Lafayette, LA / Beaumont, TX / Lake Charles, LA - HDTV - Page 245

Just an FYI, besides KVIL, 98.7 KLUV, 97.1 KEGL, 106.1 KHKS, and 92.5 KZPS are all on the same 1500fter (the "Cowboy" tower in Cedar Hill) as well as two TVs (one was 52 which I think they moved down to 51 on digital and the other was a 60-something channel and I dont recall where they ended up on digital)
In fact, helped install most of the FMs on that tower...(KLUV was the only one I didnt have a hand in) The master Harris CBR antenna, which is a true omni directional where as most side mounted FM and TV antennas have a DEEP null in the direction of the tower, was designed for 10 stations but they cheapened out on the feedline (6in instead of 9in) and no way that can handle 10 stations (not sure if they added anymore FMs)....The TVs have separate antennas at the top.There IS a LP on the tower...22 iirc...which is licensed to Corsicana (~40m south on I45) but has NO signal in that direction whatsoever; it has a directional signal toward Plano from the antenna farm at the hill.

Thanks guys. I knew it was kinda out that way somewhere, but didn't have time to look it up the other night. I appreciated the pinpoint location.

Wow,not much distant OTA stuff last night. Pretty much squashed. I could not even get KLTL last night!

I did however get WVLA for a bit early in the evening and KATC, but that was it.

this morning i was getting KTIU 34-3 and KBTV 4-1 Beaumont Tx. WKRG-TV Mobile, Alabama, WHLT 22.1 Hattiesburg Ms. and WAKA 8.1 Montgomery Alabama. hope tonight has better tropo before cold front passes thru here around 3am and kills all the good tropo. i have noticed the past 2 days when dxing about 12am channel 2 on RF 13 Signal goes Completely dead nothing on my Signal meter totally off the air until about 4am. anyone else notice this?

Yeah, same here. Oh well, maybe next time.

Does anybody here know if i can use a VHF indoor or outside UHF antenna to receive Sporadic-E (E-Skip) on channels 2 thru 6. or do i have to have a outdoor VHF antenna

To pick up 2-6, you want an outside 2-6 antenna...an indoor antenna can lose as much as 12db signal (almost 1/30 of the original signal level outside) and for 2-6, you want the right size to get as much signal as you can.. Always use the right antenna for the right signal...size does make a difference

Does anyone here know about the progress being made with the Lafayette stations about getting their HD LIL's going with Directv? I would have to assume they are high in priority considering they are one of the highest ranked DMA's without locals yet, and with D12 almost in place, capacity isn't an issue anymore.

Cold front??? Did I miss one?? (I think it fell apart before it got to SE TX was hoping for cooler temps)...remember when talking about Channel 2 on here, some folks may take it to be Houston's 2/RF35.....ARGH I hate vitual mapping
When I read 2 on RF13, had to shake the brain a little ...HHMmm wonder if BTR's 2 took their batwing down yet?? I dont think Houston has yet....some hams still want to operate 6meters (50MHz) on those antennas and see what kind of range they would get

Could be another RF 13 cancelling out WBRZ-DT-13. Here in San Antonio the Houston-area signals sometimes get so strong on our Ch 26, 38, 41 that the range of azimuths over which they will decode at gets limited - and the signal bar graph on the Zenith DTT-901 gets very low. With NTSC co-channel interference (CCI) you could tell that two or more were fighting it out - all ATSC gives you is a mysterious non-decode

D12 has been delayed.

What happened to cat lady, and how can I contact her? pm me

hi guys we sure had some good tropo on the gulf coast this morning. I invite everybody here at the forums to please take a look at my dxing catches i got last night that i uploaded on youtube. I hope you guys had some luck too last night. http://www.youtube.com/user/amfmtvdtvbrla

Please, let's stop the insanity, OK?

There is another application filed for a low power on channel 38 in Beaumont on channel 38 at 15 KW from 78 MAG on a tower that looks to be about halfway between the northern Beaumont city limits, and the southern Lumberton city limits.

In looking through the appliction they submitted, I came across the interference study they conducted for the channel. Found a few problems right off the bat...

In conducting the study, they calculated potential interference for channels ranging from channel 20 to channel 53. Nowhere to be found was KITU channel 33... They calculated KFDM channel 21 to be 93.2 KM away, and KBTV to 104.4 KM away! When in fact, KFDM is 22.47 KM and KBTV is 21.19 KM distant. How does this happen??? Seems to me they are trying to snooker their way in to making the interference problem seem considerably less than it is. I'm just sayin', you know?

And two channel 23 apps in Jasper to be 0.0 and 0.3 KM distant...

Do these people like giving application money to the FCC for sport or something? They jsut have extra money around they just decide to give to the government?

What is up with some of these apps? Geez...

Grab your rabbit ears, boys and girls. Tropo forecast for DXing looks good for tonight.

Happy Hunting everybody,

-ML

D12 is not delayed! It's right on schedule with drift to proper orbit happening anytime now..

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=164555

ALSO, 3 more markets getting Directv LIL including Biloxi in June!

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global...setId=P6030044

Yes, it was delayed. There's even an FCC filing stating that.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=206664

WUSI - Olney, Ill - 624 miles

I think that's more of an extension in the current spot than a delay as there is no set date that has past that it was to be active by for new channels... Directv is currently moving channel locations each wednesday to accomodate those new channels via D12, so it appears their target of May is still a go.. If they had a set date to activate new channels and it got delayed, then that's a delay.. At least IMO.

Apples and oranges I consider it a delay since they had to refile something stating they were not done testing based on the scheduled test time in the previous filing.

But regardless...looking at the new markets they have scheduled, Lafayette is not one of them at this time.

So to the original question... keep an eye on that page for your Lafayette, LA HD locals information.

Seems the tropo has been pretty good and not stuck to below 1Ghz (which was just above the upper cell channels in the early days)...
Above 1GHz is mostly point to point microwave except for the PCS/new cell band around 1.9GHz....You would have to look at a FCC Table of allocations to grasp it all but in the higher spectrum lies several channels of Broadcast Aux Service (BAS) called Remote Pick Up (RPU)...these are what TV stations use for remote live shots in the field back to the studio.....
Needless to say, in a big market like Houston or Dallas, these channels are in use everyday...some stations have channels permanently assigned to them by the local frequency coordinator....
WELL, today, the local coordinator here got an email from the coordinator in Houston (who works at KPRC TV)....seems one of the channels has a constant signal on it that fades in and out of the RPU receivers mounted on the 2000ft towers in Missouri City....the RPU equipment use steerable dishes and off the tall towers, the signal was peaking when the dishes were pointed this way...
Also off a 750foot building top in west Houston (The San Felipe Bldg), the receiver there (shared) was showing the signal this way...
Now these units DONT transmit with LOTs of power like the main station signal...they may run 100watts or so and into a directional antenna, it can have 100x or more increase since the higher the freq, the more gain a dish will have..
AND they actually decoded the signal.....they saw a highway from the bottom to the center of the screen..and then a turn and what looked like a bridge....and at the bottom, a giveaway....a caption saying "IP Casino Cam"..

YEP, the signal was coming from what was guessed a camera atop the LDL casino (Probably used by KPLC for traffic and wx; KFDM has one on top of the old Liberty-Pearl building with the other microwave dishes and sometimes a flag; thats the old GSU bldg and their telecom group is still there with the microwave dishes where fiber has not taken over).

The picture as seen could only be coming from the LDL rooftop and looking at the I-210 bridge; off the ...WHY it was pointing toward Houston and HOW it was making that far and actually watchable (true, the receiver is at ~2000ft and has no cable loss!) is outside of amazing!!!
FOX 26 in Houston was only "mildly annoyed"

Best catch here the past few days http://www.qsl.net/wa5iyx/images/wvea-dt-25.1z.jpg Venice, FL (995 mi) - DTT-901, CM4228 20' AGL, CM-7777. Updated list http://www.qsl.net/wa5iyx/wa5iyx-dtv.txt Would still like to get over the 1000-mi "barrier"

Very nice. 995 must be pushing the limits for tropo?

KFDM has FCC approval to go to channel 25.

A few legal issues (like filing for a construction permit) and money are the next hurdles.

Building the antenna will take a few months.

R

With NTSC I was able to get perhaps a dozen Fla UHFs over 1000 miles here (as far as Miami). I'd even (VERY rarely) got Orlando and Miami Ch 2 via tropo. My first trans-Gulf tropo (Apr 1963) was a jaw-dropping experience as our local 4 went off to reveal Port Arthur, they went off and New Orleans was there, and then finally Miami. I was used to that kind of distance only with Es!

Ahhh well it turned out NOT to be from the LDL casino....it seems to be the IP Casino in Biloxi, MS!!! Now thats a 2GHz (Giga hertz) shot!

And then getting all those with OTA antennas to rescan

Truely a night to remember!

You could have a bake sale and pass the hat in Lake Charles to all the grateful future viewers and probably make enough money for the project.

congrats Richard. Looking forward to the change.
-ML

Congrats Richard! I do hope this solves the reception problems for KFDM. I will be looking for the app to appear in the Query.


I can see the promos now... "KFDM is moving! No, not from our studios on the curve on I-10, but inside your TV!"


I can help make the cupcakes!

Now, on to more important matters... Antenna Party! I missed the last one, so this is another (maybe the last?) opportunity to watch as one antenna is lowered and another raised. Let's all meet out there and make a picnic of it...