Dallas, TX - HDTV - Page 211

My DVR added KHPK-LD 28.1 - .4 overnight. 4 channels of color bars. Anyone know what their programming plans are?

Is anyone else having problems with 21.1 this weekend? I haven't been able to get any signal at all on digital channel 29 on Friday or Saturday. It worked just fine during the previous Rangers game as well as during the Mavs first round playoff games.

21 is OK here, signal strength is on par with the rest.

Hello Again,

I am having trouble finding the HBU-44 local in Roanoke, TX. I did find the CM-2018(54), Winegard HD-7697P (99), HD7084P (129) and HD8200U (149) local at Frys and they have the CM-7777 (59). Should I go for one of these or order the HBU-33 or 44 online?

Also found a DB4, which is smaller but will it work in my area?

I would go with the 7697P.

It looks like KPFW 18 has fired up another transmitter.

Over the weekend I had three sub channels appear on KTXA 21. Except that the new subchannels are obviously not from KTXA. They have no identifying information, their signal strength is abysmally low (teens and 20s) while KTXA is a solid 100, and the content on 21-3 is identical to the content of 18-2. (the other two sub channels are just test patterns).

I thought that perhaps this was just bad data on the KPFW signal but while the channel 18 signal strength is low, it isn't as low as the new sub channels indicating it is a distinct signal.

Apparently it's KWDA/30 (RF-21):
http://www.rabbitears.info/market.ph...allsign=130929

Folks on the RI board are chatting about it:
http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/ind...topic=192745.0

Signal is ok here in 75006. Better than KPFW 18.

Yep just my luck. I've been working with my DTVPal DVR trying to nail down a timer memory issue, and needing to do a rescan or two, and they start sending out garbage data.

Signal strength is pretty strong here in NW Dallas, 10 counts higher than KERA .

A couple of questions:

1) According to Rabbit Ears maps there seems to be a narrow Died Zone band on most Low Power Dallas stations. The band starts around North West HWY (just East of 75) and proceeds North West to Addison. What gives? Yes I live in that band and hence can only receive LP 18 & 44, pull all full power stations. I have a Winegard HD1080 and an amp on my balcony with nothing more than pitched rooftops above me and perhaps some trees a block away that may reach 10 or so feet higher than my antenna. Fact is I am simply hoping to pull in CH 31, which BTW did come in with a very poor signal in Feb and nothing since. I guess that might be question 1B. What did CH31 do to improve their signal in Feb and why did they change what ever they did?

2) I have noticed that in a number of cases actual channels do not start at dot one. For example 33.1 33.2 & 33.3 are actually 32.3 32.4 & 32.5 respectively. Also 4.1 is 35.3 Why are they skipping dot one and dot two?

I just checked that region on Google Earth and now I know why they call portions of the region Preston "Hollow". The elevation in that zone there is around 550' AGL. Outside of that band (running southeast from the Addison Airport to the edge of Lake Highlands), elevations are in the 620' AGL range.

The Longley-Rice maps that are on Rabbit Ears take terrain into consideration. Those low areas are tough for the low power stations to penetrate.

For others reading this thread, this URL shows just how distinct that region is for K31GL.

http://www.rabbitears.info/contour.p...=1277349&map=Y

KPFW (18), KWDA (30) and KLEG (44) all transmit from the Bank of America building in downtown Dallas and have plenty of signal to penetrate even that low "valley" because of their closer proximity compared to Cedar Hill where all of the others have transmitters.

K31GL has made no changes to their facilities since they signed on the digital signal over two years ago. Your February reception was likely due to favorable atmospherics during the cold weather and lack of trees during a Texas winter.

Good question...paging Trip Ericson...

Hello:

First of all, I'm glad you've found RabbitEars to be useful. That makes me quite happy.

Now, to your question. Each stream (audio, video, data, etc) is contained in a PID. So, for KDFW, the video PID is 0x0031 and the audio PID is 0x0034. An additional subchannel could be 0x0041 and 0x0044.

Anyway, a number of years back the FCC issued a ruling stating that all stations had to start their PIDs at 0x0030. I forget the exact rationale, but I think it had something to do with international compatibility. (Makes no sense to me.) But in any event, this meant that stations whose PIDs were 0x0011 and 0x0014 had to shift them.

The problem was that many encoders at the time bound the program number to the PIDs. So if you were on 35.1, you were 0x0011 and 0x0014. If you were on 35.8, you were 0x0081 and 0x0084. As a result, to meet the FCC ruling, KDFW was one of many stations which shifted its program number to 35.3 in order to make the PIDs 0x0031 and 0x0034.

Nowadays, encoders have separated the two, so you can be like KTVT and have 19.1 with PIDs 0x0031 and 0x0034. However, when you change the program number, many receivers require a rescan. To prevent that and preserve backwards compatibility, most full-power stations begin at program 3 with the corresponding 0x0031 and 0x0034 PIDs as you've noted.

Does that help?

- Trip

Bob thanks for the feedback. I learned I live in a ditch and no antenna will help unless it's on a 75 foot pole. Maybe Channels 4, 11, 21, 27 & 52 will start multicasting one day and I'll pick up some good channels. I can also look forward to seeing this rumored CH 30 (not there yet), upcoming CH 56 and something other than a screen shot on 44 one day. One can never have enough channels.

Trip, Rabbit Ears is an awesome site. Next time I move, I will have to consult Rabbit Ears. Have to admit I had to read your explanation twice but I get it now. And they said one of the reasons to move from NTSC was that it was getting too complicated to add enhancements (witness the crazy math for Stereo). As they say across our other border, Merci.

I'm still rocking my Channel Master 4228 antenna in FW, some 40+ mi. from Cedar Hill.

Dropping cable (technically, satellite) and going OTA HD is a great decision I made a few years ago.

44 and 52 are your best bets. 11 and 21 are CBS-owned and from what I've heard you're unlikely ever to see multicasting on them. 4 and 27 are a possibility but due to Fox's unusual DTV equipment they have limited bandwidth, and it's more likely they'll eventually use that bandwidth for M/H than ATSC subchannels. 30 (which, depending on your receiver, you may see as a second 21 or an "impossible" channel like 70, due to an unsolved mystery with their PSIP) and 56 plan only Spanish religious programming a la 18 (though 18 once planned an African-American-themed subchannel, so there's a little hope for folks with different interests and/or language skills).

If the clowns in charge of the FCC get their wish and are allowed to sell off a good portion of the remaining TV spectrum to their puppetmasters at Verizon and AT&T, then you can wave goodbye to all the subchannel networks, foreign language programming, and anything resembling quality HD (not that NBC and Belo haven't already done their best to get rid of the latter). Now is exactly the wrong time to expect any sort of long term improvement to broadcast TV.

Contrary to the CEA and FCC, OTA numbers are increasing according to this poll...
http://broadcastengineering.com/news...-over-the-air/

The actual number may be even larger. 17 million households/45.6 million viewers rely exclusively on OTA TV, but there are at least a few of us who rely on a mix of OTA and cable/satellite. After all, we get free HD and extra channels OTA that aren't on cable or satellite

I'm starting to get a little addicted to channel 68.1 - Ion Television. Lots of free hi-def movies. Anyone else?

Such as?

Anyone seeing a problem with the CBS11/KTVT OTA 11.1 signal? I just recently started getting intermittent loss of signal errors in MC7 for that channel and it had been working fine for months. When I run a signal strength scan it looks fine but sometimes when watching the channel it will stop playback and show the error. I have no problem with any other local OTA channels. I am in the Richardson area.

My CM7000 currently cannot receive it. I have rescanned several times and what I get is a strong signal for something identified as IQRW*FT but no audio or video.

It seems to be a rogue signal. If I stop the channel scan early (around 33 for example) then KTVT is fine. If I let it finish I end up with IQRW*FT.

I don't know why but my DTVPal isn't having this problem.

I have heard that it could be KTAQ's PSIP gear going berserk.

- Trip

Here's their website, which shows their upcoming TV shows and movies. They have older movies, but they're shown in HD. With a DVR, I zip through all the commercials. Of course bad words and nudity are censored, but that's to be expected on broadcast television. As I mentioned, it's channel 1681 for their D/FW broadcast.

Are you watching their VHF or their UHF feed? If you don't know, try punching in channel 19, which is their UHF feed, and see if it makes any difference. (Your receiver will still show channel 11.)

Edit: BTW I've seen the IQRW*FT "ghost" channel also. In my case I ended up with two 11.1s: the good one from KTVT as well as the bogus one. I deleted the bogus one and haven't seen it since.

Folks on the RI boards have reported that KLEG-LD 44 is back with programming. I'm getting VMas on 44.1 and SAB TV (India) on 44.2. 44.3 and 44.4 are test patterns\\color bars.

FCC sets the final drop dead date for analog TV as Sept 1, 2015...all LPs will either be digital by then or have 6 months to complete their CP....but NO more analog OTA as of that date. Also VHF LDs (Low Power Digitals) get 10db boost from 300w to 3KW ERP...maybe VHF Full Service will see the same....so dont put the fork in VHF just yet...it works GREAT in Houston (8, 11, and 13)...I am 100m east of the Mo City towers...20ft high VU 90 from RS and a CM7777 under it...a Haier 7 in LCD portable and the 722 OTA tuner gets the full powers 90-99% of the time (one or two 100% of the time..and tonight I am seeing 21.x and 46.x LDs!!!! I am impressed with this tuner and plan to buy a newer 32in 1080p Haier from Amazon or Ebay....got the 7 in from Newegg...$46 shipped!!! I LOVE it...the big tv has 4 HDMI, 2 component inputs and a USB port...plug any drive in and use it as a TiVO....stop, go back and replay and then skip the commercials!!! May be saying bye to DISH soon

I doubt full-power VHF will see the full 10dB boost that LP's get, but I hope the FCC at least relaxes derating rules for taller antennas. For Houston's 8, 11, and 13, that'd be almost as good (7-8 dB boost, assuming no interference issues).

In DFW, I'm sure WFAA would love to go from 55 kW (even that level came only under an FCC waiver) to 160 kW. But an end to derating wouldn't help KTVT, which scrambled back to UHF because interference from Wichita Falls kept them down at 22 kW. It might help KFWD, but they seem to have little interest in upping their power: they operate at 13 kW today even though they had a CP to go up to 55 three years ago.

It was my understanding that KTVT's RF-11 was limited to 23 [sic] kW because of adjacent channel KXII on RF-12. In any case, the simulcast on VHF and UHF continues, one of only a handful doing so.

As for WFAA, I was surprised that the increase from 45 kW to 55 kW did make a significant difference in reception. That's less than a dB better but it was evidently just enough to go over the digital cliff at two sites I examined where channel 8 had been problematic before the small power boost. Another VHF success (in my estimation) is KTHV on RF-12 in Little Rock. They're also running 55 kW, with a slightly higher HAAT than WFAA. I just got back from a trip up there and found KTHV to be robust in a number of locations where I captured it with a small portable set.

BPTTV - Could you please provide more information on the signal diagnostic screen of the Haier television? Is is just a single scale for quality or does it break out separate values for raw strength and SNR?

Weird time problem with KDFI 27-1.

I have three TVs fed with an OTA antenna thru a distribution amplifier. All selected channels on all three TVs display the correct time except for KDFI 27-1, the time on it being five minutes fast. My TVs are two flatscreen and one analog with digital converter box.

One of my flatscreens will occasionly switch back-and-forth between the correct time and five minutes fast while watching 27-1. The other two TVs are locked on to the incorrect time all the time while on 27-1.

I have tried connecting each Tv directly to the antenna, bypassing the distribution amplifier, with the same result.

I live on the South side of Greenville, and wonder if anyone else in the same area has the same problem. Interference maybe?