Pittsburgh, PA - OTA - Page 139

There is SO MUCH information in PSIP! If a station has someone who doesn't throughly understand PSIP, LOTS of things can get fouled up!

While keeping that in the back of your head, I have been working with a television manufacturer that seems to have several new and different size sets on the market with some REALLY SLOPPY CODE in their chipset. I wish I could say that they are eager to work with us, but I guess we wish for a lot of things don't we. Because of this one stupid brand, I've had to put in lots of extra hours into "fixing" a piece of equipment in our stream simply to satisfy bad code.

I look forward (not!) to more of this in the future as consumer television set prices go down and manufacturers rush their products to market.

Dave Morrison
WPXI Engineering.

Chuck...I have to be honest and tell you that I am not that familiar with E-VSB other than reading a little about it here and there.

I can tell you that it was originally approved by the ATSC committee in 2004. This tells me that the technology is a little old. A-VSB is newer, and as of July 2008, has NOT been approved by ATSC.

Here is a link to some information on E-VSB http://broadcastengineering.com/news...test-20060501/

I have another link that you might be interested in about ATSC-M/H (ATSC Mobile/Handheld). This is written in "geek"; even those with a limited technical background may find some tidbits of interesting information here: http://broadcastengineering.com/news...h-basics-0315/

It seems to me that one of the biggest stumbling blocks when it comes to video on your cell phone or other mobile device is battery life. As things are built now, you will absolutely wipe out your battery! It's interesting to me that ATSC-M/H addresses the battery life issue. That being said, this really needs to be addressed by the cell phone and battery manufacturers as well.

Happy reading!

Dave Morrison
WPXI Engineering

Does anyone know what power output that WPCW ch 19 is running now? Are still at 2.5KW or did they move to 30KW?

WTAE is presently testing a translator on RF Ch 22. We'd appreciate learning zipcodes from AVS Forum members who successfully receive this. Should be on from now til at least 11PM Saturday night. You will know it's our translator if you get us on 4.3 and 4.4. Most neighborhoods north of Squirrel Hill, the Southside slopes, West End, Northside and surrounding river valley suburbs should get very good coverage now.

Tom, WPCW is at 30 kW. Its signal is strong here in Salem.

Thank You for the info.

Dave:

Have been struggling to get WTAE's 4.1 and 4.2 with mixed results. The signal is mostly choppy if it's there at all, depending on atmospherics, with the signal meter reading maxing out at about 35 out of 100.

I am using a 20 db amplifier on an Archer VU-90 attic antenna pointed due south, right at your transmitter. This orientation makes channels 19 and 59 more difficult to pick up here, but allows limited WTAE viewing.

Tonight I'm getting your 4.3 and 4.4 with the signal meter fluctuating between 60 - 80 with no changes made to the antenna (yet).

I figure your signal should increase if I turn the antenna a bit more toward the southwest, which will help reception of the other Pittsburgh signals as well.

When do you go 24/7?

Thanks for the hard work!

Zip code 15014
approximate coordinates 40* 36' 34" N / 79* 44' 23" W
Antenna elevation about 910' MSL

Dave...

Amazingly, here in Somerset, PA I am getting a very watchable signal on your Channel 22 translator. I've never even had a whiff of a signal of your full power Channel 51, which I attribute to the terrain, even though your main TX site is closer to me.

The signal meter on my Dish Network VIP 722 ATSC reciever is a respectable 60-65 on your RF 22/4-3/4-4. Occasionally, say once every 10 minutes, I may get a break up in the video.

I get consistent signals in the mid to upper 70's from KDKA, WPXI, WPGH and WPMY. I get a signal in the low 70's from WQED and WQEX. I am using a ChannelMaster 4228 antenna. Zip code 15501.

One other note, I don't get a usable signal from WPCW (RF 11). Too bad they are not using a UHF frequency for that station's digital service!

I'm in 15227 and was receiving it previously in accordance with the issue I reported last week of having two 4.2's. I'm not picking it up right this minute and I'm guessing its due to either the weather or the signal being shut off.

Any chance that any other stations besides KDKA will put a translator in Morgantown? (Morgantown is in the Pittsburgh DMA) I used to be able to sporadically get WTAE, but can't get that at all any more. I also can't get any of the Clarksburg stations (even though they are in a different DMA). Currently can only get WNPB, and I am going to assume once KDKA puts their translator on or near the same WNPB tower I will be able to get it well. But really missing WPXI and the other Pittsburgh stations.

ZIPCODE 15641
I was able to pick up the translator Friday evening and the rest of the weekend, but by this morning the signal was gone.

Normally I have what I call my "sweet" spot where I point my old outdoor CM antenna and get good decent reception fairly consistantly on all the PGH stations except for WPCB [40.1 - UHF 50], but as a trade off I get WTOV [9.1, 9.2 - VHF 9] instead.

In the sweet spot WTAE's main signal usually comes in above 50 % or more on my Zenith 901 converter box. (I've seen it go as high as 70 % at times in the sweet spot.) By swinging my antenna more to the south I can always get a better signal level, but doing so usually means sacrificing my reception of the other PGH stations.

At times I do have some reception problems mostly depending on weather conditions, or time of day, and normally WTAE suffers the most because of it's lower signal level unless I move my antenna. So usually I simply put up with the occasional sound drop outs and pixel smears.

Now this weekend while watching WTAE I was getting a 50 to 60 % signal level on the main signal. The translator though was giving me a signal level about 10 points higher in the 60 to 70 % range.

Also this weekend I noted some of these problems on 4.1 and 4.2, but flipping to either 4.3 / 4.4 on the translator gave me a cleaner picture and audio. So even that little 10 point boast in signal was a BIG improvement in my enjoyment of TEA's programs.

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By the way, is there a reason to put the translator's virtual channel assigments on 4.3 / 4.4 and not 4.1/4.2? I know it won't present a problem on my Zenith converter boxes since during the summer I picked up another station I think was in Ohio that also used 4.1 and 4.2 due to a strong tropo condition. The box simply interlaced the two stations virtual channels, placing the Ohio station ahead of WTEA since they broadcast on a lower channel [VHF 10].

We can't be certain how every single brand of TV Tuner and Converter Box would handle 2 sets of 4-1 and 4-2 signals. Other broadcasters launching DTV Repeaters (and there aren't a lot of them!) have taken this same approach, erring on the side of caution. Also, it makes it quite clear which signal you are receiving better, and so make an informed choice.

Thank you for your report. We ran the translator until 11 PM Sunday . We will continue limited test operations all this week from at least 8PM to 11:35 PM TFN.

Dave

I expect you are in a null in Somerset from our main signal. I am glad to hear you get us that well on 22 since it's less than 9KW ERP!!

Dave

Thanks for the report. We'll go 24x7 as soon as WQED complete's their antenna work. It's a tower crew safety issue we have to respect in the meantime. I hope we are running full time in a week or so, meantime we will broadcast in Prime Time hours since the crews won't work in the dark.

Dave

Hello everybody, I'm new here and I just wanted to say that there is a ton of great information on this website. I've spent hours reading on here and Everybody seems very helpful.

I do have a question to ask. I live in 43953 and until last week I've been able to pick up wpgh 53 at around 40-50% signal strength out of 100. Now I can barely lock onto the signal. I find this odd because their sister station is coming in between 70-80% signal strength. I know their towers are basically in the same location and they should be operating at around the same power level. So, I guess my question is, is anybody else is having this issue? And does anybody know if WPGH is operating at full power?

I should mention that I have a channel Master 3016 30 feet above the ground and a 15db signal booster.

Thanks in advance

Yes, they are at 1000KW

If they are at full power as channel 22 is any idea why I get such poor reception on 53?

Thanks for your report - Dave

WPGH signal is always weaker than ch 22 and I am not sure why.

Is there a question there?

The question is Why is WPGH weaker than channel 22? They both are broadcasting at the same power level and their towers are in the same place.

My understanding is WPGH and WPMY actually have one tower that the two stations share. They both broadcast at the current FCC maximum that a full-power UHF DTV station is allowed - 1000 kw ERP. However both stations use a directional pattern which directs their power more-or-less in opposite directions.

Here's WPMY's directional pattern which is more to the south west.
http://www.rabbitears.info/oddsanden...ion=0&erp=1000

And here's WPGH's pattern which is more to the east.
http://www.rabbitears.info/oddsanden...ion=0&erp=1000

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These plots are from the RabbitEars website.
You can check out http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?mktid=29 for further information on all the broadcast stations in the Pittsburgh market.

Thanks for the info. Now it makes sense to me.

Obligatory reminder: you can use TVFool.com to help answer questions like this. Tips for best accuracy: use the "Start maps" options to check that your address input maps to your location accurately. From the maps results, you can drag the receive location pointer to exactly the right place (plus be sure to use the right antenna height). After choosing "make radar plot" one of the things you'll get is a table of stations ordered by decreasing signal stregnth.

I know what you're saying, however, tvfool.com didn't give me the answer I was looking for. SamVin's answer directing me to rabbitears.com was what I was looking for. I knew the signal was weaker where I live, however, I didn't know why.

Has WQED made the switch to 13 ? It's comming over here in Johnstown [Richland area] with a big 68 .. that's 30 more than normal for me.... no more break-ups ! Even with Tropos the most I got was a 45 ....

Just checked 13 last night and no signal, although they do have 20 more days until they move the date again .

Jeff: just checked WQED signal 3:30 PM ..It dropped somewhat now reads 58- 60. Still coming in better than the high 30's I was getting before. May have somthing to do with leaves falling off the trees! tho no trees in my direct path...just distant mountains

WQED was off and on all day today. I didnt know if today was the day they were gonna transition or not but they kept coming back on 38 after 5 or 10 minutes, so maybe it was just wind...or maybe they were moving their old antenna and cables around to make room for the new one?