

And if you click on "Print All" (also in the wrong place) you generate exactly what I am suggesting is needed (Less "noise" in the form of the station names which are in BOLD and should be removed.) This is a third page.

(In the future a transmitter may be owned jointly by the content providers just like Sutro is owned by several TV stations now.)

I can for see two stations on one Transmitter providing 16:9 content like their main streams and their additionally streams in SD on another transmitter.

So, the job is really done and is ready for general use if there are no problems with other markets. (Add "Sort by RF Channel Numbers" next to "Expand/Contract All" / "Print All" for to access the second sort page from the normal PSID sort page.)

SHF

Dave Loudin

08-24-11, 09:32 AM

Trip in VA

08-24-11, 10:42 AM

SHF,
I think you are suggesting a fundamental change to how rabbitears works. Lists like Larry's are static - the information conveyed is fixed. Trip's site is built, rather, on the premise of discovering more information as you drill down. The "noise" you note when "expand all" is selected are links to further technical details. This construct is tremndously powerful in helping users find any technical detail they might think of with regards to facilities.

Using PSID as a key violates this construct and would lead to confusion.

If I'm under standing SHF's argument, and I'm not 100% sure that I am, I think this is correct. RabbitEars is, in a lot of ways, structured in a way that's supposed to make it useful to everybody but especially useful for engineering types.

The "print all" feature gives you what you want. Enjoy.

I always forget about the Print All link because I never use it, but you're right. I completely forgot that it is sorted by subchannel rather than by display channel number bound to the facility ID.

But you have already done it all!

I am NOT suggesting that you change those pages! Well, perhaps put the Physical Channel as the first column. My mind keeps getting messed up as I am used to Larry's RF channel page.

And most of my readers do not want the RF channel first. Most TV sets do not use the RF channel for their on-screen display.

When you click on "Expand/Contract All", which is in the wrong place and displays too much "noise" which is OK as a button (which is exactly the current "Print All" ) should be added and labeled "press for cleaner list" would produce a page of the information without the noise.

And if you click on "Print All" (also in the wrong place) you generate exactly what I am suggesting is needed (Less "noise" in the form of the station names which are in BOLD and should be removed.) This is a third page.

I'm not sure what you mean by "in the wrong place" on these features. I'm also not sure what you mean by "too much noise" since it actually only expands out the subchannel information and not any of the transmitter details, something I actually wish it did but I've been completely unsuccessful in making it do, given my previously mentioned complete lack of knowledge or understanding of JavaScript.

Are you saying that you want the Print All page to display nothing but subchannels? That would make questions like the very one you forwarded here significantly harder for people to understand.

(In the future a transmitter may be owned jointly by the content providers just like Sutro is owned by several TV stations now.)

I can for see two stations on one Transmitter providing 16:9 content like their main streams and their additionally streams in SD on another transmitter.

And should that become the norm rather than a rare occurrence as it is now, then I will come up with a way to deal with it.

So, the job is really done and is ready for general use if there are no problems with other markets. (Add "Sort by RF Channel Numbers" next to "Expand/Contract All" / "Print All" for to access the second sort page from the normal PSID sort page.)

SHF

As I said, I don't know anything about JavaScript, so "just adding a button" is a lot harder than you think that it is. I did want to add a way to sort by physical channel number, thus why the feature exists as I linked, I just have no clue how to make it work the way it would need to in order to put it on that page in the way that you want it.

- Trip

SFischer1

08-24-11, 08:07 PM

SHF,
I think you are suggesting a fundamental change to how rabbitears works. Lists like Larry's are static - the information conveyed is fixed. Trip's site is built, rather, on the premise of discovering more information as you drill down. The "noise" you note when "expand all" is selected are links to further technical details. This construct is tremndously powerful in helping users find any technical detail they might think of with regards to facilities.

Using PSID as a key violates this construct and would lead to confusion. The "print all" feature gives you what you want. Enjoy.

Hi,

Static pages of information are useful for understanding some things, and discarding information also helps in some cases. Trip is already generating the needed static pages, they are called "Print" pages.

> the premise of discovering more information as you drill down.

That is just fine and is a good plan for most of Trip's pages.

It just is when "Expand/Contract All" is clicked on the user is starting to ask different questions and the data needs to be filtered to allow a quicker understanding.

I am working on a visual sample that does not have the overwhelming amount of noise. I would have done it by now but other things needed my attention. (And I lost most of the text for that post and I must start over (Darn old Software running on OS's it was not tested on.)

> The "print all" feature gives you what you want.

YES, that is just what is needed and I will be pointing this out in some responses.

But the most useful "Print" page is currently not available as the RF channel sort "Print" page is not available because the RF sort page is not.

The RF sort page IMHO should be available by clicking on a button placed on the Main "Digital TV Market Listings" page, perhaps right next to "Expand/Contract All" and display only for the selected market.

Note! For the Rabbitears pages, buttons are underlined text strings that do things.

> Using PSID as a key violates this construct and would lead to confusion.

Good grief Charlie Brown, most OTA television viewers are most familiar with PSID as that is all that the vast majority ever sees. It's from those persons that the concept of RF channels not being understood results in most questions.

I think that you are responding to an error in my original post(s), I was thinking RF and typed PSID. Sorry.

The Main "Digital TV Market Listings" page expanded is in PSID order.

SHF

SFischer1

08-24-11, 09:26 PM

Hi,

Here is the essence of how the "Expand" should look IMHO.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=220900&stc=1&d=1314239059

The display is a mix of two types of entries, each with their own column headings.

Which column heading apply to a line in the data is determined by the line background color which is matched in the corresponding column heading background color at the top.

YES, K14MW-D in pink is a problem, but the absence of any yellow lines for it indicates that it is not on the air and can be safely ignored.

The box lines in the two different column heading descriptions at the top disappeared because of the way I prepared the sample. They should return.

Please understand that this is just a mockup, the actual display would look better and require some more color changes. Perhaps that is good to bring to the viewers attention that the page is different from the other site pages.

An option to restore the click able "Technical Data and Screencaps" and "Historical, Ownership, Transition, and Translator Data" is a possibility.

The current format draws my eyes to the repeated column heading descriptions way too much and are a major distraction!

SHF

Trip in VA

08-24-11, 10:17 PM

The secondary column heading either has to be in with the individual listings, or gone completely. Some stations have an "Hours" column that I hide if the station does not use it to save space. See a station like W47EE-D, which I have attached.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=220901&stc=1&d=1314241315

As you can see in the image, I have some management tools built into that secondary column header as well. I'd have to find new homes for those controls.

As for hiding the Technical Data and Historical Data lines, I'm not sure how much that really helps matters. If anything, in my mind, it makes them harder to find and might mislead people into thinking there is less data available. You might be surprised how many people actually do want to know what a station's power or coverage area or bitrate is. I see those items cited about as often on message boards and web pages as I do the subchannel listings themselves, and I'm not sure hiding that information really helps that much.

All of that said, of late I've been working on a project which might help to alleviate your concerns, or you might feel that it goes too far. I'm not prepared to do a public release yet and may not be able to for some time, but if you're interested in having a very early look, send me a PM and I'll give you a link.

I'm genuinely curious about the opinions of others; do others feel as SHF does that the main listings need work in this fashion?

- Trip

gbynum

08-25-11, 09:40 AM

Zeroth <g>, THANKS TRIP for what you have done

First, I've not tried this on rabbitears.

Spreadsheets are wonderful tools. I use Excel, and ASSUME it works in openoffice CALC.

Mark the unsorted or missorted data
paste special text into a spreadsheet
sort as you wish

common thing for me to do with all sorts of stuff the provider makes available but not as I want it ... can be made to work about 90% of the time.

George

SFischer1

08-25-11, 12:25 PM

The secondary column heading either has to be in with the individual listings, or gone completely. Some stations have an "Hours" column that I hide if the station does not use it to save space. See a station like W47EE-D, which I have attached.

...

As you can see in the image, I have some management tools built into that secondary column header as well. I'd have to find new homes for those controls.

As for hiding the Technical Data and Historical Data lines, I'm not sure how much that really helps matters. If anything, in my mind, it makes them harder to find and might mislead people into thinking there is less data available. You might be surprised how many people actually do want to know what a station's power or coverage area or bitrate is. I see those items cited about as often on message boards and web pages as I do the subchannel listings themselves, and I'm not sure hiding that information really helps that much.

All of that said, of late I've been working on a project which might help to alleviate your concerns, or you might feel that it goes too far. I'm not prepared to do a public release yet and may not be able to for some time, but if you're interested in having a very early look, send me a PM and I'll give you a link.

I'm genuinely curious about the opinions of others; do others feel as SHF does that the main listings need work in this fashion?

- Trip

Hi,

Please understand that I am thinking about the reaction of a viewer that see these pages for the very first time, I was in that set as it has been many blue moons since my last visit due to Larry's great work for my local market.

The UseNet discussion was a set of bad information, links to untrustworthy sites and ended only when I gave a link to Rabbitears saying that what I really wanted to link to was not available. (RF Sort)

-----------------------------------

> The secondary column heading either has to be in with the individual listings, or gone completely.

Clicking on an individual station is and should be a path to more information about that single station. (Drill down was the term used.) A individual station where "Technical Data and Screencaps" and "Historical, Ownership, Transition, and Translator Data" would be of interest.

It is when the users switch to expanded that it's like a bucket of mud has been thrown at the screen.

At that point the interest has shifted to the entire set of stations, and I am looking for removing the mud, if "secondary column heading gone completely" is an option, I would like to see a mockup of that to further refine my comments.

> Some stations have an "Hours" column that I hide if the station does not use it to save space. See a station like W47EE-D, which I have attached.

Changing (11p-09p) (09p-11p) to (11PM-09PM) (09PM-11PM) would make eliminating the "secondary column heading" less of a problem.

> As you can see in the image, I have some management tools built into that secondary column header as well. I'd have to find new homes for those controls.

It has been my thinking that they are in the wrong place right from the start.

Once a market is chosen then the displays should be limited to that market with a method to return to that page. New windows are created at times, that possibility should be in the mix. That may simplify the moving of controls to new homes.

The "secondary column heading" description I have seen most often as a static information pane outside of the data array, I moved it to one occurrence in my mockup but totally outside of the data array at all times is a better and simpler solution.

" As for hiding the Technical Data and Historical Data lines, I'm not sure how much that really helps matters. If anything, in my mind, it makes them harder to find and might mislead people into thinking there is less data available. You might be surprised how many people actually do want to know what a station's power or coverage area or bitrate is. I see those items cited about as often on message boards and web pages as I do the subchannel listings themselves, and I'm not sure hiding that information really helps that much."

The Dummy's guide to Rabitears book would need to be updated to address the presenting of more data as the site is "drilled down into" and the market pages are the pages I would link to most often I suspect.

-----------------------------

New first time viewer:

1) open http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php

Very good first page, well presented, the user now understands that the data is organized by "Digital TV Markets" and their market can be found by selecting their major city or a station in their market.

Some will be taken off into the wilderness by clicking on the number in the "Rank" column, I will ignore this and the duplicate numbers with "()".

2A) If they use the "Call Sign" option they are taken to their market and that station. Having the "secondary column heading" description displayed is just fine. Still a very good page, well presented but the first time viewer may have problems understanding how to get to "2B) and why they would want to.

2B) If they click on their major city they are taken to their market. Still a very good page, well presented, and they can see all the stations in their market.

3) They click on "Expand/Contract All". Very bad news!!! What do their eyes see but a huge amount of noise overpowering the data!

My mockup would be much more useful in that the sub-channels for their market are all displayed and they can begin to understand what really is going on.

An alternative is to re-label the "Print" button (Which does not print the page on a real printer like most other web pages I see do.) to indicate that is a page with the noise filtered out.

That is a much better page to display to the viewer when they click on "Expand/Contract All".

A button could then lead to the very noisy page that is currently display saying "Press for detailed information about the entire set of stations in their market".

I have to do other things right now and wish to wait a bit for other ideas to be posted.

SHF

Trip in VA

08-25-11, 01:29 PM

Clicking on an individual station is and should be a path to more information about that single station. (Drill down was the term used.) A individual station where "Technical Data and Screencaps" and "Historical, Ownership, Transition, and Translator Data" would be of interest.

It is when the users switch to expanded that it's like a bucket of mud has been thrown at the screen.

At that point the interest has shifted to the entire set of stations, and I am looking for removing the mud, if "secondary column heading gone completely" is an option, I would like to see a mockup of that to further refine my comments.

Unless someone is expanding all of them to compare coverage areas and/or bitrates, in which case they will have to Contract All, then click each entry and then click each "Technical Data" link, instead of now where you can Expand All once and then click to expand the Technical Data you want. So those users now have to click twice instead of once to get to the information/link they actually want. It makes things harder in that use case, one which I use a lot personally and which I know others use as well.

Plus, you're asking for one link to go to two different things depending on context. Bear in mind that once a market is loaded up, it is loaded in full; all that clicking the call sign or Expand All link(s) do(es) is to "unhide" things that are hidden by default once the market in question is loaded up.

Changing (11p-09p) (09p-11p) to (11PM-09PM) (09PM-11PM) would make eliminating the "secondary column heading" less of a problem.

Easy to say for the person who wouldn't have to hand-edit each entry which has hours in it. (Hours is not only a primary key in the database, it's a VARCHAR string; it's not like the bitrate numbers in the technical data that are just FLOAT numbers and "Mbps" is added in PHP.) Plus it chews up more horizontal space, which is why I chose the lower-case single-letter format in the first place.

I mean, I could do it, it just wouldn't be fun. :)

It has been my thinking that they are in the wrong place right from the start.

Once a market is chosen then the displays should be limited to that market with a method to return to that page. New windows are created at times, that possibility should be in the mix. That may simplify the moving of controls to new homes.

I completely don't understand what you're saying here. Please try to clarify when time permits, as I would like to understand what you're saying.

The "secondary column heading" description I have seen most often as a static information pane outside of the data array, I moved it to one occurrence in my mockup but totally outside of the data array at all times is a better and simpler solution.

I've actually thought about moving it in the past but I can never get it to look right. I allow my columns to be fluid in terms of width in order to allow for maximization of the use of available space, so moving the secondary column heading to the top would mean the columns in the heading often would not align with the columns in one or more of the individual station listings and would (in my opinion) look sloppy and disorganized.

The Dummy's guide to Rabitears book would need to be updated to address the presenting of more data as the site is "drilled down into" and the market pages are the pages I would link to most often I suspect.

There is no book. I feel the moment a website needs a book to be operated, it has failed. (Parts of RabbitEars that are not the market listings already fail on that account. Just last night I finally added a key to the coverage contour/Longley-Rice map pages, and I still don't have a full set of controls on that page.)

An alternative is to re-label the "Print" button (Which does not print the page on a real printer like most other web pages I see do.) to indicate that is a page with the noise filtered out.

That is a much better page to display to the viewer when they click on "Expand/Contract All".

There's nothing I hate more than clicking a "Printer-friendly" button on a web page for it to do nothing more than have my print dialog come up. If I wanted a print dialog, I'd have clicked the Print button in my browser. I click a "Printer-friendly" button hoping to see a less busy version of a page that I can then choose to print myself once I'm sure it won't waste paper and ink/toner printing in a manner that is unhelpful to me.

In my mind, it operates exactly the way a button labeled "Print" on a webpage should operate. It even gives you a nice "true" Print button front-row center in case you can't find your browser's Print button. Maybe I should relabel the button as "Send to Printer." Hm.

I have to do other things right now and wish to wait a bit for other ideas to be posted.

SHF

Fair enough.

And lest I appear unappreciative, I appreciate and am glad to hear your suggestions for improvement. I often take suggestions or modify them in some way and then implement them, but it's certainly not an always thing. I do, however, always take them under consideration and put thought into them, as I'm doing with your suggestions.

One thing to keep in mind is that I feel you're looking at it from the "new to OTA" perspective, or something similar. (I cannot find the exact phrase I'm looking for.) A significant number of my users are engineers or people with interest in the engineering side of things, including people within the FCC and at television stations and engineering firms. I don't want to make things significantly harder on that group in order to make things slightly simpler for people who are sort of "passing by" as it were. What I sent in the PM is designed to deal with the "new to OTA" (or whatever it is I mean to call it) group.

I would also like to hear the opinions of others on this matter. :)

- Trip

SFischer1

08-25-11, 05:05 PM

Hi,

I think that we are having a fail to communicate problem.

Let's let it rest for a while.

If I see an need to direct someone to your site to help them learn about PSID vs. RF channels in their market, I will be directing them directly to the "Printer Friendly" page.

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_market&mktid=6

And then suggest that if that does not enable their understanding, that they go to:

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php and select their market being warned that they will now be in the deep end of the pool.

If and when the RF sort "Printer Friendly" pages become available for general use I will switch to those if better to help the OP understand the answer.

In the meantime, I think that I can generate a link to the RF sort "Printer Friendly" pages for most any market and may do so. (Testing first to make sure I did it right, you may change things as the needs have been few and far between. When 32+ goes away, the need will become much greater as it will be a madhouse making we who understand rotate our heads several times before they come off.)

I have worked with many great programmers over the last 40 years and they IMHO would react just like I have. You are so good that at some point you will start to react in the same way.

SHF

P.S. (Page generated in 1314309722.06 seconds. ) It sure did not take that long. :D

Larry Kenney

08-28-11, 07:50 AM

I just returned from a three week tour of the British Isles - England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. 95% of the TV antennas seen there were small UHF yagis with flat reflector screens. There was very little variation all over the four countries. Most homes had either an OTA antenna or satellite dish or both. In one small area of Ireland I noticed five element VHF yagis that were vertically mounted. At first I thought they were two meter ham antennas, but there were too many of them, so they had to be TV.

All of our hotels, except one, had wide screen TVs, and many of the channels were in HD. I don't know what format they use, but it looks good.

One final comment... thanks to SFischer for the nice compliments on my DTV Channel lists. They are made simple for use by the average viewer. Trip's listings have got mine beat 100 fold.

Larry
SF

mrvideo

08-28-11, 10:14 AM

I just returned from a three week tour of the British Isles - England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. 95% of the TV antennas seen there were small UHF yagis with flat reflector screens. There was very little variation all over the four countries. Most homes had either an OTA antenna or satellite dish or both. In one small area of Ireland I noticed five element VHF yagis that were vertically mounted. At first I thought they were two meter ham antennas, but there were too many of them, so they had to be TV.

The vertical antennas that you saw were for the old VHF 405 line broadcasts, which have ceased. The UHF are smaller as the UHF broadcasts are in channel groups in the various areas, allowing for the viewers to purchase antennas cut for their local area channel group.

All of our hotels, except one, had wide screen TVs, and many of the channels were in HD. I don't know what format they use, but it looks good.

1080i25 for the HD. The SD video is anamorphic widescreen 576i.

The U.K. has been widescreen for years.

Larry Kenney

08-30-11, 11:57 PM

The vertical antennas that you saw were for the old VHF 405 line broadcasts, which have ceased. The UHF are smaller as the UHF broadcasts are in channel groups in the various areas, allowing for the viewers to purchase antennas cut for their local area channel group.

1080i25 for the HD. The SD video is anamorphic widescreen 576i.

The U.K. has been widescreen for years.

Thanks very much for the info, Mr. Video.

Larry
SF

mrvideo

08-31-11, 12:56 AM

Thanks very much for the info, Mr. Video.

You are welcome. I was there (east coast of Scotland) from Aug '71 through Nov '73, when 405 line was still widely used.

There was one time that I put a rabbit ear antenna above the ceiling and ran RG-58 or 59 (I forget which), downstairs to the RF room and patched it up to the repair room. We then set up three oscilloscopes and two receivers. Why? So we could watch an episode of Columbo. And yes, you can turn oscilloscopes into the necessary V & H sweeps and the 3rd getting the outputs from the other two and the video for the Z.

What sucked was that we got interrupted for a problem out on the floor.

Your military tax $$$ at work :D

mrvideo

08-31-11, 01:25 AM

but MPEG 4 takes MORE b/w than MPEG 2....and it wont fit in a 6MHz channel....so it aint gonna fly until pigs do...

That is 100% false. MPEG-4, aka H.264, does not require more bandwidth than MPEG-2. You can actually fit two H.264 video streams into the same bandwidth as MPEG-2.

H,.264 is twice as efficient as MPEG-2. One could fit two H.264 HD program streams into the same 6 MHz ATSC channel that is currently being used for one MPEG-2 HD stream.

milt9

08-31-11, 02:47 PM

back in 1949 i used a radar receiver and an oscilloscope to watch a baseball game on tv in SF.
mitYou are welcome. I was there (east coast of Scotland) from Aug '71 through Nov '73, when 405 line was still widely used.

There was one time that I put a rabbit ear antenna above the ceiling and ran RG-58 or 59 (I forget which), downstairs to the RF room and patched it up to the repair room. We then set up three oscilloscopes and two receivers. Why? So we could watch an episode of Columbo. And yes, you can turn oscilloscopes into the necessary V & H sweeps and the 3rd getting the outputs from the other two and the video for the Z.

What sucked was that we got interrupted for a problem out on the floor.

Your military tax $$$ at work :D

sebenste

09-01-11, 08:43 AM

....in Canada. :)

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/info_sht/bdt14.htm

dattier

09-01-11, 09:49 AM

It occurred in parts of Canada. It didn't reach the territories nor Labrador, nor the less populated areas; and if one goes takes literally the listing at the page whose link Sebenste gave, it didn't reach the Saskatchewan side of Lloydminster, but I don't believe that.

SFischer1

09-01-11, 11:14 AM

....in Canada. :)

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/info_sht/bdt14.htm

Hi,

I found these words in that page:

Why has Canada switched to digital television?

One of the main reasons for switching to digital television is the need for more spectrum, commonly referred to as frequencies or airwaves. Spectrum is used for wireless telephone services, emergency communications, etc.

Digital signals use less airwave space than analog signals. This means that the freed-up space can be used for other services that have a high demand for more space. Digital technology also provides better picture and sound.

So, TV channels will be disappearing from Canada also. :(

SHF

foxeng

09-01-11, 11:53 AM

What ever we do, they do.

OTAhead

09-02-11, 05:24 AM

What ever we do, they do.

So, in Mexico, are they saying... Spectrum? Spectrum?? We don't need no stinking spectrum! ;)

foxeng

09-02-11, 07:04 AM

So, in Mexico, are they saying... Spectrum? Spectrum?? We don't need no stinking spectrum! ;)

Mexico dances to a different drummer.

Trip in VA

09-02-11, 12:23 PM

KPBI in the Fayetteville AR market is being bought by KFSM, the local CBS station. KFTA, the FOX station in that market, is another Nexstar station that will be losing FOX in the future, so I'm speculating that FOX will wind up on KPBI. However, KPBI only covers the northern half of the market. I came up with a possible transmitter configuration for them. The idea I had is a DTS with four transmitters, all on channel 34.

NOTE: This is speculation on something they COULD do, not an actual application. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest this will actually happen.

Here's the map I came up with: http://www.rabbitears.info/contour.php?appid=324&contour=Y&map=Y

Please note that the blue contour lines are required to stay inside the green line with only a "de minimis" amount allowed outside that green line.

Site 1: The current transmitter site would be upgraded to 1000 kW, but with a slightly directional antenna to shave off a bit of the power to the north. (Antenna pattern borrowed from WFDC.)

Site 2: The tower that analog 5 was on. This tower would operate at 60 kW and use mechanical beam tilt to aim the bulk of the power down toward Fort Smith while limiting radiation toward the horizon to 500 watts or so. (Antenna pattern borrowed from KQEH.)

Site 3: A tower owned by New Live Evangelistic Center right on a line between Harrison and Fordland, for obvious reasons. 5 kW. (Antenna pattern borrowed from K23DU.)

Site 4: The KBNS-CD tower, using a highly directional antenna to hit just Branson. (Antenna pattern borrowed from WKOB-LD.)

There's no telling if they would actually build out such a thing, but I rather like the idea. Any opinions?

- Trip

Falcon_77

09-03-11, 11:10 AM

The vertical antennas that you saw were for the old VHF 405 line broadcasts, which have ceased.

Ireland still uses Band III VHF in some areas for analog. It isn't clear to me yet if all DTV broadcasts there will be UHF, but it seems likely.

I'm guessing that the antennas Larry saw were Band III, but some old Band I antennas could be around as well, but there is a great resource that might help identify them:

Wright's Aerial Photography:
http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/aerialphotography/index.shtml

Band III stack:
http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/aerialphotography/aerialingus/005.shtml

Or if they were bigger, some might be in the Ancient gallery:
http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/aerialphotography/ancient/

Back when I was in Ireland in 1998, I remember some of the old "X" Band I aerials, which I believe were for 405 line. I don't recall the big "H" Band I aerials in Ireland, however.

Falcon_77

09-08-11, 11:26 AM

DTV TABLE OF ALLOTMENTS, 47 C.F.R. SECTION 73.622(I), FOND DU LAC, WISCONSIN.

Denied the petition for reconsideration of report and order changing DTV channel for station WWAZ-DT from 44 to 5. (Dkt No. RM-11543 09-115 ). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 09/06/2011 by MO&O. (DA No. 11-1502).

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0908/DA-11-1502A1.pdf

Edit: Ok, this is confusing, but appears to deny the petition (by WDJT) to deny WWAZ from moving to 5.

Finally, we continue to believe that the public interest is served by substituting channel 5 for channel 44 at Fond du Lac because it permitted WLS-TV, an ABC network affiliate in Chicago, Illinois, to move from its post-transition channel 7 to channel 44. As stated in the Report and Order, the station and the Commission had received thousands of calls from individuals who were unable to receive station WLSTV’s signal after the transition when WLS-TV began digital-only operations on channel 7, and the substitution of channel 44 at Chicago resulted in the restoration of ABC network service to numerous viewers. While WDJT argues otherwise, this restoration of network service in Chicago on channel 44 does not result in the “disenfranchising [of[ nearly two hundred thousand rural Wisconsin viewers,” since effectively 100% of the loss area will receive service from WWAZ’s authorized replacement translator stations.

Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED, That the Petition for Reconsideration of the August 12, 2009, Report and Order, amending the DTV Table of Allotments, Section 73.622(i) of the Commission’s rules, to change station WWAZ-TV’s channel from 44 to 5 at Fond du Lac, filed by WDJT-TV Limited Partnership, IS DENIED.

Trip in VA

09-08-11, 11:46 AM

Yes, that's what it is. It just reaffirms that WWAZ can move to 5.

WDJT runs Milwaukee's Telemundo affiliate, thus their interest in keeping WWAZ out.

- Trip

Trip in VA

09-12-11, 01:02 AM

dr1394

09-12-11, 07:43 AM

I did some digging into one of the nuances of the ATSC rules. Thoughts and opinions are appreciated. http://www.rabbitears.info/blog/index.php?post/2011/09/12/Thoughts-on-the-ATSC-Standard-and-Program_Numbers

- Trip
The entire ATSC PID scheme is silly.

"In order to avoid collisions with fixed PID values and ranges already established in this and other international standards, PID values used to identify Transport Stream packets carrying TS_program_map_section() or program elements shall not be set below 0x0030."

Where exactly do these "collisions" occur?

Ron

Larry Kenney

09-12-11, 03:13 PM

BCF68

09-12-11, 05:43 PM

A story in today's edition of "TV Technology" says that President Obama’s proposed jobs bill assumes that incentive TV spectrum auctions will bring around $28 billion in proceeds. The American Jobs Act, delivered to Congress last week, includes support for the Administration’s Nationwide Broadband Plan.

Read the article for all the details about the proposed auctions and the congressional bills involving the auctioning off of spectrum.

http://tvtechnology.com/article/124414

Larry
SF

National Broadband Plan? You mean the plan where spectrum gets stolen from OTA TV so that at&t and Verizon can provide rural people with "broadband" for $80 a month for a measly 10 GB with $10 per GB overage fees? That plan?

The Rockefeller-Hutchison legislation, S.911, provides that no full-power TV licensee would be forced to give up spectrum for an incentive auction, but that those who do would receive a portion of the proceeds

And if NO ONE "volunteers" how does the government expect to get spectrum?

dhett

09-12-11, 10:47 PM

My guess is that the definition of "give up" is key. If a full-power station in the sought-after UHF spectrum is forced to move to another channel in, say, the VHF band, they weren't forced to "give up" spectrum. They started with 6 MHz and ended up with 6 MHz; they "gave up" nothing.

That's the kind of semantic games the gov't loves to play.

BCF68

09-12-11, 11:12 PM

coyoteaz

09-13-11, 02:49 AM

I did some digging into one of the nuances of the ATSC rules. Thoughts and opinions are appreciated. http://www.rabbitears.info/blog/index.php?post/2011/09/12/Thoughts-on-the-ATSC-Standard-and-Program_Numbers

- Trip
Program 1 is used by many stations. Modern gear has user-definable PIDs, but some of the really early stuff (Flexicoder? DCII?) based the PIDs off of the program number, so when the 0x30+ requirement took effect, the easy solution was to just start using program 3 and above only. While few major stations are left using old junk like that, many have carried over the program 3+ into the modern day because to change it would break things for a lot of viewers, at least until they rescanned. Breaking things for viewers for no reason is a good way to piss off the bosses, so I doubt many engineers are going to be rearranging things any time soon. The only viewer experience with the program number is if the PSIP generator takes a crap (which you probably want to know about anyway), so I don't really see a problem with the current system.

ProTuber

09-13-11, 06:43 AM

... many have carried over the program 3+ into the modern day because to change it would break things for a lot of viewers, at least until they rescanned. Breaking things for viewers for no reason is a good way to piss off the bosses, so I doubt many engineers are going to be rearranging things any time soon.Most early equipment defaulted to using the so-called program paradigm where PID values are tied to program numbers. Our orginal configuration (in 2003) started with 0x20 and program 2 because 0x10 was already not allowed. When the requirement to use 0x30 and above took effect and because the rules didn't disallow it I changed our encoding and PSIP to start with 0x30 and program number 1. What we got were phone calls from folks using older STBs that refused to tune to this scheme including one or two we had at the station (even after re-scanning).
While most newer equipment defaults to program 1 and PID 0x30 and most older ATSC STBs coupled with monitors without built-in tuners are probably retired by now, unless you're making other changes that would force users to re-scan I don't see any compelling reason to change just so the first program is called number 1 (which is hidden from the viewer and mapped to the .1 service anyway).

Trip in VA

09-27-11, 03:51 PM

If you've ever wondered what the original WTVE 8-site DTS looked like before it was pared down to the 2 sites it has today, I figured it out and generated maps.

Contours: http://www.rabbitears.info/contour.php?appid=329&contour=Y&size=&map=N

Longley-Rice: http://www.rabbitears.info/contour.php?appid=329&contour=N&size=&map=Y

Both: http://www.rabbitears.info/contour.php?appid=329&contour=Y&size=&map=Y

- Trip

Tower Guy

09-29-11, 03:14 PM

If you've ever wondered what the original WTVE 8-site DTS looked like?

The sale of WTVE was announced today.

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/2011/09/28/54342/nrj-tv-picks-up-philly-station-for-304m

Trip in VA

09-29-11, 03:24 PM

Yep, bought up by a spectrum speculator.

- Trip

Dave Loudin

09-30-11, 10:06 AM

Trip in VA

09-30-11, 10:15 AM

Did all 8 make air? Will the CP to replace the DTS with one site at North Fancy get built? I can't imagine putting 8 sites on the air, shuttering 6 of them, then dropping the rest, especially the Roxborough site, for yet another installation.

I know the Bethlehem site is not on the air because I have driven right past it several times and if it was there, the spectrum analyzer would have showed it. I should think the 8 made it on the air since they did testing with it but I wonder if someone else paid for the extended network while WTVE just paid for the two it's kept.

I'm not sure why they filed the 900 kW permit, it is the signal on which the DTS is based though. I don't see them dropping the DTS when it gives them a very nice signal from Roxborough.

- Trip

Dave Loudin

09-30-11, 12:12 PM

They had to go through a lot to get the nice signal at Rox - a complex panel antenna that has different beam tilts plus having to put a temporary antenna up for another station while their antenna was being installed.

Trip in VA

10-07-11, 03:00 PM

And so it begins for the Canadians. CKSH-9 in Sherbrooke, QC has applied to boost power from 4.47 kW DA to 36.3 kW DA.

- Trip

BCF68

10-08-11, 09:19 AM

And so it begins for the Canadians. CKSH-9 in Sherbrooke, QC has applied to boost power from 4.47 kW DA to 36.3 kW DA.

- Trip

You think that since they had 2 years to see the USA mistakes in this they woud have learned something.

Falcon_77

10-11-11, 11:17 AM

AMENDMENT OF SECTION 73.622(I), POST-TRANSITION TABLE OF DTV ALLOTMENTS, TELEVISION BROADCAST STATIONS (CLEVELAND, OHIO).

Substitution of channel 31 for channel 8 at Cleveland, Ohio for WJW(TV). (Dkt No. RM-11644 11-159 ). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 10/07/2011 by NPRM. (DA No. 11-1690).

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db1011/DA-11-1690A1.pdf

Inundated

10-11-11, 07:22 PM

I feel like a large weight has been lifted...off my OTA viewing problems list. :D

Inundated

10-11-11, 07:24 PM

Trip, Falcon, anyone...is there a way to look up what WJW-DT was running power-wise pre-transition? I can't find it in the FCC database, but I THINK it was a bit more than the 600 kW specified in that NPRM.

Trip in VA

10-11-11, 09:22 PM

625 kW. Should make no difference at all. (I suspect the slight drop in power was to ease the whole Canadian coordination concern.)

- Trip

Inundated

10-12-11, 02:47 PM

625 kW. Should make no difference at all. (I suspect the slight drop in power was to ease the whole Canadian coordination concern.)

Good.

Of course, WJW is coming in like gangbusters today on 8, but I suspect it's atmosphere-related and will probably go away. 31 will solve all those problems for me. The pre-transition 31 facility was one of my strongest signals.

BCF68

10-12-11, 03:33 PM

Good.

Of course, WJW is coming in like gangbusters today on 8, but I suspect it's atmosphere-related and will probably go away. 31 will solve all those problems for me. The pre-transition 31 facility was one of my strongest signals.

Could be but I doubt it. Hi-VHF is less susceptible to tropo.

sebenste

10-12-11, 11:46 PM

Could be but I doubt it. Hi-VHF is less susceptible to tropo.

Not true. I can get a station from Alpena, MI from 60 miles west of Chicago on channel 9 with a VHF antenna pointed 90 degrees off several times each spring, summer and fall. And I get "full" power, yet lower power HI-VHF stations from Grand Rapids, MI, too.

dave73

10-13-11, 12:33 AM

For me, I've gotten WMVS Milwaukee on RF 8 in Gary, IN on occasion. I never got them when they were on RF 10 analog, but have gotten them in digital though. VHF is actually more suseptible to tropo than UHF. Why do you think stations on the VHF have been known to be picked up hundreds of miles during warmer weather (especially on VHF-Lo)? I knew someone who used to get WTWO Terre Haute on RF 2 in the analog days over WBBM-TV (also on RF 2 in the analog days).

Inundated

10-13-11, 09:01 AM

Digital TV is more subject to weather conditions...I wasn't talking about trop, unless somehow WJW was getting affected by something else on 8 (WLIO?).

I'm talking about rain vs. clear skies, clouds, etc. The solid stations generally don't go away due to that, but marginal ones might (or might come in better temporarily). It's not trop, it's garden variety weather.

Calaveras

10-13-11, 11:19 AM

I've been doing this radio and TV stuff for over 40 years and I've heard a lot of myths and misinformation over the years.

The most popular myth these days is that rain attenuates VHF/UHF signals. It does not. This myth seems to have come about because of the well known rain fade affect on satellite TV signals. Rain fade occurs when the size of the raindrops becomes a significant percentage of a 1/4 wavelength of the frequency. This starts to occur more frequently around 10 GHz. Raindrops cannot reach the size of a 1/4 wave on UHF.

Anyone who has signals that disappear when it rains is just unaware that they're relying on some amount of atmospheric bending of the signals to receive them in the first place.

Temperature inversions are what bends the signals. It doesn't take a very strong inversion to have some affect. Just the normal day/night cycle is enough to bring in a station that needs a little help. Solar heating tends to break up the inversions in the daytime, especially in the afternoon, which is why so many people complain about poor reception in the afternoon. Around sunset inversions reform as the atmosphere stabilizes and many report better reception.

Each situation is different though and the exact location of the transmitter, your location, the elevations at each end, and what's in between make a lot of difference. These factors can account for nearly all of the vast array of experiences that people have with reception.

I can receive stations from more than 10 different transmitter sites so there isn't much I haven't experienced here. Compared to most people's experiences with DTV reception, I have the opposite experience with my local stations. My local antenna farm is Walnut Grove which is 54 miles away over a 2 edge path. Those antennas are about 2000' above sea level. My antennas are 2650' above sea level. Not many people live at a higher altitude than the transmitters. My best reception is in the afternoon with no inversions and can be quite poor on some nights depending on the height of the inversions.

A typical evening cycle here is good reception in the late afternoon, then a decrease in the signals around and after sunset, and then a return to normal later in the evening. I believe what is happening here is that an inversion forms below me but above the transmit antennas causing the signals to be bent down thus decreasing my signal strength. Later on the inversion lowers below the transmit antennas, there is no bending, and the signals return to daytime levels.

As to the affect of inversions on VHF versus UHF, from what I've read and what I've experienced would indicate that UHF is affected more, and I understand microwaves are affected even more. This is not to say that high VHF is unaffected. I've seen 30 db increases on high VHF on some paths but 40 dB increases on UHF on the same path. I've seen some pretty dramatic increases even on channel 2.

The issue of tropospheric ducting and the affects of temperature inversions is a little more confusing since people mean different things when they talk about this. Often tropospheric ducting is used to describe the more typical extended bending of a signal that allows it to be received a couple hundred miles away. Other times it means an actual duct in the atmosphere where a signal is trapped between 2 layers in the atmosphere and can be propagated for thousands of miles like the one that occurs between the west coast and Hawaii in the summer. Stations at each end of the duct have to be at the right altitude to get signals in and out of the duct. I suspect that most of what we experience with DTV is just signal bending to extend the range and not true ducting.

Yesterday morning I experienced an unusual path to the south. I received strong signals from KEYT and KPMR from Broadcast Peak north of Santa Barbara which is 257 miles from here and my most distant DTV reception. KEYT had to override KEXT-CA analog on 27 and KPMR had to override KMAX on 21 which is a local 1 MW station.

Chuck

WA5IYX

10-13-11, 07:30 PM

Tropospheric refractive indices are higher for UHF than VHF (and so are the free-space and real-world signal losses). At the longer wavelengths of VHF true ducting becomes a rare event - I can count on my fingers the number of times that I got it on low-VHF from Florida vs scores of events on UHF NTSC. See http://www.qsl.net/wa5iyx/WESH-2.htm and http://www.qsl.net/wa5iyx/UHFTVDX.htm as an example. I used to think that our trans-Gulf ducting went away in the daytime due to each end burning off over land, but now it appears that it's more likely that it just elevates during the day.

BTW, the first 1000-mi + DTV tropo logging seems to have been made this past May with a Melbourne, FL Ch 43 into Massachusetts. My best DTV tropo is still 995-mi Tampa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsOTvYVXY-M

Calaveras

10-14-11, 10:30 AM

I've heard about the over the gulf duct. I think there's a similar one that forms over southern Australia. I'm sure you'll never hear of 1000 mile ducts on the west coast. Terrain gets in the way.

Chuck

itsthemultipath!

10-14-11, 12:49 PM

Trop affects UHF more easily than VHF, but it is often great on VHF-high as well. Some of the appeal of UHF trop in the analog days may have been from the facts that the UHF band was less congested and UHF antennas more directional.

On very rare occasions, I've had trop on VHF without any trop on UHF (Little Rock opening of 2006) - even a couple events of lowband-only trop.

WA5IYX

10-14-11, 01:31 PM

Let's try this again (if my SWBell/AT&T DSL doesn't keep dropping out ...)

Local vegetation can be a large factor. My UHF became more problematic after the trees grew large here (new development c. 1971) after the 1980s. My 20' AGL 8-bay bow-tie UHF (now a CM-4228) still has a good shot east (along the apexes of the other houses rooftops), but there are more-distant terrain issues http://www.qsl.net/wa5iyx/myhorizon.htm at those azimuths to deal with.

I'm always hoping that a 144-MHz Es event will link into that Hawaiian duct, but the great-circle path from here is across Mexico and off the coast - so it could there without a hint :( FM stations have been logged via ducting on the Big Island from coastal (southern) California and over to the (mainland - not just Baja) west coast of Mexico.

dhett

10-14-11, 08:25 PM

*oops*

Falcon_77

10-19-11, 11:17 AM

AMENDMENT OF SECTION 73.622(I), POST-TRANSITION TABLE OF DTV ALLOTMENTS, TELEVISION BROADCAST STATIONS (PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA). Issued a Substitution of channel 18 for channel 7 at Panama City, Florida for station WJHG-TV. (Dkt No. 11-140 RM-11683 ). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 10/18/2011 by R&O. (DA No. 11-1735).

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db1019/DA-11-1735A1.pdf

OTAhead

10-20-11, 05:46 AM

Speaking of channel changes, yesterday's FCC daily digest included a voluntary transfer of control grant to Nexstar for transferring control in Evansville, Indiana of WTVW, channel 28 from Nexstar to Mission Broadcasting and transfer of control of WEHT, channel 7 from Gilmore to Nexstar.

Effectively Nexstar traded a "more desirable" channel 28 for a "less desirable" channel 7.

Why would they do that???

Trip in VA

10-20-11, 08:29 AM

Given that Mission is a shell corporation for Nexstar to illegally own two stations in a market, they didn't trade it away but rather they now control both.

- Trip

OTAhead

10-20-11, 09:03 AM

Aha. Now I understand... Thanks, as always, for the clarification Trip.

dave73

10-20-11, 10:00 AM

Given that Mission is a shell corporation for Nexstar to illegally own two stations in a market, they didn't trade it away but rather they now control both.

- Trip

Just like in Terre Haute, IN, Nexstar owns WTWO (NBC) & shell company Mission Broadcasting owns WAWV (ABC). Terre Haute only has 3 commercial licenses to the market, & this is a duopoly that needs to be broken up. If the FCC knew about Nexstar owning Mission Broadcasting, then how did they allow a duopoly like this? The FCC has been questioning Granite Broadcasting & their shell company, Malara with owning WPTA (ABC/CW) as Malara & WISE-TV (NBC/Fox/MNT) as Granite in Fort Wayne, IN & KDLH (CBS/CW+) by Malara & KBJR-TV (NBC/MNT) by Granite in the Duluth, MN market.

dhett

10-21-11, 01:10 AM

Why would the FCC care? They're too busy planning the extinction of broadcast television to worry about who's going to control those licenses for the final few years.

Sarcasm off.

BCF68

10-21-11, 04:25 AM

Given that Mission is a shell corporation for Nexstar to illegally own two stations in a market, they didn't trade it away but rather they now control both.

- Trip

Sinclair owns WNAB( CW ), WZTV( FOX ) and WUXP( MyNetwork ) in Nashville.

OTAhead

11-03-11, 06:11 AM

Sinclair has agreed to buy the Freedom Broadcasting group of stations, including our own KFDM here in Beaumont, Texas for $385 million. This will also give them a duopoly in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Inundated

11-06-11, 07:30 AM

Looks like Mission Broadcasting is now HQed in Westlake, OH (Cleveland suburb):

http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/119/119426.html

They were in another Cleveland suburb, Brecksville, and started life in the spare room of a house in Sharon Center, OH, about a 2 minute drive from where I used to live. The local paper did a profile of them, which is the only reason I know that ("Major TV company in guy's spare room").

They own no stations here, though the link above indicates that former Cleveland TV executive Dennis Thatcher is now their COO.

Falcon_77

11-09-11, 10:43 AM

AMENDMENT OF SECTION 73.622(I), POST-TRANSITION TABLE OF DTV ALLOTMENTS, TELEVISION BROADCAST STATIONS, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA. [WNCF] Substitution of channel 31 for channel 32 at Montgomery. (Dkt No. 11-137 RM-11637 ). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 11/04/2011 by R&O. (DA No. 11-1863).

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-11-1863A1.pdf

Trip in VA

11-14-11, 11:14 PM

WLJC-7 wants 185 kW. Good luck with that one.

- Trip

ProjectSHO89

11-15-11, 05:49 AM

I'd like to see their justification for asking for more power than a high-VHF station is even permitted...

Trip in VA

11-15-11, 05:57 AM

They cite 73.622(f)(5), the same rule WBNS cited when they requested 1700 kW. We saw where that one went.

I imagine it will ultimately be amended to 160 kW.

- Trip

BPTTV

11-19-11, 11:23 PM

Let's try this again (if my SWBell/AT&T DSL doesn't keep dropping out ...)

If your area has U Verse (Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX does but its only Internet and they havent rolled out U Verse to every CO yet and they cannot advertise it if its not available in a major % of the area and they have to offer 2 out of 3 features from what I have been told)...and you can check at att.com to see if it IS available (look at Broadband, NOT DSL using your address or phone number), you can get your DSL pricing adjusted..I got my 3MB DSL at $35 kicked up to 6MB and the price knocked DOWN to $24.95 month (the U Verse price) just by calling ATT and saying I wanted the 6MB but didnt want to pay $100 for their "special" modem (DSL II)....sooooo keep that in mind...I just saved a lot of money on my DSL by NOT switching! :)

re_nelson

11-21-11, 12:38 PM

In reviewing a number of recent power increase applications (such as KRIV/Houston's app for 800 kW from 300 kW), Section 73.622(f)(8)(i) is cited as the reason for exceeding ERP caps.

Now that things have really settled down from the transition and this thread can sustain some more activity, how about a "Big Dummy's Guide for Untanging FCC Legal Speak"? :)

Here are some discussion starters:

1). What's the history behind the largest station exemption? Was there one facility that wanted to exceed the limits that served as the initial test case?

2). How can the largest station be determined without ambiguity? I seem to recall that here in Dallas, WFAA was cited by one applicant and KDFW was used by another applicant.

3). And how the "largest station in the market" determined in first place since it presumably had to exceed the ERP/HAAT caps to attain that lofty status?

Tower Guy

11-21-11, 03:07 PM

3). And how the "largest station in the market" determined in first place since it presumably had to exceed the ERP/HAAT caps to attain that lofty status?

The largest DTV station in a market is usually a station that began life as a VHF analog station, maximized their DTV facilities, and pushed out the DTV contour the full 5 miles that was allowed. In order to do so, the DTV channel needed to be clear in most directions so that additional interference did not occur.

In spite of the 5 miles extension, most stations found that DTV does not cover as well as analog. In my opinion, the likely reasons are;
1. Viewers often watched analog pictures well below 28 db s/n ratio; the minimum signal strength that was assumed to be adequate.
2. Difficulty optimizing a DTV antenna because the digital signal strength meter in an HDTV is slow to respond and isn't as effective as the obvious visual improvement of an analog picture.
3. Multipath issues that invalidate the predicted s/n values.

Trip in VA

11-22-11, 06:45 AM

1). What's the history behind the largest station exemption? Was there one facility that wanted to exceed the limits that served as the initial test case?

Remember that the limit on UHF power is actually 365m 1000 kW. With the sliding scale that is in place, this means that without 73.622(f)(5), a 610m high facility would be capped at 316 kW. It wouldn't make sense in the world of digital to artificially limit power based on what a station's analog coverage was. This would be particularly true in places where one of the big four networks was now on UHF for one reason or another.

The transition gave smaller stations the opportunity to increase coverage, and in fact the original table of allotments had floor values that stations' assigned power levels did not go below (1 kW low-VHF, 3.2 kW high-VHF, and 50 kW UHF).

2). How can the largest station be determined without ambiguity? I seem to recall that here in Dallas, WFAA was cited by one applicant and KDFW was used by another applicant.

I have a list of stations ranged by largest amount of area covered:

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=maxcontour

But I don't think you actually need to use the largest station. As long as you can demonstrate that at least one station in the market is larger than your own, then you would be in the clear regardless.

3). And how the "largest station in the market" determined in first place since it presumably had to exceed the ERP/HAAT caps to attain that lofty status?

Tower Guy pretty much got this one. Since 100 kW VHF analog covered more ground than a 5000 kW UHF analog, when the digital assignments were handed out, many of those 100 kW VHFs were granted 1000 kW UHFs (or VHFs exceeding normal power limits) to attempt to replicate analog coverage as well as possible.

Here are the original allotments, courtesy of Doug Lung: http://www.transmitter.com/FCC98315/chanplan.html

- Trip