Charlotte, NC - OTA - Page 180

You may remember when I was talking about WCCB's OTA signal freezing on my HDTV. Last night, I did a channel scan while WCCB was coming in. For some reason, it skipped 18-2 even though my converter box still scanned it (but with no program info). I then discovered that even with a weak signal, 18-1 no longer freezes on my HDTV! I guess 18-2 was causing the problem.

Soul of the South is now delayed yet again on 55.2 . Pushed back from Jan. until May. Wish they would just give up on this and add Cozi TV or something else.

Tonight I am getting the main WSOC 9.1 full strength, but the 9.5 translator on RF30 has disappeared. Will look for it again tomorrow. Must be weather conditions, and I am just beyond the coverage area. But WBTV, WCNC, and WJZY are fine, but I am closer to their tall towers.

Been quite a while since I've tried the OTA thing, but the wife and I recently got rid of satellite and have come back to OTA. I'm in the process of tweaking our antenna, but get no appreciable signal on RF47 (CW). It has been this way for weeks, so I'm sure its nothing new with the signal, but I wasn't sure if this is an ongoing thing or if I need to troubleshoot my setup more. I get RF22 and 23 fine and they look to be basically the same distance and direction per antennaweb.

Anything going on with the CW in Charlotte?

Thanks,

Sandy.

Perhaps if you are using an amplifier then you may be overloading the tuner. But, I had the exact problem with RF47 and RF45 on a Samsung E7000 plasma. For some reason there was interference and low signal on both of those CW channels. But I changed the TV to an E550 plasma and have no problem, and get 10 bars full strength on both channels here in GVL, SC. What model of TV do you have? My Panasonic also has no problem, but there is something about the tuner in the E7000 which is unable to decode WJZY-46 and WYCW-62.

I'm using HTPC's with HDHomerun tuners, so I guess the TV is out of the equation. There is no amplifier either. in the HDHomerun signal strength section, I get:

Channel: signal strength/signal quality/symbol quality
RF22: 69%/ 99% / 100%
RF23: 66%/ 90% / 100%
RF47: 41%/ 0% / 0%

I was just assuming that since the physical locations were so similar, that the results would be the same. As long as it seems like the broadcast has no issue, I'll get to work up in the attic and see if it has something to do with my connections/position etc. I guess the strength looks a little low on RF22 and 23 as well, but maybe not low enough to degrade right now.

Thanks,

Sandy.

I live 12 miles north of Morganton NC. I'm having a problem with WCCB-18. I usually get 18.4,18.5,18.6, but the past week, seems like my tuner can't differentiate between 18.1,18.2 18.3 & 18.4 18.5, & 18.6.I know its the tuner because I've tried two different ones. It does the same thing on both of them. Don't believe the antenna is the issue, because I have tried two seperate antennas. One Uhf & the other Vhf, still the same .Could this be an issue with Foxs tranmission. Any help would be appreciate.

According to Wikipedia, 18.2 was removed sometime this month.

And that would be incorrect, Wiki is notorious for inaccuracy. 18.2 was inadvertantly dropped due to a splicer misconfig by Cisco-FOX, and will be returning this week. This has caused some viewer issues like subarumoma describes.
Edited by bdfox18doe - 1/20/13 at 11:07am

Since you are in Charlotte, it should certainly seem that your signal strength numbers should be higher. Perhaps the coax cable is not connected to the antenna balun properly, or their is a splitter problem somewhere. What type of antenna do you have, and what direction is it pointed? You may have to find a sweet spot between the Dallas and Newell area towers. And how is your reception for WSOC and WCCB? (RF34 and RF27). And if your house was prewired for cable with a junction box, then that could degrade the signal without an amp, or if your cable run is split too many times or is too long. Sometimes an amp can help, other times it can be harmful.

I went up in the attic and cleaned the connections, which made the biggest difference with RF47. The antenna is 7 years old and has been moved twice, so that may have had something to do with it. I played around with the position some and ended up with the following:

RF Channel Strength Quality
23 67 93
34 73 98
47 58 78
22 75 100
27 67 85
39 44 51
15 57 74
50 49 63

The antenna is an antennas direct DB8 (15db gain, long range multi directional) and it has a single 4 way splitter to go to the 3 inputs of the HDHomerun units. The coax was not part of the house and I believe it is RG6, but I can't recall for certain and it is a short (<25ft) run. I have the ability to run new coax if that would be helpful and I could also switch the splitter out for a 3 way, since one port is not currently used and I am not sure if the splitter bandwidth goes to 900MHz or not.

I'm open to ideas for further improvement, but would prefer to keep an attic mounted antenna if practical.

Thanks for the information.

Sandy.

Sandy,,,I have used the Winegard Square Shooter (amplified version) in several instances similar to yours and it works very well. You may want to try an amplified 4 way splitter to start with with your current antenna..
I use this amp with the non-amped Square Shooter:

http://www.tonercable.com/Products/tda-r-40-115/

I hope 18-1 doesn't start freezing again on my HDTV when 18-2 returns. Is 18-2 still needed now that 18-1 also has SAP/DVS?

Am I wrong in thinking that the signals for channels 18.4, 6.1, and 6.2 all come from the same place?

6.1 and 6.2 come in great. 18.4 just sucks lately.

I had to listen to my buddies groan and moan and bitch about the 18.1 signal breaking up during today's game because the signal for 18.4 was so bad it couldn't be watched at all.

Could be weather affecting these low power signals. I have not received the WSOC-CR translator on 9.5 since Friday, and I only get 9.1 at night. Hopefully 9.5 will return so I can get WSOC during the day again. I like their evening news, along with WBTV, WYFF, and WSPA.

It's not weather, it's the mis-config that was done in the splicer, Cisco in ATL should correct sometime today.

I am now receiving 9.5 WSOC-CR translator again, so conditions have improved or problem corrected. And even 1 or 3 bars still provides a perfect picture.

I have a DB8 in the attic that feeds a single 25 ft coax to one HDhomerun. I found that you need a pre-amp due to having it in the attic. You will want to make sure that you don't get one too powerful. I'm using the lower power winegard. You will find the 4 way splitter is going to significantly reduce your signal on the house side, the pre-amp will compensate. I also modified my DB8 to better receive towards the lower end of UHF. I did this by lengthing the elements on the antenna by an inch or so. I don't remember exactly how much, but if you do a search for a post I made on it, you might want to have a look. It had the benefit of making WTVI come in even from the backside.

Unfortunately, I think it's going to be difficult to get all the CLT stations with a single antenna in an attic. I'm using 3 now; the DB8 in the attic, a single 4 bay outside, and my home made in the attic. The latter two are connected via twinlead which means I don't need an amp. These antennas are connected to a whole house DVR (mythtv) which then feeds all the TVs in the house via IP. It works well, but it's also a bit of work to setup. The added benefit of this is I can use the same system as a distributed HTPC.

The Motorola BDA dist amps perform very well and have 15db gain which is more than enough, but not usually too much. They are low noise and use phemt - gallium arsenide design circuitry which deals well with weak signals. They also have 2 port and 4 port versions which serve as an amplified splitter. And they can be used as a preamp when used with a remote power supply. I am having very good luck with a BDA-S1 and a BDA-S2 purchased from Cable TV Amps thru Amazon. And I am using the Motorola remote power supply purchased separately. Other good dist amps reportedly are PCT/Channel Master, and EDA Electroline. The Motorola has worked better for me than either the Channel Master or Winegard preamps. But the WG-269 performs well when low gain is needed to avoid overload.

Thanks for all of the help! I pulled the 4-way splitter out and, sure enough, the signal went up about 7db as it should have. I guess the amplifier is a logical step. With no splitter in the loop, my highest signal was 88% (approx -7dBmv) and the HDHomerun can apparently tolerate signals above 0dBmv, so an 8db gain shouldn't be a real problem. A 15db amplifier to the -7db splitter sounds like the most functional plan, unless getting the distribution amplifier is a better technical solution.

I did check out the Toner website, but didn't see an option to buy online or any distributors listed. The other brands seem to be readily available online.

Thanks again for the help. Part of me is looking forward to some bad weather to see how the signal is then. . .

Sandy.

Look into a 4 port amplified splitter. Motorola BDA-S4 or an Electroline or Channel Master version.These dist amps work well. And get a remote power supply if you don't have an electrical outlet in the attic.

Not sure when the problem was corrected, but 18.4 started coming in strong again last night.

Has anyone noticed lately that when WBTV does local news that the audio is popping and ticking on the talent mics. When they are in network the audio is fine.

YES...I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that! I seem to notice it more when they do the weather.

I finally got a steady OTA signal from WCCB through my converter box, so I tried it with the tuner on my HDTV. As expected, the main channel is freezing again but Me-TV is fine. It is definitely channel 18-2 that is causing the problem, which is a shame because it doesn't seem to be needed anymore.

It is not causing any problems at all, I have no issue's at home nor do I at work with my OTA feed on a tower in Rowan County.

I figured that it works fine for most people and that it only happens on my HDTV and likely a few others. It's just frustrating because 18-1 played fine when 18-2 wasn't available a few days ago. I wish they could just drop 18-2 since they added SAP/DVS to 18-1 last year, but there's probably a reason they can't and I apologize for complaining if that's the case.

UPDATE: I just tried it again and now 18-1 and 18-2 are breaking up instead of freezing altogether. It is somewhat watchable at certain times, which is better than it was before. Me-TV is still playing fine on 18-3.
Edited by mcy919 - 1/25/13 at 1:06pm

Since you are in a fringe area, it sounds like your converter box may handle error correction better than your TV tuner. Some tuners lock onto weaker signals better than others. What brand of converter box do you have and what type of TV?

WSOC is having very good coverage of the winter weather, but I don't like them shrinking the picture into a box and putting closing announcements across the bottom of the screen. And WCNC is doing the same, but their's is even more annoying with scrolling graphics. I think WBTV is doing it best without shrinking the picture and having minimal scrolls across the bottom. I wish WSOC would do the same and reconfigure their closing announcements across the bottom of the screen without shrinking the picture. But otherwise their news coverage is very good.

I have a Zinwell ZAT-970A converter box and a Vizio VX240M 24" HDTV.