Binghamton / Elmira, NY - HDTV - Page 101

hey guys i hope you can help me, i can get all of the local channels with my roof top antenna except wbgh, 34.1, whats the deal with that, i get fox and cbs in HD but nothing in abc, when i do a scan i cant even find the channel, thanks for your help......oh an i live in vestal by the high school

I'm pretty sure it's automated and nearly instantaneously.

What kind of antenna is it? Does it pick up both VHF (which what Fox and CBS are locally) and UHF (which what ABC and PBS are locally)? Can you get WSKG PBS channel?

And 34.1 is WIVT (ABC); WBGH (NBC) is on 34.2, which they just added.

yes i can get all of the wskg channels, these are the channels i get

12.1
12.2
40.1
40.2
46.1
46.2
46.3

Perhaps the hills between you and the towers on Ingraham Hill are blocking the 34.x signals? Although since all the stations broadcast from those same towers, it's weird you'd get all the others and not 34.x. Unless 34.x is the lowest on the tower and the others are just enough higher on the towers to get over the hills to your antenna. I'm just speculating.

jobo go to tvfool.com put in your address and post the link here, it will give us a better idea what signals you're receiving at your house

it says i should get 34.1 easily

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...27ee5c2bcb474b

here it is

it looks like the problem at your location is all of the hills between you and the towers. If you click on WIVT it will show a terrain map between the tower and your house and that could be the issue.

What antenna are you using and where is located?

Yup, looks like my hunch of the WIVT transmitter being the lowest on the tower is the problem (if the tvfool.com terrain maps are accurate). Maybe DTV_Engineer_Syr can confirm that the WIVT transmitter is the lowest on the tower?

Still waiting for Tribune to update their database with info on 34-2.

I added the AM21 addon tuner for my HR23 and it seems to be working just fine except for 34-2.

Yes, I was getting annoyed too, but just checked my email and my Tribune contact emailed me this afternoon and said they had 34.2 created in their database, but just needed a ZIP from the area so they know where to assign it to. Unfortunately I had to work until 6 tonight and just sent my ZIP to them, so I imagine they won't get my email until the morning, so hopefully 34.2 should be added to zap2it.com tomorrow, and then shortly thereafter to our D* DVRs. Why they couldn't just use the station ZIP code I don't know.

Hopefully, they will assign all surrounding Zips to that database.

I'm sure they will. Probably whatever ZIPs are assigned to the DMA that my ZIP is in will get the channel. I've given her my ZIP in the past when 12.2 was added and I assume you get that on your HR2x right?

I hope so. I have the HR20 and now an AM21 that needs the updated data. I can wait.

You'll probably see it before me (hopefully) tomorrow as I leave for work early and won't have time to check online or TV until evening sometime with the plans I have for late afternoon. LOST looked really good tonight again even though the Olympics were on 34.2 in HD. Still, I want to see how good 34.2 looks for myself as I may drop channel 392 from D*.

Still not listed on Zap2It's web site as of now.

Word is that Elmira locals will be up on Dish Network within a 60 day timeline.
I assume that when that happens, DirecTV won't be far behind.

After I sent my ZIP to her last night, I got an automated out of office reply saying she will be back in the office tomorrow the 25th. I guess no one else is checking her email. So maybe tomorrow...


HD locals or SD?

Latest re 34.2 on zap2it.com: someone was checking my contact's email and sent a reply just before 5 PM today saying they've got everything and it should be added by Friday afternoon. I hope they can get it done tomorrow, but they are in the 518 area code (Albany region), so they are going to get nailed with the storm tomorrow too, so maybe that could delay things. Still frustrating it took this long.

Very cool news in the Hot Off The Press thread in the HDTV Programming Thread. The following is at the very end of the post:

"David J. Males, GM of WWTI (ABC) Watertown, N.Y. (DMA 177), is also frustrated. "We're surrounded by markets that have local-to-local," he says.

There have been "on and off discussions'' between the Newport Television-owned station and the satellite operators over the past three to four years. But neither has reached out recently to say "hey we're coming," says Males.

Nor does Males understand why they have decided to abandon a handful of DMAs in New York state. He's referring to Binghamton (DMA 157), Utica (DMA 170), Elmira (DMA 176)

But it appears that they haven't forsaken Binghamton at least. The satellite operators have established an uplink at Granite Broadcasting's WBNG, according to Greg Catlin, GM of the CBS affiliate.

He now expects Dish will begin offering local TV signals sometime this spring, followed by DirecTV in May or June. "It'll increase the eyeballs on our product," he says."

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post18198416

TLS posted this earlier in the thread when I asked if DISH was going to pick up the HD feed of CBS:
"For CBS, DirecTV would have to take the feed from our studio for HD, as an off-air pickup would have it in SD- the final decision would be up to them. I would hope that they would want it in HD, but the logistics decisions are theirs. As far as I know, there hasn't been any contact between DirecTV & the station concerning carriage. Dish is currently getting 36.2 in SD, 36.1 in HD."

I don't want to seem an HD snob, but if I'm going to pay for locals then I want the HD feeds of each and every one. I'll be extremely disappointed if that turns out not to be the case. That's directed at DirecTV. As TLS states, the request for the HD feed and providing it to their subs is their decision.

Nope... the temporary channel 4 antenna was the lowest (not counting various unrelated communications antennas). When the old analog transmitter on channel 34 was replaced by the new digital transmitter, it was plumbed into the same transmission line and antenna... so our (now) digital antenna is back at the original height.

In light of the quote I posted in post #3042 of this thread in regards to both satellite companies establishing an uplink here in Binghamton at WBNG's studio, have you heard anymore about when either may actually start offering our LILs?

And for WIVT and WBGH, how would they get your signals? Would they simply pick them up OTA and uplink them to their sats and then beam them back down to our homes? Or would they create a hardwire connection? Would the uplink at WBNG serve as the local receive facility for all the Binghamton stations (like they had a single LRF in Buffalo where I lived for 10 years and had D* for 5 years and HD LIL for about 2 years before moving to Binghamton)? Or would they build an uplink at each individual station?

I guess I'm curious if they'd provide WBGH in 1080i like Time Warner has it, or in 720p like you're now sending it out OTA. I realize you probably don't have all the answers since you don't work for them, but curious about your thoughts. Thanks!

If this all plays out, I wonder if The CW will be included for DirecTV and if it would finally be in HD. There is a question about whether subchannels are included with LiL. This could also be a problem for WBGH since it is also a subchannel.

In other markets, major networks on subs are carried. KBMT 12-2 is NBC in Beaumont TX and it's carried on satellite.

- Trip

I would expect that they would mimic the way it's done in Syracuse, for example: their uplink is co-located with the NBC / CW / PBS stations; they receive us over the air, since our transmitter is several hilltops farther east.


Time Warner is taking a direct 1080i feed from the older Tandberg encoder, for the moment... we didn't want them to have to reconfigure their equipment with the Olympics coming right up. But at some point they will be taking the 720p 34-2 feed, and then we will retire the old encoder. The 34-1 / 34-2 handoff to Time Warner is a direct connection at Ingraham Hill.

For what it's worth, I would expect them to pass the NBC in HD, even though it's a secondary, because that's how we transmit it. Having an HD secondary, after all, is a relatively recent phenomenon. This is purely a guess, though...

so what do you think about my problem? i get every other channel perfectly but 34.1 and 34.2

From a quick look at the four transmitter profiles for your location, it does look like ch34's tower is lower than the others and that there is a hill blocking your line of site.
So all I can suggest it to mount the antenna higher. Have you peaked the signal strength for the other stations? Not today of course, since we're in the middle of a snow storm right now.

JDSpencer and sustorm are right, I think: the problem is the geography between your home and our antenna. I just looked at the profile detail from your TVFool link -- that's the display you get by clicking our call letters on the TVFool overview page -- and I'm seeing not one, but two substantial obstructions from hills. Moving your antenna higher is an obvious solution, but might not be practical: it might take a lot of elevation to clear even the closest hilltop.

If I had to guess, the root problem isn't so much the signal level, but rather that you're getting a combination of a moderate signal coming directly from our tower, mixed with a lot of very strong reflections from other directions. One fix for this would be to use an antenna with narrow beamwidth and high front-to-back ratio, to minimize pickup of the reflections. (Or, if you happen to have a particularly stable reflection, to focus on that... it's a trick we use sometimes with portable microwave systems.) An antenna like this is generally marketed for longer distance applications and will have higher gain, so you might need an attenuator to avoid overloading your set's tuner.

The big thing is, contrary to popular belief, the most important factor for DTV reception isn't maximizing signal strength... it's minimizing distortion. And multipath is probably the biggest DTV killer in urban settings.

Good luck!

I can relate to this. When I first put the antenna on my roof it was at the south end of the peak. I couldn't get a stable signal. I moved the antenna to the north end of the roof (about 30') and the signal stabilized quite well. Still not great, but much better. Then when ch34 finally moved back to frequency 34 after the digital transition, my reception for them got even better. Still not perfect because of Crocker Hill (anyone have a bulldozer I can borrow?) My signals got a little more stable last summer after I had a few tall pine trees removed. Just a few things to think about.

Edit to add. I checked my OTA signal strengths and discovered that the DirecTV HR23/AM21 tuner is about 20-25 points higher than the older HR20 with integral ATSC tuner.