Kansas City, MO - HDTV - Page 57

I called the main line and told them I wanted to be on a list. They said there was none, so I told them someone told me the Barry Road store had put them on a list, and they called the store for me. They then put me on that list at the store.

BTW, I live near the store, but maybe the other stores in the area are doing the same thing.

I think this is how it works:

If the Chiefs are playing at Noon on FOX, KCTV can't show the CBS Noon game at all. If that's the HD game of the week, tough luck. I BELIEVE they would be able to show a 3:00 game under those circumstances, however. In other words, the Chiefs and another game can't be on at the same time in Kansas City.

Brad

I don't think they'd do that for me, either, since we don't have SBC DSL out our way yet. I wonder if you have to be a TWC sub to get it, anyway?

Brad

Thank goodness for NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV!!! ...Lot's of HD games to be had each week!!!

Thanks Brad. Hey did you guys and gals see the Aaron Barnhart article in the star today. Aaron mention WDAF FOX4 DT-34 lack of HDTV. We have got to keep calling and e-mailing WDAF. Hopefully FOX 4 will turn up the power and turn on the Fox HDTV here in Kansas City.

I sent them an email Monday about this very issue. I warned them about the fallout if the Chiefs' games they carry aren't HD, as well as the playoffs and Super Bowl. I also reminded them that, Longley-Rice notwithstanding, they are NOT serving their city of license with 1.1 kW ERP.

Brad

Hey guys, here is the skinny on how NFL television works:

The network is chosen by visiting team, if the visitor is NFC, it's on FOX, AFC CBS.

The only time FOX will have a Chiefs game is if it is a home game against an NFC opponent. This game will only be shown if the game is sold out (applies to all home games, never a problem for us loyal Chiefs fans). The other rule that applies to home games is no game can be shown on the opposite station at the same time.

The big hangup is who has the double header for that week. They don't alternate, I am not sure how they determine which network has the doubleheader. In any case, if the network showing our home game has the double header and we are at home, we will get at least two games, possibly three (depending on whether the opposite station's game for our region is scheduled for the same time as the KC home game or not). If the network showing our home game does not have the double header, we get two games, no matter what. (the chiefs game and the game in the other time slot for the station with the doubleheader that week)

If we are away, we get three games, no matter what.

Any questions? There will be a pop quiz tomorrw.

Is that article by Barnhart available online anywhere? I can't find it on KCstar or TVBarn and I missed it in the paper.

I completely agree jeffdbs, but WDAF got a really good deal on wire coat hangers from Wal-Mart to use for their current digital broadcast antenna. So until winter rolls around when they have to hang up their coats, they have no motivation to put up a real transmitter/antenna.

Fox 4 SUCKS!!! For me, Other than NASCAR, football, and '24' there is no reason to watch them. And by not stepping up with HD, they are not giving me any reason to change my mind.

And I am willing to tell all of their advertisers that HD is the single biggest reason that I am not watching their commercials on Fox - because without HD, I won't be tuned into WDAF.

I was just in McCarthy Chevrolet getting my wife's car oil changed and I saw 5 brand new 2004 Trailblazers all in the delivery are waiting to be picked up by WDAF. Apparently, WDAF can afford to keep the news crews trolling about in fully loaded hot rods but can't spend a dime on improving their crappy picture.

I say we all boycott WDAF and take every chance to let all of their local advertisers who buy air time know that we aren't watching.

Preach on Brother!

Since Fox 4 is owned & operated by Fox how do we go about getting the waivers in place to allow DirecTV to carry the FOX HD signal directly like they do for CBS in cities with CBS owned stations? As long as they aren't going to provide a decent ATSC signal we should be allowed to get the national feed.

Yes I believe WDAF FOX4 DT-34 and DirecTV are own by the same company. This should be easy to obtain from WDAF since WDAF will not provide a full-power digital signal.

I just called and left a message on the WDAF FOX 4 Problem Solvers Hotline...

...for some reason I am thinkning I won't be getting a return call!

I also just left a message with Cheryl McDonald to see how willing WDAF is to allow waivers for KC-area folks wishing to have Fox in HD.

WDAF needs to wake up - if enough of us complain or submit for waivers, perhaps they will take action. Again - I doubt if I will get a return call, but if I do, I'll be sure to post the response here.

Where is this article, what did it say?

Could someone please transcribe it here on the forums?

Aaron Barnhart's KCStar Article

It will be interesting to see what she says since WDAF is a Fox Owned & Operated (O & O) station and DirecTV has said that they will be passing the the FoxHD signal through to subscribers of the HD & Local Channel Packages in those viewing areas whenever Fox starts broadcasting in HD sometime this fall (there are a couple of threads on FoxHD over in the HD Programing Forum). So it should be just like what DirecTV is doing now with the CBS HD east and west coast feeds in CBS O & O areas. It would seem in this case that WDAF doesn't have any say over if you will get the FoxHD feed if you meet the criteria above.

Also, this interesting bit was posted over there:


Take it for what it's worth. As always, YMMV and if WDAF still uses the signal strength that it currently is, it won't matter much unless you're on cable or DirecTV.

I just checked in with Cheryl's office: apparently she got my message and is consulting with the corporate offices as to what information they can provide to us.

...not sure what that exactly means, but at least she is willing to acknowledge the request for information.

The best way to e-mail WDAF FOX4 DT-34 is to e-mail their owner. http://www.newscorp.com/management/foxtvstations.html

FOX and DirecTV has an agreement that when the FOX HD National feed comes up on DirecTV, the O & O markets will get an auto turn on if there is no overlap from another FOX affiliate. WDAF is owned by FOX so if you live in the DMA of the O & O, you don't live in the coverage area of a second FOX affiliate, you have D* HD and the local package, you will get the FOX HD National feed without doing anything whether you receive WDAF or not.

Thank you foxeng for the answers on the DirecTV and O&O markets. Any ideas on why the FOX owned television station here in Kansas City WDAF will not provide Kansas City FOX viewers with a full-power digital signal. Why is Kansas City FOX Over the Air viewers left out of the upcoming FOX programming and sports broadcasting fall season provide in 720p HDTV? Again thank you for your input on our local Kansas City HDTV forum.

Being a FOX O & O, any large capital purchases have to be approved by FOX in LA. FOX has decided that until more viewers are able to see the digital signals, they are providing a minimal signal in the smaller markets that they own stations in. In the large picture, it is a purely financial reason. I do not know the specifics, but I understand that there are other technical reasons that prevent WDAF from increasing power that the other FOX O & O's at low power do not have and I am sure that is playing into it.

I am in North Carolina, so I am quite removed from WDAF but do hear occasionally things going on there.

[quote]Originally posted by foxeng
[b]Being a FOX O & O, any large capital purchases have to be approved by FOX in LA. FOX has decided that until more viewers are able to see the digital signals, they are providing a minimal signal in the smaller markets that they own stations in. In the large picture, it is a purely financial reason.

...Thank goodness ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, UPN, WB, PAX, and the other few independent full-power digital broadcasters here in Kansas City did not have a business plan like our local FOX station here in Kansas City has toward full-power digital television broadcasting. Kansas City television viewers deserve to have a full-power FOX broadcasting station. Anything less from a company that is as large as the Newscorp company is in my opinion just wrong to the television viewers of the Kansas City television market. WDAF FOX4 has the staff, engineers and enough viewers waiting to solve what ever it takes to get DT-34 full-power, full bandwidth FOX 720p and Dolby Digital 5.1 on the air before the 2004 NFL and FOX fall programming starts. Please Newscorp turn on the FOX full-power over the air DT-34 here in Kansas City. Your loyal FOX viewers have seen the future of television in HDTV. Please hear us. Thanks.

I've got a question - looking for suggestions.

I'm finally viewing content from my STB on a true HDTV. I purchased a LG RU-44SZ61D (44") on friday and I'm loving it.

I've got two antenna in the attic with a combiner, one a vhf/uhf the other a uhf. I have two problem channels (outside of WDAF of course). The problems are KMBC (9) and KSMO (62). Their signals vary on the low end, occasionally I loose the picture. I've been to antennaweb.org to check their heading from my location. A few other stations are on the exact same heading, at least one of those is the same distance 17mi. Other stations lie on either side of that heading and have a good signal as well.

I guess I'm curious if 62 & 9 are transmitting at a lower power? Does anyone have any thoughts on something I might be missing? Would moving from attic to roof top make a significant difference? What about signal amplifiers? My thoughts are to stay away from signal amplifiers if at all possible. I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks.

jkhill- when you say two antennas with a combiner are you saying you are using both antennas at the same time? If so have you just tried using the VHF/UHF antenna with a single RG-6 coax cable feed going into a ground block and from the block into the back of your STB unit. KMBC DT-07 and KSMO DT-47 I believe are broadcasting at full power. An outdoor antenna can help but amplifiers are trouble in the metro area when used to receive local over the air digital channels.

I'm not sure about KMBC, except for the fact that it is VHF and is touchy sometimes. They are at full power.

KSMO is only boadcasting at 9kw, but their antenna is VERY high (at FCC limit). This is why most of us can receive their low power signal (hear that WDAF?). You may have trouble with this in Belton, especially in your attic. Channel 47 is a pretty high frequency and most of the signal is being blocked by your roofing materials at 9kw.

jeffdbs - Yes I'm using both antenna at the same time. They run into a combiner up in the attic then a single coax runs into a line conditioner/surge protector.

I assume RG-6 is a rating for coax? I don't know what my coax is rated at. It is not bottom of the line stuff, not top of the line either. I will look into that.

My coax feeds into a line conditioner and from the line conditioner into my STB. I don't know if the ground block is the same as the line conditioner or not. You may have to elaborate on that.

hdtimmy - Your description of KMBC seems accurate. It does fine for a period of time although the signal strength is below 50%, but there are periods of time the signal strength drops pretty low and my picture breaks up. It doesn't seem to be related to anything I can put my finger on - yet.

I may take an antenna up on the roof just to see if it makes much difference before I look into mounting one. It can't hurt.

Regardless of the signal anomalies we are enjoying the PQ I enjoy the tweaking end of it too.

jkhill - You may want to see what happens to the signal when you drop one of the antennas out of the equation. I had been running two antennas in my attic for analog TV reception for years without a problem. After getting an HDTV and hooking it up, I was surprised that my signal strength wasn't what I had anticipated (particularly with KMBC and KSMO). So I trudged up into the attic to see if something had happened to the cable and/or re-align the antenna(s), leaving my wife in front of the TV to report the signal strength. When I disconnected the cable from the UHF antenna to see if it had corroded, my wife yells that the signal for KMBC had jumped from below 40 to 90. When I reconnected the cable, she yells at me to stop what I'm doing because the signal had degraded again.

After checking around some web-sites it seems that antenna installers say that they have the most problems getting two antenna systems for digital reception up and running and recommend using the same length of cable between the combiner and the two antennas (which I did not have in the original set up). After replacing the shorter of the two cables with one of similar length to the other, the problem went away and everything works like it should. Why it didn't matter for the analog signal but did for the digital one is beyond me (phase seems more like an analog issue but maybe two digital streams arriving at slightly different times creates an error checking problem for the receiver) So you may want to see if this helps you. Heck, it beats climbing up on the roof and wrangling with an antenna.

Kurt

Odd - I never got a response from the folks at WDAF.

Gee - I guess they value our opinions so little they can't even acknowledge the phone calls. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

You know - I think this really shows how lucky we are that the other local broadcasters are represented here. A tip of my hat goes out to those folks (DogofMadness, technicalitalian and the others) for being a part of our forum and doing what they can to bring HD happiness to KC. Somebody buy these guys lunch!