San Francisco, CA - OTA - Page 302

KEMO

I must have missed this. Back in August KEMO was granted a Construction Permit for a 2 transmitter DTS facility. Complete details are here:

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101504605&formid=301&fac_num=34440

DTS1 is their current site on Mt. St. Helena with an antenna pointing south and 50KW. (They might already be running this.) DTS2 (also on channel 32 of course) is to be located on Sutro tower running 200KW. In order to stay within the service contour of the Mt. St. Helena transmitter, the Sutro antenna will have a greater than typical downward beam tilt.

I have no idea when this might come on the air. I think this will be the first DTS around here.

Chuck

Wonderful, "Casper's Haunted Christmas", "Scrooge" and "Red Skelton". Merry Christmas!

 

Haunted Christmashttp://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/490051-NBC_s_Cozi_TV_Multicast_Features_Classic_Hits_and_Originals.php

When will the rebirth of 60's B&W TV be complete?

 

SHF

They're running a half-hour preview of the channel several times this weekend.

I wonder if it'll make it to Sacramento? There are only 2 NBC O&O stations in California - KNTV and KNBC. They'll have to expand it to other stations to get it out here. I thought they might put it on as a sub channel on NBC Telemundo O&O stations but that doesn't seem to be the case. KNSO Fresno is such a station but instead Cozi TV is listed on KAIL 7.2 in Fresno.

Chuck

NBC also owns KNSD.

- Trip

thanks for that news chuck

i looked up the FCC contour map of KEMO's signal, and mt sutro is not even within that contour, if you zoom in the contour only reaches down to the extreme northern part of sf thru the presidio and russian hill, mt sutro/twin peaks is a few miles south of there:

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=80&q=call%3dKEMO-TV%26type%3dD%26sitenum%3d0

it'd be a shame if the signal doesnt expand azteca for more bay area and south bay viewers, its not like its going to clash with the cbs station down in monterey, you cant even pick that signal up in morgan hill, let alone up in the bay area.


i'd also like to take the opportunity to wish all board members a Merry Christmas and happy holidays, all the best to you and yours.

You have to look at their technical submission to see their 40.5 dBu contour:

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Attachment/getattachment.jsp?appn=101504605&qnum=5530&copynum=1&exhcnum=1

Doesn't look like it's going to but I know KEMO has some coverage in the south bay. I used to get KION in Fremont when it was on 46 but it's was not very strong.

Chuck

The FCC database drive me crazy. It seems like there are little bits and pieces of info scattered all over. Where is the definitive place to look this stuff up? Or is there no place and you have to play detective to find out anything? The station licensee for KNSD is listed as Station Venture Operations, LP. Only through Wikipedia did I discover that NBC holds a controlling interest in that outfit. No where can I find that in the FCC info.

This is the same situation with trying to understand how KEMO can justify a DTS station on Sutro tower when their service contour linked in the TV Query results doesn't cover SF. If I hadn't seen the 40.5 dBu contour in their application I'd never have known how they justified it. 40.5 dBu seems to be a made-up number since I've never seen it used before.

Chuck

I would argue RabbitEars is the best place for this stuff but I'm biased.

http://www.rabbitears.info/search.php?request=owner_search&owner=NBC

http://www.rabbitears.info/contour.php?appid=1504605&map=Y



- Trip

Okay, I heard back from KQED. They are NOT planning to switch the OTA feed of KQEH to HD, as they would then have to delete some of the subchannels. You can, however, see the HD feed on DirecTV and Dish Network as well as on Comcast.

Well, I'm not biased and I concur.

And I'll second that.

I saw the DTS2 listed in my TVFool listing a few months ago and have it shown in the notes of my DTV Channels List in upcoming changes. Also listed as coming to Sutro is K14MW from Petaluma, 300 watts on channel 3, in addition to their Construction Permit for Mt. Tamalpais. Have you seen anything on this, Chuck?

KEMO could be running the 50 kW now, because their signal is stronger than it used to be. They used to average about 24 to 25 dB here; now they're in the 27 to 28 dB range with my CM4228 pointed north... not a bad signal for being 65 miles away. Sometimes I can even get a viewable signal off the back of the antenna when it's pointing toward Mt. San Bruno.

There are several stations with Construction Permits for this area, so I do a scan every so often to see if there's anything new. Supposedly, there's KTVJ channel 4 from Mt. Tam, KBKF channel 5 from the hills above Woodside, a translator for KTFK on channel 5 from Mt. Diablo, K07ZK channel 7 on Mt. Toro licensed to Monterey, KDAS channel 8 from Mt. St. Helena, KOTR, Santa Cruz, on channel 11 from Loma Prieta Mt. (maybe the old KNTV site?), and the list goes on. Look at the bottom of my DTV station lists for a complete list. How many will actually build and get on the air is anyone's guess.

Larry
SF

I'll add my vote agreeing to this. I haven't found a more complete... and accurate... listing of TV stations anywhere. Keep up the great work, Trip!

Larry
SF

Cozi TV on 11.2 has a good looking picture. I can't tell if the wide screen picture is HD or not, but it looks good to my eyes. The one problem I do have, though, is that their 4:3 picture is more like 3:3, with everyone looking really skinny. I have to go to stretch mode to make things look the right size.

According to a report posted on the SF-HDTV Yahoo group, Cozi TV will be available on NBC O&O's first, but after January 1 it will be available for non-NBC stations too. If any of you see it on other channels, please let me know so that I can update my station lists.

With the new Cozi-TV, ME-TV on 20.2 SF and 3.2 Sacramento, Retro TV on 38.5, and Antenna TV on 40.2 Sacramento, we sure have a huge variety of old TV shows to watch!

Larry
SF

I don't know anything about this. It does seem as though very few of these LP construction permits are being built. I would think that if they're going to build these that we ought to see some come on the air in 2013. The clock is ticking to analog LP shutdown in Sept. 2015.

Chuck

I'm not seeing any new stations on air..... in quite some time now.
Nothing new from sutro tower. No 2,3,4,5, or 32
2 and 6 are still analog. 11 is nothing. Just checked 11 from Loma Prieta. No signal.
48 is showing 1 to 2 % signal from the south bay. Nothing from the north bay.
The last new station was 40 .... (Over a year ago)

KDAS looks like it is supposed to be on Mt. Tam with only 9 watts ERP back to the Bay Area. Maybe you could receive that if you had LOS to it and were blocked to Fremont.

Chuck

Anybody know what happened to 38.5 RetroTV. Signal is there but it's a black screen? Been that way for a couple of days now.

I just noticed that "RetroTV" has moved from KCNS 38.5 to KTNC 42.4 (in place of the color bars). They now have a slide up on 38.5 telling of the move.

Larry
SF

Thanks Larry! Something new for me.

Chuck

Since we were just talking about the lack of changes to LPTV stations despite the numerous outstanding permits, here's a link to a post I made in another thread about one company who just filed requests to extend construction permits for 61 LPTV stations.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1216722/avs-official-topic-the-fcc-broadcast-spectrum/2820#post_22749400

The justification is interesting to read. Maybe this is why we aren't seeing anything happening.

Chuck

Seems like a pretty good reason for not doing anything. With all the uncertainty of the future, I can see why they wouldn't want to spend any money at this point.

Larry
SF

KNTV has been pretty solid today so I was checking out Cozi TV. I see the on-screen schedule is for eastern time. It is nice to have the PSIP information but it would be nicer if it was for the current program.

Chuck

Well, setting up a small Winegard CM4220HD (their older single bay UHF) in the garage 'attic' in Mountain View, and I had scanned the TiVo at my place just north of downtown and when we checked and got digital 7 better than 35 so who knows. That was Thursday afternoon, but, by that evening nothing would come in. Initially we only got 54 (digital 50) and some others not from Sutro. So using my iPhone I pointed towards Sutro (~35 miles @ 321°) but, had to point further North to get a better signal. So, probably try and play around some more. I had all the usuals, but, there is one coupler from the antenna and a splitter in the outside and one on the inside so probably just bring another barrel to bypass the multi splitter since they all showed 0 signal on both the TV and the TiVo signal viewers.

KQED

Something has changed at KQED and for the good. Up until a few months ago KQED was a little stronger here than KMTP. At some point it became a few dB weaker than KMTP. I noted no changes to any of the other Sutro stations. Now in the last week I see that KQED is about 5 or 6 dB stronger than KMTP.

This morning with the rain signals are nominal and very stable. KQED has definitely improved over a couple weeks ago. There's nothing on the status page about it but they did something. I wonder if they've upped power to 1000KW per their construction permit and were running at reduced power while installing the new transmitter and just didn't announce it?

Anyway, if anyone from KQED reads this forum I'm letting you know the improvement was noticed.

Chuck

I see a big jump in strength and signal to noise on my monitoring setup for KQED starting Friday around 2:30 PM, there's also some increase in signal to noise for KTEH, starting Friday around 3:30 PM although there were a couple points with no/bad signal on KTEH earlier Friday and Saturday; but KTEH signal strength seems much more variable than normal today. I didn't see anything similar on other channels, so they may have changed something for both transmitters.

Graphs:
KQED (RF 30) Jan 1st through Jan 6th and KTEH (RF 50) Jan 1st through Jan 6th

Edited by toast0 - 1/6/13 at 8:17pm

KQED has filed a License to Cover application with the FCC for increasing power to 1000KW ERP.

Chuck

Can the signal strength graph be labeled in dB? I don't know what % means.

Chuck
Edited by Calaveras - 1/7/13 at 2:05pm

Hi,

 

You may well have the answer already , see your post:

 

http://www.avsforum.com/t/369015/san-francisco-ca-ota/9000#post_22724985

 

Unless he has changed his methods, the numbers are just the HDHR ones.

 

Boy does his chart for KTNC (RF14) look bad. No wonder I have trouble getting good movies. (Look at the bottom of his KQED chart for a change channel box and submit query)

 

SHF