Charlotte, NC - OTA - Page 157

I was just curious if other OTA viewers have lost the signal from WBTV this evening. I am almost 70 miles out from the Dallas towers but I normally get those stations without problems. It doesn't seem to be a weather issue as WCNC, WJZY, and WMYT are all being received with no problems with my long range antenna.

Problems with WBTV may have been weather related. I was receiving very strong signals on weak channels from Columbia I normally don't receive. I know it's weird how weather conditions can screw up reception of one channel, but not another, even when broadcasting from a similar location. And sometimes a normally strong signal will be wiped out, and a weak, distant signal will come in very strong. Perhaps sometimes the weather conditions can make a signal too strong such that it may overload the amplifier as well. All sorts of variables that could be weather related.

I was flipping channels for a while last night and didn't see anything going on with WBTV, but I can receive this channel with no more than a paper clip stuck in the connector. I was losing WUNE in Boone about 70 miles from but that's normal if the weather is bad.

WBTV does appear to be having some sort of technical issue, as their signal strength is indeed down today at my location here in Greenville, SC. All other Dallas signals are stronger and appear to be normal. WJZY and WMYT are 100%, and WCNC is 80%, which is normal, but WBTV is only 60%.Normally WBTV is 100% here as well, as measured on my Panasonic signal meter. And on my Samsung, I am only getting 6 out of the normal 10 bars. Hopefully this is only a temporary problem that will soon be repaired, but I have not contacted anyone there to determine an official explanation. Maybe someone in Clt knows how to reach engineering over there, and can find out what is going on and can post an updated explanation.

Yes, it would be nice if someone could post an explanation. I would be curious to know what is going on at WBTV.

Since I went back to using OTA 1 1/2 years ago, I have never experienced an outage with WBTV for a 24 hour period (and counting). But rather, I have been able to consistently receive this station on a 24/7 basis. I still can't receive a picture on WBTV as I type this post.

All of the other stations that I receive from Dallas and NE Charlotte are being received at their normal levels. I am wondering if WBTV is doing some kind of repairs/maintenance? Although I cannot be certain, the issue does appear to be technical versus weather related.

This happened to me with WLFL CW22 last week. It is always there. Sometimes, it'll flutter a little bit, especially in the summer, but it's never gone. It went away last weekend for no reason. "Searching for signal on the off-air tuner (792)" was all I saw. Then, Thursday it came back like nothing ever happened and has been strong ever since.

The bad thing about digital is that you can't see another channel interfering. Whenever DX opens up and starts bringing in other stations (which happens more often this time of year) the interference kills whatever you already had.

With analog you'd just see ghosts of another channel in the picture you already got.

In this case with WBTV, I think they are having some sort of technical problem, as they are not normally prone to weather related interference, even at my 75 mile distance. When other signals are wiped out due to weather, WBTV always remains there, although sometimes at slightly reduced signal strength, but only temporarily. Normally I get WBTV at 100%, so I am guessing they may have suffered some kind of storm related damage at the transmitter site on Sat night. Hopefully come Mon they can investigate what is wrong and get back to full strength as soon as possible.

WBTV is back to normal at 100% signal strength as of Mon morning, so apparently issue has been repaired.

It's been a month since we cut the cord and we don't miss it at all and certainly don't miss the $114 bill from Dish. This one bill paid for all the money that I put into buying an antenna, amp, cabling and a coax compression tool & stripper. My only other expense has been for 2 Rokus and I'm still on the free trials for Hulu and Netflix. I'll probably keep the NFLX account for $8.99/month. I figure all my capital costs, including pulling (my labor) dual Cat 5e connections and new coax to all the TV locations, will be covered by a little more than two Dish Network bills.

During this time Dish Network tried numerous times to do as they put it, "do almost anything" to keep me as a customer. All I had to do was sign another 2 year contract. LOL. Amazingly when returning the equipment, they want you to climb up on the roof and remove the LNB & switch from their dish and send that back too. Somehow TWC found out that I had canceled Dish and contacted me as well. When the "english not first language" guy reading the script asked who I was going with and they could beat the price, I told him OTA and free, there was a bit of silence. Like hitting a NOP instruction loop in computer code. Apparently the script writer didn't consider this option.

No decision yet on an OTA DVR, but I did purchase a hdhomerun dual and have been playing around with it. If you are happy with Win 7, then Windows Media Center works great with it. A MCE remote on a small PC and you are done. No monthly charges like with TIVO for guide data. On the other hand, it's not really that flexable so I'm still looking at mythtv options on linux.

Since I last reported on my efforts, the trees have come in fully in Charlotte and unfortunately on my lot, I'm surrounded by huge Willow Oak trees. It's all good until the wind blows then my ability to pickup certain channels goes away. This is mostly due to the oddball orientation of having my antenna pointed at Hickory. WSOC which is behind the antenna really takes a hit on this. WCCB, also behind the antenna, isn't nearly as bad. Interestingly, WTVI the 3rd station in this location is rock solid even though it is much lower power. I attribute this to it being VHF and the low band changes I made to the antenna. During windy conditions, I completely lose WUNG and WUNE. I said before that Charlotte is really under served by UNCTV. The stations at the Dallas location are a lot better.

Interestingly the HDHomeRun dual can be stacked so I might end up getting another one and hooking it to my home built antenna pointed in a different direction. This should solve the trees issue and might let me pickup WNSC as well. The software is smart enough to pick the right tuner for the channel you want to watch.

If you are considering cutting the cord, then go ahead and "do it". A year ago I couldn't imagine making this move, but now, I'll never go back.

Im curious what antenna you went with and where you mounted it?

The Dallas towers put out a good signal because they are taller than the Charlotte towers, and the height advantage seems to help as much as power level. I get both WBTV and WMYT at 100%, but WMYT is at much lower power than WBTV. And I am about 75 miles from their Dallas location. I just wish WSOC had put their antenna on one of those towers over there, as their Crowders translator is not quite powerful enough to reach 75 miles to my SC location. But I do get it most of the time, but I have a better than average antenna/amp set up.

A DB8 that I had modified to improve its low band abilities. The DB8 has a major lobe at 45 degrees (if I remember right) and a smaller lobe in the back. Luckily for me, if the antenna is pointed at hickory, the 45 degree lobe lines up nicely with the Dallas location. The E. Charlotte location is behind the reflector & WUNG is offset from that. The antenna is located in the attic. With no wind and even with the trees out, I can pick up WUNE which is 70 miles from here.

It's not really the signal quality (except for WUNE) that is getting me, but when it's windy, the large trees are creating a lot of multi-path issues that digital receivers can't deal with so they cut out. The only two stations that are not affected are WHKY, since the antenna is pointed directly at it, and ironically WTVI directly behind the antenna because of the low frequency.

On the crappy Samsung tuner, it will lock up the TV. It also can't deal with the fact that WCCB, MeTV is transmitting a 4:3 picture as 16:9 so I have to manually change it every time I watch this channel. I don't recommend this TV for anyone using it for OTA. I'm hoping I can clear up all these issues with a DVR setup.

We use mythtv here (mythbuntu on the fronend, mandrivia on the backend which wasn't the easiest to set up)... love it, been using it for almost a year now.

Highly recommend myth, and if you get that far, you can use the mythroku channel on the rokus and get that content on there as well, as long as you don't mind transcoding some material. We do it for stuff we want in the bedroom to watch at night (mostly family guy and simpsons reruns, but other stuff, too)... Really neat stuff, and it hooks into mythtv really easy, with episode synopsis, ability to delete, thumbnail preview, etc....

I have an idea on WTVI. Are you seeing the translator at Hickory on Channel 14. I can see it in you area with my antenna when I look at signal levels?

I see that WTBL-LP (ch 49) has applied to flash-cut to their digital facility:

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws...&fac_num=54983

And per this map, looks like their coverage area will significantly increase:

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_...um=1&exhcnum=2

That is a good question. So I checked the TV and it reports that I'm receiving it on physical channel 11 so I assume I'm getting it from the transmitter in E. Charlotte. It's quite remarkable as it's stronger now than when the antenna was pointed straight at it given that it's behind the antenna now. It must have been the change I made in the element length.

I'll also report to you that I can maintain a pretty good lock on WKHY at the Hickory location with this configuration. I don't put much stock in the Samsung TV meter, but it gives a SNR of ~24DB. It will probably get better once I finish my rewire and this is also through trees. If you need a point reference for it, I'm about 4000 ft SE from the intersection of Hwy 73 & Beatties Ford Rd. (also known as Hicks Crossroads)

Thanks for the info. I actually spent this afternoon installing the backend on my deskside unit just for testing purposes. I'm also using the mythbuntu distro. I'm going to try it out using the live from USB stick on my laptop later so I can see what it's like before committing to buying any dedicated equipment. So far the hardest part to it is to decide how I want to split it up and if I want the BE to serve a TV as well.

I find that Ubuntu, even Mythbuntu tends to be very heavy, like windows, so I'll probably go to linHES.

I got mythtv working and its a very nice combination with Charlotte OTA. I used it to record a couple of shows off MeTV and it did so without any issues and even deleted the commercials. If you are still using cable, then it should also work fine with cable card tuners. I'm running the BE off an old 100G drive I had laying around in a VM and the FE on a 5 year old laptop.

The biggest problem I had was getting the guide info to work. From what I can see none of the stations transmit any station id info that can be used to match up with what Tribune has. So I ended up having to manually enter the station numeric ID for each one I was receiving. I can see why Dish Network & DirectTV don't want to deal with it. But now that it's working I'm getting 14 day data. I notice that WBTV was again not sending any info over the weekend, but this system had it all.

I guess that I will start looking for some real equipment. If you don't mind playing with this kind of stuff, it's a pretty good option to the subscription based Tivo or the expensive and maybe issue prone CM 7400.

Just when you thought it was safe to watch TV news again, look at your calendar - it's MAY!! And in the world of TV News, May and a few other months are the only months that REALLY exist. That's because....drum roll and pretty little corner TV bug, please....

It's SWEEPS!!

May the force of ratings - and those exclusive juicy tidbits that are shelved until May - be with you.

Obviously, I have too much time on my hands right now.

Eric

I guess that's why it's suddenly urgent that Molly Grantham is investigating child molesters on WBTV.

Gangs, puppy mills, viral videos, fear. May and November rock on local TV news!

I used to watch WBTV news exclusively, but no more. It has been going downhill (IMO) for a long time.

They used to tote how they didn't "sensationalize" the news. That was, and is, one of the biggest jokes ever told on TV. They are the absolute WORST to dog a story into the ground.

I agree. They are all pretty bad but WBTV is the worst for annoyance. A number of their news readers get really loud especially when they read the sports.

They are still a very good heritage station, but they definitely had higher standards back when Jefferson-Pilot operated the facility and during the Bob Inman era.

I think every station used to have higher standards. WCNC and WCCB might be exceptions, they both have improved. Having said that, I think they all try to do a good job but if local stations want to survive they should do more local programming than just the news. There is a lot of talent in Charlotte.

A long time ago I worked at WBT radio, just down the hall from WBTV. There were lots of great people there, true professionals. Before that I worked at WSOC radio. The atmosphere was a little different the TV and radio staffs were separated more, however it was also very professional.

I must admit I don't often watch the news anymore. For the most part I get my news on the internet. Last November something very tragic happened in my life and it made the news. WSOC, WCNC, and WBTV covered it and came to my house to do several interviews, it was all over the news yet I know lots of people who never saw it and didn't know what happened. I kept thinking wow, with as much coverage as the story got if I worked in TV news I'd be very concerned.

During this entire sweeps thing, the only interesting piece of news that came out of it was the fact where that often quoted UNCC professor was called out for his faulty taxpayer funded reports that are used to justify government spending. In this case a new highway. The downside of it was that none of the local news outfits choose to look into themselves as they often instead quote this professor, and others without question. It's one of the reasons that I don't pay them much mind now.

I agree about the local programming (that isn't sports) thing. WBTV had Fred Kirby, Betty Feezer, local wrestling, etc that I think gave it ties to the community the other stations didn't have. It's mostly all packaged stuff that you can find anywhere now. I think that now that people are cutting the cord and relying on OTA more the local stations have a golden opportunity to take advantage of it.

ALL local news is a bit of a dog & pony show. With all due respect to all the people that work hard to put it all together, hasn't it all become just a local "entertainment tonight" show? I could care less if it's in HD or how close the camera gets to the anchors, ITS THE SAME NEWS.

If you want great investigative journalism, watch Frontline.

It ain't news, it's infotainment!