Cleveland, OH - HDTV - Page 12

Well, I FINALLY got around to climbing the tower on my house today (*shudder* I have a nasty fear of heights and this sucker is TALL) to hook it back up.

Going from a coat-hanger-ish antenna indoors to the outdoor antenna (with substandard wiring. Spliced a balun into the old 300ohm twin lead up at the antenna and ran an old RG59 down from there to the ground and indoors.) Went from having 21 at around 60-70% depending on the atmosphere, 27 at 80-90%, and nothing else to 21 being at ~90%, 27 at a steady 100, 33 now coming in at an amazing ~80%, 23 (Ion) at 50-60%, and 45 at around 70%-ish. Add on a real staticy analog 52. Sadly nothing out of Cleveland. Not even WKYC's analog that is still on the air for now.

Didn't see no markings on the antenna and I really never bothered to look at it since we moved in here back in 2000 so it has to be older than that. Good dual uhf/vhf 'christmas tree', a combiner bringing the uhf and vhf elements into a single twin-lead wire. And much to my surprise the thing also has a rotor on it. Again, no markings that I could find. The lead to it has been snipped off above the roof. No chance on there being a universal rotor control is there?

I really should have taken the camera up. I was just too worried about getting it done and getting back on the ground ASAP. >>

Maybe ION is trying to hide all those "PX" calls they picked up in the PAX TV days, and this is cheaper than whatever the FCC charges for call letter changes?

Well, technically, WVPX/23 is a Cleveland market station And on the other side of Akron from you...

62, you mean, WYFX-LP? 52 is the religious full-power station licensed to Sandusky, which I assume is off analog.

As I was within range of WKBN-DT the other day and watching Fox Youngstown on 27.2, I got to thinking...unless they have something else they want to do with those analog LPTVs, New Vision/WKBN could well just sell them now.

No idea. I didn't stick on the channel long enough to see. Just showed up as analog on RF 52 and had some worship service on.

I'm certainly glad though that WKBN decided to go gung-ho and run both WKBN and WYFX at 720p on the same powerful transmitter. Before we could NEVER pick up a Fox station anywhere. Not even in analog with tons of static.

I know some have a fit about subchannels wasting bandwidth, but when the are used right like WBCB on 21-2 and WYFX on 27-2, it's definitely a real nice feature.

If you're ever feeling adventurous, replace the RG-59 with RG-6. RG-59 is typically only swept out to 100mhz during manufacturing, so you might pick up some more signal strength by switching to RG-6.

You have it pretty good there, I'm suspecting there is band activity, & I will lose a lot of what I'm getting, 11 & 13 seem like 50-75% regular since the switch but I don't count on it to last.

High VHF was the real stigma, 19 analog was one of the better if not the best received here... & strangey WBNX was not that far behind (my attic antenna was the acid test) what happened to both of them?

WBNS would have had to deal with WCPO Cincinnati as well if they had chosen to return to channel 10.

I want to add in that I just did a rescan here in the late evening/early morning and I pulled in 2 extra channels: KDKA out of Pittsburgh (albeit just about no signal. My set shows a 4% peak) and WKYC which, WOW is coming in at roughly 70% signal and 0 dropouts so far after 10 minutes. Nothing else out of Cleveland to speak of. Still got the others I posted earlier.

I'll have to take a look at the antenna tomorrow and see which direction it is pointing. I'm just wondering if this added strength is classic RF phenomenon and being so late in the evening. I'm shocked WKYC went from zip to 70%. Though WYTV did the same going from the old setup and has been steady so far.

Still, WOIO should never been assigned to channel 10 (even as a temporary, pre-transition channel) with CFPL so close and with WOIO accordingly having to run such a crippled signal to protect CFPL - this situation is as much the FCC's fault as Raycom's.

And with all the problems with WJW, maybe WOIO and WCPO did WBNS a favor by forcing them to stay on UHF for digital.

RG-59 is not the way to go. Your probably loosing most of the UHF band. And the 100 ohm impedance is a missmatch to your TV's 75 ohm. But I could be wrong and usually am.
JJK

RG59 is stil 75 ohm, though true RG6 & especially RG6QS is much better with UHF.

Depends where you are, I wired my basement with 'old' RG59, as long is it wasn't weathered, I couldn't see that much loss at the time, as my outdoor & house is wired with RG59, & there is no replacing it at this point.

I'm having second thoughts about using it in the basement though. I do have problems with the salt air & RG6 in my area when used outdoors.

Was around 10:30-11, but seems moot at this point, signal looked real low at the time <30%.

I just checked my tv again earlier this afternoon and WKYC, as I expected, is back to a terribly weak signal. Though now that it's programmed in I can see the signal and it's reading around 8-10% thereabouts. Not nearly enough for a lock, but it's getting this far at least.

I will probably definitely have to replace the RG59 with RG6 when I get the extra money and can get something prefitted with compression connectors. And around the same time maybe I can bring the old rotor back into service.

Correct - it is 75 ohms, but it's only 70% braid shield. This isn't a problem if you're shipping baseband signals around, but it's troublesome at higher RF frequencies. In addition, the dielectric isn't necessarily rated for high UHF frequencies. It's great stuff for wiring surveillance cameras - I can't tell you the number of baseband video lines I've run using RG-59 with great results. But I wouldn't use it for RF anymore.

Comparison of RG6 to RG6QS? Again I've been running the 6 & now 6QS at my dads which is an outdoor line (when cable came into his area, the signal on the RG59 degraded, especially on UHF, although nothing physically was wrong with the cable itself).... I did this in steps, the RG66 improved this & an amp really helped.

Every couple years I seem to have to replace the 6 now as the salt air is corroding the ends, & water seems to be entering the cable although it is well protected... I haven't been able to figure this out.

Now I've wired my basement in shorter runs with the 59, & the entire house is likely wired with 59 also from the main antenna on the roof.... that can not be changed, reason why I did the the basement with 59 I had left over.

My attic set is done entirely with 6QS, now again this is where I'm having the trouble with 19, 55, 25 & 23.

59 cable & connectors are becoming hard to find, much like the 6 was years back.

You may want to invest in a Compression tool, mine is from Data Shark was about $20-25, & Data Shark (Paladin) claims all compression types of connectors will work in their tool..

I seen one up at Harbor Frieght tools this past weekend though for $15, looks like the same tool.

I also pulled in 5-1 earlier though it seems to peak at like 18% at its very best. Think I am doing pretty damn good for an old rusted antenna, a quick and dirty splice job, and a worn out RG59 cable. Tuner is a Panasonic TH-42PX80U plasma.

I would have liked to seen what they were using for transmission line to the top.
JJK

Since its quiet I had to post this
From a friend, other friends confirmed the same broadcast
Saw on news last night

Channel 8 was sending reporters out into the field to show people how to hook up

And aim antenna because nobody can get 8 anymore

The report was hooking up extensions to this guys rabbit ears and walking around

The room to try and get the station in

It finally started to pixilate and he stopped and said see you just have to aim it right

To this older man in a recliner who had this look on his face was funny stuff

The picture was all pixilated and looked crappy and the reporter saying you just have to walk around the

Room with it that’s all



Then it cut to Wilma smith who gave this huge set of instructions on how to rescan your channels



She said its easy just-

Scan your channels

Unplug your digital box

Unhook your antenna

Wait 2-3 minutes

Plug back in but leave antenna unhooked

Scan your channels with no antenna

Then plug antenna back in and rescan your channels



She said I know this sounds like a lot but don’t worry we have the instructions on the web



Then back to reporter who now has a new antenna for the old guy and the channel finally tuned in

And if you look close it is a different antenna they gave him a new one

Hilarious

Scanning is easy. Try telling that to an 80 year old person who has trouble selecting 19.1, 25.4, etc. with a remote that has no lights and the buttons being way too small. Going into the menu is a "no way" thing for them. And what if you have about 4 or 5 different remotes? Disaster. My HD computer tuner will select "11.1" even if you hit "11" but the tv tuners will not. Old people don't get the .1 stuff.
JJK

I guess that depends which tv's and tv tuners one is using. I have a Panny tv with a built in tuner and a STB DTV-HD tuner for my plasma monitor. Both tuners accept just the basic number and automatically tune in the .1...ex: on both tuners if I hit 55 it automatically goes to 55.1

In fact, the Panny will do so even if I'm not even currently using the TV input. ex: If I'm on the CBL input for my cable box, typing 3 on the Panny remote automatically switches the Panny input to TV and tunes in Ch. 3 OTA.

I agree with JJK. Remember these can be people with a limited income trying to get a 10 year old analog set working with their coupon purchased converter box. Not people with state of the art $3000 plasma tv's.

Vchat20:

I would definitely replace your RG59 with at least RG6 coax. I replaced my RG59, first with RG6, then later with RG11 (which I fortunately got for free). The RG6 has about half the loss of the RG59 (especially at the higher UHF channels), and the RG11 has half the loss of the RG6. I would say that the most improvement is noticeable in going from RG59 to RG6.

Indeed. Requiring the additional .x may well be a limitation of the CECB boxes, I dunno, never tried one. With so few local OTA ch's available I'd tell anyone having issues with entering .x to simply use the ch UP and DOWN buttons.

But I would certainly suggest anyone try just the simple number with no .x as many tv's and tuners will function accordingly.

Anyone have the actual db loss per 100 ft at 900 mgs charts of all of the coax we have spoken of? I'm pretty sure all of the available splitters have a 3 db loss.
JJK

Coax Cable Signal Loss (Attenuation) in dB per 100ft*
Loss* RG-174
RG-58
RG-8X
RG-213
RG-6
RG-11
RF-9914
RF-9913

1MHz 1.9dB
0.4dB
0.5dB
0.2dB
0.2dB
0.2dB
0.3dB
0.2dB

10MHz 3.3dB
1.4dB
1.0dB
0.6dB
0.6dB
0.4dB
0.5dB
0.4dB

50MHz 6.6dB
3.3dB
2.5dB
1.6dB
1.4dB
1.0dB
1.1dB
0.9dB

100MHz 8.9dB
4.9dB
3.6dB
2.2dB
2.0dB
1.6dB
1.5dB
1.4dB

200MHz 11.9dB
7.3dB
5.4dB
3.3dB
2.8dB
2.3dB
2.0dB
1.8dB

400MHz 17.3dB
11.2dB
7.9dB
4.8dB
4.3dB
3.5dB
2.9dB
2.6dB

700MHz 26.0dB
16.9dB
11.0dB
6.6dB
5.6dB
4.7dB
3.8dB
3.6dB

900MHz 27.9 B
20.1dB
12.6dB
7.7dB
6.0dB
5.4dB
4.9dB
4.2dB

1GHz 32.0dB
21.5dB
13.5dB
8.3dB
6.1dB
5.6dB
5.3dB
4.5dB

Imped 50ohm
50ohm
50ohm
50ohm
75ohm
75ohm
50ohm
50ohm

* Note: Coax losses shown above are for 100 feet lengths. Loss is a length multiplier, so a 200 ft length would have twice the loss shown above and a 50 ft length would have half the loss. This multiplier factor is why you should keep cable installation lengths between radios and antennas as short as practical!


This chart went in real funny but use vertical eye balls.
JJK

Why no temps & forecast? Seems like they downgraded since the elimination of WX+.

How about 35 hooking up with one of the locals on a sub?

Retro on LP analog, what were they thinking?