Hartford, CT - OTA - Page 111

My Sony KDF-E50A10 HDTV is reporting no signal from WTIC-DT but the diagnostics screen shows continuous lock and an excellent 84% signal strength with no errors. In my basement I have one of the close-out radio-shack digital tuners and it is receiving WTIC but it is not remapping it to 61.1; it can only get it when I tune 31.1. So it looks like something may be wrong with the data stream. I suspect the PSIP is bad.

Sorry, I meant to post this in the Locals forum.
I purchased a Sony 42A10 on Saturday locally and replaced it on Sunday. Both units have the same problem. I can't receive the Local FOX digital feed with the built in 8VSB OTA tuner. If I try to manually have it find the digital channels it finds all in my area except Fox. The physical channel is 31 with 61.1 as the channel the TV should be showing. If I manually enter 61.1 by using the keypad on the remote it finds WTIC-DT but won't tune. When I look at the Diagnostic page it shows the following:

Signal Strength: 93
Physical Channel: 31
Freq (Khz): 575000
Modulator: 8VSB
Status: LOCK
SNR (db): 29
AGC (%): 41

H05-01.15 0043

It's evident that it has found the channel but all I get is a black screen, no video or sound.

I have two other 8VSB tuners in my system, one on a Dish Network 921 Satellite receiver and on on a MyHD card in my HTPC. Each receive and output FOX with no problem. Oh yes, I know your next question and no it's not hidden in the channel list, it doesn't even show up.

The Sony people were pleasant but not of much help. Any thoughts??

Thanks, Don
East Hampton, CT

Received some requests for a separate Hartford cable thread since this thread is heavily focused on OTA. If someone wants to start a Hartford, CT - Cable thread (or company specific if there's only one primary cable provider in the Hartford DMA - go ahead and start one and we'll change this to OTA.

Make sure you summarize the cable HD offerings in the first post and periodically update it if possible.

If you do start one, send me a PM so I can add it to the Index.

Maybe you can answer this. Are there plans to stop stretching the local SD content on both WTIC-DT and WTXX-DT? I, along with many others, if not everyone, find the stretching to be extremely annoying. Thanks!

Glad to see you on the boards - I'm sure we'd all love to be able to share any info/issues we have with WTIC / WTXX. I've personally been quite lucky with both channels here in Wallingford, in fact, the HD signal on some of the WTXX shows has been absolutely stellar the last week or two. As long as you're not an engineer from WFSB, you're safe........

Here's my quick question. The rumor for a while was that WTIC was moving their transmitter(?) up the tower to a higher location similar to WVIT's. Can you either confirm or deny that statement ? Most of us get WVIT at a signal of @ 90 while WTIC tends to be @ 70. Thanks in advance.

N1ety,

Thank you for posting information on WTIC and WTXX digital signals. I was wondering if you could provide a general status of where you are with respect to raising the antenna height? I am in Killingworth and can not get a consistent lock on WTIC. I'm hoping the additional height will solve my reception issues. Thanks in advance.

Can't be company specific... we have Cox, Comcast, Cablevision, and probably a couple mom and pops that I don't know about (Naugutuck has their own, right?). I am not sure why we need a seperate thread, everyone here is great about answering either question type.

-MP

In the Naugatuck / Waterbury area, we already have our own cable thread for Adelphia (Tele-Media).

Yes, please tell the powers that be to stop it. It's horrible. Most displays could zoom out the 4:3 if the viewer wants to lose 1/3rd of the horizontal image.

The network SD and HD content has been looking good. I'm in Manchester and get an 85 signal with my RS Accurian clearance box and the Channel Master 3018 from Lowe's.

I purchased a Sony 42A10 on Saturday locally and replaced it on Sunday. Both units have the same problem. I can't receive the Local FOX digital feed with the built in 8VSB OTA tuner. If I try to manually have it find the digital channels it finds all in my area except Fox. The physical channel is 31 with 61.1 as the channel the TV should be showing. If I manually enter 61.1 by using the keypad on the remote it finds WTIC-DT but won't tune. When I look at the Diagnostic page it shows the following:

Signal Strength: 93
Physical Channel: 31
Freq (Khz): 575000
Modulator: 8VSB
Status: LOCK
SNR (db): 29
AGC (%): 41

H05-01.15 0043

It's evident that it has found the channel but all I get is a black screen, no video or sound.

I have two other 8VSB tuners in my system, one on a Dish Network 921 Satellite receiver and on on a MyHD card in my HTPC. Each receive and output FOX with no problem. Oh yes, I know your next question and no it's not hidden in the channel list, it doesn't even show up.

The Sony people were pleasant but not of much help. Any thoughts??

Thanks, Don
East Hampton, CT

The first round of digital channel election is complete. Nationwide about 2/3 of stations kept their digital channels and about 1/3 will move their ATSC channel back to the original NTSC channel. In CT the first round (form 382) results were as follows:
Approved:
WTNH: 10
WTIC: 31
WFSB: 33
WVIT: 35
WUVN: 46
WCTX: 39
WSAH: 42

The following digital channel elections were disapproved but the stations filed a form 383 indicating that they were keeping the selection unchanged and had resolved the conflict. Strangely, only WTXX checked a required box showing how the conflict was resolved (WTXX negotiated an agreement to resolve the conflict).
WTXX: 20
WHPX: 26
WEDW: 49

WEDY deferred its station election until round 2 and the following two selections are only marked as tendered for filing:
WEDN: 9
WEDH: 45

In RI all the selections were marked approved with WPRI and WNAC showing that they had negotiated for the channel selected:
WPXQ: 17
WJAR: 51
WPRI: 13
WSBE: 21
WNAC: 12

Tropospheric ducting will not be any more frequent after analog is turned off but the reduction in interference should generally improve reception of certain channels at all times. One bad thing is that it will be much more difficult to identify the presence of some common reception problems like impulse noise, overloaded amplifiers and long delay multipath.

Yes, we are moving to the top of tower, both WTXX WB DT 12 and WTIC FOX DT31.
When this happens I'm fairly certain is in the hands of the FCC.

I have the same issue with my Hughes HTL-HD. Screen shows "No Signal" and the signal strength meter shows as very good. Trying 31-1 doesn't work.

I've reset the unit, rescanned the channels. All other HD locals come in fine. It's just WTIC-DT.

So what's up? Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
K

I used to get 61-1 fine and for the last 2 weeks..nothing. I tried 31-1 tonight and it to maps 61-1 with no problem. Type in 61-1...nothing.

I'm fairly new to all this but something doesn't seem right. I sent an email to FOX61 this morning and they said they haven't touched anything for the past 2 months.

Well, if they say they haven't touched anything - then you can be sure they have!!

It's always best to admit the mistake, fix it and move on. We'll respect you for it, rather than suspect you of it.

My 2c.

KWDuerr - take a look about 15 posts back - n1ety answered your question. With all due respect, give the guy a break; he's not WFSB and looks like he's trying to help.

Or maybe Canada since CPTV's WEDN/WEDH channel change probably needs international approval and the candelabra is waiting for WEDH to finalize its plans.

P.S. Please fix the WTIC PSIP.

No, n1ety didn't explain why so many receivers suddenly are unable to decode the strong WTIC signal; he just indicated when the transmitter was off the air.

RTracey - I'm not trying to give anyone a hard time.

Just want to find out why I can no longer receive their broadcast - it's that simple.

We are looking into it.
First off over the last 24 hours watching this forum the time frame when everyone had trouble was last Tuesday to two weeks ago. That makes a big difference.
With this new information I do know of a change that occurred in our PSIP a couple weeks ago that eliminated glitching on our K-tech demod and eliminated flashes of black occassionally.
Not sure who you spoke with at studio that said no changes have occured but not all 5 engineers are privy to everything going on.
We all field calls.
This will be at the top of my priority list in the morning.
We have an assortment of recievers, generally we ensure those are working correctly and assume things should be good.
I know of a Samsung, MGA, Zenith, Ktech, and RCA recievers working fine.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Well I haven't figured out how to move this over to "Hartford Local" If someone like an administrator wants to move it, feel free.

I did find a work around for my FOX Local problem using the Sony 41A10 LCD RPTV, however. I kept directly typing in a different Physical Channel derivative and Vola, FOX digital showed up on 31.3. (Should be 31.1 or 61.1) I can't store it but I can access it directly. I believe Sony has a problem with their 8VSB software.

Don

My Zenith 420 stopped picking up WTIC also. A rescan didn't help.

I have not had any access/blank screen issues with my Samsung TS-160. WTIC comes up on 61-1 as usual. I do have issues with breakups, but that's a different issue. Sounds like it is box specific.

Take a look at the resolution on the Ktech receiver. Occasionally we have seen 1440 X 1080. Some receivers can handle this as it is a legal MPEG resolution, but it's an illegal ATSC setting. When this happens, our encoder said that it was configured for 1920 X 1080, but it was not. (Tandberg 5780 with MEM)

I recieve FOX with a Wegener DTV742 8vsb 4 channel multiplexer that has been working fine, except when you were off last week...lol
I reset the errored seconds yesterday that were at about 800 from over the weekend and had 50 errored seconds between yesterday and today.
Hope that helps n1ety

My Panasonic does the same thing. I can access 31-1 directly, which redirects to 61-1 but I cannot get 31-1 to store.

For those that are having problems getting WTIC Fox Hartford OTA to show up using the Digital Auto scan feature, this is what I had to do to make it work on my New Sony KDF-E42A10 RPTV.

Manually enter 31.3 from the Remote keypad and it will show up. 31.1 and 61.1 will show it is locked in the diagnostic window, but no Pic or Sound. It still won't save in the channel list however. So it will have to be manually entered to access.

Don

Thanks n1ety!!! Problem solved on my end. The wife will be able to watch "House" in HD tonight.

Are things any better tonight?
We checked and rechecked all settings of all upconversion equipment, rebooted everything and added a Nielson Encoder today.