Jackson / Meridian, MS - HDTV - Page 5

First, let me say I am very glad to have found this forum while simply doing some web browsing tonight. It is good to be in the company of locals.

I would appreciate your suggestions on OTA hardware. I live in Pickens, approximately 17 miles north of Canton on I-55, and about 52 miles from the Jackson transmitters. My house is also on a somewhat densely treed (is that a word---a lot with many trees) property. I am just getting into the OTA HD transmissions and have ordered but not yet received the Channel Master 3671 Deepest Fringe Crossfire antenna, the Channel Master Titan2 7777 pre-amp and the Channel Master 9521A rotor. It will be an outdoor mounting on a pole approximately 10 feet above the roof line.

What opinions do you guys have on the type and strength of reception I should (will hopefully) get on the Jackson stations?

Is there any more hardware I should get or changes I should make in what I intend on using?

Thanks so much for your suggestions / comments!

There's little else you could ask for except perhaps a higher mast. I'll bet you'll be fine. Time will tell. Glad to have you aboard.

Enjoy.

According to antennaweb, WLBT's broadcast date is now 8/05. Yeah right, I'll believe it when I see it, literally.

Antennaweb also lists LBT as channel 51. they will be on channel 9. they also show WAPT direction from my house for analog and digital as off a degree. My antennas are on the same tower, i.e. same direction. Wonder where they get their information?
tom

According to this Meridian,MS will finally be receiveing a FOX, but from the way the article reads it seems it will only be digital, and not HD?

Has anyone heard anything about estimated times? and any poissibility of this new FOX going HD?

http://www.wtok.com/news/headlines/1713632.html

Here's some more info from my contact at WTOK about their upcoming FOX channel and their agreement with WGBC:

"The Fox feed will be a standard definition stream. There
is not enough bandwidth to do ABC and Fox in HD on the
air.
We hope to get cable HD carriage for Fox at some point
with
a direct fiber feed to cable headends. Cable HD carriage
of any kind is not yet a reality in Meridian, but I
understand they are close to getting an HD tier. I don't
know if they will agree to carry our HD signals or not.
We will keep viewers posted.

WTOK is purchasing all new MPEG 2 encoders for both the HD
ABC and SD Fox. They will employ statistical multiplexing
that allows the channels to borrow bandwidth from each
other to provide the best possible quality on each channel
frame by frame. It should really work nicely.

If the agreement to provide services to WGBC goes forward
as planned, we will as soon as feasibly possible use our
current HD encoder to provide the NBC HD feed. They
currently are only 16 x 9 SD. We will have to move their
control room into our facility before we can go HD easily
and that may take a couple of months.

The WTOK HD transmitter is considerably more powerful than
the WGBC one. Right now the ABC and FOX will cover the
entire DMA. Both stations will be maximum power on their
current channels by the end of May 2006. After the
transition period is over, most likely January 1, 2009,
WTOK-DT will switch from UHF channel 49 to channel 11 VHF
and then it will be a blow torch for sure. Digital is
much more robust than analog, especially on VHF."

thanks for the info guys, if I could ask another question. In the meridian-jackson area does anyone know of possible places to buy a nice projector, Im in Scooba,MS so theres deffintly nothing here :-D and I have also posted this question to the Birmingham thread as I also live in Tuscaloosa. Anyone who would let me demo/view their projector I would appreciate as I would like to compare DLP/LCD and various models (panny ae700u, if 4808, benq z3)


*edit* due to forum rules, any recommended places would probally have to be sent via PM. I do not wanna break any rules about sponsors.

According to an e-mail I received today from the general manager's office at WLBT, they are now set to begin full power HD transmissions on August 20, 2005.
We'll just have to wait and see if they change the date yet again!!!

Does anyone have an update on when (if ever) Jackson's FOX station will begin HD broadcasting, and on what channel and power?
Do you think I will be able to receive it in Pickens (which is about 17 miles straight north of Canton up I-55 N) with a Channelmaster with amp and rotor?
Thanks!!!

This from an article in the Meridian Star:

"New deal shifts TV landscape
By Brian Kern / staff writer
Tuesday, August 2, 2005 10:30 PM CDT


In an apparent 11th-hour move, the owner of Meridian's CBS affiliate, WMDN, exercised an option to purchase the assets of the city's NBC affiliate, pre-empting a rival company's plan.

Mark Ledbetter made his move late last week, spoiling rival Gray Television Group's plans to take over programming at NBC affiliate WGBC, creating a multi-network partnership with current WGBC owner Global Communications. Gray Television Group owns Meridian's ABC affiliate, WTOK.

WMDN's expiring 10-year lease with WGBC had two options: renew the lease or purchase the station. Ledbetter chose the latter. He had until July 31 to exercise either option.

Ledbetter declined to comment on plans for WGBC or the timing of the deal.

"It would be premature to say any more about it - we haven't closed on it yet," Ledbetter said.

Fewer than two weeks ago, Gray Television Group announced an agreement to partner with Global Communications in providing programming for the NBC affiliate.
A Global Communications representative, not wishing to elaborate or be identified, simply said the deal between Ledbetter and Global Communications was made Thursday.

WTOK, in announcing the WGBC deal on July 20, also said it would launch a Meridian affiliate of Fox Television Network in the fall.

ALPHABET SOUP

# WMDN-TV 24, CBS affiliate, owned by Mark Ledbetter

# WGBC-TV 30, NBC affiliate, owned by Global Communications

# WTOK-TV 11, ABC affiliate, owned by Gray Television Group"

Switchboard operator says 'soon' for HD upgrade. Left message with the engineering dept to see if they would call me back. Will update as I get info.

Enjoy.

Will a small indoor directional antennae work?

But you'll likely need something better. I live in South Jackson and had a real issue using just a cheap set of rabbit ears (Walmart - $6). I didn't even try anything else inside, opting to go straight to the outdoor setup which set me back about $80. Forty for the antenna and forty for the mast, wires, etc.

I never thought I'd be installing an outdoor antenna at this stage of the game, but for the interim (until we get a decent variety/cost for other HD it's gonna have to hold me over)

Enjoy.

I don't know the rules about posting things for sale, but I figure the higher powers can take it down if they have a problem with it.

Though I've only been in Ridgeland two months, I'm about to move to New Orleans. Since I'm moving, I'm also selling my Klipsch audio system. I just thought y'all could save a shitload off the sticker price and shipping. You can find out more on eBay item #5801624051. (Just copy and paste the number into the search bar)

As WLBT will be broacasting its HD signal on VHF you will, of course, not be able to pick it up with a UHF only antenna.

Better not tell my antenna that. It does really well getting all my analog VHF channels. UHF only antennas are set to have their highest gain on UHF frequencies, but unless you have a VHF blocker in place, it will pass VHF on. It still might not work, but you can't make a blanket statement saying it won't.

Kevin D.

The PGA from WJTV DT this weekend was 10 hours of nice hdtv, and hopefully the completion in HD on Monday morning. The overall pictures were great, except for the SD shots from the handheld cameras.

Did seem to be having multiple audio hiccups on the Saturday broadcast though, much better on Sundays.

But missed another Nascar race in HD due to WLBT dragging feet, argh........praying the last reported hdtv online time frame of Aug 20th is correct.......(2005 not 2006)

If it's anthing like WDAM in Hattiesburg, it doesn't get much better when they do go online... It finally took comcast picking up the HD channel for them to get their audio right without a 1 second delay. And then today I enjoy 45 minutes of an SD race and have no way of contacting them (their 24 action news line had no answer). They finally switched to HD for about 30 minutes, then completely lost the HD channel until about 12 laps to go...

Real enjoyable.

Kevin D.

Was reading other threads on programming that NBC had broadcast problems in both sd and hd with watkins glen nascar due to storms over NYC.

What is the status of both WAPT & WJTV going to full power? I thought both were suppose to be running on full power by now. Or are they?

WAPT has been full power since July 1st. I went in at midnight just ot get it on right on the mark! Our antenna will not be at full height until we can get WJMI to move their antenna out of the top spot. It is a legal issue....Don't know about WJTV as I have been out of town on vacation for 2 weeks.
Tom (WAPT C.E.)

yes, the audio on WAPT has been coming through great.

Thanks, Tom.

Called them yesterday morning & they said they ran into some problems on Saturday. They said they are trying to have it up this week. We will see.

Anyone know what kind of wait for these to be available on TimeWarner?

[quote=SFjr]where we still have no WLBT-DT QUOTE]

I've been waiting anxiously too. Not sure why though; NBC programming seems a little down right now. I may try out "Surface". "Medium" is okay. My wife likes the Apprentice and a couple of the sitcoms, Las Vegas too. We still have a few weeks before fall premieres start. NBC does carry college football.

I've been reading this forum for some time now, but haven't posted anything yet. I live in Rankin County, off of Old Fannin Road. I've just purchased a new Samsung 56 inch DLP, with built-in HDTV tuner. I really want to have an off-air antenna installed so that I can pick up the local HD channels. Does anyone know of a good installer who won't charge me an arm and a leg to install one? Or do any of you do this sort of thing? Any references would be greatly appreciated.

Also, do any of you live near Old Fannin Road and know anything about signal strength in that area?

Thanks!

We usually only install OTA's with a customers system, not just by itself. Of course I'm hardly ever in the Jackson store so I'm not sure how much free time they have. Feel free to give them a call: Players Audio Video, 601-664-0488

Kevin D.