Cleveland, OH - HDTV - Page 88

Pay about $100 for a receiver, about $80 for a dish, $20 for a cable, $20 for a pole to put it on, and $50 if you want it motorized. The only decent channels you can get are the PBS channels, a few network feeds like NBC, Algazeera English, Russia TV, Ebru, KTV 2, RTV, Tuff TV, and PBJ. But there are hundreds of foreign channels and religious channels. If you set up the dish right, the maintenance is minimal... it's just like any other dish system.

216 & 440 are not "overlays". Being non-contiguous has nothing to do with "7 digit permissible dialing". It also has nothing to do with what is a local call from your land line.

I grew up in Euclid and am well aware of the Lake County phone exchange mess. I knew exactly what was local for 255 & 257 (the "center of Mentor" exchanges) as well as 352, 354 & 357 (The Painesville exchanges). Willoughby numbers were "Cleveland numbers on steroids" as they could call all the Mentor, Kirkland and Painesville numbers in addition to all the Cleveland numbers including the bordering "exurbs" in Geauga, Summit, Medina and Lorain counties. From Euclid I could call Brunswick, Columbia Station and Hinckley (among many other "exurbs"), while Mentor (except for the extreme west end that had "Willoughby numbers") was the beginning of my toll call area. I remember a drive-up phone booth on the corner of 84 & 306 where many drove to to call Cleveland numbers (it was the easternmost payphone with a Willoughby number). Now that there are cellphones calling areas are a moot point. Even my current land-line can call the entire State of Ohio at no extra charge up to 5 hrs. of "long distance" (I got hit with an extra charge to call a number in another state, so I limit my land-line to intrastate calls to avoid the interstate fee, I make all my interstate calls on my cell phone).

As far as Dish Network charges go, the only tax they charge is the State of Ohio sales tax without the extra local sales taxes. For those of you who feel "screwed" by Dish charges (or are just curious on how to understand the "Dish System" of doing business) I suggest visiting DBS Talk forums. The "downgrade fee" could have been avoided if the customer would have had the service for 6 months.

Calling Zones are a moot point? , well I guess someone forgot to tell AT&T that. Last time I called Cleveland/Madison it was about 33-45 cents a minute, I have since put a Long Distance block on my line & currently have to use calling cards to efficently make these calls.. something like a 45 digit # (& don't take a breath in between numbers... have to be quick quick!!... rehearse that # often!!!) ... yes things are getting easier!!

I remember that Payphone there, though there were a few others up north, we had a one way service into Cleveland which had a heavy extra charge for the time, I had since lost all of my socal contacts in the Cleveland dialing area due to this as it became a PITA for them to use ring codes for callbacks.

Speaking of Cell phones, I had to aquire a Verizon Prepay as I was house sitting for someone without a land line over the holidays. As this phone is about to expire in about a week, the $8 of time will not roll over I saw little sense to renew it for another month or 2. At .25/minute, these devices just aren't for folks like me. I noted this is quite a high tech device to simply throw it in the garbage. What do you do with these things? My friend on the Verizon network actually needs a new phone, yet Verizon will not allow her to transfer her account over to it... even for a fee.... a shame to trash this only being 60 days old, not very E-Friendly (this goes on, & they still make us get an E-Check! )


I keep getting Flyers for something called Infinity Dish Internet, said they can save You Money , wireless dish internet? & is this something you have to bundle with a TV package?

Bismarck,
See if your friend can just get a SIM chip for the phone. The SIM chip is really what makes it "your" phone. Take that same SIM chip place it into another phone of the same model and that new phone now works using your number, your plan, your saved contacts.

Or try to eBay it, some phones can be unlocked from such restrictions.

If not possible to do a SIM swap or resell it just take it to any Lowes or Home Depot, they have cell recycling boxes at the customer counters.

Bismarck, maybe just hold on to the phone for a while in case you need to re-activate quickly for some unforeseen circumstance? I think you would just be able to buy a card with minutes and enter that into the phone?

My ex used to work as an Alltell agent, though she has been out of the loop for a while she was versed in these things, she claimed the phone was not actually locked, but told me as far as she knows it cannot be taken off the Verizon Network, ... this is a prepay phone & she said these are programmed differently than a contract phone from what she can see. I would like to give it to my friend if she could use it though. As far as the # is concerned that # was apparently programmed by Verizon, they gave me a 216 Cleveland exchange even being in Mentor, I had to change it to a Willoughby exchange become local with my landline.... as the gal at Verizon said 'what do you mean it's long distance... there is no such thing as long distance with a mobile phone'. Apparently they can do this from their office.

As I said though my ex has been away from the industry for about 5 years, & she admitted she didn't understand everything they do now.


I was thinking that myself, (I can reactivate this if I need to house sit again) though Verizon told me there is a short window after expiration to keep the current # & from what they were telling me once that window is up that it would not be able to be reactivated, though I hear you may still be able to use these for 911 calls (?)

From what I see this is a pretty simplistic phone (for what else I see out there) once I learned how to use it, (I don't know how to use the camera feature & half the time I touch it it was turning on, I wish I could disable it) the buttons keep getting smaller & harder to read, I dislike touch screens & additional features I don't need.

I know this is a off topic, the few people I know that have these devices have contract phones, just know how to pay the bill & talk on them, they are unconcerned with exchanges, activations ect... I know a few of you here are more technically updated & love gadgets!

Then there are the Safelink and Assurance Wireless "lifeline" cell phones that are free for qualifying applicants, and offer free minutes, as long as you don't already have a lifeline plan on your landline, IIRC.

To keep it on topic, maybe the phone will pick up Channels 8 and 19 for you, LOL.

Well yes, and no. Similar to your one-way Cleveland service, a cell phone can call any U.S. phone number at the same rate, however if someone calls you it may be a toll call for them unless they too have either a cell phone or internet based land line service (such as cable TV digital phone, Vonage, Magic Jack, etc.).

BTW: I have a friend who lives in Mentor with a 330 area code. I have other friends here in the SW 'burbs who got Willoughby numbers 440-376 (without asking) on their cells. There are others with 440 numbers from Elyria that are toll calls for most of the Greater Cleveland area (including those in the 440 part of Cuyahoga County).

Here is a radical solution for you - drop your land line and get a minimum monthly contract with a major cell phone provider. Insist on a Willoughby number so your friends and family with land lines can still call you without a toll. End of your phone problem!

Now if only your problems with WOIO could only be resolved as easily.

Depends on the service, my friends mobile (the one who would like this phone) can only call within Ohio, although Verizon owns her service her # was sold off to a 3rd party, thus mobile to mobile Verizon does not apply.

See, everyone needs to get their cut!


I've been fooled many times by this one, the joke was on me calling a mobile thinking it was a 440 Cuyahoga, when it was a Lorain or Ashtabula.. & ma bell makes out big time on this (reason for the long distance block I added). My brother overseas still uses his Miami SUN phone (786).. never know where you are calling... made it easy for many customer services to route calls overseas.... to places say like India.

Alas I lost about all of my contacts in Cuyahoga County over the years because of this phone issue ..in the last week I'm trying to figure out how I can burn up the $8 on this phone ... the Verizon phone sounds garbled, you can always tell someone on a mobile, by the garbling.... I'm not at all happy with the sound quality either.

If I dropped the land line, now how would I connect to the nternet?

I called this Infinity Dish 'wireless' Internet, indeed they are just another 3rd party broker who shops for your best proice, then takes their cut, best price 24.99, + taxes & fees/month, + $36.99 install, + $100 equipment fee, .. & I get this great price if I commit for only 1 year .. after that the price jumps to 37.99/month (Plus Taxes & connection fees, which I could not get an exact figure either)... gee I can't beat that, where is my wallet?... flip flip flip.


Actually it's WJW on my upstairs set... but think that's an element problem on the attic antenna, (My main downstairs Sony is kinda cantankerous now, so sometimes no 8). WOIO does seem to pick up interference from the Laptop, & WUAB from the DVD player. I'm also tired of the commercials on 3's Weather, are they going to change out this sub with a news channel leaving us without a weather sub?

Hey, it seemed kinda dead around here for the past few weeks!!

I've had Verizon for years and it sounds fine. Perhaps it's your pay as you go phone, my 2 LG's have always sounded great.

No problem with WOIO in Mentor!?!

I thought that CFPL would have made WOIO unwatchable during the high skip season. Was it a problem in the past that has gone away when CFPL flipped to digital?

There is little or no competition with rf 8 in your direction. I believe the closest rf8 is in Lima and Johnstown PA. Both of those locales would not make it over the ridge. Only signals from Canada, Toledo, Detroit or Erie would interfere in Mentor.

Hey, how's that for getting back on topic!

It's a Samsung, U350 ir U360 I think.. err LG don't get me started on them now.


I wouldn't say WOIO is NOT a problem, it's fickle at times on both the attic & outdoor antennas

Not sure if if it had anything to do with the transition, I may be far enough away from the lake or have something blocking CFPL's signal, it really did not boom in here much unless we reoriented the antenna north... & of course during a rare band opening.

I do get an occasional dropout when watching recorded programs on all stations which almost look to me like DVD dropouts caused by excessive bitrates.
JJK

I bought my cell phone 4 years ago at a yard sale for $1. Never intended to activate it but to live in my glove compartment with it's charger. As long as a cell powers up and sees a service it can be used to call 911.

Think when it lapses, there is a few weeks to 30 days to reactivate the #, though the least expensive way is $15 for 30 days for 60 minutes @ .25 a minute (no rollover) . Realistically thinking about it, I likely would never hit 60 minutes for occasional use, & likely would do the same in flipping the time at the end of the month for unlimited long distance the last few days to burn the time. $15 a month? calling cards are cheaper. I don't see this is for me & Verizons policy is not all liberal at least the way I use it.

I actually I liked the phone my ex had years earlier, about the same size much sturdier & simpler to use, though this Samsung looks realitively simpler than what else is out there. Sometimes newer isn't necessarily better.

I've noted the board ads are hawking phones at me now, I guess I'll shut up on the subject


Looking under & around the battery there is no SIMM card, myst be in the firmware imbedded, I spoke to my brother, he knew a bit about this he has a Quad Phone that he just buys a SIMM card whatever country he goes to enable use of the phone.


VCR?... I note some signal loss (blacking out) on occasion on tapes for some reason, although analog the CC is still embedded into the recording.

Bismarck440:
I ment recorded programs at the tv station, not at home. Like Gunsmoke, etc. I do not have a VCR.
JJK

WAOH now has a construction permit for channel 29 http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/app_det.pl?Application_id=1351595 and http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=WAOH

Nice! Thanks for the info, reckoniez! Any hint of how long it will take?

I wonder if WAOH will be easily viewable in Cleveland?

Probably not. The Akron "antenna farm" is in the shadow for most of Cuyahoga County. Even here in the Cleveland antenna farm I cannot get WOIO on ch 24. I do get the full power Akron signals on 23 and 50 (49) as well as Canton 47. I did get the analog WAOH back in the mid 90's just before 35 went on the air. At that time I lived in Seven Hills.

BTW: I grew up in Euclid, I could not get the early incarnation of ch 55 and that was transmitted from Brecksville. Terrain is not on your side in Euclid. Canada, Toledo, and Detroit come in better in the summer than some local stations.

W35AX is the sister station & carries the same content (At least I think), you should be able to get 35 (or 16) when & if they go digital,.. as for me I'll be SOL on that being this far east. Even with the Rt Construction I'm still getting 23 on my outdoor antenna, 17 on occasion now since the construction & 49 is a rarity. A low power Akron station would be highly unlikely in the best conditions. I'm surprised WBNX isn't protesting (adjacent Channel adjacent Market).

Was 43 working on their transmitters Saturday overnight to Sunday Morning?
I was not receiving it around 6am Sunday (Weak) & now seems diminished a bit.

Darn, I see RTN is showing Movin' On, ... I miss that one!

No news from OMW during February, are they on hiatius?

Thanks, Michael P - yeah, I didn't think so, especially since I can't get WEAO 49 at all, and ION only with my indoor antenna. (You know, I really need to get that HBU33 up on a roof ) Canada and Detroit come in pretty darn well in the summer, even with the indoor antenna.

I have no problems with 55, but I'm in the southern part of Euclid, south of Euclid Ave up on a hill, so maybe that's the difference with 55?

We were having a lot of problems with 43 on Saturday night also! We didn't have the TV on yesterday (Sunday), so I don't know what it was doing then, but yeah, problems here too!

I get 17 most of the time, but 49 only once while DXing, and even then it was such a weak signal that I ended up deleting that channel from the box.

I wonder why only WAOH has the construction permit and not W35AX? I was under the impression (from the article on Wikipedia) that W35AX was going to overlap most of the coverage area?

You are doing pretty good then, for as far north & as close to the lake no Detroit & no Canada, Toledo seems to be more common for me in the summer months.


I was still having pixelization problems on 43 today, but the signal bar seems to be up, I imagine they were doing somethinmg over the weekend, & who knows how these tweaks affect me, though they figure I should join the rest of the 99% & just 'get cable'.

I don't think anything with 35 is in stone yet, though the maps say I should on the edge of coverage, I'm not expecting it. I'm pretty sure I'm on the edge of 7's coverage, I just had them for a few days enough to map them into my set then they disappeared for good, No big loss there.

WAOH and WRLM are both on the east side of Akron, out in Portage County. The transmitters for these aren't really that tall like the ones on the west side of Akron, but if they were, I'm sure the coverage for Cuyahoga County would be better. Being on the east side, there aren't issues with terrain. The west side transmitters are affected by the higher terrain of Richfield, so that's why the signal is poor up toward Parma and Cleveland.

Back in 2003 or around then, WDLI built a transmitter in Norton (the west side of Akron) exclusively for their TV channel. I'm not sure why that area was chosen. It's an area where WVPX and WEAO already exist, but if they wanted to have better coverage and they had the money to build their own tower, it seems like the east side of town would have been a better option if they wanted to reach Cleveland and more population.

Interesting, for as powerful as I hear 47 is, I can't get a heartbeat off it, yet I can pick up the Akron west side transmitters on my outdoor antenna, or at least see them. I think these is the same for that certain Youngstown station I appear to be within their coverage per the maps, yet cannot see.

If you ever saw the tower for channel 47, you would notice that it's not that tall compared to channels 23 or 49 on the west side. It's got a lot of power, but the transmitter is at 440 ft. above average terrain, whereas channel 23 is 971 ft. above average terrain.

WRLM has a construction permit to move their transmitter up from 440' to 508'. That should help a small bit.

WYTV in Youngstown has the most power of any Youngstown channel, but their tower is really short, meaning that signal doesn't travel as far as WKBN or WFMJ.

I think I'm physically farther to the West Akron farm, but have the hills of Geauga County/Kirtland shadowing me from anything south, as I nary could get the WDLI 51 repeater out of Newbury which was less than 15 miles as the crow flies. On the Maps I believe I'm in WRLM & WKBN's service circle, as they shoot over the lake, being where I live I have no control of my antenna height being about 28' at my elevation. Somewhat the same the Ridge over in Euclid sorta shadows a bit from the Parma farm... & then figure in the nulls, this isn't the greatest area for terrestial.. only a bit worse just farther east of me. WVIZ's repeater on 63 isn't all that great even at a direct east antenna swing.

Note 25's signal had been somewhat diminished too, I'm wondering if it's the road construction?

I was talking about the analog 55 when they first went on the air. I would later find out that their first tower was Carl Smith's stick on Snowville RD. In Brecksville near the Turnpike & 77. Technically in Cuyahoga County but not high enough up, and farther south than the rest of the Cleveland transmitters, to reach over some terrain obstructions. Ironically I saw ch 55 on a small TV in a Midas Muffler Shop on Lake Shore Blvd. in Willowick (even further away from Brecksville). Today's digital 55 is much closer to Euclid on W. Ridgewood DR. in Parma between WOIO and WQHS.

Tower height trumps power. I get WKBN 24/7 with an indoor Silver Sensor on top of a stack of boxes raising the antenna to near ceiling height. I only get WYTV when the atmosphere cooperates, and WFMJ is the last in and first to go out in those situations. WKBN has the best HAAT of all the Y'town stations.

I got the analog 67 (47's analog predecessor signal) and 29 when I lived in Seven Hills. But get this - the best LPTV picture came from Kirtland's ch 51! There was absolutely no ground clutter between my Seven Hills Home and Geauga County. I had a panoramic view of the entire east side. My reception of 23 & 49 was lousy from 7Hills. There was a bar down the middle of the analog picture that would not go away no matter where I moved my antenna. This is an indication of terrain obstruction.

Speaking of WKBN, they just increased power slightly from 570 kW to 650 kW.

- Trip

Any update of Fox WJW going live on UHF 31 plus repeater 21 & 46