Johnstown, PA - HDTV - Page 10

This is a bit of a unique situation.

WATM and WWCP have the equipment to receive HD from the network and encode it in a format acceptable to cable companies for distribution.

What WATM and WWCP do not have is a Studio-to-Transmitter Link to transport their SMPTE 310M ATSC streams from the studio to the respective transmitters.

Therefore WATM and WWCP are available to the cable companies who choose to connect to the studio using fiber or microwave.

They are also operated out of the same physical studio and master control.

This doesn't have anything to do with the multiplexing that we're not communicating clearly on.

Sometime we'll have to discuss multiplexing over a few Tonto's at the Darkhorse. After three you might not really care what it is anymore.

It would look to me like they're putting it on the wire. Maybe it is a special arrangement with WPSU. Your information shows it is on RF channel 110, or 711 MHz and is encoded in QAM256. That's certainly not over the air so it has to be coming in on cable.

I'd suggest a call to the local office and seeing if you can talk to a tech there. They'd know better exactly what's going on.

Interesting that they plan to carry WATM as soon as its available but they do not yet carry WWCP which originates from the same row of racks at the same studio.

Grrrr.

Not to broadbast over the air but to pass HD to cable, yes they do.

They have for over a year now. Adelphia just hasn't made the arrangements to pick it up. My post was expressing surprise that Adelphia would carry WATM in HD from the same exact room that WWCP in HD originates from but not carry WWCP in HD.

No experience for your area but it looks like you're under 40 miles to Altoona and under 20 miles to Johnstown so you should at least have a shot of getting those stations over the air. That doesn't help you get them all in HD as only NBC is passing HD over the air at the moment.

You look to be less than 70 miles from Pittsburgh... If you have any sort of elevation you might want to try receiving the Pittsburgh stations over the air.

You also look to be less than 70 miles to Hagerstown so you might be able to try that direction as well.

Visit antennaweb.org and see what they think you can receive. They're typically pretty conservative and pessimistic tho.

Also www.2150.com/broadcast is a good place to get a list of stations and azimuths within a particular range for your location to test with.

UHF is limited to 60-80 miles depending on your particular situation, at least for reliable reception. Someone here gets WNEP-DT at 110 miles but I think the stars are just aligned properly for him. I can receive WJAC-DT at 69 miles pretty reliably but some people here report not receiving the Altoona stations at 30 miles.

If you can PM me your lat/lon I can get your elevation profile to the various transmitters and see if that helps.

I would guess that it is D&E working on moving the channel or perhaps testing something.

I doubt D&E will pick up WATM-HD as that would require interconnect with either Adelphia (not likely without significant compensation) or Atlantic Broadband or a direct link to the studios in Johnstown.

I could be surprised, however, but D&E's target demographic doesn't seem to be the kind that cares much about HD nor has the equipment to view it.

I must admit being completely surprised. Last meeting I had with Dan from WATM they said they weren't going to do HD OTA right away.

A very pleasant surprise, anyway. That must be how Adelphia is picking up WATM in HD and would explain why they aren't getting WWCP yet.

On Adelphia it looks like it is in fact HD. SD looks like stretched upconvert.

Congrats and thank you WATM.