Duluth, MN - HDTV - Page 6

Just finished installing an antenna for a client north of Minong in Gordon.Not sure of the air miles to the transmitters?
I used a Winegard 7696, a fairly high gain Hi band VHF/UHF model. I added a Winegard 8700 (as I recall) 82 channel preamp too. Mounted on the roof of a two story home.
Fed into another UHF/VHF distribution amp to about 10 outlets around the house. The signals on my spectrum analyzer looked weakest on the VHF channels for some reason. All of the Duluth digitals come in reliably. Channel 10 is the weakest with some occasional breakup.
Is channel 10 at full power?
On another note, I noticed with the Winegard HD set top we used,channel 6.1 seems to lock in very slowly,where 6.2 comes in instantly. Occasionally 6.1 doesn't do anything,just a black picture. They are broadcast on the same channel,so that would seem to be a set top box issue of some sort. 3.1 seemed to act the same way also. 3.1 taking much longer to lock in than the sub channels.
Thanks for any insight.
PS Quite a bit to watch on the new digitals! Lots of variety for a free!

Channel 10 is at their final power level, unless they had to temporarily reduce power for tower work (they would go back to full power after dark). They do not have any applications or construction permits with the FCC to make further changes.

If the signal is a little low you may notice the higher data rate picture of the main channel take longer to lock in than the lower data rate picture of the subchannel. It's not always the case by any means, but it is a possible explanation for what you are seeing. I have seen similar situations before and that's how it was explained to me.

Wikipedia claims that KCWV-27 signed on today. Anybody seeing it?

- Trip

It is indeed on the air. They are carrying "My Family TV," which consists mostly of public domain and other family-friendly programming. There's no PSIP data, though.

I'm not in the area (I'm in North Dakota), but the Red and Nater board (Midwest radio/TV broadcasters message board) says they signed on this morning with My Family TV programming.

http://www.redandnater.com/forum/vie...p?f=13&t=76272

Since WPT is having intermittent problems on the input side of their Grantsburg translator today (input is RF channel 27 from WHWC-Menomonie), I'm guessing KCWV is on the air. Grrr.

I don't know if you've noticed, but apparently PBS 8.2 is again broadcasting in HD. However, because their system appears to be processing the signal as if it's 4:3 instead of 16:9, it's stretching the picture horizontally, meaning, the aspect ratio at the TV sets is wrong.

A correction regarding my previous post: just noticed that Channel 8.2 is not being broadcasted in HD. It's a SD channel (480i). However, it's the only SD channel in my entire lineup that activates letterbox choices in my two receivers! Very strange indeed. Channels 8.3 and 8.4 for example don't let me stretch or letterbox the screen.

Unfortunately however the letterboxing option isn't helpful at all. In reality, image is worse than when the channel presented the correct aspect ratio. Channel 8.2 continues to show the programs with the post stamp effect discussed in a previous post in this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...7#post16995647
but now you need to stretch the image vertically to get to the right aspect ratio. It means that the effective resolution in pixels is even worse than it was before for all programs. I did some calculation and it looks like it's currently using only 270 lines of vertical resolution instead of the regular 480 lines for a normal SD channel!

Any chance ThisTV could be carried on a digital subchannel in the Duluth-Superior area by the end of this year?

Actually. PBS 8.2 is showing up with the correct aspect ratio on my TV. On my TV (Optoma HD80 projector), it shows up correctly as Widescreen SD. So, it is a 480i image being broadcast in the correct aspect ratio giving a regular widescreen image. With all the multicasting they do, 8.2 actually does not look that much worse than 8.1 and I have enjoyed watching Nova and some other programs in 8.2 widescreen.

Hi, that would be fine with 16:9 shows, but in the case of 4:3 shows it means having the "postage stamp" effect, meaning, the image is at the same time letterboxed and pillared. Even when the TV has a zoom function to correct for it (mine doesn't), it implies a huge loss of resolution, due to very substantial unused area around the small wrongly sized 4:3 frame.

Aah, I see the point. Most times when I have switched to 8.2, it has beena 16x9 show, so I haven't seen the postage stamp effect. However, off the top of my head, it would seem that if they're broadcasting in 4x3, then the postage stamp effect should affect only 16x9 shows. If they're broadcasting it as a widescreen image, the 4x3 shows should be fine (just as 4x3 shows on 8.1 come over fine.

For example I hate watching 3.2 and 6.2 because all the 4x3 shows on those channels get stretched out to my 16x9 screen.

Wait ... I think I understand what you're saying - you have a standard 4x3 TV and not 16x9. That would explain everything. If THAT is the problem, I would humbly suggest that 8.2 should continue its present practice since new TVs are all 16x9 and it is not worth broadcasting at an aspect ratio of old TVs.

Still, I'll keep my eyes open and see what the 4x3 shows look like

In reality, I just realized that the issue has yet been solved, probably some time ago! I was not watching 8.2 anymore because of the postage stamp effect, so I wasn't aware of the changes made by PBS.

Channel 8.1 continues to be the HD channel (720p), and Channel 8.2 is SD (480i), but PBS found a way to allow receivers to recognize 8.2 as a *WIDESCREEN* channel! By doing that, my receiver now allows me to zoom in or stretch the image, eliminating the postage stamp effect and aspect ratio problems, and also maintaining the best possible resolution for widescreen shows. Way to go PBS, this was a great technical fix!

I am currently in the process of getting my CM 4228 back up (this time with the APS-9B on the same mast), so I have settled on using the FM yagi for TV DX in the meantime - a very imperfect solution. Last night I succeeded, thanks to my DTT900's excellent sensitivity:

0020 RF 9 KMSP-DT MN Minneapolis 124mi NEW Stable signal
0020 RF 11 KARE-DT MN Minneapolis 124mi NEW Stable signal, even stronger than KMSP-DT
0025 RF 32 WCCO-DT MN Minneapolis 124 mi
0025 RF 34 KTCA-DT MN Minneapolis 124 mi
0025 RF 35 KSTP-DT MN Minneapolis 124 mi
0025 RF 45 KSTC-DT MN Minneapolis 124 mi Perfect signal!
0030 RF 12 KCCW-DT MN Walker 102 mi Good signal!
0035 RF 22 WUCW-DT MN Minneapolis 124 mi Good signal, APS-9B pointed about 90* W of actual station
0035 RF 23 KTCI-DT MN Minneapolis 124 mi Good signal NEW!
0035 RF 24 WHRM-DT WI Wausau 179 mi Good signal!
0040 RF 29 WFTC-DT MN Minneapolis 124 mi Perfect signal! NEW!
0045 RF 28 WHWC-DT WI Menomonie 124 mi NEW!

analog

0100 RF 15, 31, 39 FOX 21 translators in Grand Rapids, Hayward, and Aitkin respectively

Unknown weak signals on 5, 7, 25, 31, etc. No sign of WUMN-CA.

(Note that I had previously logged every station but KTCI-DT on a different channel)

Strangely they began to disappear about at 0050. However, KPXM-DT was going strong until I went to bed. Also, every HD Radio station from the Cities that I tried, even KCMP and KQQL, was decoding.

Still using the APS-9B FM antenna...just waiting to put up the 4228.

23 (2) KTCI-DT (124 mi) - In for a little bit
24 (28) W24CL-D (64 mi) - In for about a second
32 (4) WCCO-DT (124 mi) - Sometimes in stable, sometimes breaking up
34 (2) KTCA-DT (124 mi) - Similar to WCCO-DT, but worse

Hi folks!

I just signed on to Charter Cable in Duluth (mainly to get a decent Internet connection). My TV picks up a whole bunch of clear QAM channels, but I have no way of going through all of them to see exactly what they are.

Does anyone know where I can get a QAM channel map for Charter in Duluth? Other than the broadcast channels, the only other HD channel I currently receive is TBS-HD on 79.2.

Thanks for any help.

You could head on over to the website developed by the good folks at Silicondust to support the users of their PC-based tuner.

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

If it doesn't have your zip code you could try one nearby that has the same cable operator. Often they use almost the same channel mapping lineup. I looked for one of the Duluth zip codes and only found the QAM listings for the broadcast channels, but it had Mediacom listed as the provider, so perhaps it wasn't the right zip code for you.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did go over there, but unfortunately they do not have listings for this zipcode. And Charter here seems to just list Duluth/Superior as their service areas.

Any other ideas?

brute force? You may just have to go through them one at a time and figure out what each channel is. There may be other sites that list this info, but most of the other ones I was familiar with dried up once the silicondust site got so popular for this info.

Thanks for the link, it worked in my area. Just a question though, what are all the pictures of TV screens doing on the right of the screen? I wanted to print the info without those pictures(to save on ink) but I couldn't. I just don't see what the purpose of those screen shots are for....

i think it's actually an artifact of how this info gets captured by their tuners. you see similar screen images other places where tsreader is used to acquire the information. i'm not sure what the real relevance is unless you happen to see a network bug to verify that the channel information is accurate.

The relevance of the pictures is to be able to confirm that the channel label matches what's actually being broadcast on that channel. If you click them, they zoom to full size.

- Trip

Is there any chance KBJR-DT and KRII-DT could add Antenna TV on a digital subchannel?

KRII, not a chance.

- Trip

Looks like nothing for MN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._TV_affiliates

Is there any chance Charter could add more clear QAM Channels by the end of 2011?

I don't know about Charter in DLH specifically, but other than the locals(and not necessarily all the sub channels) and shopping/public service type of channels, don't expect anything else to be added to clear QAM.
Cable companies really don't care for clear QAM and would rather everyone be forced to use a STB. Using a STB you might be tempted to purchase PPV and other revenue enhancing services, something you'd never do just using clear QAM. The days of unscrambled expanded basic type of channels(like with analog) are gone forever

Is there a chance KQDS-DT could add 1 or 2 more digital subchannels by the end of this year?

lets hope not