Colorado Springs, CO - HDTV - Page 225

I managed to get KXTU to work by taking all of the splitters out of the line and running just a straight wire to one tuner. This gets me 23 dB SNR, which is adequate. All other locals, even split 4 ways, are better than 30dB. At least I know there is still some kind of signal; now I just need to decide how best to use it.

So, I'm thinking about using a distribution amplifier (CM-3414, perhaps) instead of splitters (currently a 1->2 with another 1->2 on each branch). Anyone else tried this?

RMPBS treats Southern Colorado to "Downton Abbey: A Study In Still Life"


http://www.flickr.com/photos/7316609...in/photostream (apparently the forum won't do directly inserted photos)

OK, not the greatest quality, but why bother with that when this is what see for well over 15 minutes, maybe longer but we went to bed. And maybe it wasn't a pure still. The maiden's heart (on the left, which should be the right), and chest were all a-flitter, though that obviously doesn't come through here.

You know, I get irritated every time they come on asking for money. They won't get a penny from me, not when they've never seen fit to put a translator for us folks here in Fremont County. God forbid the prisoners get any culture!

At my house just north of downtown Monument KXTU's signal went from unreceivable on my main antenna to nice and strong when they rechanneled to channel 20. It shows 93-95% on my DTVpal DVR, which is right in the range with KRDO. KXRM shows up at 98-100%.

KXTU had to rechannel because the FCC had ordered the 700 MHz band (channels 52-69) cleared by January 1st for the cell phone folks.

I have a CM 0068DSB mast amp (34db) with about 9 splits in it and everything comes in perfectly on every tuner. Amp is 6 yrs old and has never missed a beat.

My son lives in Fox Run, close to Monument in what would be about the same los as Gleneagle and even Black Forest. Trying to decide on an antenna, possibly one to rotate and get both CSprings and Denver Stations.

Anyone still listening here that lives in that area that might recommend an antenna or have any suggestions about the dual signal locations?

If you can post the URL for his TVfool report I can certainly try to help. It would be best to make sure to enter the planned mounting height to get the most accurate report. You can also run the report at different heights to see how things change.

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=90

I know that up by Fox Run there can be a lot of trees and topo issues for Denver reception. Colorado Springs will be mostly no problem. In my area I just point homebuilt (bi-directional) antennas toward Denver and Colorado Springs comes in fine, but up in the Fox Run area I'm sure a rotor or two antennas on an A/B switch would be the best bets.

Thanks, I passed this along to him and a suggestion to just join the forum. He had checked on antennaweb.org and they had an antenna suggestion, but he didn't send me the model yet.

Antennaweb is horrible. The CEA, who designed the sight, are doing their best to kill off OTA so they can build more cable STBs. If you believed them you'ld think you needed a monster antenna to get 25 mile LOS signals. I'm also sure it told him he couldn't get Denver. That may be the case, but it says the same for me and I have no real problem with Denver.

He just did a search and didn't ask me first. Here's his TV Fool info.

This is the antenna.

It actually looks like it may do the job. I really wonder if he can get Denver, though since his house is sitting downhill from Baptist road.

I have been lurking but not tracking the recent conversation very well. I was not aware of TV Fool so I tried it out for myself. Here are my results:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...0b86d2e1934158

Does this mean I can set up a second antenna and potentially pick up some Denver channels? Without an SNR (I know my antenna and gear play a role in that) I don't know what to make of the information. I know what it means, but in practice I don't know what it really means.

Your mapping looks much the same as my son's. If you can get los to Lookout mountain, no reason you couldn't get the Denver stations. I'm in Pueblo West, and before KBDI put in their relay in Springs, I was picking up their signal in Broomfield (although just intermittently) because the los was on the same plane as from my house to cheyenne mountain. It really just depends on whether you have anything close that might block it. The TV Fool info is mainly telling you you need a strong antenna for the Denver stations, one that is rated for the colors indicated.

Denver signals are hot in that area. I've done my own tests in the Walmart/King Supers area and it shouldn't be any problem as long as he stays away from that Chinese antenna. Those are designed for Chinese rather than North American TV frequencies. They can work, but not nearly as well as an antenna that was designed for the North American market. It does look like it may be possible to do like I do and point the antenna toward Denver and pull in Colorado Springs. I've actually had my best luck in the Monument area with home builts. Most commercial antennas have a high front to back ratio which isn't all that favorable if your trying to pull in signals from two directions. The Channel Master CM-3010 is one of the few commercial bi-directional antennas available. I haven't used one myself, but I know people in Denver Metro have had good success with them.

My experience would say yes. You may want to try pointing your antenna toward Denver to see what you pick up. Depending on antenna location I've actually been able to pick up KMGH's 15kW channel 17 LP station (which rebroadcasts KMGH's main signal).

This is my TVfool: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=90

KDVR is my weakest channel, but it's not hard to pick up. Antenna location and height are key. The only Colorado Springs Channel I don't get is KWHS 51 (since my antenna isn't pointed directly toward Cheyenne Mountain).

Thans for the good feedback. The specs on the CM-3010 doesn't indicate the Denver stations would be in range. I'm hoping Scott tries turning his antenna to test it and gives us some feedback.

Antenna specs don't tell you everything (or even the TVfool modeling). In the Walmart area I've pulled in all the full power Denver UHF stations (Mount Morrison and Lookout Mountain) on a 6" diameter loop antenna. And, have done the same as far south as Biargate Parkway. (I haven't tried farther south than that.) The VHF stations (KMGH and KUSA) are stronger, but I haven't tried getting them with an appropriately sized antenna anywhere other than in my neighborhood. It's based on my own tests and personal experience that I'm recommending trying the CM-3010, not it's manufacture's specifications.

Up until recently this was my antenna, and I'm sure it isn't any stronger than a CM-3010. I've actually got 5 of them made up in my garage. I've sold several to friends and family for $20. (I'm not really making any money off that.)

That's pretty cool. That's impressive you would get such good reception from such a small antenna.

Down here in Colorado Springs near Powers and Palmer Park and on Comcast (HD service with their standard HD box), we've had a couple of instances where the service flips from the channel being watched to something I believe called Comcast XTRA (Ch 32?). The only way we can get back to the watched channel is turn the cable box off and back on. Trying to change channels doesn't work.

The other thing we've seen periodically is while flipping through channels (or time slots on the same channel) in the HD channel guide, the guide will suddenly change to SD channels. It usually happens when we are looking at the channel in the last row of the guide and try to arrow down to the next guide page or arrow to the right for the next time slot.

Has anyone else experienced either of these little annoyances?

Thanks

I haven't experienced those issues, but I'm not using the comcast box. I don't want to pay the extra $7 a month for an HD box, so I use the TV tuner. However in doing that I was reinstalling channels and ended up with a lot of soft porn channels. They come and go.

As I see comcast encrypting more channels and apparently they will soon encrypt them all - forcing me to use their box - I will go to OTA only. I do miss discovery, history and food network, but I'm in the process of building a linux HTPC that will download episodes from the web.

I'm new to the Springs. Moved here in November and love it.

I thought about the HTPC approach, but then what are you using for your internet service? Are there caps? What kind of data rate can you get? Sad as it is, Comcast typically gives me 12-15 Mbps on the downlink and 1.5 to 3 on the uplink (according to SpeedTest). Centurylink advertises 20 Mbps service (downlink) and 864 kbps (uplink) in my neighborhood. Wish we had FiOS, but that will probably never happen *sigh*. Looked into a private T1 but its about $850/month plus installation, so forget that idea. Oh well.

I'm using comcast and have the 25Mbps service. I rarely get that speed. I was going to go with CenturyLink (qwest), but I'm up in Skyway and they told me I might get 1Mbps, which is ridiculous.

I'm not sure how I'm going to implement it yet. I used MythTV previously and it worked okay. I like the idea of a central server and then boxes to stream content into other rooms, but I may test drive several options this time. My entire house is wired for Gigabit ethernet thanks to the previous owner.

I'd like to be able to download the content automatically from certain services, which is more difficult when it's flash based, but I may used pytube python module to write my own script and see where it leads me. If I have to view from the web, at least I can make an interface for it.

T1 will be slower than cable.

I expect CenturyLink to improve service as quickly as possible. My advertised speed from CenturyLink is 5 Mbps, up from 3 Mbps 6 months ago. I just tested the speed and it tested 6.08 Mbps down and .76 Mbps up. I've been streaming Wall Street Journal videos in HD using my Roku 2 XS.

Why would 20 Mbps be a problem? That's at least 2 HD streams plus some web surfing. Throw in some OTA HD and you should be set up. As far as I know neither CenturyLink or Comcast have caps. Correct me if I'm wrong?!?

If all your getting (other than the soft-porn channels) is "limited basic" I'd think you would be better off with OTA. Better picture quality on the network stations, and more watchable channels (I don't consider the PPCC, UCCS, and city counsel channel to be watchable).

I moved to Southern Colorado in March 1994 without a job after visiting my college roommate in August 1993. I lived on the corner of Weber and Uintah for 9 years before moving to Monument in 2003.

5-1 KOAA (NBC) (RF30/42) 1080i HD
5-2 News 5 Now

8-1 KTSC RM(PBS) (RF8) 1080i HD
8-3 Create

11-1 KKTV (CBS) (RF49) 1080i HD
11-2 MyKKTV (MyNetworkTV)

12-1 KBDI (Colorado Public TV) (RF31) 480i SD
12-2 KBDI+
12-3 MHz Worldview

13-1 KRDO (ABC) (RF24) 720p HD

21-1 KXRM (FOX) (RF22) 720p HD
(21-2 KXTU (CW57) 480i widescreen)

51-1 KWHS (LeSea) (RF51) 480i SD
51-2 LeSea/LeSea Family

57-1 KXTU (CW) (RF20) 720p HD

I don't know why I didn't notice your response until now. I'm going to try this. I'm assuming there is no practical way to put it all on a single cable and that I need to run another coaxial cable up there, right? I was planning on running two more coaxial runs to the attic anyway, so it isn't a big deal. I have an FM dipole up there on a separate run so I can use that temporarily and see what I can pick up with bunny ears since I mounted my current antenna aligned to Cheyenne Mountain.

The only thing I might have blocking me is that I'm just a smidge on the south side of the Briargate hill. I doubt my roof has LOS either, but it has to be close.

Limited basic came with my internet package. I'm using it now because I haven't mounted an antenna yet. My house is 2 stories and I don't have a tall enough later. That aside I'm getting my internet package for a 12 month deal of $35. If I didn't get the package they wanted to charge me $60.

When I first started using it, I could tune in History and Discovery, but those are gone now. Apparently they will encrypt all the channels, including the locals, this year. I guess the FCC changed the rules, so they don't have to stream them in clear. My understanding is that this will save the cable companies a lot of money since they can leave everyone hooked up and they'll only need to send them a box and not have to rehook customers up outside.

I wish there were some local internet providers that had good bandwidth. I'd switch in a heartbeat because I rather support the small guy than either of the juggernauts.

My son is in the Fox Run area, but he's downhill off Baptist road so I don't know about the Denver stations, but he should get a good los to Cheyenne.

That is how they are able to keep their video subscriber numbers up. At the same time that Antennas Direct was selling 600,000 antennas "video subscriber" numbers were going up. It makes me wonder how real those numbers are if you have to bundle internet with TV to get the best price. How many people have satellite, but are "video subscribers" of the cable company because that is how they get their internet.



That is the excuse, but when your charging "rent" for cable boxes your enviromently friendly/consumer cost savings modivation is a bit suspect.


The only one I know of is http://www.pcisys.net/index.php . I've had friends who had their wireless service, who gave them great reviews, but they just can't compete on price and bandwidth with the big boys.

They claim that's the maximum rate (i.e. up to), actual results will vary. Also, is that a constant 20 Mbps? If I opened the spigot, would I get a constant 20Mbps? I'm skeptical. There's a lot of marketing hype in all these speed claims as far as I can tell. As for caps, I'd hear that Comcast was looking at a 500 GB/month cap a while back and it may have been implemented in some markets. I don't know about here in Colo Spgs though.

As an exercise, I believe an hour of uncompressed 1080p HD video is around 8.7GBytes, probably even more when adding in error correction. Just for grins suppose an hour of HD is 100 Gbits of data. An hour of uncompressed video would take about 5000 seconds (~1.4 hours) over a 20 Mbps pipe. The size of the data files we deal with today gives one pause for thought and makes you realize why there's compression algorithms out there.