West Palm Beach, FL - HDTV - Page 2

I would ask that someone else call them and ask for engineering. Tell them you live in South Florida and there is quite a buzz around their Dtv launch on the internet. Ask them if there are any scheduled tower testing that we can be on the lookout for with our own equipment and if they would be interested in using avsforum participants as a free resource to gauge signal strength in different locales.

I would call them but I already did and don't want to be a pain in their ...

Telephone Number: 561-845-2929

Dave, was that a dummy load or a load of dummys? I can see the antenna from my house and I have seen no new antenna work. Is the new antenna already up?. If it is I sure dont see it.
Sandy

Don't mean to take away from the West Palm crowd, but down here in the Pembroke Pines area we can't get NBC because of a FCC snag and a channel infringement. That is, NBC is worried about their Miami channel.
So +++++++

Will NBC putting up something for the West Palm crowd or are we all waiting for the antenna to be near the CBS antenna ????

I hear that the olympics in being televised on NBC-DT, but where in South Fla. will that be ??

So Dave;
It appears that West Palm will get NBC before broward.

It has been almost a year now that NBC put in that request for the FCC channel change.
It sounds line the FCC is slow and NBC isn't pushing.

Just to verify, here in So. Fla. we can only get (sometimes in prime time) in High Def:
CBS 4-1
ABC 10-1
PBS 2-3

And, full time via DirecTV (not limited to So. Fla)
HDnet 199
HBO 509

Dave,

Thanks for the continuing status reports on the WPB stations. Many of us here in Broward are completely frustrated with the FOX/NBC situation in Miami, so we are anxiously looking forward to the WPB FOX & NBC affiliates going digital. With any luck, some of us just might be able to pick up their signals.

Rudy

Dave could you add to that info by telling us if all these stations are 24/7 or just operating certain periods like WBZL-DT. I am up in Melbourne almost 180 miles from the Broward/Dade county ant farm. In the past I have gotten a lock on some of the Miami stations and it would be helpful to know if they are on the air all the time or just certain hours. I have been most successful with WBZL-DT since they are using an open frequency that is not used by any one else on the Florida Peninsula. However, I have been able to over come the jamming from other stations and lock both WFOR-DT and WSVN-DT. I am hoping to have better results with the WPB stations though barring they are pulling full power and up at the same approximate height.

According to this website:
http://www.broadcast.net/~sbe88/
WFLX-DT should be on the air by Wednesday, 2/27
I wonder if that is when they will turn on the OTA transmitter for the first time????
I can't wait to dx their signal from 120 miles away!

What time are the tests being conducted ? I am straight south of the antenna, I think, and should be able to pick up the signal at Wiles and 441 in Coral Springs. Scanning tonight did not pick up the signal. I am using Dish 6000.

Gireesh.

After hearing Robert's success in Boynton, I decided I had to see some HD on my Panasonic 34WX50 34" widescreen.

After searching ebay, vanns.com and talking to "Let's go digital" (maddening), I found two SIR-T150 Samsung OTA HD receivers at the West Palm BestBuy yesterday and with the "Preferred Customer" 10% off coupon, and $540+tax, I headed to RadioShack to complete the toy shopping. (First salesman at BestBuy said they did not have any, but another overheard conversation and pointed to the two boxes above our heads not five feet away. BTW, Brandsmart does not carry them.)

At my local RS, I picked up the VU-90XR antenna (on sale at $34), the 30db preamp ($70!), a five foot mast, and a couple mounting brackets and raced home.

I shorten the documentary here - with the antenna mounted on a tripod in my livingroom (Concrete block house with metal stud walls), I get WFOR-CBS 22 which auto mapped to 4-1 very solid, but the unit does not find it when "memorizing stations". The reception meter puts up 6 bars which is about 50% of full scale.

For a brief period around six or seven pm, I recieved 18-1 PBS SDTV and 18-3 the PBS HD station, but the signal was borderline so the picture froze alot. Later and this morning, I can't lock on either. Hopefully moving to the attic will enable this station. When it was able to lock, the HD image was astounding.

I searched for the other Miami DTV stations but couldn't even get a blinking red light or a single bar on the reception guage.

As for WFOR - the signal is crystal clear. The SIR-T150 indicates the signal is "HD" but the image is 4:3 so there are bars on my 16:9 and at 1080i the TV will not stretch the image. (We watch all 4:3 from Adelphia cable in edge stretch mode) The wife already thinks the TV is too small and the bars just prove it. The picture is much sharper than the cable image (non-stretched for comparison).

Interestingly, WFOR- 4.1 almost comes in without the amp. Perhaps in the attic it will. RS had an amplified stealth "bar" antenna for $79 that might work nice, and a real nice amplified set top antenna for when West Palm stations finally get active .

Now I just need to find an electrician to pull some cable up the wall and mount the stuff in the attic.

Alan

After about 30 seconds of "searching", the digital guide for WFOR-4-1 comes up empty. Are they transmitting the info?

Alan

Alan,
I've only ever seen channel guide info for WPBT Channel 2, and that happened only once several months ago. I recall that it was on a Saturday, and it displayed the name of the program along with a brief description and the running time. On my SIR-T150 I was able to search through the entire day's programming, and once it loaded it was pretty fast. I don't think any of the other digital channels are broadcasting guide info.

Anyone else seeing three diagonal white lines on WFOR-DT every once in a while? It seemed like one particular commercial, (a hammer smashing prices with a loud bang), was plagued by the three lines.

Alan

I watch WFOR-DT most nights, never seen the lines you are refering to.

I moved the RadioShack VU-90XR (giant) antenna to the front room of the house and pulled in more stations last night. I am able to get WPBTDT-18/2.1 now and oh what a sight. The wife and I sat watching the HD demo saying "wow" every time the scene changed. It is just so crisp and the colors so phenomenal. We were the knights that go "wow".

Moving to that room added the digital WB channel 39 but their picture quality was terrible. It looked like twenty year old copies of copies of videotapes. No wow for them.

The SIR-T150 was trying hard to lock on the Miami ABC digital station, but just short. I didn't fiddle with redirecting the antenna since I was enjoying watching the PBS demo too much...wow...

I just can't believe how much better the HD picture is over the DVD picture. I had been telling the wife it would be "twice as nice" but secretly I wasn't really sure...WOW...(especially since I put the $140 Silver Serpents on the DVD and used the standard cables that came with the SIR-T150 for the HDTV signal...it might be hard to convince me that I need to spend another $140 for quality cables when it looks so good...wow...)

Anyway, thanks to Robert for posting how to make it possible from Boynton...wow...

Alan...wow...

I get those a lot when they are showing a local commercial during a HDTV broadcast. I do not get them during the program or a network commercial. It looks like a sync problem when they go local for a break. I use a Samsung SIR-T150 with a Panasonic CT34WX50.

Also want to let WFLX-DT 28 know all of us in Miami are looking forward to watching all of our favorite FOX shows on digital 28 and not on horrible 480i WSVN DT8

I wonder if this will make WSVN finally get their act together! Its an outrage that the 15th DMA Fox affiliate station can't do what the 40 th DMA station can. Everyboy should let WSVN know they will be tuning to WFLX instead.

Can someone tell me at what times WFLX-DT is doing their testing.

Gireesh.

A few minutes later...

Just spoke to Norm. They ran into some computer glitch, they will begin testing within two weeks. According to Norm, they will make an announcement on the air when they start testing.

Gireesh.

Computer glitch? Care to be more specific?

Come on, whose computers are down for 2 weeks! Sounds like they are really dragging their feet! Reminds me of an HMO! "Sorry our computers are down."

Just received from WPBF:

"We will begin digital broadcasts in May of this year. High Definition may start
the following month."

This just in from WPEC:

"We are receiving and installing equipment at the present time and expect to be broadcasting Digital Television (DTV) this summer.

Initially we will be broadcasting HDTV for all CBS programming that is available in High Definition. CBS is the leader in HDTV with the greatest number of HD broadcasts per week. I expect this to continue. I would not be surprised if all CBS entertainment programming in prime time is sent in HDTV within the next year or two."

I have spoken to Joe Garcia of WFOR and he has told me that the other two viacom owned assets in S FLA WTVX-DT 50, WBFS-DT 32, will be OTA in May. In fact, he almost sounded like they are just waiting to switch the transmitters on before the deadline.

Still looks like there won't be any NBC HD coming from either end of south Fla. anytime soon.

Last night the retrace lines again appeared, for me, frequently during commercials in the movie "Breakdown" on WFOR-DT. There seems to be some correlation to volume peaks.

Its bad enough that commercials usually have compressed audio so they seem louder, now we have to put up with black bars, lower def, and for some reason retrace lines...

I think they ought to do an edge stretch on 4:3 material to force the commercial makers to get in the HD game sooner...yeah, yeah, we 16:9 guys...

I just figured out that pointing my antenna at Miami, will put WPBF-DT 40 miles and 153 degrees off the beam when it comes on line. Looks like I'll need to go up in the attic again in May. This transition period is going to be painful with some stations 40 miles away to the south and some stations 40 miles away to the north! Perhaps that stealth bar antenna would have been a better idea. It probably has two main lobes rather than one.

Alan

WPTV just responded with:

"We hope to be on the air by September 2002."

And WXEL-DT ?