Pittsburgh, PA - OTA - Page 149

No, that antenna is known to perform very poorly and be very shoddy in its construction. Plus, it is amplified, and you probably do not need amplification in your location. Even if you did, the internal amplifiers on antennas like that are usually very noisy and do little to help reception.

Make sure that whatever coax you use is RG-6.

- Trip

Go with the HBU33. I have used several Antennacraft antennas from RS over the years and their performance often exceeds that of similarly designed Winegard and Channel Master antennas. Right now I have Antennacraft Y7-10-13 mounted on my roof where previously there was a Winegard YA1713 for reception of VHF high and the the Antennacraft model rejects signals better and has better gain.

Antenna technology hasn't changed for many decades and probably won't change for many decades more. A good antenna doesn't cost that much because antennas really are amazingly primitive. They're just sets of metal wires or thin metal tubes cut to length and arranged at proper distances from eachother.

Ironically, if an antenna looks high-tech or advertises special features, it probably performs poorly. There is no such thing as an "HD" antenna so don't worry about looking for that as a feature. What you need is the same type of antenna you've seen on the top of houses your entire life.

Buy an un-amplified antenna and only add an amplifier if needed.

I've had good experience with channel masters. Check out the channel master 4221 ($40) or 4228 ($80).

The hardest part will be mounting an antenna properly on the roof and then running the coax to where it is needed...

Is anybody else having a problem with KDKA OTA? I just turned it on for the first time since January and I'm getting nothing. The antenna is in the same position and every other channel is fine, but it was gone in the OTA channel listing, and it's not being found in an OTA search either. Manually entering "2-1" on the remote takes me right to plain ol' "2," and it's nothing but snow and static. Could it be a problem with my set or did I miss something in the past seven months? Any ideas?

Try to rescan

Delete the KDKA entry, then using your remote change the channel to 25 so your set looks for the RF channel, rather than 2 which is the virtual channel.

KDKA has always been a fidgety channel for me.

Has anyone noticed that WQED has added yet another channel on 13.4? Seems to be a variation of the Neighborhood Channel with only WQED-produced programs. Doesn't appear to have a name of it's own.

I saw it lock in last week.

It reminds me of occasional video channels I find in muxes on satellites, as I have seen Dave & Dave and a Chris Fenimore cooking show airing with nothing the rest of the time.

Timing of it seems funny too. Just a thought, but shop nbc contract with winp ends at the end of september. time will tell but maybe 13 is gonna keep shop nbc and use that channel for it , i personally hope not.Looks like they are testing it out right now.

I hope NO shopNBC either!

Let's make it the Rick Sebak Channel!

There seems to be a 40-4 channel, too. I tripped over it when I discovered 13-4.

--

Larry

Considering QED has a non-commercial license, I don't think we need to worry about ShopNBC moving to 13-4.

According to a post on WQED's Facebook page, 13-4 will be the "WQED Showcase" channel which will officially debut later this fall. It will air an eclectic mix of various programming from QED's library.

I've been having some issues over the past week or so with channel 11 (.1 and .2) dropping out. Sometimes I can't get it in at all. Every other channel is coming in fine and I haven't made any adjustments on my antenna. Anyone else having issues? Should I try a rescan? Thanks!!

Tiga

WPXI has been the same for me. This is the time of year when reception starts slightly altering with the changing seasons (although usually for the better in the fall/winter). Yeah I'd try rescanning if you haven't already. I usually do it once a week just for giggles.

Just flipping through the stations on my TV, I noticed 16-4 disappear and IONLife now on 16-3. Sure enough the entire ION mux has moved up one, eliminating ShopNBC as 16-1 is now ION HD.

It seems Windows Media Center is good at predicting changes, as I noticed the EPG had made the change yesterday afternoon while 16-1 was still broadcasting ShopNBC. It had also added the ION listings to 16 back in June before the mux went live.

TitanTV had it listed pretty far in advance too. Do you know what WMC utilizes for its EPG? Could be TitanTV or maybe even its own. I disconnected the cable from my computer last winter and haven't even opened WMC since then so I'm not sure.

Zap2It provides the WMC guide data.

Hope everyone is having a merry christmas. I wanted to let everyone here know wbgn is going to replace Universal Sports with Live Well Network Jan 1st.

Universal Sports is dropping their OTA affiliates and will become a cable/satellite-only channel: Universal Sports Spikes Over-the-Air Model.

The Greensburg affiliate for WBGN is STILL not operational after several years now. I haven't heard anything since discussing it on this board back in June. They are apparently never going to raise the capital necessary to construct it.

I understand do not worry i will contact the station owner and see what is going on.According to wikipedia all his stations are broadcasting but it must be wrong.I will post here tommorow night what i find out.

IIRC, Wikipedia also said WPCW-DT was on the air for years on RF 49.

Isn't this the station whose licensed location points to a parking lot?

Please do not use Wikipedia as a technical source. This FCC site, http://licensing.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/p...od/cdbs_pa.htm is the primary source. The best secondary source is http://rabbitears.info/.

Yes the same station discussed back in June (a few pages back). it is supposed to be callsign WEMW, another translator relay of WBGN. Originally they couldn't complete construction by the license deadline due to lack of funds so they applied for an extension. When I emailed a WBGN engineer back then he said it was already operational, which was a laugh considering my complete inability to receive it and the FCC filings.

Six months have now passed and nothing new. So I don't know what is going on with them. It's a big mystery.

Yes, the FCC database shows it broadcasting from the parking lot of the Hempfield Square shopping complex. Up until 1998-99 when construction began, there was a tower farm located at the site which was the location of WHJB-AM, 107.1, and an LPTV now known as WQVC-CA to name a few.

I found out from rabbitears.info it is not on the air yet. Their permit to build it now is extended to sept 1 2015 according to the site.

WQVC-CA is owned by the same people. Their latest coordinates actually point to a tower to the northwest of the parking lot on Tower Ln in Irwin. My guess is that WEMW will be going on the same tower eventually, but the owners have forgotten to modify their proposal properly.

http://www.hdtvexpert.com/?p=1612 why we should be happy to receive ota programming [let's hope the FCC keeps HANDS OFF our ota]

The article is really about the increasing cost of cable TV and how the cost of ESPN and other sports channels are imposing a "sports tax" on nearly all cable subscribers. While I like watching the Steelers as much as the next guy it does seem unfair that ESPN, Root Sports, etc. are not either al a carte or on a sports tier and that many who are either not sports fans or who would choose not to pay high sports channel prices are being ripped off. It's also very unfair (almost criminal) that ESPN, etc. are using this "sports tax" to take more and more sports events off of local broadcast television stations.