Roanoke, VA / Bluefield, WV - HDTV - Page 18

The dbu requirement it looks like has to do with the field strength of the signal and who knows what they are getting out of the kw they are putting out.

A given dbu corolates to not only power out of the antenna, but the antenna height and terrain. If you go http://www.fcc.gov/mb/video/tvq.html you can enter the call sign of the station in question and then click on one of the links and then look for the proper channel for the station and then click on Service Contour Map (41 dbu). 41 dbu is Grade B coverage. Which is more than city grade. If you have a large 41 dbu, the 48 dbu will only be about 15% closer.

I was looking at WFXR's 41 dbu coverage with their 2.97 kW power and it looks like they have city grade currently. The 41 dbu coverage goes out to Martinsville, between Pulaski and Wytheville, between Bedford and Lynchburg and just past Covington, so I would say that the 48 dbu does cover Roanoke with no problem and a bit past. My guess would be you would not see any difference with WFXR, but again, I have no contact with them so I have no idea what they might or might not do.

So, whats the latest news from Fox 21/27? Are they going to be operational by the superbowl or Daytona 500?

FoxSports.com
NASCAR on FOX hits the gas on its fifth season in grand style with razor sharp 720p high-definition pictures accompanied by crystal clear Dolby 5.1 audio. FOX's Emmy Award-winning coverage begins during SpeedWeeks at Daytona, returning to the airwaves on Saturday, Feb. 12 (8:00 PM ET), with a prime time presentation of the Bud Shootout, live from Daytona International Speedway. Coverage continues from Daytona with the 2005 season's inaugural NASCAR Busch Series event on Saturday, Feb. 19 (2:00 PM ET), and culminates with live, flag-to-flag coverage of the 47th running of "The Great American Race" the Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 20 (12:00 PM ET).

Ditto! The concerned public needs to know. Or should I plan on going to my friends house that has a C-band dish. He has had Fox in HD from the start.

What's a C-band dish, where does he pick up the signal?

A C-Band is the large dish. They have been around long before D* and E*. I don't know which sat he gets his signal off of. With the C-band, you have to reposition the dish for each sat. It takes longer but the signal is pristine.

I was surprised the The Family Man on WSLS Sunday night wasn't in HD, disappointed really. I have the DVD and noticed quite a few scenes on the broadcast movie that weren't on the DVD, perhaps the "new" scenes are in a deleted section on the DVD, but anyway I liked 'em, too bad they weren't included in the original movie- character building cutting room floor stuff I guess.

Is WFXR still screwed up on OTA DT 17?

A friend set up a digital STB there recently, and reports a scan of DT 17 brings up only one channel... the WBVA feed, which is listed as "WJPRFox 21-3" (?!?!). He's sure he directly scanned 17, and was in the NRV, so he wasn't likely picking up WJPR-DT over there.

Yup, the same here in Catawba.

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Originally posted by Inundated
Is WFXR still screwed up on OTA DT 17?

A friend set up a digital STB there recently, and reports a scan of DT 17 brings up only one channel... the WBVA feed, which is listed as "WJPRFox 21-3" (?!?!). He's sure he directly scanned 17, and was in the NRV, so he wasn't likely picking up WJPR-DT over there.
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I am picking up both 17.1 and 17.2 here in Rocky Mount. I do have a Samsung SIR T 165 that will not lock Channel 17 digital at all even though it is getting a good signal.

I have the HR10-250 and when I scanned the OTA channels, I received two 21.1s and one 21.3. The first 21.1 is WJPR out of Lynchburg, the second 21.1 is WFXR out of Roanoke and the 21.3 is WBVA. I live in Blue Ridge.

Does anyone know if Adelphia in the Blacksburg area will be adding more HD channels anytime soon? Right now they only have ABCHD, CBSHD, HBOHD, SHOHD, StrHD, HDNET, HDMVS, ESPHD, INHD1 & INHD2. I'm hoping they'll start carrying Fox and NBC soon. And it would be nice if they'd get the new Universal HD channel.

Don't hold your breath.
I don't imagine they'll carry Fox until the local affiliate actually goes HD early next year. The local NBC affiliate did not even want to talk to Adelphia (or Cox), practically considering them pirates of their signal (making money on THEIR programming). Then I had a long and very cordial talk with the general manager. Long story short ... they seem to now be more conducive to negotiating with cable. It wouldn't hurt to send a letter to the general manager of WSLS "encouraging" them to let their HD out to cable.
Now, someone on this forum said they saw in the Roanoke Times that Adelphia was going to add WBRA-DT. Usually a newspaper notice is iron-clad, but alas ... after several weeks, no go. Call to CSR says, "oh yeah, we're planning to add it" soon. We'll see.
Adelphia also maintains that they plan to add Discovery HD (they've had a contract for some time, and most other Adelphia systems have it). I think Universal HD and TNT HD would be better. The CSRs even say they "plan to add dozens of new HD channels in the next year." (I have to laugh on that one).

Did anyone else see the huge blue ABC 13 logo in the corner of Lost last night? It really took away from the normally beautiful picture. Very distracting. Before it had just the ABC logo that was clear like CBS's, which is not distracting.

It really bothered me a lot. Is there anyone I could call to ask them to remove it or are we going to be stuck with it.

I saw it, and yes it was obnoxious. But didn't it go away after a couple of minutes (after returning from a commercial break), or did I just get used to it?

Any real legit news on Fox 21/27?

I spoke with Robert Lynch today regarding the status of Fox in HD in Roanoke and Lynchburg. He told me the dish was installed two days ago and they are waiting on a HD encoder to complete the installation. This particular encoder apparently is the item needed to switch between HD programming and SD programming. This encoder is on order and should be installed soon. He believes they will be testing HD in a few weeks. Although he did not guarantee it, he expressed his feeling that Fox in HD will probably be available by mid January to Roanoke and Lynchburg.

HD will be broadcasted from both the Roanoke and the Bedford towers. A signal will be sent via fiber optics to the transmitter on Poor Mountain and fed to the "17" tower, then the signal will be fed from Poor Mountain via microwave signal to the "20" tower in Bedford.

HD will definitely be available for the Super Bowl. Judging Robert's response to the question about whether or not HD will be available by the superbowl, my interpretation was that FOX network had an ultimatum for the local networks to have HD by that date.

WFXR will broadcast Dolby Digital 5.1 audio with their HD feed.

Happy days are almost here!

Hogfanatico,
Thanks for the input, thats great news. I wonder if the signal will be stronger. With my Toshiba DST3000 I only get about 70% off Poor Mountain. But 10. 7, and 38 are all 100%.

I hope Cox will be able to pick Fox up quickly.

Cox just recently add INHD & INHD2. Both are pretty cool channels.

I live in Blue Ridge, and I get 65% for Fox from Poor Mountain. I get 92 from the others except WSET. Robert told me that they are replacing the transmitter on Poor Mountain with a new one and WFXR will go to full power after this transmitter is installed. You will definitely see an increase for Fox's signal when that happens. The legal requirement is all stations must be at full power before July 2005 but WFXR may be sooner than that.

I believe Cox will have WFXR-DT very soon. Robert told me that they have already made the fee arrangements to broadcast through Cox. You may want to check out an OTA receiver for your local HD channels. The picture will be better if you are able to receive the channel with an antenna because you are getting the signal straight from the station rather than it going through conversion processes and bouncing all over the place before it gets to your cable box.

hogfanatico:
Thanks for the good news!!!

Is the PSIP deadline set for February 1, 2005?

I'd imagine he was talking about the July full power deadline.

My understanding is the PSIP deadline is a separate deadline from the full power deadline. The requirement made by the FCC was that broadcasters had to fully implement PSIP 120 days after publication of the FCC's 09/07/04 Report and Order in the Federal register. That would put the deadline sometime in February 2005. I've read many sources that estimated this date to be February 1, 2005 and I was curious if that is the definite date,

Yes, the implementation of full PSIP was in the same order that the full power order came from (2nd DTV Review Report and Order) but have different effective dates. The PSIP date is Feb 1 while the full power for big 4 stations in the Top 100 markets is July 1, 2005 (July 1, 2006 for all remaining stations).

How many Kilowatts would a station have to be running in order to meet the July 2005 full power requirement? For example, WSET-DT (34) is currently running at 17.9kw, what Kw will they need to be at to meet the full power requirement?

It is different for each station. The FCC has already allocated a full power level for each station. You can go to http://www.fcc.gov/mb/video/tvq.html and then enter the call letters of the station in question.

Thanks for the info, unfortunately, I have no clue as to what I'm reading at this site. Perhaps someone else who knows how to read this stuff can help. Is WSET-DT (34) currently running at 17.9 Kw? What is the full power level allocated by the FCC for WSET-DT (34)?

Look at this page, here:

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state...&slon2=&size=9

Let's walk through the listing. I've taken the liberty of editing out the stuff that doesn't matter in this listing:


That's the current WSET/13 analog license. (LIC = License) It's running 302 thousand watts in a directional antenna.


I haven't looked inside this, but I believe this was the rulemaking that moved the DT channel for WSET to 34. It was something like 56 before, if I remember right.


This is the answer to your question. It's the construction permit (CP) for the full power WSET-DT facility. I'm presuming MOD = modified. When WSET is all finished, they'll be at 716,000 watts digital.


This is what they're running right now, the 17,900 watt signal. DS STA = Special Temporary Authority. It's what a number of stations are running to keep their digital license "warm" until the final power upgrade.