El Paso, TX - HDTV - Page 45

Trip, The map appears accurate at my location east of Ft. Bliss just where the green area bleeds into the red due to the Hueco Mountains. I would think that the green may extend further into New Mexico towards Holloman Air Force Base as it is flat until about the midpoint at Orogrande. Most of the TV towers in Juarez appear to be on top of the mountains south of the city. The towers themselves do not appear to be as tall as the ones in El Paso on the Franklin Mountains. Do they call channel 32 (rf29) XEPM? That was the call letters of the old analog 2, but the programming that was on 2 years ago seemed to move to analog 56 then to 32. My college Spanish from 35 years ago is so rusty that I only check the Juarez stations out of technical curiosity.

The FCC calls it XEPM, and so while it could be wrong, they also have XEPM on one of the subchannels in the TSReader data I was sent.

I looked on some maps and it actually looked like it was not on a mountain, but was right next to a mountain, thus explaining the directional pattern. The FCC said their height above sea level was 1385 meters while the map said the height at that point was 1200 meters, so I ran the map assuming a height of 185 meters.

- Trip

Navigator is coming to El Paso on or about 6.7.2010. That might change though.

hdtvfan2005,

Where did you get that date? The notice we received just said sometime in the next few weeks. I've been all over the El Paso TWC site and could find no date, firm or otherwise.

I did a full channel re-scan for the first time in several months yesterday and was surprised to see that both KTSM and KVIA continue to broadcast on both UHF and VHF. I thought all of those public service announcements a few months ago were to warn viewers that they would only be on VHF. Here at my location in Montana Vista using a Winegard 7082P antenna at 20 feet I get almost identical SNR readings on the stations. I know that in rural New Mexico some people put up large UHF antennas in the early days of digital TV, however, those dedicated OTA fans like myself would have switched to a proper antenna by now. Sadly, most of the people I have helped with an antenna could not resist the allure of satellite and do not even use the antenna anymore. I assume that both KTSM and KVIA do not have permission to use both UHF and VHF indefinitely. I wish they did and could use the extra bandwidth to give us true HD affiliates of the CW and MY Networks.
Also, there is the case of KTFN simulcasting on co-owned KINT's 26.2. What is truly odd is that the picture is much better on 26.2. One would think that channel 51 dedicated to a single SD feed would beat out a sub-channel but there must be more involved than that. Maybe the owners hope to make 51 a true HD affiliate of Telefutura.
Over in Juarez, XEPM or what ever they are called, has a SD copy of the same programming on a sub-channel. MY Sony KDF-37H1000 refuses to re-map that channel to 32-1 and 32-2 but shows it as 29-1 and 29-2. Also for the sub-channel there is the very interesting case of my TV showing it as 480i wide-screen. By the way, analog channel 2 definitely Id's themselves as XEPM and it is different programming than channel 29/32.

Found it on a blog and that probably is the start date. It will take them a few weeks to get all the boxes updated. By the end of July, Navigator should be loaded on all the boxes in El Paso.

We've had Navigator for about a month in Waco on Time Warner.
The program search is nice but almost everything else sucks.

No more copy to VCR (out of channel 2) mode. (You have to watch the show while it records - Channel 1 & 2 always output the same program)

If you use the HDMI input, the playing program pauses any time you switch the TV to a different input. (So you can't even switch the TV to something else while you record)

In general I hate it almost as much as my Tivo QAM !!!!!!!!!!



No more selectable default record settings. (Your stuck with 7 days sve)

If you keep all, record only one time slot, or record a series, you have to change all three options.

I think they took down Telefutura solo channel (50.1 aka 65.1), I hope they are preparing it for full HD for this Friday's World Cup, but I doubt it.. maybe they don't want to pay for that extra frequency and they are keeping it as 26.2 instead.

Over the weekend, I went to my aunt's house and noticed that Time Warner Cable added KINT HD(Univision HD)!

What TWC didn't have Univision? what kind of loser cable company is that?

I've noticed that the the FTA station is struggling with the signal, in some games they even downed it to SD, and right at this moment I'm having trouble with the signal, it's a a "poor" state, right at game time...it's like they forgot to turn the transmitter power on or something like that.

TWC did have Univision, but they only had it in SD. Now they have it in HD.

Again struggling with the early game signal.. it seems to get stronger for the second game, I think and I'm betting that they are somehow saving power on the night and until someone comes in the morning to flick the full power switch we don't have decent signal.. the 5:30 game signal is so awful.. Right now I'm in a maquila south of Juarez, can't get that channel right now, with power booster aerial antenna.. c'mon

KFOX has changed mos of their news to HD, in studio and outside local coverage.. wow

Anyone else missing TVGOS guide data? I have emailed both Martinez (cbs)and Vilardell (KTSM) engineers but have not gotten any reply. CBS is the supplier of TVGOS. Are they still at the stations?

KDBC is completly operated by KTSM. In fact my Mother was watching the religion channel KSCE and Channel 9 news anchor Ben Swan was doing a segment on how they are converting the old KDBC building into new studios for KSCE.

This has been true for some time but both engineers were there a few months ago. Neither e-mail has been returned and neither answered.

Well KCOS has added a subchannel 13-2 Create. Now I have something to watch when they have their stupid pledge week. If they could only add V-me on on 13-3, then I would never have to watch their 12 hours of E/I programming on 13-1 PBS.

V-Me is available as a sub-channel of KRWG is you could recieve it from your location.

I Can't receive KRWG, but I Only have an Indoor Antenna. Perhaps If I had an Outdoor Antenna, I could receive it. Yet I May not be able to get that channel, since I live close to the Franklin Mountains.

Is anyone else having problems with TWC cable boxes recording only 2 minutes of a movie since they added the SDV HD premium channels (17##) and converted to Navigator last month?

Has anyone else noticed that KVIA is starting to display product ads over the shows? So far, I have seen a Peter Piper Pizza ad displayed while Judge Judy was showing (Monday) and an Ocean Dental ad displayed while The Insider was showing (Tuesday).

We need to start a grass roots movement to stop this. It's bad enough that the networks and cable stations have their own pop-ups, snipes, etc. But now local broadcasters are putting actual advertising over the shows. Let's tell them to stop or we will stop watching every show that has consumer advertising displayed over the show and ultimately will stop watching their station if they keep this up.

I haven't noticed but will start looking closer. I get po'ed enough with the stupid pigs they put up which already block parts of shows. I don't need to be reminded what channel and show I'm watching.

Did I just saw The CW in HD last night? or was it my imagination? I swear Gossip Girl was in HD..

How is it possible with a subchannel?

I don't watch GG but I do watch Smallville. I hope they go HD. Will check what ever is on tonight on CW to see if anything is HD. I suppose it is possible to have HD on a sub but it takes away from bandwidth from the main -1 channell

Well I tuned into the CW yesterday, and it wasn't in HD, just the regular SD Squish-o-Vision they always show. It did look better so maybe they raised the bit rate.

Weird.. that GG on Monday didn't look SOV that's why I wondered.. but didn't changed the channel I was on a House-The Event-Hawaii 5-0 viewing frenzy, didn't browse any other channels.. I watched it from afar in the living room TV when I got up for a snack..

Didn't even remember to tune it to the CW last night.. was on a NCIS viewing extravaganza.. LOL

The CW looks very good, almost HD-ish.. it's still a bit low, but I bet they are using the max bandwidth, watched a bit of Nikita last night and looked nice.

I just checked channel 7.2 and it looks normal for Saturday morning cartoons and such. I will have to check again Monday evening when CW network material is on. I have actually taken this sub-channel out of my line up as I found the picture quality simply too poor to watch. Was it in 16:9 ratio? Did you happen to notice if 7.3 and 7.4 were also on when the CW picture seemed to improve? It seems that would be the only way to gain much bandwidth. Do Spanish speaking viewers actually watch that 7.4? It seems to me with all of the channels available in Spanish it could not attract much of an audience unless it is truly unique. The weather is obviously very low bandwidth but I do not find it nearly as useful as the old NBC Weather Plus channel that used to be on 9.2.

Yeah, it's on 16:9 ratio..

wait did I just see Telefutura in HD also? need TSF readers.. cube?

Perhaps you mean Telemundo. If so, then it's not in HD, just 480i Squished, like the CW. Telemundo is also showing Squish-o-Vision on their Analog channel.