Johnstown, PA - HDTV - Page 99

My ch. 710 has been very good quality (Hollidaysburg). It will occasionally have an audio dropout or sometimes just go black.. but not very often. Most of the time it's full quality. I guess the first thing to do is try and experiment with your connection, checking wires, splitters, length of wire feeds, try the line with/without an amplifier to see if that helps, etc.

Yes, he is quite the character. And yeah, this board has not been terribly active of late.

Do any of you have any experience with the Antennacraft HDX1000, or Antennacraft 5MS921 Antennas in this area?

Thanks for any help.

-Phillip

Well, thanks for all the help on my last question(kidding of course).

I ended up getting the Antennacraft® HDX1000 antenna, and I'm very impressed with the solid signal (above 55 for 10, and in the high 60s for the others) from all of the available local stations (except Fox8's channel 8 out of Johnstown and WNEP's state college repeaters) with it mounted in the attic. I also have a passable signal (around 28-32 signal strength) of channel 6's state college repeater(on ch42), letting me enjoy RTV's great shows again.

The thing that I also like about the antenna is that even when unplugged it gets a great signal for channel 3, 10, and 23(and 8) with a loss of channel 6, 29, and 47. I appreciate this as it allows me to unplug it during bad storms while still allowing me to watch TV for weather updates(and entertainment).

idk where everyone has gone... but it is good to see you are getting good performance from that antenna. fwiw, Fox8 apparently is still planning to replace their analog repeater W59AI with a digital on channel 17. The construction permit was approved nearly two years ago, so who knows?

Heads up!!! Tropos for friday 21st looking good.

Yeah, I called Fox8 yesterday and left a message asking about their channel 17 repeater, but I haven't heard back yet. I've also been trying to figure out how far along WJAC is with their altoona translator(since the plan was for it to be completed some time this month), but haven't heard back yet.

On another note, does anyone know what stations reside on channels 49 and 50 as I've been getting a weak signal, 1-3 and 2-5 respectively on these two channels for the last week or so, but haven't been able to find any stations that are realistically close enough to be causing this.

Digital? 50 could be WPCB maybe, depending on your exact location.

49... no idea.

- Trip

I have my antenna pointed towards Scranton. For what it's worth channel 49 is WNEP. It is the strongest Scranton station so you may pick up a faint signal.

WNEP is now on channel 50. WVIA is on channel 49 until their channel 41 equipment is replaced (it burned in a fire).

- Trip

WVIA is fairly strong as well. Those have to be what the poster is seeing. Thanks for the info, trip.


Does anyone know of any news of possibly getting CW HD in our area?

I'm wondering if there's any news on any new HD channels being added in the near future for ABB Altoona/Johnstown? If I recall correctly don't they often add new channels around this time of year?

DGK

WPCW has a construction permit for a repeater to cover Johnstown, but that won't be of much help to you, especially given that it is on RF ch 27 (same as WHVL).


They did not make a big fuss about the most recent additions (including Versus) a few months back. They also added a couple MoviePlex channels in SD and HD, again with no fanfare. I keep hoping they'll add Speed to the HD lineup, but it all comes down to negotiating the per subscriber fees.

Mornin' gents, completely lost WWCP and WATM OTA feeds, using a minimaxHD antenna, with winguard ap-8700 amp. I run it into my Dish ViP722 receiver, I've had 0 problems up until like 2-3 days ago when I completely lost 8 and 23. I get 0 signal, anyone else having problems? I live in the geistown area. For what its worth, I can get KDKA out of pittsburgh (about 65mi) at 80-90% signal lol. Just wondering if a thunderstorm took out 8/23's repeater? anyone know?

I get ABC23 and Fox8 off of the ABC-23 transmiter and had no problems though I assume that you are getting both off of the Fox8 transmitter, so if that's the case, nevermind.



Also, I'm told that WWCP's State College digital translator should be on the air within a month. I've been told that they just need to finalize an agreement to place their transmitter on someone else's tower, and then install the transmitter.

hrm, that's weird, I'm getting it again, had to switch my dish receiver to get OTA SD and HD. Weird, it might have been an update from dish's end, its definitely SD now though.

SO what's the deal with WSCP-CA / W13BY? This forum says that it's a translator of WKBS, the FCC says that it's silent.

This would be a nice station to use as a translator for our ever-elusive CW affiliate or for one of the other newtworks like ion or This:TV.

Hey, good question! Right now, it's a waste of a Class A license. How does retransmitting another station that is already receivable in State College serve the public interest, anyway?

Is 13 really operating at high power? FWIR, it's only licensed for 3 kW. As such, assuming it was going to be used in this manner for the duration, it would simply serve those in its own local area who have problems with reception from the west.

The analog on ch 13 is silent. Here's the STA filing.
The application to build a digital version on ch 12 was granted in 2007.
And with a proposed power of 300 watts, it would seem a tall order to make a buck running it as a stand-alone facility.

Silent? Really? Why am I seeing Cornerstone programming on Ch. 13 in State College right now?

Don't hold your breath for Ch. 12. That CP will expire this year...

LOL... reality trumps bureaucracy.
The STA filing is the most recent one in the FCC database -- either the termination of the STA status has not made it into the database, or somebody has forgotten to notify the FCC, or perhaps the operator figured this statement in the STA filing had it covered.

STAs are only good for six months anyway, so it should be considered outdated as of June 2009.

On an unrelated note, on my way home from New Jersey today on I-81, I managed a split-second decode of WTAJ-32. It was difficult with W38AN-D on 33 stepping on it, but I got call letters and whatnot out of it. Note that this was in the car at 65-ish MPH.

- Trip

I don't know that anyone else would agree, but since the digital transition, I've felt that it would be really nice to have a single low power (or even better a full power) transmitter sitting on Wopsy broadcasting SD generic feeds (or re-broadcasts from the most local affiliate) of the "other" broadcast networks like ion, CW, This:TV, etc.

They could even something like a shopping channel if that would help pay the operation costs (if that's how those channels work).

Basically it would be an OTA version of the free-to-air satelite feeds that most(some) of the smaller networks offer.

Just a half-realized pipe-dream of mine.


-Phillip

Hi, Phil-

This is similar to the original idea for digital radio, back in the 80's. The NAB fought it, because it would have leveled the playing-field between AM's and FM's. It also would have made all of the signals in a market area equal in coverage and quality.

But, that's how things are done in Europe, sort of.

Some of the governments operate centralized transmitters in local areas. They even charge a tax to own a TV, and that pays for the infrastructure.

I'm not sure this would fly in a free market like ours.

Another thing to consider is the bandwidth. Only so many 'channels' , at a decent SD quality, will fit in a 6 Mhz allocation. However, I heard a rumor about an LPTV station in California that has something like 12(!) SD channels consisting of niche ethnic programming.

I don't mean that they should carry everyone under the sun; Rather, I was picturing something similar to WHVL's arrangement where they have their regular WHVL programming placed within the MyNetworkTV feed, and then they also carry an almost straight network feed of AmericaOne.


The (slightly) more realistic thing that I'd like to see happen is for WTAJ to scrape off a minimal ammount of their bandwidth and throw the This:Tv feed on a sub-channel to compete directly with WJAC's RTV channel. That way we'd get This:TV's classic TV shows and movies, and WTAJ would get to continue the enduring rivalry between channels 10 and 6.

So it turns out that at about 4:11 this morning I got my answer... and a new question.

I was staying up way to late, and after watching Reno911 at 1:30, there isn't a whole lot on so I was flipping around the channels that have tiny signal levels but never come in (like RF 49 and 50) and realized that as I flipped back and forth between 49 and 50, the signal quality wasn't staying around 5, but was actually slowly climbing in signal strength until about 4:11am when channel 50 finally crossed the viewable threashold long enough for me to catch about a minute of WNEP news and some ABC commercials. Question answered.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

however, during this short time when RF 50 was viewable, and RF 49 was at about 26, a channel scan noted a weak signal (about 8) at RF 45. So now it looks like I have another channel to investigate.

Anyway, thanks for listening internet.


-Phillip

It comes down to whether a given TV station thinks it can make more money from ad revenue than the cost of the additional programming. And to a lesser extent, there's the issue of PQ during HD programming. CBS prefers its affiliates use all the bandwidth for the CBS feed (WKBN in Youngstown, OH stands out as an exception, and with generally decent PQ even splitting the signal between CBS and FOX HD feeds.)

As for somebody else coming in and putting up a full power station -- there's the question of finding an available channel. Other than VHF, finding an open channel would be quite a feat. And the same economics would apply to any new broadcaster... could they expect to earn more from ad revenue than the cost of programming, plus the capital costs of building a new television facility.
But we can dream . . .

RF45 is probably WOLF (Fox-HD/CW-SD/My-SD) from Scranton.

As far as CBS, it's the O&Os that don't have subchannels. CBS affiliates have subchannels all over. Nexstar has chosen not to get into subchannels at this time, thus WTAJ and WYOU have none.

- Trip

I wonder if they'll ever get into HD news at WTAJ?