hi this is dave the dxer/pittsburgh, try wwcp now. I think they fixed their transmitter. Their signal is strong here in pittsburgh. Have a nice day. Let me know of your results.

I live in Southwestern Pennsylvania and can now receive a strong WWCP Channel 8 signal. The station seemed to operating at low power for quite some time and management never responded to my inquiries.

Curious if any one knows of any updates on these questions. thank you.

To those who may have interest:

WPCW 19.1 is finally back on the air from their Jennerstown mountain transmitter site. They had to vacate RF27 back in August, and are back on the air on RF30. I havn't had time to check in the last week, so I have no idea when it actually returned to the air. You'll just need to rescan your tuners or manually program in 30.

Also I know this is slightly off topic as it's not OTA TV in the tranditional sense but it relates to OTA subchannels.

For a while I was bummed that channels such as WHVL's Buzzrr wasn't accessible to me in the JTown area to receieve and ABB appears to not care to add it as a subchannel.

Anyway, Buzzr is available now free streaming online http://buzzrplay.com and Sinclair's Charge!, TBD, Comet, & Stadium are all free on their respective websites. Me-TV is semi-streaming but only in Chicago atm unless you do tricks to watch it.

Hopefully one day practically all subchannels will be free or even slightly paid streaming as it allows more viewers even if there is no station in their area or they just can't recieve their signal from thier location.

Anybody hear anything about Atlantic Broadband killing more analogs in the JTown/Altoona area?

Analog Ch 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 17, 18, 21, & 113 are all having a banner saying "Don't lose this channel and many other popular channels". (Doesn't show banner on the channel's digital copies).

It says to go to ABB's Get Digital page but oddly all it shows is the old Value converting from analog to digital info from 2015.

EDIT: ABB responded on Twitter that all remaining analog channels will be converted to digital.

Any word on if this means new channel launches or is this solely for freeing up space for internet bandwidth?

Killing off analog is industry standard at this point.

No word at all.

So far JTown has 40 DOCSIS channels already.

Strangely ABB's own website that the banner says to go to for days has not had any info, it just gives the 2015 Value Package info.

Also Ch 9 Message Channel nothing.

I would be curious why they randomly picked now for this.

The system isn't full, it actually has 8-10 blank channels to add more stuff later.

Also, as stated above they already have 40 DOCSIS Channels, but do companies typically use more than that?

Also, I still don't understand why if they are doing this, they aren't actually updating their website or local channel with more info. They typically do.

Just to give a quick update.

So far Channels 5, 6, 10-15, and 22 have no banner saying going to digital.

There are only 18 analogs total in JTown/Altoona atm.

2-22 (minus 7, 16, 19, & 20), and 113.

That means only half the channels are showing the banner and only one with the banner is a Big 4 Fox Ch 8.

Usually they go digital in phases, they're probably doing this in 2 phases in Altoona/Johnstown. It affects less people that way, and is easier to manage the transition for individuals who need to get equipment.

That's what I figured.

Just don't understand why this time they seem to be so "secretive" with the info.

So far ABB's website nor any other source such as local media has any info on this.

Typically "Get Digital" is updated ahead of time with dates but still showing info from 2015.

The cold reality is that it affects very, very few people. Most ABB customers have digital equipment already, and the number of Limited Basic only subscribers is very small. Considering the high prevalence of satellite in that region, I'm venturing to guess we're talking about less than 1,000 customers between Altoona and Johnstown as a whole. And ABB isn't going to be brokenhearted if they cancel.

Cumberland's digital transition for the Value tier was barely covered by the news there. It's just not a big deal anymore. Very few providers allow for anything unencrypted and analog, and ABB is one of the very few to still have any channels in this format.

Yea I know, just seems odd to tell people in the banner to go to the website and then have no info there.

The analog cut off dates for JTown/Altoona are as follows:

First set of channels (those listed above as having the banner) 3/5/19

Second set of channels (those listed above as not having the banner) 3/26/19

Not 100% sure about encryption after 3/26/19 as agents don't seem to really understand encryption it seems.

I know areas such as Grasonville, MD/Middletown, DE seemed they killed analog in 2017 but only encrpyted locals 2/12/19.

I believe companies are allowed to encrpyt immediately and not wait though.

ABB finally after all these years is adding WHVL HD at 702, iON HD at 722, and an actual HSN HD at 718 (was just a link to SD for all this time).

PBS has lost signal power apparently. Since the windstorm Monday I have gotten a broken or no picture. Using tivo, my signal strength was 45-50 before and is now 32-37.

UPDATE: WPSU confirmed via email that they have had a technical issue with their Pine Grove Mills translator that has caused a reduction in signal power. They are working on a fix but the timeline is uncertain.

Not sure what is going on but for some reason the first set of analog channels that were to die this morning 3/5 are all still there.

EDIT: Looks like ABB rescheduled it until next Tue.

No clue what is going on but again all of the analog channels are still there.

I just found this on ABB.com if you put in an Altoona Zip. (No clue why it's not showing up for a JTown zip).

Is WJAC doing tower maintenance or something?

I was randomly flipping stations on my one TV and noticed it claimed no signal from WJAC.

Then I went to my HDHomeRun DUAL with a more professional antenna setup and it also says no WJAC signal.

I went to WJAC's FB page and website but don't see any mention of maintenance.

It’s on the air here this morning.

Atlantic Broadband has encrypted all channels as they work to phase out the legacy analog duplicates to make room for more data capacity.

Yes, see that.

Thought maybe I had some sort of interference but asked a fellow person with OTA and they could not get WJAC from like 12:30AM-5:30AM at least.

I just wonder when they will actually turn off the analogs.

Last I checked, they had a message up on each analog saying need a box now.

So technically ABB wasn't able to enjoy the new bandwidth as that message was still using the same BW that the legacy analogs took.

They will be moving from channel 34 to 35 from the repack, but I thought that was not scheduled until 2020. It’s possible they are getting ready for the move. I seem to recall they will be installing a new antenna on the tower due to a change in polarization.

EDIT: According to the FCC database, the construction permit expires in August 2019, so the transition is apparently on track.

Thanks for info.

I wonder if WJAC had made antenna improvements in past years.

I'm about roughly 1 mile away from their tower, yet I remember years ago oddly their digital signal would break up unless you used a normal set of rabbit ears.

Yet now I noticed on a spare TV that I just threw a coxial cable on for now until I got an antenna going, actually picks up WJAC with great signal with just a coxial cable open on the other end.

Not sure why years ago a "coxial antenna" failed but now it works well for WJAC in my area.

First gen digital (ATSC) is very subject to multi path interference and signal overload.
If/when they switch to next gen (ATSC 3.0), signal reception should improve both for strong and weak signals, as I understand.

Do local stations such as WJAC only send a few hours of EIT or Guide Data?

I have PC with MythTV setup as my OTA DVR and noticed when it fetches OTA Guide Data/EIT from WJAC, I noticed it only gives like 9 hours of upcoming info.

I read online that stations should be able to send about 3 days to 7 days of guide data.

Not sure if ABB just messes around too much with maintenance or what.

I did notice that for some reason recording WJAC OTA vs on cable seems less likely to produce video errors.

I noticed this on a few people who have cable that sometimes the WJAC SD/HD & MeTV channel randomly has video errors, yet I don't seem to see these when I record OTA.

Though not sure if ABB has the best setup in the area as I've seen several extended basic HD channels randomly hickuping for years like Spike HD.