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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.
 
#177 ·
we could get wlbt 3 on your side to look into it. LOL


next years nfl is a long long way away but we are missing out on the new fall hd from nbc and nascar hd too right now.
 
#178 ·
- FYI, WJTV is now at full power (as of this past Tuesday, the 20th). My signal strength was in the high 60's (low 70's) & now is in the 90's.

Also, spoke to them & they are aware of the whole audio dropout thing & are trying to fix their encoding...which is what is causing the dropouts.


- Emailed WLBT & here is the email & response I got from the General Manager (maybe we need to all bug the crap out of them)...blah...blah....


We were set to go on in August and were delayed by a microwave shipment. Then Katrina stopped some work and made us do some adjustment. We are testing now and should be on at any time.


Dan Modisett

Vice President and General Manager


----- Original Message -----

To: sally@wlbt.net ; dan@wlbt.net

Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 8:51 AM

Subject: WLBT



Hey guys,

I am hoping you can shed some light on a subject many Jackson people feel we have been given the run around on.

For the past year we have been waiting in the Jackson area for WLBT to go digital/high definition.


Myself along with many other people anxiously waiting WLBT to begin broadcasting High Definition have called & have been told that it is very soon. This has been going on for quite some time. We realize there was a channel problem (going from 53 to channel 3...& not I believe it will be channel 9) in the beginning with the FEC (??).


Some of us have been told by WLBT was suppose to be up & running in August. Obviously, we realize the recent storm slowed things down. However, as recent as a few weeks ago, we were told that testing has begun.


With a good many of the new NBC fall shows being broadcast in HD along with Notre Dame football, Nascar & the Jay Leno Show, we feel we are missing out on this.


I guess I am trying to get a straight answer on when this will be up & running. We feel we have been given the run around & would like to know when exactly is the target date.


Can you guys let us know what exactly is going on?


We realize it is a very expensive investment & there is not much return, however all other local stations have been digital for quite some time.


Frustrated Jackson resident
 
#181 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by SFjr /forum/post/0


Anyone else having WJTV's signal strength go crazy tonight? The signal strength meter is jumping all over the place.

I've had pretty bad video and audio breakups on WJTV with one of my HD receivers (Zenith DTV1080) for the past week. My bedroom tv with a built-in tuner has not skipped a beat during this time and the signal on it appears as strong as ever. The signal on the DTV1080 will go up and down from about 80% down to 30%, while the signal on my bedroom tv stays steady at around 85%. I've had these breakups on WJTV with the DTV1080 on a couple previous occasions, but never this bad. I can't tell if the receiver is going bad or if WJTV is doing something different.


Jeff
 
#182 ·
I just did a channel re-scan on my HD receiver and to my surprise channels 9-1, 9-2 and 9-3 showed up. Signal is pretty strong at around 90%. Channel 9-1 is showing a color bar test pattern. Channel 9-2 is the main channel (3), but did not have audio. Channel 9-3 is some NBC weather plus and it does have audio.


WLBT, it's about time!

Thanks!


Also, FWIW the audio/video dropouts I was having on WJTV have disappeared and the signal meter is a solid 80%.


Jeff


[edit]

Channel 9-1 is broadcasting in 1080i and currently showing Shrek, but it's not HD. 9-2 is 480i and also showing shrek w/o audio.
 
#183 ·
At 9:15PM I have not been able to pickup WLBT-DT. I have tried several channel scans and even a manual channel add. The channel scan comes back with the same ol' same ol' while the manual channel add tells me that it cannot locate anything on digital channel 9.


Is it still up on your receiver?


Edit -


Never mind...my Silver Sensor has no luck with VHF signals after all. I was hoping against hope that it would pickup just enough signal to lock on. Some people have had luck pulling in VHF channels 9 thru 13 with their Silver Sensor. I hooked up some rabbit ears and was able to pull in WLBT-DT.


My channels come in as 9-3, 9-4, and 9-5. Other than the channel assignments I am seeing the same channel lineup as you. Thanks for the heads up!


(Now I'll have to try the Radio Shack 15-1880 antenna...)
 
#184 ·
Gave up early on the new HD series Threshold Friday night. Had to watch in regular vision since some idiot at the station apparantly didn't switch the sound over correctly. Only got the sound effects but no voices. Maybe they fixed it after the first fifteen minutes? Don't know since I shut down my projector and went to the bedroom to watch in SD.


Pitiful that these folks have all this great technology and have an edge whenever an HD show is on....... IF THEY COULD HANDLE SAID TECHNOLOGY WITHIN THEIR OWN BROADCAST STUDIOS.


Guess they still have channel 3 beat though.


Enjoy.
 
#185 ·
I've got no signal from WLBT-DT tonight - no surprise with them in testing mode.


As far WJTV-DT, towards the end of last year they put in the necessary equipment that switched to DD5.1 automatically when the program source was transmitting it. Since they 'fixed' the audio dropout issue, it appears that they are having to manually switch the audio to transmit DD5.1. The Florida v Kentucky game started out with only crowd noise - no announcers. The announcers are piped through the center channel. Once they switched to DD5.1 the announcers could be heard. That sounds like what happened Friday night also.


To fix the audio dropout issue they must have had to take the auto-switching offline.
 
#187 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by wburnham /forum/post/0


Anyone who has picked up WLBT so far, please post when they are back up so we can see if we are getting it.


Where you guys getting a picture or was the channel(s) just showing up?


Thanks

I got a picture. I noticed it was up for the first time Saturday. Then it went down sometime Sunday and hasn't returned as of this morning.


Jeff
 
#188 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by wburnham /forum/post/0


Anyone who has picked up WLBT so far, please post when they are back up so we can see if we are getting it.


Where you guys getting a picture or was the channel(s) just showing up?


Thanks

I was also getting it Saturday and Sunday. One sub-channel had a zoomed in 4x3 picture with the DD5.1 audio flag set. Another sub-channel had a standard 4x3 picture with no audio. The third sub-channel was a national weather channel - it had a look like the Bloomberg channel with a quarter of the picture being used for live national weather broadcasts, the bottom portion of the screen rotating extended weather forecasts for major cities in the US, another portion with a national radar and another portion rotating announcements and advertisements.


I did not see any HD programming. Was that because of the weather icon and severe weather alerts forcing standard definition mode or were they just not sending HD material? Who knows...


It's been offline since at least yesterday.


It'll probably be up and down for a couple of weeks while they do testing. Tom could probably give us some good information of what's involved during the testing phase.
 
#189 ·
I just received my HD-Tivo from D* for $199. I have a question about sub-channel mappings for those of you who have an HD-Tivo. How do you get them to map correctly?


I did a channel scan - it picks up WDBD-DT, WAPT-DT, WJTV-DT and PBS. But the subchannels show up in weird places. For instance - WAPT-DT is 16-1. The weather loop was 16-2 on my HTL-HD receiver. On the HD-Tivo I found it on 21-4. The WJTV weather loop on 12-2 is now showing up on 52-2. What's up with this?
 
#190 ·
I have the hd-tivo as well. My channels that I pick up are posted earlier in this thread. Your channel mapping is strange. I'll run mine again to see if anything has changed.

12-1 is hd wjtv and 12-2 is wjtv weather radar. 16-1 is wapt hd and 16-2 is another weather radar.


Quote:
Originally Posted by SFjr /forum/post/0


I just received my HD-Tivo from D* for $199. I have a question about sub-channel mappings for those of you who have an HD-Tivo. How do you get them to map correctly?


I did a channel scan - it picks up WDBD-DT, WAPT-DT, WJTV-DT and PBS. But the subchannels show up in weird places. For instance - WAPT-DT is 16-1. The weather loop was 16-2 on my HTL-HD receiver. On the HD-Tivo I found it on 21-4. The WJTV weather loop on 12-2 is now showing up on 52-2. What's up with this?
 
#191 ·
OK. Before someone jumps on my case about WAPT-DT tonight, my PSIP, the software that makes your HD receiver find us on 16-1 & 16-2 and shows what program is on, is totally screwed up. I would use stronger language but will try to contain my anger. Harris, the stwits that make our hardware & sell the software, told me I needed to do a software upgrade last week because my program schedule was not automatically updating any more. Now, days later and lots of time spent trying to upgrade, it will not run at all. Thus, to find us, you must rescan & some of you will find it on 21-3 & 21-4 and no program schedule. Others, like me, can not get it at all now. The audio was screwed up for a while yesterday but I got that fixed. They tell me to get it working again I must buy a faster PC to run their new software. I will not rant any more but rest assured I am aware it is screwed up and had I known it would go this way, would have held off making any changes for now.
 
#193 ·
I am trying to help my mother (who resides in South Jackson) with her locals in HD but I do not live anywhere near there so need some help from someone.


Can anyone tell me what channels she should be getting OTA. As of now, she gets the ABC & PBS only. The FOX 35.1 does not show up and CBS (12-1) has a very low signal (0-30%) and she cannot lock on to it. She lives about 8 miles from the towers so the signal should be pretty strong.


I sorta fell bad b/c I encouraged her to get the antenna b/c I have had good luck with them. The antenna is a multi directional one. Can anyone point me in the right direction on getting the other channels if they can be received?
 
#194 ·
Tom -


What are the odds? I get a new HDTivo, which has/had a bug that caused sub-channels to not map correctly you end up with a PSIP problem. I was going crazy! Thanks for posting this update - it makes me feel a whole heck of lot better knowing this is temporary.


BTW - is anyone else having trouble with PBS? Plus CBS seems to be back at a lower power again.
 
#196 ·
Elwood,

I have had the best luck with the 4 or 8 bay antennas from channel master, the 4228 or 4221 (go to their website to see pics). They are strictly UHF, so they will probably not pick up the WLBT signal....you will have to get a VHF antenna for that.


Also, even though you are that close, if you are still not getting a good signal, try the channel master Titan preamp too.


I helped a guy in South Jackson & he had the same problem. We put a preamp on his 4 bay antenna (in his attic) & it helped. Try maybe tilting it up instead of vertical...worth a shot.


Hoopers Audio over on Terry Road (in Mart 51) is a good place to get this stuff. Or Solid Signal (online).
 
#197 ·
They have the DB2 HDTV Antenna from Antennas Direct and it picks up ABC & PBS perfectly. I will give the preamp a look and see as well as tilting the antenna horizontally. Since they got a signal once with CBS, this would probably help.


Does FOX (35.1) Broadcast in HD there?


Thanks for the help wburnham.
 
#200 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbondurant /forum/post/0


thanks for the patience. Hopefully WAPT is back to normal!

All of the digital channels on my HDTivo are back to their correctly mapped locations. Well...except for 35-1 and 40-1 - they appear to be down this evening - 0 signal strength.


Now - if we could just get the HDTivo guide to recognize program guide info on 35-1 and 20-1, 20-2. I fired off an email to zap2it.com. I think they supply the guide data to D* and Tivo.
 
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