Topeka, KS - HDTV - Page 2

WIBW-DT is on the air. Thursday night I was watching Survivor on TIVO and saw a commercial saying that they are on the air. I connected my 30 year old cheap UHF antenna to my Sony HD100 and did a search. After an adjustment to the antenna, I found 13.1. They were showing David Letterman in stretched mode. I will need to watch HACK on Friday night to see how good the picture is going to be.

Thanks to Jeff Groves and his staff at WIBW for getting HDTV on the air in NE Kansas.

Tim let us know if you can get the signal in Manhattan.

On my receiver it came in as 13.1. I am in the 29th and Wanamaker area and am getting a signal of 79 with my cheap little antenna setting on top of my TV. On the antenna maps, my area is in red so we must be in a slight valley. I can't pick up FOX 43 with the same antenna.

The picture is diffidently stretched. There bug is a little large and red. I hope it does not cause burn-in. It is nice to see that they are running a lot of commercials to get the word out.

Any updated info on KSNT?

Timmy - Thanks for the info. I had just emailed Jeff when I saw your post. That's great news from T-town. I probably won't have time to re-aim my antenna until Sunday (I'll be in Manhattan for the game tomorrow), but I'll be trying it then for sure. I've got a really good feeling about this, for some reason. I'll let you know how it works out.

(different) Brad

Hi Tim, I am the corporate VP of Engineering for the company that owns WIBW as well as KAKE, Wichita and WOWT, Omaha (and 24 others). I just wanted you and the other active participants in this forum to know that we solicit and appreciate feedback from viewers like yourself.

In these earliest stages of real-world evaluations of our DTV operations it is very important that we get a good assessment of quality and ease of reception from actual consumers so that we may serve the public more fully.

I will monitor the AVS Local HDTV Info and Reception topic as time allows and will respond to any questions that are addressed specifically to me.

Please note however that I am involved with the television origination and transmission side of this business and am emphatically NOT an expert in the consumer equipment issues.

Thanks for watching and being an early adopter.

We have been trying to pick up WIBW-DT here in the store in downtown Topeka. We were using a small set top antenna and the signal was jumping from 0-50 and would not lock on. Were are using a DISH 6000 receiver. Our sat. installer is coming out next week to put up a new UHF antenna on top of our four story building. Jayhawk tower is to the south of us so we might have a hard time getting Wichita but maybe we will get KC.

I live in a condo, so I won't have much luck putting up an outdoor antenna, but we do have a high attic. I will need to run cable so it might be awhile before I can get an antenna installed up there.

VP/Engineering -

Bravo to you, my friend! I wish all the broadcasters had your attitude. We, as early adopters, really appreciate those on the broadcasting side who are willing to stick their necks out (and dig into their pocketbooks) to meet the intent, as well as the letter of the law, for the digital transition.

Now, I know of a couple of stations in DMA #31 that need a new owner........any takers?

Brad

Tim,

We have found that intermittent reception as you described is most commonly as a result of multipath interference ('ghosting' in the analog world). Multipath is caused by the signal being received at the antenna by reflected signals (off of wall, roofs, people walking aroung etc.).

The easiest solution is to obtain a highly directional antenna and try that. You want an antenna with a very high front-to-back ratio with good rejection of signals in any direction other that the one it is pointing. The ability to reject multipath is generally more important than the gain of the antenna (although by definition, higher gain indicates higher directionality). Usually impairments such as multipath or impulse noise will cause a decoder to fail to achieve lock long before a low signal strength will.

Another note is that if the fundamental problem is due to multipath, placing the same antenna outside and higher will not cure the problem if the multipath condition still exists at the new location. In fact the problem can be exacerbated due to the loss introduced by the longer coax run. For example at the WIBW frequency, 150 feet of RG6 coax will reduce the signal available by almost 6 times (7.5 dB). Often you can get better results by using a directional antenna at the same location. Of course, the best of all worlds is a directional antenna outside at a high elevation.

The ultimate solution to all of these issues, is to let your cable company know that you expect it to make available the local DTV channels without degradation. Same resolution, same multiplex of programs. Let them deal with the antenna issues.

Here in northern Illinois at my house I use an antenna called a 'Silver Sensor' <<a href="http://www.silversensor.com" target="_blank">www.silversensor.com> which is an indoor antenna that is highly directional, but with modest gain. It is 6 feet off the ground, on top of the TV, in an interior room. I have a solid lock on all stations in Madison, WI (58 miles) without any trouble. The stations there are between 100kW and 380kW ERP.

BTW
Brad, thanks for the kind words.

Tim, I should have mentioned that WIBW is using a temporary transmission line at the moment. It is very lossy and consequently we are operating at only abour 25kW. We are waiting on a component that will allow us to use the correct line and will bring the power up to 95kW or so. This should be done in the next couple of weeks, so don't give up yet.

Thanks for your support.

As Brad mentioned, earlier our store at 7th and Kansas, downtown Topeka was unable to receive signal 10-11 p.m. While we're waiting to have a UHF antenna mounted, i connected an old VHF antenna that is hanging half off the west end of our roof. WIBW will not come in with the scan on the Dish 6000, but assigning 44 picks up a locked mid 60s% signal. Thanks for all you efforts at WIBW. i will take the 6000 home tonight and test it while the power is still low, east of lake Shawnee, i think that's about 30 miles east of your tower. The store is also in antenna CEA code red area, about 20 miles east of your transmission tower, and the programming at 9:00 a.m. appears to be in the stretch mode

Saturday afternoon. I am having a hard problem getting the receiver to lock onto the signal. The meter will jump form 0 to 80 then back down to 20 and keeps locking and unlocking. The picture is unwatchable. It is very winding so that might be the problem. My antenna is indoors and has not been moved. I am not sure what the problem is. We had a simalar problem at our store earlier in the afternoon.

At the store, when the cloud cover left, we experienced the same effect. I thought it was the cloud cover, wind and or 30 year old VHF antenna/150' cable. At home, Sunday, no signal, but don't have 61.5 set up. One note -the concerns about multipathing, seem unwarranted, as that is the problem with analog in downtowns, but didn't seem to be a problem with digital, here at least.

On Saturday, after the wind settled down, I was receiving a good signal again. It was in the 78 to 82 range.

Sunday I had no signal at all. At first I thought they might of shut it off to make people watch the NFL on the SD channel along with their local commercials. But it did not come back on later that night. My system did not change over night.

I didn't get my antenna re-aimed until Sunday, and didn't have any luck at all getting 44. Tried around noon, and a couple of times in the evening. I had an email from Jeff on Friday, and he said they had gone to full power at 5:00 pm that day. Maybe he meant the best "full power" they could do with the current transmission line. Anyway, I'm not going to give up yet!

Brad

Hi guys, my first post. On Saturday I got signal from wibw and the
signal strength was in the 70s to 90s and would peak at 100 at
times. My amtenna is pointed towards KC. On Sunday I got no
signal at all. Today as of 1:00 pm I'm getting no signal. Has wibw
shut off the digital signal?

Monday night still no WIBW-DT. I was hoping to see CSI-Miami in HD. It would be nice if they could list the status of their digital signal on their webpage.

Tuesday at 1:00 pm I have signal again, at first it was going
up and down like crazy, after a while it seemed to stay around
86 to 93. Picture still stretched but at least the big red 44
logo is gone, I really dont want that burned into my picture
tubes of my 73 inch Mitsubishi. I am in the Highland Park
area, with antenna pointed towards KC( this might help VP/Engineering )

I tried again last night to get WIBW-44. Still no luck. Anybody know if they're running full power yet? Still waiting on a new transmission line?

Brad

I was able to receive them on Tuesday night. Still getting a peak signal of 82. That is the same as it was last week.

It did seem that they were only upconverting their NTSC signal even during the CBS HD shows. The picture was stretch and better than the analog signal on cable but not quite the crispness of their picture last week. During HD shows last week, they were passing the "CBS It's All Here" commercials. Last night they had their regular commericals and 10:00 news teasers.

I don't think there are any HD shows on tonight but I hope they get it fixed for CSI on Thursday.

Disappointing!

I would assume that those things are not just "Plug and Play". My guess is the earliest we would see them is mid November.

Good idea about the letter to the editor. I just hope that WIBW gets their picture fixed before the artical runs.

Ok.
Here it goes.
We were off the air Sunday and Monday due to a problem. New parts cam in on tuesday, on the air again. Transmitter is putting out 5 KW with an ERP of 25 KW. Currently WIBW is running on a temp line with a lot of loss.
When it gets switched to the main line , ERP will be 95 KW.

Yes, NTSC is being streched. I have some programing to due to make it auto change from NTSC upconverted to HDTV during prime time.

I am currently extremly busy, I have no time line to give you as to when the
change to the other line will take place. ( I am waiting on the manufacture)

I also have no time line as to when we will pass true HDTV. This equiptment is a tad complicated to say the least. In the mean time I'am trying to get a new live truck put together. So please be patient I am doing the best I can...

Thankyou
Jeff Groves
WIBW TV