Chicago, IL - OTA - Page 271

HUH? Overload nearby viewers? Then why put out that much in the first place? This is dragging out like a bad soap opera. I miss WITI and no dice with that until WCHU moves to 7. Damn. What other full powered station can run simultaneous transmissions like this? What a waste of bandwidth.

WTVF Nashville, WIBW Topeka, KAKE Wichita, KLKN Lincoln, KCAU Sioux City, WOI Des Moines, WHBF Rock Island, KRCR Redding, KVIA El Paso.

Probably forgot a few.

- Trip

i read with interest the news with channel 7 and the construction to up the power eventually to 1 million watts and that they are in the process of ordering and installing the new antenna and related parts... how can channel 7 not have a problem doing all of this but somehow the folks at channel 26 still have not finished doing anything in order to put in the facilities, transmitter and antenna so that they can up the power... i have called the folks at channel 26 and they do not seem to have an answer to this problem and when it will be solved. how can almost a year go by since the analog switch off and they still do not have any idea when they will fix the signal strength issue and finish what they have started at the station but have never completed at the willis tower...


any help would be appreciated

Weigel is a relatively small, independent broadcaster. WLS is part of the Disney gigacorp. Who do you think has more spare money or access to credit in this economy?

WLS/RF7 is not a waste of bandwidth when you live in the SW suburbs where RF44 comes in with all the power of a Daisy air rifle and borders on unwatchable due to frequent break-ups.

If you want to talk about a waste of bandwidth, check out WJYS.

Huh? What's that?

You mean Live Well in HD.

Just did a rescan and it came up with a new channel..51-6. It's Fox Chicago's live Doppler radar. The audio is NOAA's local weather radio channel. Anyone have any info on this? Why is it locked in at 51-6 and not 32-2?

Intro Hank Williams in the MNF theme...
Are you ready for some multipath?!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,1095565.story

Not to mention an eyesore to a nice area on our side of the lake.

Interesting. 51-6 used to be an SD version of 50-1 that was hidden from the public.

- Trip

Yea im seeing it here too! Its Live Power dopplar radar and NOAA. Why not just add this as a real sub. Its better than WLS and WMAQ. I would rather have radar up like this than the crap WLS and WMAQ has.

I did enjoy 5-2 when weather was around but I'll give it up anyday for WFLD's MEGA RADAR (as said in a cheap announcer's voice)

I get WLS-TV better on RF 7 better than I do on RF 44, though I'm probably a lot closer to Chicago than you are. I do know that both the John Hancock & Sears Tower are in clear enough view to get nearly all stations. I just don't get the low power DTV stations at this time, despite maps showing coverage over Gary Indiana.



WJYS is the real waste of bandwidth on the TV dial, along with Ion TV. Both stations air mostly infomercials, though Ion TV has slowly expanded their programming schedule. WJYS seems happy being a mostly infomercial station. The simulcast of WEDE-CA (MCTV) on WJYS actually airs shows (even if it's sermons from various churches, but actual programming). As for Livewell HD; I don't see that channel being a real waste. While most of the shows don't appeal to me, I do watch Advice For Life & Motion. I don't know how Livewell HD managed to also carry My Green House and air most the same episodes almost in sync with Ion Life (who also carries My Green House). I believe in nearly all markets that ABC O&O stations carry Livewell HD, that there's also an Ion TV station with Ion Life on a subchannel (XX.3). So I don't know how that works out. I don't know if Livewell HD will continue their arrangement to acquire previously aired Mexico One Plate At A Time with Rick Bayless, or eventually try to acquire the show outright later on from WTTW (since WTTW produces the show thru WTTW National).



The Willis Tower used to be called The Sears Tower. Willis Insurance Group leases most of the space in the building, and also had the name changed to the building as part of the naming rights. I still call it the Sears Tower.

Excellent point. I would agree that WCIU gets more bang for the buck than any station in the market. Even their football/basketball games on 26-4 look better than anything on Livwell.... and like you said they have 4 subchannels to deal with. If it's possible, using a variable bit rate encoder and increasing the bit allocation during the sports games on 26-4 would be my only constructive suggestion.

it will always be the Sears Tower. Willis sounds stupid. I keep getting flashbacks of Gary Coleman.... "whatcha talkin' about Willis?"

that old adage of "a dime on the antenna is worth a buck on the rig"

so what is the deal on WCIU 'elliptical polarization' antenna?
i want to see the effects of that before any power increase

kd9fz
comments, criticisms and questions of sanity are always welcome

"Most" of the space?
At the time a whopping THREE floors was mentioned in the papers. Wikipedia concurs.

Perhaps "the most space" but the key issue is that Sears let the naming rights expire many years ago and Willis has now purchased those rights. Sears has not had any space in the building for years so it isn't an issue of who leases the most floors.

That being said, Willis didn't pay ME for the right to rename the building. So I'll call it whatever I durn well feel like - "Sears" seems to fit and was the company that built the tower. Many buildings are named after their original owners ... even if their original owners are long gone. If Willis sends ME a check I'll consistently use their name.

Its programming isn't the waste; the theft of bandwidth from WLS by having LiveWell in HD instead of SD is the waste.
Rammitinski knows that and was trying to be clever.

My feeling is this: the current owners of the building at 233 S. Wacker Drive call the shots now, not the original owner.  If they want to make an extra buck off the naming rights, then they need to honor their deal with Willis, and therefore the owners want to call it Willis Tower (and I'm quite sure that its old name was Sears Tower, no "The").  Therefore, by me it's Willis Tower.  I've known families named Willis all my life, so the name isn't married to Todd Bridges on "Diff'rent Strokes" for me.
My Magnavox MG9 and my Zinwell 970A get 50.1 just fine but both of them refuse to recognize 51.6, even if I do a complete rescan.  The televisions with ATSC tuners all find it (well, I haven't tried the 7" Digital Prism model yet), and the Digital Stream 9950 finds it.  I've a Zenith DTT-901, but it's not connected right now.

Yeah - none of us around here ever call it "Willis", and many have even sworn to never do so.

(By the way - did you open you Pal DVR yet?)

Some of us do.
No, been too busy and too stressed, and haven't received a reply to my question on one of the DTVPal DVR threads about ventilation.  I may not have space for the thing if it needs open air all around.  If I can't figure out where to put it, there's no reason to unpack it.

On another note, 51.6 seems to have disappeared altogether; the tuners that were getting it last night or this morning can't any more, while 50.1 still comes in strong and clear.

I only use a converter box with my TV, and I even notice Livewell HD breaking up here & there. It doesn't help that Accuweather probably steals bandwidth from Livewell HD. Accuweather doesn't break up, nor does WLS-TV. WYIN breaks up a lot. I don't know if any of it has to do with the bandwidth or the transmission site. I don't know. I know at least at my house, I don't have an antenna pointed toward Cedar Lake that the signal dropped out a lot, & is the weakest signal of all stations. Whenever I had an antenna pointed toward Cedar Lake, the signal was stronger. While 56.2 isn't transmitting anything right now, it's still setup for HD, and WYIN intends to run both 56.1 & 56.2 in 720p, while running 56.3 & 56.4 in 480i. Once TV compression improves, they want to run a 3rd HD channel. For what they have, they'd be better off running the subchannels in 480i. Don't know what the Indiana Channel will be like, nor does anyone know if programming on that will be SD or HD. The e-mail I got from them for the upcoming channel, Lakeshore Lifestyle, will be on one of the subchannels. Don't know if that will be in HD or SD.


My Magnavox TB100MW9 converter box doesn't recognize 51.6 either. I even wiped out the channels, unplugged the box, replugged it in, & punched in 51.6 before a rescan. The box immediately said No Signal and reverted to 50.6. I rescanned & all channels came up, except for PSIP 13.1, PSIP 23.2, & 51.6.

Nope Gone!

Must have been a fluke or a test. I'm not getting it anymore either.

Usually, when someone doesn't answer you in a thread (even though you know you are being heard loud and clear), it's because they just don't want to say anything that would cause anyone to the reject the item. Like so many other threads on this forum, it's just one, giant "fanboy" thread, and they like to keep it that way.

Personally, I wouldn't put it under the TV (definitely too heavy - I have a 19" LCD, and I wouldn't even put that on top of a Pal DVR. I would give it at least some space for ventilation.

I agree, they do put out a very nice quality HD considering they run all of the sub channels also. It would be nice however, if someone from TheU could get DirecTv to put 26-1 back in the program guide. It shows in my channel list but not the guide. It's been gone for about 3 weeks now. A rescan/reset does nothing. All my receivers receive 23-1(blank no signal) 23-2 MeTV (with no guide info),26-2 MeTV, 26-3 Me Too, 26-4 This, 26-6 FBT and 48-1 which shows 26-1 guide info but delivers MeTV 23-2. Please try to correct this. I have to connect my antenna to my tv's tuner to watch 26-1. I have rescanned/reset every way posted.

That's one of the more likely possibilities; a couple others are that the thread is a snob's club for experts only or for the earliest posters to it only, where everyone else gets ignored.
Thanks.

Turns out there was a copy of satelliteguys.us's prerelease manual for the DTVPal DVR on one of my hard drives; somebody must have posted the URL in AVSForum.  It says not to stack the unit atop or beneath any other electronic devices because of the heat and vibration.  So much for that; maybe the manual is overcautious but I'm a timid type who never bets on getting lucky (one of the reasons I'd been hesitating to buy the unit at all, having read how poor the QC is and how a lot of people were getting defective units).

The only way I could get available table space would be to remove the two CECBs that are feeding the VCR there, which I rarely use now and wouldn't need at all any more with the two ATSC tuners in the DTVPal DVR [if I lucked into a snagging a working unit].  (The VCR itself would have to stay so that I could watch old videotapes.)  That would also free up two AC outlets, of which currently all in that corner of the room are taken; I dare not add another multiple-tap extension to the already overloaded wall socket they all connect through, so plugging the DTVPal DVR in would mean unplugging something that's there now.

All my hard drive records run pretty warm, so I don't stack them. I'll only do that on occasion with certain things that don't give off any kind of noticable heat, and even then, only if no ventilation holes are covered up (and there's enough air flow around them).

Replacing those two CECB's with the Pal certainly sounds like something to consider, though. If I had a Pal DVR (for that price), I'd probably be inclined to give it a try myself.

You could always consider keeping it to sell later, too, since you got it for such a good price, and the forthcoming Channel Master version is going to be even $100.00 more than the Pal's retail price.