Syracuse / Utica, NY - HDTV - Page 128

LOL, thanks MrTV3. Synchronicity!

The weather played hell with a power cable I have running out to the shed (Where my OTA antenna is also - behind the house so neighbors don't think we're poor folk!). Worked fine for years, now the wet soaked it so good the ground fault trips.

To heck with the neighbors! OTA is becoming an extremely viable option for many. I'm a Time Warner Signature sub and to be honest, I'm rethinking cable TV right now as my current package is $200+!! It's not so much about the money as I can afford it. It's more about the fact that I'm finding less and less value in what I'm paying all that money for! I have been exploring OTA options, HTPC and have Netflix. A lot of people underestimate OTA, but are surprised when they see a nice uncompressed OTA feed!

I agree, OTA seems like a better signal than cable.

$200/ month is a car payment on a decent econobox to get you back and forth to work. I would rather spend the money on vacation or something.

Keep in mind $100 is for Wideband Internet which is useful for my business as well as the amount of video editing and uploading I do. That said, I'm still looking to ditch the TV/Phone potions from them which would trim the bill in half.

From The New York Times

Channel 3and 5 pack it in for the night?

*Cough* Channel 9 is fritzing out. *Cough*

So does anyone know anything about what's wrong with the WTVH transmitter this time? Started watching Survivor recording last night to find only SD, then did some digging and found out the transmitter is down. At least D* picked up their SD signal coming from 3.3.

In Utica at least TWC had CSI in HD last night. I'm guessing TWC has a direct fiber connection from WTVH so that the transmitter being down didn't matter.

Yes, Time Warner has direct fiber connections with the local stations. It's a big plus that prevents outages when transmitters go down. Now, if Time Warner could just get the damn program guide up to date!

This transmitter is trying to kill me. At first it looked like an exciter failure on Tuesday morning, but when the exciter was replaced Wednesday morning, the IOT (final output tube) crowbarred hard, meaning it was shorting when high voltage was applied. Incredibly, this is the same IOT that we installed just three weeks ago as a preventive measure! In order to test whether it was the IOT or the input cavity which surrounds it, I had to borrow an IOT from another station in town. I spent all of Wednesday doing that, because I had to disassemble another transmitter just to get an IOT to test with, then temporarily install it inside WTVH's transmitter. Each disassembly and reassembly takes over two hours, because it is a pretty involved process, and there were three such events needed Wednesday. It is necessary to do the extensive testing because nobody likes ordering a$35,000 part if it is the wrong one. Thursday I spent all day checking some other things on the transmitter, and arranging for an IOT to be shipped, along with scheduling an engineer to install and tune it. Today the IOT and engineer will arrive, and we'll install the IOT this afternoon. If all goes well, we'll be back up by 5pm or so, maybe earlier.

As always, thanks for the update and keeping us in the loop. It helps me answer my customers too when they ask what's wrong.

And stop trying to cram all the unencrypted QAM onto two channels. It was bad enough in the past to be able to look at the stats and know how much TWC is compressing the channels, but I just switched to a different DVR software, and the thing is having a hard time distinguishing the stations because they are all on the same channel.

Thanks for the update. Good to see it was fixed in time for the Masters. I hope you didn't have to pay for that second IOT!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who couldn't stand that! And here I thought when they moved to SDV they would stop overcompressing the local channels into 2 QAMs

Switched to OTA from TWC around 2008 and really enjoyed the increased picture quality, of course there were the semi regular transmitter issues and lack of CW HD to deal with.

Was finally able to get FIOS tv a few months ago and it has been quite enjoyable -- the locals are all passed on just as if I received them OTA without Time Warners recompression (if anyone from Time Warner is listening maybe think about allocating 1 more QAM to the locals) and I haven't noticed any downtime due to transmitter issues (I did notice WTVH's bitrate dropped about .5Mbps not long after the new year). It's nice to finally have the CW in HD as well.

I wish FIOS was an option. I'd switch in s skinny minute. I'm in Utica though, so I suspect FIOS will be available around 20-never.

You are smart! In NYM and have had D* since day one. Yeh Fios in Utica! Then I woke up.

I'm in Schuyler with the Utica TWC lineup. Yesterday (am) the HD feed for WKTV was still on channel 863 but was down. Now channel 863 has disappeared completely (although the TWC channel 4 is still there and working). The all showings option only shows channel 4. Anyone know what is going on?

Update: Went to TWC chat and after a few robotic type answers got:

Nicolas>I am sorry channel WKTV Utica HD channel has been black out from the channel provider.
Keith_>Is that your final answer?
Nicolas>Yes, and we are negotiating with the channel provider to add the channel as soon as possible.
Nicolas>Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience caused
Nicolas>Our programming team are working on it to get the channel back.
Nicolas>You will be notify once the channel is back.
Nicolas>Hope you understand.
Nicolas>Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

Keith_>I wasn't notified when it went off. How will you notify me when it returns?
Nicolas>Yes, I understand.
Nicolas>I have already updated the email address and forwarded to our programming department.

Well, unless WKTV is only blocking out your area (or the negotiations are done), I don't think you got the right answer from TWC. I'm in Whitesboro (with, I believe, the same Utica TWC lineup) and WKTV is working fine for me right now, and we recorded the NBC national news last night as well. I probably can't be much help though, as I just have the lifeline QAM service from TWC (as part of my internet connectivity), so what I'm showing in my SAGETV setup is that WKTVHD is on 82-2-1. I'm guessing you have to be using a cablebox of some sort to see it as channel 863.

I have D* with an outdoor ant. I get the 5 Utica offerings, it's not directional. WKTV comes in great! and it's free. The area I'm in is low (near the creek) in the Mills. My signal is 70ish for 2. less for wutr and 33 lowest.
I never loose CBS in HD. I saw the post from April, regarding the Survivor in sd I never knew there was an issue. and I'm on Survivor like a hawk

I have not checked here in a long time however I saw the trouble channel 5 was having with the IOT. I have tried in vain to receive channel 5 CBS in vane for two years. I am 35mi. south but get all Syracuse channels except 5 (I miss getting CBS). Now I wonder if IOT and other changes have helped. Is anyone seeing an improvement in reception? Maybe I will spend some time on this again.

BTW am located quite high and have 2x XG91's on a rotor 40ft. in the air going into a Winegard AP-8275. I should be able to get 5...

Ray,

I can't speak for the folks at 5, but so far as I know the IOT replacement simply corrected a component failure and would not affect their coverage area -- so I would not expect that to change your reception.

As your post suggests, terrain is very important -- and this is particularly true at higher frequencies. WTVH actually transmits on channel 47, the highest for any of the full-power Syracuse stations (most of the rest are in the teens and 20s, except for WSYT). Unfortunately for viewers south of the city, their antenna is also relatively low by comparison: it's 1,888 feet above sea level (AMSL). Neighboring WSTM is at 2,260 feet, and WSYR is at 2,319 feet. WSYT and WNYS are pretty high, but also farther south and therefore less obstructed. So depending on the terrain between each station and your location, its definitely possibly that you don't have line of sight to WTVH at all. You can get a fair estimate of the likelihood of getting each station at your exact location through www.tvfool.com -- not perfect, but a good start.

Good luck --

Looking for some advice, I'm a TWC customer in Central NY and for over a year my main set up I have been using a Cisco 8640 HDCDVR set up box going HDMI for Vid and Aud ( settings on 8640- Audio -HDMI, Sound setting - Normal) into my Sony AV STR-DG820 with PASS THRU HDMI out to my TV a Samsung LN 55A 950F.
2 weeks ago I had to replace the TV with a new Sharp Elite PRO60X5FD. The only change I made was swapping out the TV's( the connections and Set ups stayed the same.) I didn't not nottice any issues until last Friday the The Audio Signalfrom the 8640 was being sent PCM instead of DD. I rebooted the 8640 and all was well again 2 days later I turn the system on and NO Audio was coming from the 8640 I rebooted and all was well, the next morning I turned the system on and back to PCM again ,Re booted and all is well. In the past (with the old TV) I did have a couple of occasions of NO Audio and re-booted 8640 and fixed the issue but nothing like this.
Is this a Cisco8640 issue or a HDMI Handshake issue with the new TV,which wouldn't make sense since I'm using the same cable box and AV Rec set up didn't change any settiings and only sending video out through HDMI with to the TV.
i can't find any threads with the Elite PRO60X5FD having this type of issue.
ANY IDEAS? Should I get a new Cisco box?
Thanks

Over the next few weeks we are having some tower work done. We will have to reduce power output on WSYT and WNYS when workers are near the antennas.It is an intermittent thing, and we do not know exactly when it will happen. This may mean some signal loss for some in the fringe areas.
Thanks for everyone's cooperation.

Time Warner announced today that they are begining to phase out more analog channels for their digital transition.

Starting on or about October 10, 2012:

CMT
C-SPAN
EWTN
Golf Channel
Lifetime Movie Network
OWN
TruTV

After that date you will need a Digital Adapter or Set Top box to receive these channel.

It's about time, but they are moving way to slow. They should just set a cut off date within the next year and send out the same mailer I got to all subs advising them to get a Digital Adapter if they don't want a full blown set top box. It's a good move making the DA's only about a $1 a month too.

Here is a link to order a Digital Adapter:

https://dci.timewarnercable.com/
Edited by BenJF3 - 9/7/12 at 1:53pm

Absolutely.. and for all their systems..no need to spoon feed people pablum who still want to use horses and buggy whips.

I read a press release on http://www.metvnetwork.com that WSYR 9-2 was scheduled to pick up Me-TV on September 10th. Is the addition of Me-TV still going to happen?

I didn't even know about this! I see it's not up yet, but I'm really happy we'll finally get to watch some comedy classics! This is awesome news! Perhaps they'll have it up by tomorrow.... I know these things don't happen with the flip of a switch....

Here is the response I received from WSYR via Twitter: "Me-TV will launch on digital channel 9.2 in mid-October due to equipment delays." Sasafrass - I see that we had the same idea and asked the question to WSYR via Twitter.

I was just going to post that.... As the saying goes, "good things come to those who wait"....