Jacksonville, FL - HDTV - Page 150

I did a rough TV Fool map based on your stated location and WTEV would actually be your strongest station. Is your antenna by any chance amplified? That would likely be the problem. Please specify the exact model number of your antenna.

I'll bet you won't have that experience in St. Pete. Jacksonville can certainly be backwards in a lot of ways. Good luck on the west coast.

I have a Philips (not RCA) MANT-940 antenna. It does have a "power injector" but I do not have it plugged in.

You probably don't need amplification with a strong signal. That could overload and disrupt the signal. But sometimes amped antennas won't work unless they are plugged in. Try plugging it in but leave it turned off.

It does not appear that antenna has an on/off switch or any method of adjusting the amount of amplification. When an amplified antenna is not plugged in or the power injector is not used, very little signal passes from the antenna to the tuner. I have over the years opened up several amplified antennas and removed the amplifier and wired around it. If you are up to that kind of work, it may improve reception, but of course will permanently alter the device.
The Radio Shack budget "rabbit ear and loop" antenna is often recommended on this forum for very strong signal areas such as described in Jacksonville. It looks like many low cost antennas that can be found at drug stores, etc. but has a larger UHF loop which is more in tune to the lower UHF frequencies used nowadays. One would lower the rods to the horizontal position and only extend them about half ways. The loop would be perpendicular to the broadcast towers.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103077&znt_campaign=Category_CMS&znt_source=CAT&znt_medium=RSCOM&znt_content=CT2032189#

Happy Holiday's Jax Metro area people - our thread really has slown down over the years.....

It really has slowed down.I can remember when we early HD adapters met at the Waffle House to discuss the start up of the local stations broadcasting in HD. I think there were about ten of us.

And a few of us from the TV stations. You guys helped us and we tried to help you.

Well.. Giving this OTA thing a shot. Sick of a high cable bill. Between an OTA antenna and a jailbroken Apple TV, I'll hopefully have plenty of ways to watch some TV.

Got the antenna today and set-up it up in the garage earlier to give it a go and see if it works.. Picture of the NFL games looked perfect. The girlfriend was impressed. Which is good, since she's been the biggest skeptic of this.
Now gotta do the hard part and run the cable in the attic. Blown insulation definitely makes this a bit harder, but shouldn't be too bad. Was originally planning on hooking up the antenna to the pre-installed cable, but since I still need internet through Comcast, I decided to not touch any of that.
My first time running cable, but only running for one tv at the moment so this should be pretty simple.. Hopefully!

You made a good decision to not involve the separate Comcast cable as the signals from the antenna can not be combined with those. Make sure you point your antenna toward the majority of the broadcast towers, east of the St. John's river and south of downtown. If you have any more questions there are many knowledgeable members on this forum in terms of OTA reception.

So I was running comcast basic (just local stations) to my HTPC digital tuner and my QAM signal is officially gone starting last Saturday or Sunday (it recorded Fringe on Friday night) 01/19/13 or 01/20/13. I haven't been keeping up with this thread and have been ignoring any notifications from Comcast because I assumed they would continue to support QAM but I guess not. All of a sudden my HTPC running WMC says no signal at all no matter what I do. Unless it is a driver problem or something, but I doubt it because I havent changed anything. I switched to a backup antenna that I have in my attic for emergencies for now.....Anyone else?

EDIT: So doing some research it is definitely an odd issue and I would love to hear from others in Jax with this set-up. Even though Comcast's website claims you can get limited basic cable service through QAM, many people are suddenly having issues with it not working.
Edited by lookatthemonkeys - 1/21/13 at 8:38pm

Just dropped cable and went with Roku and an antenna. I have a wineguard ss-3000. Set up was good and get nearly all channels and sub channels in just fine but WJCT is no where to be found.
Here is the tv fool and although it's not top on the list I'm getting NBC and ABC http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d1dda5a47a73140

Also, this is basically the trial run because we are close to breaking ground on a new house. I plan on dropping cable completely and adding an HDHomerun to the package and networking the house. Any additional tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated on that as well. Just not sure where to start, willing to do the research and homework, but need to be pointed in the right direction.

edit: forgot to mention current house is on the Northside near yellowbluff and new house will be at the beaches.

edit #2: Also should mention I live in a townhome and my neighbor has done the same thing, so we were talking about channels and he can't get PBS either.
Edited by iforgit - 1/21/13 at 7:04pm

I have Comcast, but not the basic level, and haven't had any recent issues with QAM and a pchdtv5500 tuner and MythTV.

If you have a TV with a digital tuner, you could connect it and see if the TV can get the QAM signal. If so, then it is likely a problem (hardware or software) on the HTPC side. You may need to scan for channels again, in case Comcast changed the configuration.

Regarding QAM - it is best to always check (weekly) Silicon Dust's website to see if channels are added/changed/deleted - which can certainly happen:

http://www.silicondust.com/support/channels/

Keep in mind their list is not always 100% accurate but they can be helpful.

If you have any specific question regarding HDHomerun let me know I have been running their tuners (QAM and Cable card variety) in my house since January 2010 and just really think Windows Media Center and these tuners are incredible (as long as you get your setup right, which I have (Twice now))
Edited by Gator99 - 1/22/13 at 8:26pm

OK I think I got it figured out. It freaked me out for a few hours, but my QAM and limited basic cable is still working with Comcast. For whatever reason I guess the QAM channels moved and my WMC no longer recognized them. Typically when I scanned QAM it would give me a giant list of digital channels and I would sort through them using Silcon dusts website. Now for whatever reason when I scan it says "No channels found" and makes it seems like nothing is there, but when I go to edit channels anyways I get my list of channels, although it seems now most of them are locked (they were always locked before but not as many) and now really only the 100.1+ and up work.

I have a large yagi antenna about 20 ' up. All the locals come in clean except abc25-1 and pbs 7-1. Been this way for12 years. The ota picture is so much better than cable or dish and direct tv.I live in southen st.johns county by the way.

Thanks so it sounds like PBS is just tough to get for most? I couldn't read through the entire 150 pages. I just found this surprising because it seems so much more centrally located to my house in comparison.

It has been quite a while but both PBS ABC here are VHF and that does create reception issues if you are not using the proper equipment

Correct. For example, I was using a Winegard SS1000 ch.14-69 (UHF-only) (the 4" flat grey box) which worked fine during the various digital transitions. But I had to switch to a Winegard GS1100 ch.2-69 (UHF&VHF) (the small metro antenna) after the digital transition was complete, because those two stations' "true" frequencies moved back down to RF Channels 7 and 10. WTLV-DT 12.1 NBC was close enough at RF channel 13 that I could get it even with the UHF-only antenna. Antennas marketed at the start of transition were called "digital" or "HD", but all it meant was "UHF" in a world where plenty of folks still had VHF-only antennas.
Well, yagi doesn't necessarily mean anything about frequency range. For example, a Winegard HD 9075P "HD-Platinum" antenna is a yagi, but UHF-only -- so it won't receive those two stations. Versus an AntennaCraft Y5-7-13 which is also called a "yagi" but is actually VHF, for channels 7-13 only -- so it will receive those, but won't receive any of the rest of the digital stations! I'd look up your antenna model and see if you've been unintentionally shooting yourself in the foot all these years. You definitely need both UHF *and* upper-VHF reception here.
Edited by trackavsforum - 2/10/13 at 12:17am

Thanks for the info .My antenna is about 6' long and is combination uhf/vhf. 47-1 and 30-1 have always been the strongest signal 90plus. 12-1 about 70 and 25-1 and 7-1 around 60.I also have a booster on it.I believe ABC and PBS just send out a weaker signal then the other stations perhaps.

Oops, don't want to mislead anyone. Though what I said was true about UHF/VHF, @reds75's relative signal strength estimates are also correct: Channel 7, WJCT (PBS) really is pretty weak in the southeast fringe.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/15/comcast-encrypt-basic-cable/#comments

Does anyone know how the new Comcast rules will affect current QAM users?

I am currently running a HTPC with WMC and have the limited basic Comcast cable to obtain my QAM channels. I have been threatened before that I will require a box, but I have always ignored them and my setup has always worked. I obviously can not use a box with my HTPC and I am not going to get a cable card just for local channels. Does anyone know any additional info? Thanks

If/when this happens you will have to have cable card or STB, OR use your tuners for OTA ATSC broadcasts. Sucks that FCC allowed this