Boston, MA - OTA - Page 347

I don't mind ME being on one more subchannel. I get WCVB at 93% vs 88% for WMFP and 64% for WMUR -- and, yeah, I noticed WMFP runs a lot of infomercials instead of the ME feed. It seems that ION shows up on even more channels, but I can rarely pull any of these in (RF 32 is closest and most powerful, AND directly in front of my 91XG, but I can rarely pull it in (danville, nh).

Ditto on PBS. I get RF 43 (WGBX) at 88% on my DTVPal, and WENH at 88%, but WGBH (RF 19) is only around 60%.

With OTA, getting content from multiple towers isn't wasted bandwidth so much as it is more opportunities for solid reception. I watch WMUR only for NH news/politics (and to avoid MA preemptions).

WGBH has posted a "Signal Update" on their website:


Lets hope everything is up and running for September's Ring Cycle

Any one know why The Cool TV on 50.3 is no longer shown?
50.3 is now a simulcast of the main channel

It's actually been like that for a few weeks. I think there's a dispute betwen WBIN and the people who run Cool TV.

FYI from http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/08/15/wbz-tv-mytv38-statement-on-reduced-over-the-air-signal/

BOSTON (CBS) – Several Boston television stations, including WBZ-TV and myTV38, are experiencing a reduced over the air signal.

Here is an update on the situation from Ro Dooley Webster, Director of Communications:

“Due to essential repair work on the TV tower in Needham, a number of Boston stations including WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV are transmitting at reduced power. Once the damaged antenna and associated equipment has been repaired, we will return to normal operations. We thank viewers very much for their patience while we work hard to resolve this problem.”

WGBH has posted two more updates as follows:


oops, a bit late on that one. And:


Ever hopeful!

Yesterday, the gin pole which was used previously to lower the damaged antenna, could be seen to have been again installed. It extends way above the lower master antenna, so probably the lower antenna cannot be used until the work is completed.

Big changes coming in October for PBS viewers in MA, NH

Due to loss of funding NHPTV is outsourcing much of its operations including membership services, back-office functions and master control operations to WGBH. NHPTV will continue to be independent and produce local and national programs.

Press release at http://www.nhptv.org/pressroom/release_detail.asp?hp_id=1364

For viewers:

• NHPTV will no longer broadcast PBS national programming "off schedule".
• WGBH-2 and NHPTV-Prime schedules will merge and largely be the same.
• WGBX-44 and NHPTV-Explore schedules will merge and largely be the same.
• NHPTV will pick up World and Create subchannels.
• WGBH and NHPTV will exchange locally produced programs like Greater Boston, Windows to the Wild and Roadside Stories.
• They will also engage in some sort of "member swap". More on that at http://connect.wgbh.org/NHPTVupdates
• Comcast will drop the out-of-state stations.

Ouch!

From Mr.H

This afternoon, the antenna could be seen back at the top of the tower, leaning slightly off vertical, supported by the gin pole and rigging. Tonight at around 8 PM, it was vertical, but not surprisingly, the gin pole appeared to be still present.

They appear to be very close to returning all signals completely to normal.

WGBH just posted this "Signal Update" - the end is in sight!!


Yey!

That sounds terrific! I am able to get them as well as all the NH stations with an amplified indoor antenna (In my attic) fine even at the reduced power level. Most stations are only down a tad (Ex. WBZ used to read 100%....during this antenna situation 92%)

Here is keeping the fingers crossed!

Bill how high are you in Haverhill? I'm a little jealous of your reception. I'm just a little north in Danville, NH. My antenna is ~140' above sea level and I do not do as well. I'll be taking down some trees in the fall hoping to jack some of my numbers. I mostly struggle with the various ION broadcasters, WLVI, and WBIN.

Hmmmm, according to the deed I got when I bought the property, I'm approximately 115 feet above sea level. The house is surrounded by trees averaging 50 to 70 feet tall. I've got a ham radio tower that is 50 feet tall with ham antennas on it and I'm still not over the trees. I stuck the outdoor antenna(s) in the attic with a combiner and preamp feeding a master antenna system to get reception throughout the house. The house is a 2 story colonial. Works great!

FYI, the antenna system in the attic is a 4 bay bow-tie UHF antenna facing SW towards the Needham area, and an 8 element VHF LP facing NNW for channels 9 & 11. They got into a splitter to bring them to one line which feeds into the Channel Master preamp. It then goes to my basement where the signal goes into another distribution amp all over the house. Works great!

Final (hopefully) "Signal Update" from WGBH

I had a DB8 and replaced it with a 91xg since most of my stations are in a straight line. I also have a y5-7-13 for wenh amd wmur. The trees around my house are red pines and oak and maple. A stand or oak and a handful of red pines obstruct my LOS to the south and red pines obstruct my LOS to the west. When these are wet and moving, I have reception issues. I think things will be better after I cut them down in the fall. If not, I may move the antenna outside as a last resort.

Hello there! I have a quick question about some towers which are fairly close to Boston:



These were visible while on I-95/MA 128 North in the Weston/Waltham stretch, near US Route 20. Knowing the TV towers in Needham were behind me to the south, can somebody tell me what these are for? Thank you in advance!

The location is referred to as Bear Hill.

Thanks for the input! I'm rarely on that portion of I-95/MA 128 and wasn't familiar with these towers. The picture was taken this past Saturday, if that matters. My friend was driving from the Turnpike, then north up I-95/MA 128 to the MA Route 2 exit, heading to the Alewife MBTA "T" station.

wbz and wgbx signal strength has dipped to 70-ish tonight while wgbh and wlvi are normal (90 for me). maybe there is still tuning to be done?

here's part of the answer, link below.
Radio towers on Bear Hill. Tower on the right was constructed by AT&T in 1992 for an experimental 6 GHz personal phone system. The tower itself is a vintage 1950s AT&T Long Lines tower disassembled at a site in Tennessee and moved here. It replaced a narrower, self-supporting AT&T Long Lines tower of a similar height built in the mid-1950s supporting a link to Chester, N.H. for the purposes of relaying network television programming. The other three towers were built in the 1980s for microwave, telephone and two-way radio communication purposes.
http://massroads.com/?word=microwave

WGBX and WSBK are our two weakest Boston stations.

They seem to be stronger with the repaired antenna, hopefully it is real and not just a few days of good atmospherics.



/tom

There is more to the story too. The big self supporting tower on the left hand side, has no tennants on it anymore and is going to come down for development at the top of the hill. The three towers on the right are actually on the south-east side of the hill and are currently owned by American Tower. As tveli stated, they are all cellular and two way these days.

WLVI is not on that tower and was not affected by the outage.

Interesting. Do you happen to know what's going to be put in up there? My office is at the base of Bear Hill practically in that tower's shadow. I know there's a lot of construction activity on the north side of the hill right now but no clue what's going on there.

I used to work for Western Electric and part of my job was to visit AT&T Long Lines towers around the midwest and train the techs on installing solid state upgrades to their (then vacuum tube) microwave amplifiers. It was always fascinating work to me but the constant travel was a pain. You'd fly to Little Rock or St. Louis then drive three or four hours to the middle of nowhere and suddenly there'd be this monster tower with its horns pointing in sometimes four directions.

I would love to know what is special about WLVI. According to TVFool.com, WLVI is a little closer to me than WSBK and only one degree difference in orientation. I should expect it to come in a little stronger. WSBK is rock solid showing a signal strength in the mid seventies while I cannot pull in WLVI even intermittently.

WCVB activated 5.2 this week and has been running color bars. The ID displays as MeTV.

...and when they did, I lost 5-1 on all three DirecTV receivers and my TV. I had to rescan on the TV and re run antenna setup on the 3 DirecTV DVRs.

SMK

Huh! I'm surprised! With my DishNetwork HD receiver, apparently the receiver scanned automatically and added the channel. I used to have DirecTV, but found that the picture quality on Dish is better, plus you can use it as a regular receiver with an antenna besides the local channels on the satellites.

DirecTV uses too much signal compression. Besides, there are a lot more HD channels that I watch on Dish that DirecTV. didn't have in HD.

Whatever they did to WGBH, they must have done something right. The signal is much stronger then it was just a month ago. It's blasting solid right now. I'm also getting ME-TV on 5.2, but it shows color bars. I'm assuming they are moving ME-TV to 5.2 and pulling 62.1? If so, what will replace it? What's gonna happen to RTV? 62 is our strongest channel out here, it's always in the 90's.

I am talking about the signals I'm getting OTA. I don't get my locals from the satellite but use my DirecTV DVRs with an antenna. When WCVB added 5.2, 5.1 disappeared from all three DVRs. In the antenna setup section, 5.2 was listed but 5.1 was absent. I manually repeated antenna setup, and now 5.1 is back, but 5.2 has disappeared.

On the TV rescanning now shows both 5.1 and 5.2.

SMK

I inquired with MeTV about partial programming on WMFP and they responded that it shouldn't be happening. Maybe they revoked the franchise?