Wilmington, NC - HDTV - Page 73

For a few weeks now, I have found WWAY Digital 5.1 audio to be very weak. I have to crank it to hear. Is this a result of the CALM act? This is not good if it is.

If their audio had been set higher, then yes it is since now there is a "100%" limit of -24 db Dialnorm that wasn't there before. All stations must be CALM Act compliant by Dec 13.

Don't get me started on this topic.

Thanks for the info. Should be interesting how everyone sounds when it's done. I thought it meant the audio would be no "higher" than a certain level.

We have basically stepped back to audio leveling of the 1950's. We have spent the last 40 years perfecting multiband processing to only go back to mono band processing with a computer chip. I have spent the last two weeks trying to get our CALM Act processing set and I STILL don't have it sounding like it should. Our audio sounds like crap now and the viewers have noticed.

Seems that 'Sandy' took out WWAY's transmitter. No signal for two days for me. No real weather reports either since no Jerry or George could be watched. Two of the areas best.

I never know if it's my antenna or not, but when I was able to get the SD broadcast via Dish, I too figured their transmitter was out... I guess they are aware, but I remember in the "old days" when they were dual broadcasting analog/digital, sometimes they wouldn't know the digital was out...

Signals back and working good now. I guess they worked on it sometime after we posted. During storms I usually get better reception from the south than I do from the tower up in Pitt county. I miss analog during bad weather especially. Analog didn't have near the transmitter problems that digital does during storms. IF you have a dish, you can't count on that working very much.

Does anyone have an clue what is up with W47CK/WMYW? Are they ever going to transition to digital and strengthen their signal?

Checking on sound since CALM act goes into effect today, and WWAY has turned up the sound, but the dialog comes from the rear speakers now.

So far, I can't tell any difference on 6 or 26

Also out of this area, WNCT has activated Dolby Digital 5.1 on it's sub channel. I wonder how they did that?

Dolby DP569 does the trick.

3.1 WWAY has the center audio mixed up with the rears. The background music comes out the center channel, and the dialog comes out the rears. Only during ABC stuff.

Speaking of audio. Does anyone know what happened to WILM's plans to go 5.1 DD? I thought someone from the station was on this thread back during/shortly after the digital transition and said they had the equipment in house, just wating on installation.

-Brent

WECT's dolby digital sounds better than ever to me now, but WWAY sounds really low and sounds dull, like there is no treble. They sound lower than any other channel I can receive.

OK, so I'm about a decade late to the party. Just dropped TWC today and am curious about OTA quality in Wilmington. Can someone save me reading 72 pages of this thread and neatly summarize the state of OTA here? I live just about dead center in Wilmington and can mount an antenna about midway up my house with fairly direct line to the major network signals. Is it a waste of time? Any recommendations for specific antennas for this area would be helpful.

Thanks!

Can someone save me reading 72 pages of this thread and neatly summarize the state of OTA here?

ALL stations transmit a UHF signal. The two towers are in Winnabow, and Delco. The tall tower at Winnabow transmits WWAY, WECT, and WSFX. The Delco short tower has WILM LD, and WUNJ (PBS).

I live just about dead center in Wilmington and can mount an antenna about midway up my house with fairly direct line to the major network signals. Is it a waste of time?

Go to www.tvfool.com and put in your location and height you plan to mount the antenna. Mounting an outdoor antenna is a good idea to get all available channels locally that the dish and cable to not carry. Also if you like to experiment, you can try to get New Bern and Washington, or Myrtle Beach.

OK, so I understand where the resources are for determining signal locations and strength. I guess I was just looking more for Wilmington people's experience with it. Once you get the right equipment pointed in the right direction, do you get good, consistent reception? How much does the weather affect reception? Can you set the antenna and leave it, or is a rotor necessary in order to adjust the antenna direction for different stations. Seems like the WILM signal may be the hardest to pick up. Anybody getting a good one on that station?

Thanks for the info!

I've got an old Radio Shack amplified antenna in my attic space (little10" mesh dish type) that picks up all locals with no problem, even get Ion sometimes...

Sometimes the wind will blow the trees around enough to pixelate the image, but unless the transmitter itself goes out, it's rock solid.

Image quality should always be better than cable or satellite--no additional compression used to fit the signal into limited bandwidth... but depending on your tv, you may or may not notice a difference... (say if you've got a small 720p compared to large 1080i screen--I think anything under 73" is small... LOL)

Get ready for more local HD Wilmington.

I don't know if you all have heard about the new TV station coming to Eastern NC, but the tutt media group is about to turn on 3 new transmitters. The Wilmington site will be in or near Kirkland it looks like according to their map on the tutt website. Local newscasts will be in HD from what I read several months ago. The channel for Wilmington is 39, 41 for Jacksonville, and 21 for New Bern, Kinston to the north.

There are pictures up in the Greenville thread for the channel 21 transmitter building.

the website is www.tuttmediagroup.com

Still don't know what network they will be affiliated with... I doubt it will be the CW, since WNCT just went HD on their subchannel 9.2 for the CW.

Just called Tutt Media...

.1 will be the Nashville Network
.2 will be My Family TV
.3 will be Punch TV

only .1 will be HD

Physical channel 39, virtual channel 29 in Wilmington...

May go live around April 1, no definite date though.

I saw last night on Fox 26 where Rob Ellis is leaving for Indianapolis. I had become a viewer from time to time, especially when the weather was bad, and I remember he joined us here not long after he started on WECT, and kind of disagreed with me. haha. I didn't know he had been in the triad on channel 2 before he came to this area.

It must be hard to leave a place like WIlmington, George Elliot came back... but I wouldn't miss the traffic. Everything else yes.