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Jackson / Meridian, MS - HDTV

222K views 2K replies 161 participants last post by  orleans704 
#1 ·
Curious if anyone else on this forum is receiving HD OTA in Jackson, MS.


I am in Ridgeland and have a Jensen TV930 indoor antenna, hooked up to a Hughes HTL-HD D* Receiver, pointed just west of south. I am able to pick up CBS (WJTV-DT), ABC (WAPT-DT), PBS HD, PBS Digital (WMPN-DT), and WB (WDBD-DT). NBC is currently awaiting FCC approval for their digital transmission.


I only have a week's worth of history to go by, but up until tonight I was able to lock onto every channel with out any drop outs. Tonight (4/21) ABC has been very sporadic. The signal strength on the HTL-HD for my OTA ABC channel has been fluctuating like crazy all night. It will go from Good, hover around Normal, dip down to Bad and then go right back to Good. Tonight is the first time I have seen it do this.


If anyone else here is in Jackson, MS and receiving HD OTA please let me know your experiences.


Thanks.
 
#27 ·
SFjr,


Thanks for all the info. That's good news about WDBD. Hopefully WUFX will go HD at the same time. I had thought they were both owned by the same company, but WDBD is owned by Jackson Television LLC and WUFX is owned by Mississippi Television LLC. Seems they are linked together somehow though since they are on the same website... www.gomiss.com/about_us.htm


Good luck holding on to FOX-HD through D*. I think I will start doing my part in badgering WLBT.



Jeff
 
#28 ·
Damn your WB station has got some power.. Did they kick it up lately or something? I'm down in Hattiesburg and periodically tune the Jackson stations just to 'check'. I'm hoping to one day get your CBS feed, they own our station down here and we usually get the shaft.. The feed over cable is bad, their analog broadcast is almost as bad, and as far as HD; "As soon as they make us" was the last I heard.. I think we even lately lost some of our local news, getting feeds from the Jackson sister station.


Anyway, I was checking tonight and to my surprise locked on to 41 with about 62-70% on my Dish 811.. No dropouts what so ever so far. Glad to have a watchable Fox station again (even if it's not HD). The coast Fox25 is pretty weak on analog, and I have a hard time getting the digital signal when I'm doing jobs on the coast! I can get 16 (ABC) with about 63%, but only get a blocky frame every 10 seconds or so.. The coast ABC comes in fine though so I'm not missing out.


This gets me excited again. I might go ahead and add another 10' section to my mast and try for CBS.. I'm running a CM4228 on a 20' mast with a 28db preamp for reference.


I'm the lead installer for an AV company in Hattiesburg, and we just purchased Players up in Jackson. So I'm sure I'll be chiming in more often as I start doing some installs up north.


Kevin D.
 
#29 ·
I've been lucky to pickup everything with an indoor antenna. I did finally get a Zenith Silver Sensor, and now I can successfully receive all the digital local channels without having to adjust the antenna.


That's pretty interesting about how you can pull in the WB signal. CBS and WB are about at the same signal strength for me - low to mid 70's with the new antenna. I very rarely have any dropouts anymore.


My biggest complaint with CBS (WJTV-DT) is their SEC Game of the Week in HD. The last three weeks I have had NO announcers at the beginning of the games. I think it was the Tennessee/Georgia game that only had crowd noise the entire game. The other two weeks they finally switched to a DD5.1 audio signal midway through the 2nd quarter, which allowed me to hear the announcers again. Other than that CBS has had some awesome HD. WAPT-DT (ABC) is top notch also (just no college football).


I hope WUFX comes through with HD soon. I would love to see the Superbowl in HD this season.


Player's is an interesting shop. I saw my first HDTV there years ago at their Ridgeland location. It was a Pioneer with a continuous loop of some college football followed by some nature scenes. Man we have come a long way...
 
#30 ·

Quote:
Originally posted by SFjr

That's pretty interesting about how you can pull in the WB signal. CBS and WB are about at the same signal strength for me - low to mid 70's with the new antenna. I very rarely have any dropouts anymore.

Is the WB antenna on the south side and the CBS on the north? With you in the middle perhaps?


Hmm..
 
#34 ·

Quote:
Originally posted by MimsFamily
The sound has been out on my local high definition abc channel. There is no sound on tonights episode of Lost and there was no sound on last nights episode of According to Jim.

Same here...


'According to Jim' is one of the only sitcoms I watch. I was forced to watch it in SD. It sure is hard to go back to standard definition. Didn't we have sound during the commercials last night? I remember flipping over to see if NYPD Blue was screwed up - had sound during the commercial and then as soon as it flipped to HD the sound went away. Tonight I get nothing but silence on the digital channel. Very frustrating...
 
#36 ·
I send emails to the general manager from time to time about issues (and also to thank them for putting out some great HD - did you see Monster's Inc on Saturday?). Stuart Kellogg is very good about emailing a response. I also sent them an email about this and he replied back quickly.


I have never gotten any replies back from anyone at CBS. I was trying to find out why the SEC Game of the Week was not in HD here on Saturday. I had some disappointed friends over to watch the game in HD - but we got a standard definition feed. Others on this forum were watching it in HD so I know it was a local issue.
 
#38 ·
Hi guys... great to see some folks from MS on here. I'm in Meridian and we only have 2 local HD stations so far (ABC and PBS). Sometimes I can pick up CBS HD out of Columbus. I am working on putting up a bigger antenna with a better preamp so hopefully I can pull in Columbus better as well as pick up Jackson and/or Hattiesburg stations. Once you start watching HD, you are hooked!


I have the same issues with my local stations here that you guys have... sometimes no audio, or only partial audio, or an SD transmission when I know its coming HD from the network.
 
#39 ·
Glad to see the Jackson thread!!! Looking into the various HD options having recently purchased a HD DLP (Benq 6200). Spent half an hour on the phone with the directtv folks today. They offered me the HD box with OTA tuner for a reduced price of $200. Considering I've been a 'client' of theirs since 2000, I thought they could do better. I saw somebody in this thread mention a $99 promo. I'd jump at that in a heartbeat if only to get the OTA tuner! From what I've heard, OTA actually has the best picture quality of either satellite or cable because of less (no?) compression issues. Is that your experience?


I noticed on the NAB site (nat'l assn of broadcasters) that all Jackson's local stations are HD ready. Good to see that is 'mostly' the case from reading here!


My Benq DLP was purchased sight unseen (I'd never seen ANY DLP front projector up until I received mine!). I was familiar with the LCD projectors and never that impressed with the contrast ratio. Lots of folks fret over the light control issues of front projection. All I can say is that I'm running at 80" most of the time and paid under $1200 for my projector. A similar sized plasma is $40k. You can buy a lot of nice drapes/curtains etc. for the difference!


According to directtv, they do not have an hd equipped receiver with tivo capability. That's kind of depressing. Anyway, glad to know there are a few of us in the Jackson area going HD. Safety in numbers or misery loves company. Hopefully the former.


Will update the group as/when I make my final tuner decision. Good luck to all.


Enjoy.
 
#40 ·
Timtimes


Welcome to the thread. I was able to get the $99 HD-Receiver deal from D*. I had to go through Customer Retention to get the credit. I got a Hughes HTL-HD and it does include the OTA receiver - it even incorporates the OTA channels in the on-screen program guide. Using a Zenith Silver Sensor I can pick up all the available digital signals.


The latest rumor is that D* will have TNT-HD starting next week - maybe as early as Monday.


I am trying to enjoy the Tennessee/Notre Dame game, but good ol' WJTV once again won't flip the switch to DD5.1 - so the only audio is crowd noise. No announcers. This happens every week on their SEC Game of the Week in HD.
 
#41 ·
I guess it might pay to have a secondary audio source (non-hd) for some of those football games. Maybe a radio station feed or something? Surely, somebody else must be doing this? Have to be more exciting than just crowd noise.


Enjoy.
 
#42 ·
Got another puzzle piece last nite at Wal Mart. The USDTV OTA HD receiver for $200. Hooked up to cheap rabbit ear antenna. Picked up four HD signals. Two PBS, CBS and ABC.


Set the receiver to output to 1080i, hooked up to my Benq PB 6200 DLP.


Fantastic.


Looking forward to the premiere of Amazing Race this evening.


Enjoy.
 
#44 ·
I did get the tuner setup before the game. Basically, the OTA HD tuner ran thru a channel scan and only found channel 16. When I went to look at the station, I could see it was Wheel of Fortune; digital, but not HD. I could tell it was digital because the 'pixellation' on 'loss of signal strength' was obvious at times (that $7 antenna...lol). Then I moved the antenna about and re-scanned (option: add to existing channels...so as not to lose channel 16 which I had already acquired). At that point, I ended up with FOUR (the two PBS, CBS and ABC).


Now, I notice a 'setup' button on the remote (of course the instruction manual is still in it's original packing.....lol). I hit the setup button and end up on a menu for what type HD you want. Well, isn't 1080i the bomb? I go straight for it, since I've read on avsforum that folks often have a hard time with that one. After choosing 1080i, I get prompted for 4:3 or 16:9 and choose 16:9. I change the input on my Benq to 16:9 (thru the onscreen menu). Voila. By now it's game time.


Totally awesome. I did note that the ads looked to be HD but not widescreen, which was kinda different. But whenever the game was on, it was wall to wall and very good quality. I'd say about 10-15% (subjective I know) better than DVD? Is that your experience as well? Jumped around a lot and ended up watching a fair amount of PBS. I did notice that their special on the Dead Sea appeared to be of lesser quality (upconverted stuff?) than the football game, but still pretty good. I could see a little pixellation on the PBS show at times when motion was involved. Pretty sure it had to do with the source material they were using. It's like when I got my first CD player (very early adopter). I found out that not all CD's are created equal. There were/are? some CD's that made my expensive stereo equipment sound like a bad am radio. Guess it'll be the same with the video. Now that I've reached near perfection in the equipment I own, it'll be easier to see where source material is subpar. I'd rather it be like this than it was before. Very happy. SO SO looking forward to tonite's Amazing Race. IMHO that show is MADE FOR HD.
 
#45 ·
so what channels is Jackson broadcasting?


i just hooked up a zenith silver sensor with no preamp to my hd tivo in brandon mississippi. i'm able to get 90% signal strength on ABC and 70% signal strength on CBS. can't really get anything on NBC. i don't care about PBS, but WB won't lock in.


will a preamp help my situation?
 
#46 ·
From south Jackson, using the cheapest rabbit ears that Walmart sells I can get ABC, CBS and two PBS channels. That's it.


I'll be getting a decent outside antenna one of these days and I'll let you guys know if that changes anything. I think there are more stations out there than I am getting right now, but being an early adopter isn't without it's problems.



Enjoy.
 
#47 ·
Scorpion -


You will not be able to get NBC with your Silver Sensor for two reasons -

1) They are not broadcasting a digital signal

2) They are going to be on the VHF frequency spectrum - the Silver Sensor in UHF only


I am in Ridgeland. My Silver Sensor is about 8 feet up on top of an armoire looking out a huge back window in my living room. I can pickup the digital signals of ABC, CBS, 3 PBS stations, WB, and FOX.


The Silver Sensor is very sensitive to direction left/right and up/down. Since you have such good signal strength on ABC and CBS, you are pointed in the right direction. I would adjust it up and down and see if you can lock onto the other digital channels. You may go down a bit in signal strength, mainly on CBS, but you should be able to pick up the other channels if there are no huge obstructions in your line of sight.


Granted you are a little farther away from the towers than I am, but it's worth a shot.


Let me know your results.
 
#48 ·
No center channel on CBS's SEC Game of the Week again - so no announcers. Why can't they flip the switch to DD 5.1 on Saturdays?


I guess I'll leave some more messages on engineering's voicemail again to see if they can fix this.



Edit...they just flipped the switch! We now have announcers...
 
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