San Francisco, CA - OTA - Page 153

Maybe it is because earlier models had problems? The non-Plus model became available in June of last year. I got a DTVPal Plus in February. So I don't have first hand experience with its earlier problems.

The Plus has a more sensitive tuner than the non-Plus. I've read some say it does better than the Zenith. I've not tried to compare the two side by side hooked up to the same antenna. But it does get a few more channels than the Zenith in our house.

My biggest complaint is that when you switch channels the channel information box blocks the top 20 to 30 percent of the picture for 5 seconds. So I have to constantly press the [Cancel] button right after switching channels to clear that away. (if it is a channel I care to see people's faces on). (sure faces aren't the only thing that might be blocked, but it is the most common). The Zenith just says the channel number (and call sign) in the top right corner.

Both will let you display that chan info at the push of a button too, of course.

(sorry for saying so much on something that probably is better talked about elsewhere)

update1(
That [Cancel] button is within easy reach. So it isn't a big deal to press.

The Zenith does have a nice [Signal] button that keeps the signal strength of the current channel dislayed. You can do that using the [Browse] button on the DTVPal. But what sets the Zenith apart is that it makes an audible beep that gets quicker as the signal gets stronger or slower as it gets weaker. This is great for the TV in the kitchen, because its antenna is in the closet that's adjacent to it. And you can't see the picture as you move the antenna.
)

I saw it on KQED analog at 3 pm today... I agree, he came across as if he had an
axe to grind... I thought about email'ing the newshour about their statement that screens will go blue for folks that are not DTV ready. They'll actually show "snow", which is what analog does when there's no signal...

The blue screen thing is something newer TVs have. My Panasonic DMR-EH75V (DVD/HDD/VHS) which I believe was made in 2006 has an option to turn off the blue screen feature. And once it is off I can once again see snow.

I wonder what year it was that the blue screen stuff first started showing up.

I think that PBS show blue it saying what they did. I'd imagine percentage-wise more people have TVs that will show snow. (of the people that need converter boxes, of course)

Just did a channel scan. KMTP was picked up. 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 32.5 were added.

The following is displayed over and over again:


With the parts between --- each on a separate screen.

It sure didn't take KGO long to switch. The analog 7 and digital 24 transmitters were off at 12:00 midnight and at 12:00:30 KGO digital was up on channel 7.

I did a scan and got five analog stations... I expected four: 11, 22, 28 and 40 - KNTV and three low power stations. Who was the illegal station? KFSF channel 66 is still there, but very snowy. I'm only 3/4 of a mile from Sutro Tower and I bet they turned off the plates of the transmitter and have left the exciter on, and we're close enough to see the exciter.

How is everyone's reception of the stations that changed channels?

Larry
SF

It's 12:20AM. Is anyone getting 2.1 (RF44)?

I haven't done a rescan yet, but I watched the channel 5 news, and at least tonight the digital transition, lasting all of 3 minutes, was the opening story, including both the essential things people needed to know, plus bits of a retrospective on analog television's beginning (in the 1920's) and end (at least for high-power stations) tonight...at midnight the 5 analog broadcast simply went to snow (as did the TVGOS data it carried)...

Letterman also mentioned it in his opening spiel, and it was the subject of his top ten list!

Will rescan tomorrow...

[I'm especially curious what my 2 TVGOS units (below) will be doing...]

KGO7 is very strong in Santa Rosa. I was watching it on DirecTV on an analog TV and using the Sansonic FT-300A and an analog TV to view the digital signal. At 12:00:30 the digital signal came in at 100% strength and 100% quality. KRON4 is too weak to view and KTVU2 has no signal at present.

I don't believe they're expected to be on until sometime in the morning. Before they went off, the anchors said something about 10am.

Heh, thanks for confirming KTVU. Just for laughs I just called them and they said it could "take a couple of hours" before they come on.

I went from 19 analog channels earlier in the day down to just KNTV 11 now.



I don't get KTVU 2. I of course got it before.
One of my TVs gets KGO 7 the other doesn't.
The rest of those I never got before.

The Zenith DTT901 is handling 7.* weirdly. It has:

7.1 normal
7.1 no signal
7.2 normal
7.2 no signal
7.3 normal
7.3 no signal

(doing a rescan doesn't change this)

To clarify that: pressing the channel up or down button causes it to tune to each of those channels twice.

When you just press 7 and then quickly (before it times out and goes to 7.1) use the up and down arrow it shows all of them at once (doubled) in a little menu that appears immediately after pressing 7. That menu stays displayed if you keep using the up and down arrows.

update1(
I got KGO 7 on the other TV too now. The rescan has to be done while you have the antenna in a position so that you can receive the channel. Seems obvious. Before you do that the tuner still is locked onto 7.1-7.3's old location at digital 24 (UHF). Where it is now at digital 7 (VHF).

My 15-1892 Radioshack antenna makes it awkward to adjust the VHF portion of the antenna. UHF is convenient to adjust (just press some buttons and its motor rotates the thing). I have the whole thing sideways relative to the TV it is sitting on top of now. So its buttons and display aren't facing forward. Oh well.

If I had it to do over again I'd have gotten an antenna with less gee-whiz features and the flexibility to adjust both VHF and UHF however you want. Now the next thing I'll do is put an antenna on the roof.
)

Yep. I confirm that.

I just rescanned. I'm in 95054 and have an Olevia 242FHD hooked to a Terk HDTVa. Here's what I got so far:

2-1 KTVU-DT
2-2 KTVU-SD
4-1 KRON-SD
4-2 KRON-HD
5-1 KPIX-DT
9-1 KQED-HD
9-2 KTEH-DT
9-3 WORLD (KQED)
11 KNTV Analog (Nightlight)
11-1 KNTV-HD
11-2 KNTV-WEATHER
11-3 NBC/KNTV-US (Sports)
14-1 KDTV-DT
20-1 KOFY-HD
20-4 Azteca
26-1 KTSF-D1
26-2 KTSF-D2 (Asian)
28 HSN Analog (still broadcasting)
32-1 KMTP-DT (broadcasting "technical problems" loop)
32-2 KMTP World Channel (same as above)
32-4 KMTP WTV (same as above)
32-5 KMTP NTD (same as above)
36-1 KICU-DT (720p)
32-6 KICU-SD
38-1 KCNS
38-2 KCNS-2 (Asian)
40 KMMC (Analog, MTVTr3s)
48-1 KSTS-SD (Spanish)
48-2 KSTS-HD (1080i, Spanish)
54-1 KTEH
54-2 KQED
54-3 KTEH LIFE
64-4 KTEH KIDS
54-5 V-Me (Spanish)
60-1 KCSM
60-2 KCSM MHz
60-3 KCMM JazzTV
65-1 KKPX ION
65-2 KKPX qubo
65-3 KKPX ION Life
65-4 KKPX Worship
66-1 KFSF-DT
66-2 KDTV-DT

We'll see how things progress over the next few days. Hopefully I'll get KTVU and KGO back. I'm not sure what's going on w/ the ones that were scanned, probably too weak, or antenna position. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get any of the VHF stations like KGO anymore, all I can try is to twiddle the antennas a bit.

Update: Manually added KPIX. Apparently TV takes the real channel when you add. I didn't get any sub channels, and as far as I can see, there's no way to tell it to add a sub chan. I'm not sure if KPIX has sub channels though, since 5-1 (29) is 1080i. So all I'm really missing now is KGO and KTVU. I expect to get KTVU back, but not sure about KGO since it's VHF.

Update2: I'm suddenly getting KOFY-HD, KFSF-DT, and KDTV-HD (on both 14-1 and 66-2). It was either from moving the antenna, or they were off the air earlier.

I'm wondering if the reason I'm not getting KGO is because of the 'weirdness' seen by kev4321 with the sub chans. My TV sits there and thinks about adding it for a while, then comes back and says "channel not found". Maybe it's not liking what it sees. I'm getting the other VHF chan, KNTV, which I guess is a bit closer to me (San Bruno Mountain), so I'd think I'd be able to pick up KGO, which isn't that much farther, and not much weaker according to tvfool. :shrug:

Update3: I got KTVU back. Still no joy for KGO. But now that's the only channel I have missing which I should be receiving. KFTL 28 is still broadcasting on analog, but I get no 28.1 digital.

Poor KMTP is till running the 'technical difficulties' loop video on all sub channels. Maybe one of the broadcast gurus in this thread should go give 'em a hand. :P

KMMC 40 is still broadcasting analog. I get it with a LOT of snow. I'm not getting the digital 40.1 version. No surprising since the ERP of the digital station is only 3.2kW, where the analog is 44kW.

I rescan and now I'm missing 2 - KTVU also, I was missing KGO but the rescan fix that

I did a rescan this morning and I am very happy with the result. My CM4228 in
Rohnert Park is picking up channel 7, the new KGO digital channel extremely well
at about 75 on my Dish VIP722. The best news is that, for the first time in 8
years, I am receiving channel 2, KTVU, also at 75. So, I am now able to watch
all the major networks on my antenna and I am very pleased. Thank God we
finally got there. Analog is gone and digital is king now!

Heard and saw a couple of inaccurate news items on last night's news. NBC News Brian Williams said that if you don't get a converter box for your older analog television the TV will be "worthless". I guess he never watches DVD's or tapes on his television.

KPIX's Mike Sugarman said that digital television consists of the broadcast of "1's and 2's". And then he buries in the ground and covers with dirt what looked like a small Sony Trinitron, so sad to see him do that. Earlier KPIX had the birth of analog televsion starting with Philo Farnsworth "transmitting from his workshop in 1927" somewhere in North Beach, there's just a plaque there now. I'm not sure Farnsworth transmitted anything, if he did it certainly wasn't NTSC.

I am getting all the digital channels except for KGO. I have only an UHF antennae. I thought because I was getting channel 7 in analog ( not the best picture ), I will be able to get it when they go digital.


Update:
Still not getting KGO on my Sony W3000 TV and Dish Vip722.
But I am able to get KGO on my Channel Master CM-7000 converter box ( signal is in the 10-24% range)

They need help on more that just engineering department alright.

I lost KTVU even after rescan. KNTV, however, is still broadcasting analog on Ch 11.

I did a scan early this AM around 2, and both KTVU-2 and KRON-4 were offline. I checked this morning and KTVU-2 is back, but KRON-4 is still gone. That's a shame - the girl with the nice ta-tas in the morning weather is what I'll miss most until they come back on the air.

I did a re-scan this morning and have confirmed that KTVU2 is viewable in the north bay at 80% signal strength and 20% signal quality; KRON4 is still too weak to view.

Hi,

I could not get KRON yesterday and Larry said they were on 1/2 power for a few days.

Today, using my weakest tuner KRON is there! KTVU is fine here in the south bay.

I really wonder what antennas are being used.

Repeating the Question:


Question:

When there are NO workers on Sutro tower can some stations be on one set of antennas and others on the other set?

And are they actually doing this?.

Larry, any chance of getting pictures of how they switch antenna sets, or at least a description of the method.

SHF

i just looked thru the OTA channels on my HR10-250 expecting to find nothing on a few of the digital channels, but everything was still there.

is KGO transmitting simultaneously on physical 7 and physical 24? from the look of the talk here they have begun broadcasting digital on physical 7, but i would have expected them to shut down 24...

Did a rescan after 10:00 this morning with my weakest ATSC tuner (MyHD MDP-120) on the CM 4228 antenna and found all the DTV stations that were there last week (but some are on new frequencies, of course). Also found ATV 11, 20(!), 22, 28, and 40. A20 is in the list and reported as "KOFY-TV" evidently because it's still in KOFY's PSIP on D19. There's nothing but snow on the channel itself.

D07 is coming in very well. KRON-DT on D38 is clearly weaker than it was on D57.

I just checked and there is nothing on channel 24, only channel 7.

Looks like KRCB has changed their PSIP to 23.x, matching their physical channel? At least that's what my Sony says.

Deane, your Sony is confused. KRCB's virtual channel is still 22.

I just recanned (again) and got KRCB at 22.x as it should be.

Interesting that KAXT wants to use 22.x as well. You'd think there would be enough PSIPs to go around without duplication in a local market.

I see that I'm not the only one who isn't getting KGO in the South Bay. I even switched to a VHF antenna, but no luck. Unfortunately, according to Larry's website, KGO will not be moving to a different antenna on Sutro over the summer, so I guess I'm just out of luck on them.


Patty

It's interesting to read all of your reports.

I've got two digital TVs, two computer receivers, and two converter boxes, so I've been doing a lot of scanning and searching since last night. Conditions over the past couple of days have been pretty poor for the more distance stations, based on overall reception of the South Bay and Walnut Grove stations now vs the average, so we're seeing things at their worst, I think.

I'm only 3/4 of a mile from Sutro Tower, so I can't judge those stations very well. They're all 100%, except KGO. For the first time I can see the difference between the CM4228 and Antennas Direct SR15 UHF antennas. KGO 7 was 100% on both antennas before when they were on 24. Now with the station on channel 7, their signal is 96% on the 4228 but only 71 on the SR15! I also have a Antenna Craft Y-10-7-13, a High VHF antenna, and, of course, KGO is 100% with that.

It's interesting to see the reports on KGO 7 from others using the 4228. It's not working as well as expected for channel 7, but it's better than other UHF antennas.

I see a major change on KTNC 42 from Mt. Diablo. When on channel 63 they came in at about 70-73. Now on channel 14 they're at 92... a big improvement for them.

I can see a signal from KVIE 6 - now on 9, KXTV 10 on 10 and KTFK 64 - now on 26 from Walnut Grove, all stations that changed channels, but all are in the 13 to 14 dB SNR range, not quite good enough to produce a picture. (I need 15 dB or better.) I'm rather disappointed with that. I expected a better signal from 9 and 10 with my 10 element VHF 7-13 antenna. I'll probably get them intermittently, like KOVR, KCRA and KQCA, when conditions are good, but not well enough to rely on. The only station from up there that's in here 100% of the time is KMAX 31. It's always 21 dB or better.

A new addition for me from Walnut Grove is KSPX 29 on channel 48. I couldn't get it before because KSTS analog was stronger, but with the analog gone, it's coming in like 3, 6, 10, 13, and 58.

I can no longer get KTXL 40. I got them fairly regularly when they were on 55, but now that they moved to channel 40 they're being covered by KMMC analog from Mt. San Bruno.

I haven't been able to get a signal from KFTY yet on channel 32 from Mt. St. Helena, nor KSBW 8 or KBCA 13, but as I mentioned conditions are pretty poor today. I'm not getting KSTS or KTEH from the South Bay very well today either, but KRCB 22 and KTLN 68 from up north are coming in well. I think today is a good test, because we're seeing stations under poor conditions. The signals can get much better when conditions are right.

Of course, for many of you, signals will be improving for the stations from Sutro Tower when they get the new antennas installed atop the tower. They're still saying they should be ready by October. That will be our next time to review reception.

Remember, if you want to check for stations, you'll find a complete list on my web site:
List by (PSIP) virtual channel: http://www.choisser.com/sfonair.html
List by transmitter channel: http://www.choisser.com/sfonair2.html

Happy hunting!

Larry
SF