Traverse City, MI - HDTV - Page 2

I would imagine so they could keep saying"eleven at eleven" if you know what I mean, I think everyone associates there call number now, would be less confusion, do you know if going to VHF would make it any easier to pull them in rather than the UHF? I did here somewhere where most stations would go back to the VHF after the change. So some people like myself will have to get a new antenna again, should buy some stock into Channel Master huh

Ya, ABC told me that PBS was going to use that too, wish they all would be in the same general area so I didnt have to us a rotor.

Was wondering if there was any new info on the state of HDTV in the Traverse City area?, has PBS come on yet?

Wow... there has been a lot of activity in this thread since I last checked. I wonder why I didn't get the notification... but I digress.

I guess I'm the lucky one here in Manton; half-way between TC and Cadillac. To answer your question tvb, not today. They were up for a week or so and then disappeared. I haven't heard from them since. Haven't took the time to write them (lazy me), but I miss it. They had some amazing programming and were simulcasting in HD and non-HD. I think that makes a difference with PBS as they have different programming at times.

To answer a question earlier in the thread, 7&4 is in 5.1. Vegas is great with their quick zooms across the city.

Green Bay eh? I doubt I could pull it in, but maybe I'll give it a shot sometime.

The only other thing is that I hate Fox. They have a small pocket over the lakes that they are broadcasting digital, and I can barely get their analog. Time to move the antenna to try again I guess.

Hope to hear from others!

Well I called both Fox33 and PBS, Fox is worthless, from the way it sounds we will never get them here in the Traverse area, I also talked to PBS yesterday, boy are they nice and informative by the way, and yes they will be on soon, guess there waiting for some equiptment, they didnt have a date set but by the way he sounded I think they will be up full power soon, and yes they will be multicasting which is great, can only hope that Austin City Limits will be in 5.1. Has anyone noticed if CBS is broadcasting at a higher power?, last time I had a reciever which was last year at this time, I could'nt pull them here in Interlochen, they said it was because of the hill at Green Lake or something, but I dont think they were at full power either, I'm thinking about taking the plunge again and getting another tuner, I had a Samsung 151 before, does any one use another brand and if so how does it do, I was thinking about getting a LG model, I hear good things about it.Thanks.

Here is what I got from PBS (this thread inspiried me):

I really don't want to wait that long, but I guess I'll have to. As for CBS, I have 100% signal, but I'm closer to the antenna than you will be. I use the Wal-Mart $200 STB and it works great. Had one hiccup in the sound that I had to hard reset to fix, but aside from that I have no complaints.

Let me know if you want more info.

P.S. Fox does suck.

Anyone know if 31-1 ABC is having probs?

I just hooked up an antenna and its showing a consistent 80%+ signal, yet the channel just shows up black...

I get a 90% signal on 7-1 NBC and that channel works just fine.

Im using an E* 811 STB...

I cant think of any darn reason why Im getting an 80% signal but a black screen?

Anyone?

Just to let everyone know I got an e-mail from 7&4 and they will be doing Weather Plus Channel on one of there sub channel very soon. I hear its kind of like the Weather Channel. I think down the road they can do local radar and severe weather warnings with it. It should be a 24/7 channel.

I always love more channels... and with the weird weather around here, a weather channel would be great!

Keep it growing...

I'm slightly below the tip of the mit on the Lake Huron side, I get channel 49 (CBS - TV 9&10 ) out of Goetzville in the UP and it is simply a wonderful channel. I locked in 57.1 (WCML-HD) and 57.2 (WCML-SD) a few weeks ago. Central Michigan PBS out of Millersburg (channel 6) is not quite ready to go live but for better than a week I got a wonderful picture. I am not able to get any ABC (29 & 8) but to respond to an earlier thread I do get channel 35 out of Cheboygan (NBC - channel 7&4) and their awful SD stretch is abysmal. From reading, my impression is that upconverts are not atypical for 7&4's parent company Raycom. 7 & 4 can advertise that they have the latest radar making them "the technology leader" but beyond the superficial, they have not proven to me that they want to be technology leaders. They have met the very basic minimal requirements for digital compliance. I'm glad that 7&4 will now multicast NBC's weather show as any potential additional advertising revenues might eventually bring about real 16:9 HDTV. However, their low power and low height antennas will never allow most of the Northern Lower or the Eastern Upper to see "the technology leader". I will not hold out any hope of ever seeing ABC (29 & 8) so I hope that E* will eventually have a national ABC feed that can be tapped into. I get Fox 33 (channel 45 - Vanderbelt) marginally if the wind is in the right direction but almost never watch the station unless looking for Lions football in the fall. I wonder how they survive? I have lurked for years on this forum but finally had something to say in response to the 7&4 multicasting news. Northern Michigan Fox and ABC are not part of large organizations. Raycom has substantial broadcast holdings and should have the financial and technical expertise to step up to the HDTV plate but they haven't much to my disappointment. Thus, news of bandwidth splitting for them (7 & 4) seems in keeping with Raycom's corporate attitudes visually not displayed to us. I can't blame companies for following the letter of the law but I want real HDTV broadcasts using the full bandwidth allocated for the service.

ogre5697 I feel your pain, I have such high hopes for hdtv, they started hdtv so they could compete with cable and if done right I think they could, I would drop cable in a heartbeat if they would multicast more and if we could pick up something. I had a hdtv tuner a year ago, and was trying and trying to pull something in, CBS led me on for a while that I could get them, I spent alot of money on buying new antenna and pre-amps and rotors, and I got nothing. Then after that CBS said oh you will never be able to get us where your at. I'm here in Interlochen and can get all analog just fine, except FOX Whicj just comes in bad, even tho I'm about 9 miles from there tower. Although I did get 7&4 before I sold my tuner, they wernt showing much at the time. I tried Charter and they only broadcast 9&10, and if you ask them when the rest will be on they get a little touchy.So that went back, now I' back to basic cable and waiting and waiting.I've talked to the stations and some do sound promising, like PBS it sounds like they will broadcast at full power when they do get up and running, and it sounds like some good multicasting is comming too. I really dont think FOX will ever come up here, I think they'll go bankrupt before will see any Lions games in HDTV.I would try one of the Satellite services but boy do they compress the signal alot, see alot of artifacts, maybe the new sat's at Directv will fix that. Oh well what can we do, sounds like some of us have done our part, its just the stations who dont want to do this even though there the one who wanted it. Good luck

You sound as if you are excited about multicasting?

Multicasting is the worst that thing that could ever happen to any OTA channel...

Tube TV? You are excited that Tube TV is going to rob PQ from our beautiful NBC WPBN HD?

I dont get it?

Yep, thats what they all say in the beginning..

I can guarantee you the loss of PQ is present right now......

Wait till they add a few more useless channels, it will be much more noticeable then...

Multicasting is the Devil my man....We must find a way to kill it! lol

Anyways, Whats the word on the ABCHD channel 29-1...

I live off of Zimmerman road in TC and I get a perfect signal on that feed with an indoor antenna...

No HD though?

Does anyone in the area know if theres a timeline in place for this station to go HD?

I'm new to the HD field, and I just moved to Ludington. I have Charter HD cable, and the HD channels they offer come in very nicely, but on the standard channels the picture quality is very poor. What's the problem here? I was under the impression that most cable channels would be in high definition, and all of them by 2006. Instead all of the channels have standard quality, and in fact look worse since the image is stretched to fit the tv. Is there a problem here, or is this pretty much the standard state in television?

After spending thousands of dollars on an HDTV I was expecting more.

How could you ever tell if there was picture degradation with WPBN? I don't watch WPBN. I watch WTOM (7 & 4) which to my understanding also produces the same god awful upconverts which are distorted and grainy. There would be no way to tell if there is any distortion from multi-casting as how can you distort what is already distorted? The pictures, that these Raycom stations put out, are abysmal. They have complied with the letter of the law and put out a digital signal but the picture is unwatchable (and I don't watch) and only viewable by those within the barest minimal legal sanctioned transmission range. We want full power, top of the tower, full bandwidth HDTV not crappy digital stretched upconverted viewing. So, please be excited for the multi-casting but I prefer to thinking of their offerings to us as pretty much junk.

I live about a mile from gray rd and I was able to get both 7&4 and 9&10 in hd with a indoor powered antenna.The antenna was hooked to a 811 dish reciver.

I'm just southwest of gray and cedar run and can see the four towers south of tc out my front window. I can get a more consistant signal from 9&10 than from 7&4.

Im right off Zimmerman Rd and I get a great signal on 7&4 as well as 29&8...

My 811 finds 9&10 when I do a digital scan, but I have never been able to get it to lock in, not once...

I use an indoor Terk antenna (Silver Sensor look alike)..

Whaty indoor antenna are you using crawpops?

A radio shack digital HDTV indoor powered, cost me about 30 bucks

I live in Manton. Is it even worth fooling with an OTA receiver and HD antenna? What channels can I get and what kind of signal are they? Shoot me a reply at jayandmolly@charter.net
It really doesn't sound promising or really worth it since we won't have fox forever and who knows when Charter will add any more hd channels period. I just wish there was more HD content than there is right now. I just wish I got more for the large amount of money I'm shelling out to charter. The Moxi is a buggy, slow piece of crap. Oh well.

well i got the bug again, I put up my antenna and amp, bought a tuner from walmart, hooked everything up again, and nothing but 7&4 again, although i did get a light saying it saw a signal for 29, and I got a light saying it saw a signal for 23 out of Green Bay, just not enough to lock in on, so I took it back to Wal Mart, now I just got the Samsung SIR-T451, and well I got 29 along with 7&4, but still no 9&10 tho, or PBS, I thought there were coming on? is PBS on the air yey and I'm just not picking them up? oh, well, so I had a little better luck with the samsung, but one problem, the wall mart one recieved the data for the program guide but this Samsung won't. Think I might send this one back and try the Humax, I heard some people were alot happier with that one, I guess the guide really works. Sure wish I could watch the Lions in High def tho, come on FOX33 lets do it now huh.

It really sucks waiting for the networks and especially Charter to add any more HD channels. It's bad enough I pay for Moxi and they don't pay me to use this piece of buggy equipment. I'm glad your post was an answer to my question from the post above. Well it seems as though a tuner and antenna isn't worth fooling with. Damn networks!

Hi jaywatts, think I saw you somewhere on a moxi forum somewhere(I forget) as I had moxi when it first came out back in Janurary I think, and I returned it the next day. It was real bad. It could be good, but they have a ways to go, Charter needs to go all digital for the box to work good.I returned it cause the anaolg channels were really bad.and the interface was kinda sloppy, of course I used to have Directv Tivo which was good but Directv picture was getting bad too. Well Ive had this box for a couple of days now and since ABC isnt doing true HDTV I think I'll send this back to and just do the waiting game, cant justify the price yet for one channel. Does anyone know how good Dish Net's standard channels look?, its starting to sound good right now, as charters analog channels are getting real old, want better sound and picture.

It is not so much the networks as the owners of the individual stations.

Here in W. Mich, the CBS station is owned by Freedom Broadcasting. They basically want cable companies to pay for the upgrade they have to do anyways. So Charter, Comcast and the rest will never place there HD channel in their lineups.