Wilmington, NC - HDTV - Page 72

Been gone a few days and came back and turn on WECT to find it breaking up very badly on one TV, and nothing on the other. Is the station having problems? The other channels are normal, and signal level is normal.

Been that way for me for 1-2weeks I had to switch to channel 3 for my morning news.  Channel 6-1 used to be pretty solid and recently just went fickle, it tries to lock on but just flakes out.

 

I'm using a cheap powered antennae from monoprice in attic 25 miles from Wilmington.

Thanks Nick.

Ray said something about new equipment in his last post, so maybe something is set wrong, or he is working on replacing something? I have an RCA converter box that will not lock on to 6 for very long, and the signal is down in the low 20's instead of near 40% like normal and the other two on the tower. I have 3 splits, so that's why it's not in the 90's and I need a new pre-amp.

Well, it's been three weeks, and I can only assume at this point the weak signal is something being caused by my antenna or interference in the area, since I do not see any other comments about others having problems. During the morning, WECT works better most days, but afternoon and evening, I have problems. This morning, the fuse that controls the electric feed for the street I live on exploded, and the power company had to come out and replace it. My antenna has to point directly at this utility pole mounted bracket. I have heard before that those bracket looking things can cause noise that ruins certain TV channels, so I will see if that makes any difference now. The next step will be to get to the antenna itself and try to move it side to side some and see if any improvement is made. It could be the high wind we had bent the mast slightly out of shape or something...

jspENC,

There's definitely something wrong or different. I'm over here in Pembroke and I used to get channel 6 around 50 to 60% of the time. I haven't gotten Channel 6 since your problem started.

Hey Daryl! I remember you from years back. Glad to see you drop in. I guess there aren't many Wilmington OTA viewers anymore, or everyone just assumes their antenna is the problem. I'm glad you posted, so now I won't have to climb up to my antenna. I have no problems with WWAY or WSFX, so that's why I felt like it was WeCt s transmitter. Maybe they need a tune up.

I would contact their engineer and report the problem. Perhaps they could give you an explanation. In Charlotte, WBTV has been at slightly reduced power because Raycom has not yet replaced a tube. But they have a very good antenna and a tall tower, so there have been no major reception issues. I still receive them at 100% from 75 miles, although others have reported a slight reduction in signal strength.

Yeah I still check in regularly. Just older now (51) and the HD early adoption years are long past and most kinks worked out so not much to post about the past 3 to 4 years.

Hey Daryl,

I took down my antenna for inspection this evening since it was decent weather, and found that my coax was black on the connection to the balun. The balun was melted some as well. Apparently lightning damage... So once I cut off the end of the coax and put a new fitting on and a new balun, I walked around on the ground some with my signal meter on (took tv outside) and easily picked up every channel I normally would except WECT. They wouldn't come in above 25. I did experience as I tested that certain spots in the yard were just dead for signal on some stations. Actually walking just a few feet made a huge difference, and keeping the UHF bowtie antenna completely vertical made the signal better too. This is the Winegard HD 8800, and it picks up VHF better than UHF... haha I hope once I get everything back up, that I can find some Raleigh channels again.

I recommend everyone check out their antenna for lightning damage on the ends since we have had such bad lightning this year.

I don't see it mentioned here, but the White Lake tower of WECT was brought down last week in a controlled demolition (meaning they blew it up).

Here is the video. My heart just breaks when a perfectly good tower meets this kind of end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPmXEuSHwKY

Sad. I agree with you foxeng. I don't know why they couldn't put a dt translator out there or something?

Hi Guys,

Sorry I have not logged in lately.

Yes, we are on our backup transmitter at WECTat reduced power. Our final IOT tube shorted and caused some massive high voltage issues.
We have had to rebuild the enitire HV section in our transmitter and hope to have it back on line in the next few days.


Ray












The views expressed here are my own, and are not endorsed by my employer

I thought you guys would like to see what a Inductive Output Tube looks like. Here is a photo of one being removed from it's trolley. It is liquid cooled and this one has a power output
of 17 KW.

2100?

2130..Replacing with a E2V. First time to my knowledge anyone has done this with an L3 cavity.

It is my understanding that E2V didn't do the patent right on the 2100 series cavity and L3 copied it so either tube should work in either cavity. When we put in our transmitter in 2006, we were having so much trouble with the E2V tubes (2130's running at 27k) blowing up after a few days we threatened to switch to the L3 and E2V got on the ball. Haven't had any problems since.

Ray,

I'll be glad to get NBC back. I only pick you up early in the morning or evening for the past 5 weeks or so. I turn on FOX news at 7 Am though most mornings.

Thanks!

This my first L3 cavity. Not as well made as the E2V IMO. The grease lubing the primary and secondary cavities hardened making it impossible to tune. Had to disassemble both, clean and lube. A bear of a job! We only run 17 kw TPO, so the tube isn't pushed all that hard. Interesting info on the patent. I was wondering how the L3 and E2V tubes seemed to be interchangeable.

Blast from the past! I do think we've had some fun conversations in past years... Similar sentiments from me, OTA HD is no longer cutting (bleeding) edge, and it's not really a hobby activity any more--I mean, even tiny little old Wilmington has got satellite HD locals... but I still get my network HD OTA with an old discontinued Radio Shack amplified "mini-dish" antenna up in the attic... still no PSIP on WWAY, although I haven't re-scanned channels in forever on that tv--backup tv anyway...

I can almost remember back when there was the first OTA HD daytime Olympic coverage, I'd go home at lunch to watch...

My God! I thought I was the only one who had thoughts like that!

I guess there is really no reason for anyone in the city of Wilmington to have a real good outside antenna set-up as long as they have a pay tv service. It isn't like areas just away from the city where you can pick up other markets that don't show up on satellite and cable. I am on cable now for the first time in 14 yrs after a lightning strike blew out my dish, and I get more channels now with Warner shockingly. I remember when cable sucked. Also cable just added NFL net. and RedZone... even though I don't really watch much football other than college, I do check out scores at times. The prices are really about the same now too. The only channel I can think of that Wilmington could watch OTA that isn't on cable would be WCTI 12 out of New Bern, but they do not have Dolby, and unless you want to watch the live well network on 12.2, or just watch their weather reports, there is no different programming than you see from channels you already get. The only thing that might benefit is if WWAY went off the air or something. I read where people in surrounding counties like Columbus watch the Myrtle Beach channels a lot on antennas, but that is about all I can find.

Look what I found. The oldest tower in the world and a ride-a-long!

Apparently replacing a tube is not some simple process. Because supposedly WBTV has been down a tube for months, and has had some sort of problem getting it replaced. Not sure if they ever did; haven't heard an update. But I still get their signal at 100% from 75 miles. But looks like a lot more work than the average nontechnical person would be inclined to believe.

UHF has always been more difficult than VHF. The tubes are completely different and require a different kind of cooling as well as handling. Because of the size and weight of these tubes (technically, most are IOTs, inductive output tubes and are in the 100 lb range) they take a small amount of drive wattage, in the tens to hundreds range depending on the desired output, and produce power in the tens of thousands of watts. With that kind of gain, it takes tens of thousands of volts at several amps to produce that wattage at those frequencies. Example, our old tube channel 8 transmitter used your basic tetrode power amplifier tube (around 15 pounds). 9,000 volts with about 2 amps of current produced 12kW average power (25kW peak power). We drove two in parallel for 25kW and with the gain of the antenna, we got 316kW of power. It was forced air cooled. Now, with our channel 35 transmitter, we run 35kV at 2 amps for 27kW and we run two in parallel for 52.5 kW output, water cooled. As you can see, the UHF is much less efficient than the VHF (because of the frequencies) so it takes more raw power for the same output. We actually step UP the voltage. To give you some reference, most power lines outside your house are 11kV and then are dropped down to 220v with the transformer on the pole. Our tube needs 35kV so that is 3 times what the power line outside the building provides. We have a 1200 amp 480v line coming into the building to build up to those kinds of voltages. With our old VHF, we had a 800 amp 220v service into the building. Much different. The price different is as great as well. When we retired our tube VHF transmitter in 2005, visual amp tubes were running about $10k each. For these IOTs we run now, they start at $35k! They are just completely different beasts. But that is what it takes to produce the power levels we need for UHF digital television.

I hope Ray didn't run into more problems, because I still don't see WECT.

WECT has come back from the dead. Using raw antenna power, and with a two way splitter, I see signal of 36% for WECT and WWAY. WSFX 42%. Once I get around to hooking up a pre-amp, this will double easily.

Got WECT back up to 100 percent this afternoon..

Ray