San Francisco, CA - OTA - Page 154

I have no idea how they have the main digital and alternate antennas wired in up at Sutro... you'll need to get the answer from someone who has been working up there recently.

BUT... I did see a report this morning on the SF HDTV Yahoo Group that there was an antenna glitch that knocked KCNS and KCSM off the air last night and right now KCNS 38, KBCW 44 and KCSM 60 are all transmitting on the new auxiliary antenna, and will be at least until Sunday. All of the other UHF stations are running on the (old) main DTV antenna. KGO is transmitting with their former analog antenna at the top. So, yes, they can have some stations on one antenna and the others on the other antenna.

This is a good time to check to see how the signals from the new auxiliary antenna come in for you. How well are you getting KCNS 38, KBCW 44 and KCSM 60 today? That's the signal you'll see from all the stations when the crew is working on the tower this Summer.

KGO 7 will, of course, have to use their auxiliary antenna for quite a while, when the crew takes down the Southwest tower leg that they're on. They get a new antenna back at the top, but there will be a time that they won't have a main antenna and will have to transmit from their auxiliary antenna full time.

As for pictures, I no longer have access to the site. My ID card was taken away when I retired. So the only pictures I can get are of the tower itself, and I will be posting pictures of the antenna work as it progresses over the Summer.

Larry
SF

First post, although I've been lurking for a while. Lots of interesting information, thanks to all!

I've been hoping that KVIE on channel 9, from Walnut Grove, would be usable here in Redwood City. This would give me PBS in HD ... Sutro is no go from my location, which is right behind a steep rise.

I put up a dipole on the roof, cut to 189 MHz, and can get KXTV on channel 10, a solid signal with no dropouts. But KVIE doesn't lock, although I do see the signal on my spectrum analyzer, about 10 dB weaker than KXTV.

Is KVIE is running on low power, or maybe a temporary antenna?

I suppose the answer is to get a 'proper' antenna, rather than the dipole, but I'm curious about the apparent difference in received signal power.

Peter

Just another update. I scanned again on two of my TVs, and the only channel I'm not getting is KGO-7. It was working fine before the switch, but now it's not even coming in any longer.

Just FYI for those interested, I have a ClearStream4 (got it on sale, not the list price - seems prices have gone up since 3 mos ago) and am located in Santa Clara (near Keily and Homestead). Here's a pic of the beast.

I think it's your antenna. TVFool shows you should get good reception of channel 7. As an experiment try hooking up some rabbit ears to the coax on the roof and then scan for 7 on your TV.

that's strange, i dont see how my tivo could have figured it out; i never asked it to do a re-scan. i'll go check it again, i expect it should be gone.

KVIE is actually running 50% more power and they are on their final antenna but KVIE and KXTV are on different towers so that might be the difference.

Too bad that KTEH is not carrying HD programming.

Chuck

The link you provided to information about the antenna says this: "Advanced design software allows these 20 x 28 antennas to be smaller and powerful across the core UHF DTV spectrum offering consistent high gain." KGO is now on VHF.

As "WhiteWhiskers" says, try tossing some rabbit ears on your roof and see what happens. At least if you get something, you'll know that you can improve the reception with a better VHF antenna.


Patty

I'm getting KGO 7 reasonably well here, now that they're broadcasting from the top of Sutro. None of the others on Sutro, which is what I expected... I should be able to tell exactly when (KGO) they start their antenna work - I expect to loose KGO again, when that happens.

KGO is looking pretty bad in Sunnyvale with an indoor antenna. Anyone know of a good VHF indoor antenna? I have a Terk TV4 that doesn't get it reliably (I get NBC without problems). I am able to get everything else with my silver sensor with little difficulty (which also was able to get KGO on their old channel).

Hi,

When I installed the new FusionHDTV7 Dual software version 3.80 I saw problems.

I rolled back to 3.68.04 and the scan seems to be saying that KMTP, physical channel 33, virtual channel 32.x is actually saying that they are virtual 9.x.

If you can, please check physical 33's PSID for me.

KMTP is reporting on screen that they are having problems.

Thanks.

SHF

I lost KVIE. The signal level is only about 30% and the SNR is zero. Can't get a lock with those numbers. I wonder if they're still tweaking things. I was getting it fine on UHF.

I'm missing Kron 4, 4-1, and 4-2. I get the rest of the digital channels fine and 11, 28, 40 analogs. I'm also picking up the following channels but have no picture. Anyone know what they're supposed to be?

30.4(30)
30.5(30)

Ignore them. They're related to the UpdateTV service and do not have programming.

- Trip

See Larry's posting about KRON's temporary power reduction:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post16636918


Patty

i'm in the rockridge hills (only about 300 feet up) and have line of sight to sutro. I'm picking up OTA with a silver sensor placed in the attic of a 2-story house. the UHF channels are showing 60-70% signal strength under mythtv using a pchdtv hd-2000 card; KGO is only showing 50%. so i'm taking a hit from the move to VHF. when KGO was on 24 i would occasionally have weather-related dropouts, so i expect that things are going to be worse for me, unless i go find an antenna with better VHF gain.

as for my tivo, it does seem to have miraculously picked up the new physical channels. i dont know if this is because the mapping was pushed from D*, or it somehow knew it had to rescan.

KGO was not coming in here during the day but tonight it has the best signal I've ever seen from it; SNR 27 dB and Signal Quality 87. I saw it this good once or twice for a few minutes in the last two years on channel 24. It'll never be 100% here but the 24KW is already better than I thought it would be.

I got a report from a friend in Placerville saying that KGO & KOFY were in all day today.

For Larry..... No changes to any of the low power stations I can receive here. I thought that K45HC was going but no dice.

Now that KTVU analog is off I discovered I can see a very weak signal from KOTR-LP out of Salinas running 3KW and I don't have a low VHF antenna.

Chuck

With my old antenna (sort of VHF+UHF), I am missing KTVU and KRON.

This is from Sunnyvale.

With my new antenna (DB2 clone, UHF only), I lost KGO for good. Which is disappointing since the analog 7 used to come in fairly good. It is the only channel that I cannot pick up. I don't know if it would get better. This is the antenna I use now. I would hate to put in a combiner due to my wiring situation.

In conclusion, I ended up worse after the digital cut over.

KGO is in the green zone for me too on tvfool, but I'm not getting it, even though I'm getting stations with similar power levels (but most are UHF, and KGO is VHF). Well, I get KNTV, which is also VHF, but 7dB stronger, and located a little closer on Mt. San Bruno. I figure if I had an outdoor antenna I might get KGO too, but I'm in an apartment.

KTVU came back for me today, still no KGO. A few others that showed up too. I updated my little list here.

As of 11:05PM in Northern Santa Rosa, I am receiving KRON4 (38) and KSTS48 (49) with occasional dropouts; KQED9 (30), KCNS38 (39), KBCW44 (45) and KCSM60 (43) are a no go. I am receiving the following stations with good signal strength and quality:
KTVU2 (44)
KPIX5 (29)
KGO7 (7)
KNTV11 (12)
KOFY20 (19)
KRCB22 (23)
KTSF26 (27)
KICU36 (36)
KTEH54 (50)
KKPX65 (41)

Larry,
From Martinez with a deep fringe antenna and mast mounted pre-amp I get 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 20, 44, and 60. I don't see any signal for KRON on any of the channels listed in the FCC database. Rotating the antenna I get 36 and 54 as well as 22 and 50. Don't care about the foreign language stations like 48.

I'm in Sunnyvale too and am getting KGO just fine OTA. I'm using an old Radio Shack UHF/VHF antenna in the attic of my 3-story townhome. I imagine the height helps.

I don't get KRON reliably OTA though. Unless it's their antenna location, seems like they must be putting out way less than half power. Went to their website and couldn't find any information about this. Much of what was there was pretty stale (still had tables indicating the switchover in February 2009). Didn't see any announcements on their broadcast either.

I also have locals on Directv and saw KRON breaking up on their satellite feed on Friday after KRON switched to physical 38 earlier than most other stations! Seemed better yesterday. I think I heard that Directv gets its locals via antenna and not by a direct feed from the station, which is what I believe cable uses.

What's "foreign" about spanish? The missions were here first, man.

No, actually the Native Americans were here first and they didn't speak Spanish....

They did after the missionaries got done with 'em!

I read some info that KCNS, KCSM, and KBCW did some coax rerouting possibly going to a different antenna.

Last night I had good conditions on UHF to Sutro and 9 & 5 were exceptionally strong. Previously under these conditions KCNS, KCSM, and KBCW would come in. Last night nothing on those stations. Instead KTVU was solid for a long time and KRON was in for awhile too. KPIX and KQED which had no changes acted normally.

This morning KTVU was still coming in but weaker. It's acting more like KCNS used to.

Except for KGO which is temporarily on its analog antenna, we aren't going to know how this will play out until all the construction is done.

So for the Bay Area, June 12th was the first step, and hopefully October will be the final step.

Chuck

Look like a lot of people are having trouble getting KGO. I have a UHF only Channel Master 4221 antenna and I can only get KGO on my Channel Master CM- 7000 converter box.
No signal on my Sony W3000 TV or Dish Vip722 receiver. I am able to get KNTV (vhf 12)
just fine. I notice if I do not split my incoming signal and directly connect my antenna output
to my Sony tv, I can get KGO but the signal is very low and picture is not watchable due to
breakup.

So the question is KGO not transmitting at full power? Do I need to get a VHF antenna?
I was hoping because I was getting analog KGO using my 4221 antenna I would be ok.

Ken Nist profiled the 4221 here and found that it performs very poorly at Channel 7 with 15dB of loss but has only about 1dB of loss at Channel 12. He describes how to use a pair of rabbit ears here as a tuned dipole to achieve appoximately 2dB of gain, an improvement of 17dB compared to the 4221.

Thanks for the reply - but I can not find the rabbit ears upgrade you mentioned.
Looks like the two links you posted are the same.

I have a ChannelMaster 4228 mounted to a 10 foot pole on my roof and I can no longer get KGO here in Willow Glen. Before the switch KGO came in fine but now I get no signal at all on KGO.