Another DTV Subchannel in the market...WCWG adds 20.3

[Matt]

I just noticed this morning that WCWG has added a 20.3 subchannel. Right now it's running an infomercial with a lower-third identifying the service they're carrying as "QSND".

I have heard that one or both of the Sinclair stations (45 and 48) will add subchannels to their signals soon. The following is not technically in the market, but it IS close. The FCC has approved the construction permit for WMDV to build new digital TV facilities on Channel 45 in Danville, VA. Since WXLV uses 45 for their PSIP, WMDV will use a PSIP of 44 for identification.

Later . . . .

 

[DubbaDon]

That's the problem with HDTV as well as HD radio, only the engineers and geeks can get them. None of the TV stations have satellite coverage of their sub-channels and only the early few got cable coverage. As for HD radio, only a few new cars are equipped and Internet desktop radios are apparently outselling the HD radios.

 

[tripinva]

WCWG 20-3 should be Estrella TV. Spanish language programming.

- Trip

 

[tropicanamedia]

WCWG 20-3 should be Estrella TV. Spanish language programming.

- Trip

Another Spanish channel that isn't on cable or satellite. Without any local programming I don't see a future for it. You can get about 56 Spanish channels with Direct TV's latino package.

:-[

 

[vchimpanzee]

Given the current threat from wireless broadband, station shouldn't be adding subchannels. They should be figuring out how to put more of the existing channels on subchannels of other exiting subchannels.

I have no interest in what WCWG is doing because they haven't had a satisfactory signal in about a year. WFMY had a perfect signal--no problems whatsoever--until I moved the converter box to solve my problems with WXLV and WMYV, which I think I've done.

 

[quadraphonic]

I have no interest in what WCWG is doing because they haven't had a satisfactory signal in about a year. WFMY had a perfect signal--no problems whatsoever--until I moved the converter box to solve my problems with WXLV and WMYV, which I think I've done.

Apparently you do have some interest.

You could get WFMY "perfect" near Charlotte?

 

[vchimpanzee]

I have no interest in what WCWG is doing because they haven't had a satisfactory signal in about a year. WFMY had a perfect signal--no problems whatsoever--until I moved the converter box to solve my problems with WXLV and WMYV, which I think I've done.

Apparently you do have some interest.

You could get WFMY "perfect" near Charlotte?

Originally, before I had to change TVs when the VCR went bad, it was the station that peformed the best with the antenna from Sears. WXLV also did very well, and WMYV usually could be counted on.

With converter box no. 2, before I figured out my Wall-E antenna, which didn't have the gain of the first but was all I could find, since the first was the last one Sears had, only WFMY was perfect.

All of this has changed with the first converter box and I don't know why. Even when WMYV and WXLV were doing poorly after I got a new TV, because the wire from the antenna was no longer in that perfect position, no trouble from WFMY.

In the days of analog, on a TV I threw out in 2002, WFMY and WCWG were perfect. As were a couple of Charlotte stations, but not the ones with towers west of Charlotte.

 

[quadraphonic]

What is your favorite kind of jelly?

 

[fybush]

I think we've been through this before...but...

If moving the TV or the antenna cable is enough to take your reception from "perfect" to "nonexistent," there is something not right with your setup. Cables are just that - cables. They should be transferring the signal from the antenna to the receiver, not actually receiving the signal themselves, and it sounds like that's what they're doing in your setup, vchimp.

Do I remember you saying you had splitters somewhere in there, too? That's also bad news.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I think we've been through this before...but...

If moving the TV or the antenna cable is enough to take your reception from "perfect" to "nonexistent," there is something not right with your setup. Cables are just that - cables. They should be transferring the signal from the antenna to the receiver, not actually receiving the signal themselves, and it sounds like that's what they're doing in your setup, vchimp.

I didn't say "nonexistent". WXLV and WMYV ended up with a lot of stripes and squares and no sound when that happened. Sometimes it was the wire coming loose from the box, which never happened before I replaced the TV. I figured this out because I would get snow--that meant the wire from the box was also loose. Moving the wire helped some. I haven't touched the antenna since Feb. 2009. Amazingly, the interference would go would go from one wire to the other--if I was getting snow, the reception would be perfect. Since I'm getting "The Simpsons" fine for the most part, I haven't touched anything lately. But WFMY sure went bad during the ACM awards, as I described on the country radio board.

The problems with Wall-E are much worse. I bump the wire from the antenna a lot, and sometimes it even comes loose, and I get what looks like it should be hanging in a museum--and obviously, no sound.

Do I remember you saying you had splitters somewhere in there, too? That's also bad news.

The splitters are for the phone. I get my Internet through the phone line, though it's not dial-up. It's "always on" but quite slow, although fine for this site and selected sites that I go to.

My cable is fine. I have two TVs with cable, for many reasons. But not all my channels are there. WGHP and WMYV have shows I want to watch and WSOC isn't dependable in bad weather, so I switch to WXLV, which doesn't even HAVE a news department.

Amazingly, WFMY is on cable.

 

[BIG APE]

Why did Walmart quit selling the digital convertor boxes? Where do you get one that will work down here in the Islands (Walkers Cay, BH)

 

[DubbaDon]

WCWG has the best DTV signal (or it did when I was Chief Engineer).

I turned a corporate misunderstanding into a Engineering Miracle. When planning the Level Cross tower, the tower manufacturer failed to realize we had purchased a Side Mount Antenna and had planned to have it on the Top of our Analog/Digital Stack. When we got Tower Finals, it had us with a Top Mount Antenna - only problem was that we had already purchased our antenna back in 1996 and it was in storage at ERI.

For nearly half a year, we went round and round. The problem was the stub tower necessary to support our Analog/Digital antenna stack was either too heavy (in one design) or could not guarantee the sway stress minimums needs of our antenna (in another design).

Since we had not purchased our Digital Antenna, I recommended that we flip the antennas so that we had a Digital Top Mount and Analog Side Mount on a stub tower. Only problem was that we had filings with the FCC with Analog on Top and we had some overlap coverage issues with a Virginia station. After a week of discussions, phone calls and chats with the FCC, we decided to go with my plan. We got a waiver from the Virginia station (we had given them a waiver earlier for their overlap into our coverage). We got the FCC's ok and off we went.

The resulting change gave WCWG the best DTV signal (on paper) in the market. The FCC market analysis had the WCWG signal covering more square footage and covering more people than any other station in the market. It was a BIG deal for us - that we pretty much squandered because of the small market attitudes of our corporate management. (Pappas was the largest privately held TV group; being run by a management team with small market experience.)

We had so many opportunities to be a player in the market only to be restricted by fights our ownership had with cable and satellite in our sister stations in 100+ markets. We could have been a performer; instead we became a statistic.

 

[rf_chaser]

Wow. I would hate to hear how you really feel. :-[

 

[audiomusiclover]

WCWG has the best DTV signal (or it did when I was Chief Engineer).

I turned a corporate misunderstanding into a Engineering Miracle. When planning the Level Cross tower, the tower manufacturer failed to realize we had purchased a Side Mount Antenna and had planned to have it on the Top of our Analog/Digital Stack. When we got Tower Finals, it had us with a Top Mount Antenna - only problem was that we had already purchased our antenna back in 1996 and it was in storage at ERI.

For nearly half a year, we went round and round. The problem was the stub tower necessary to support our Analog/Digital antenna stack was either too heavy (in one design) or could not guarantee the sway stress minimums needs of our antenna (in another design).

Since we had not purchased our Digital Antenna, I recommended that we flip the antennas so that we had a Digital Top Mount and Analog Side Mount on a stub tower. Only problem was that we had filings with the FCC with Analog on Top and we had some overlap coverage issues with a Virginia station. After a week of discussions, phone calls and chats with the FCC, we decided to go with my plan. We got a waiver from the Virginia station (we had given them a waiver earlier for their overlap into our coverage). We got the FCC's ok and off we went.

The resulting change gave WCWG the best DTV signal (on paper) in the market. The FCC market analysis had the WCWG signal covering more square footage and covering more people than any other station in the market. It was a BIG deal for us - that we pretty much squandered because of the small market attitudes of our corporate management. (Pappas was the largest privately held TV group; being run by a management team with small market experience.)

We had so many opportunities to be a player in the market only to be restricted by fights our ownership had with cable and satellite in our sister stations in 100+ markets. We could have been a performer; instead we became a statistic.

WCWG's signal strength makes sense. I live in Huntersville and Channel 20 is the only triad station I can predictably receive via rabbit ears on a fairly constant basis. I can also get WXII on occasion, but WCWG seems to be the easiest to receive. I used to get Channel 2 (WFMY) well before the digital conversion, but it has now disappeared. Now if 20.2 would just play something besides those loser music videos....

 

[vchimpanzee]

WCWG has the best DTV signal (or it did when I was Chief Engineer).

I turned a corporate misunderstanding into a Engineering Miracle. When planning the Level Cross tower, the tower manufacturer failed to realize we had purchased a Side Mount Antenna and had planned to have it on the Top of our Analog/Digital Stack. When we got Tower Finals, it had us with a Top Mount Antenna - only problem was that we had already purchased our antenna back in 1996 and it was in storage at ERI.

For nearly half a year, we went round and round. The problem was the stub tower necessary to support our Analog/Digital antenna stack was either too heavy (in one design) or could not guarantee the sway stress minimums needs of our antenna (in another design).

Since we had not purchased our Digital Antenna, I recommended that we flip the antennas so that we had a Digital Top Mount and Analog Side Mount on a stub tower. Only problem was that we had filings with the FCC with Analog on Top and we had some overlap coverage issues with a Virginia station. After a week of discussions, phone calls and chats with the FCC, we decided to go with my plan. We got a waiver from the Virginia station (we had given them a waiver earlier for their overlap into our coverage). We got the FCC's ok and off we went.

The resulting change gave WCWG the best DTV signal (on paper) in the market. The FCC market analysis had the WCWG signal covering more square footage and covering more people than any other station in the market. It was a BIG deal for us - that we pretty much squandered because of the small market attitudes of our corporate management. (Pappas was the largest privately held TV group; being run by a management team with small market experience.)

We had so many opportunities to be a player in the market only to be restricted by fights our ownership had with cable and satellite in our sister stations in 100+ markets. We could have been a performer; instead we became a statistic.

WCWG's signal strength makes sense. I live in Huntersville and Channel 20 is the only triad station I can predictably receive via rabbit ears on a fairly constant basis. I can also get WXII on occasion, but WCWG seems to be the easiest to receive. I used to get Channel 2 (WFMY) well before the digital conversion, but it has now disappeared. Now if 20.2 would just play something besides those loser music videos....

I don't see how it's possible WCWG has the best digital signal. It has given me the most trouble of any of the stations I could pick up on Feb. 20, 2009. I had virtually no trouble with any of them until WCWG started messing up. It has never done well since. I just gave up on it after the umpteenth time of turning to it and seeing "No Signal". Besides, even when it did work the pixillation was too frequent and too annoying.

 

[DubbaDon]

You can check out the FCC DTV Map - http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/
Plug in your address and it will give you the direction and receive power at your location from all of the DTV stations (1 at a time, but you can leave the drop down windows open).

For the Technical Data, you need only look at FCC Final DTV Assignment (August 6, 2007) 07-138, Appendix B (available in Excel if you want to filter out stations to give you a state view). The Greensboro Market is on Page 29 of the PDF version. The key numbers are AREA (sq km) and POPULATION (thousand).

 

[vchimpanzee]

I only knbow what I get.

Yesterday at 2 in the afternoon, I couldn't get WMYV to stay clear. I got 'No Signal" on WXLV and then moved and got a frozen image of cars on a race track. Oh, that's right, it was Memorial Day weekend. And yet WFMY was clear for a change.

I watched Andy Rooney four times last night. Three of those were recordings I hadn't yet watched. By that time WMYV seemed to have cleared up.

A correction to my ealier statement (not sure whether it was here). I may have moved the antenna slightly in June 2009 when I raised the rabbit ears. They didn't help me when WGHP moved. WGHP moved back, so I lowered the rabbit ears. But my problems with stations other than WCWG didn't start until after I changed TVs.