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Awwww... Not this crap again! WPRI transmission dispute

S

Skynet74

Once again a TV station and a cable company are fighting over money. So in typical fashion they are going to try to make each other look like the bad guy. This stuff is so common now that it's not even worth worrying about. Viewers will not lose the station. These disputes are always worked out. Cox doesn't want to lose a major station and the station definitely does not want to lose half their viewership by pulling themselves off of COX. They both know that they have a lot to lose by pulling such a stunt. That is why it never happens. I think it did happen one time in New York for about a week, until both sides saw that it was causing more harm than it was worth.

http://www.wpri.com/dpp/about_us/retransmission/attention-cox-subscribers
 
Untrue...ALMOST always worked out.

DirecTV and Sunbeam were in a pissing match for a couple weeks over channels 7 and 56.
Versus was off DirecTV for 6 months.
Sinclair and Lin TV pulled their stations off Mediacom cable.
In Spokane, Northwest broadcasting stations were off Time Warner for 14 months.
In Syracuse, WSYR was off Fios for about 3 days.

Skynet74 said:
Viewers will not lose the station. These disputes are always worked out.
Click to expand...
 
In some markets this is more a concern for viewers than others. With COX I get one CBS affiliate. Without COX I get two CBS affiliates. People in Rhode Island don't have to go without. Indoor antennas work just fine around here.
 
I wish I had that luxury. Before the great analog turnoff I could get 1 or 2 stations OTA. With digital, zip.
What I find shocking is when I was growing up in Peabody we got all stations OTA with rabbit ears and a UHF loop, even a snowy but watchable channel 27.
Same house with digital and a $50 Best Buy indoor antenna, a practically unwatchable WBZ TV is all there is.
 
How times have changed. Back in the fall of 1993 Portland, Maine's NBC affiliate WCSH (when it was still owned by the Rines/Thompson family) pulled its signal off Time Warner Cable for two weeks. The move backfired, and Channel 6 had to bribe TWC with $35k in free advertising to get back on the system.
 
NHRadio said:
I wish I had that luxury. Before the great analog turnoff I could get 1 or 2 stations OTA. With digital, zip.
What I find shocking is when I was growing up in Peabody we got all stations OTA with rabbit ears and a UHF loop, even a snowy but watchable channel 27.
Same house with digital and a $50 Best Buy indoor antenna, a practically unwatchable WBZ TV is all there is.
Click to expand...

Many of these "big box store" indoor antennas are unadulterated crap.

(I'm thinking of a word somewhat more emphatic than crap, but the moderators probably wouldn't approve it ;) )

Still have the rabbit ears & UHF loop? Try them. We've recommended that path to quite a few viewers, who generally find they work better than the "digital" antennas these stores are pushing.
 
I have this antenna. http://www.hdtvantennalabs.com/reviews/Terk-HDTVa-reviews.html

It works great for anything up to 45 miles. I pull in 30 channels. All affiliates from Boston and Providence, plus a bunch of subchannels and Channel 27 in Worcester too. Not that I can understand what they are saying. But it's still there. I have Cox in the living room, but I've got this antenna hooked up in my bedroom. I am really happy with it.
 
The ears and loop were built into the TV which died many years ago. I'll pick one up at Radio Shack and see if it works better. Thanks.

w9wi said:
Still have the rabbit ears & UHF loop? Try them. We've recommended that path to quite a few viewers, who generally find they work better than the "digital" antennas these stores are pushing.
Click to expand...
 
It was fun selling the indoor antennas in my last days at Walmart. It was fun explaining to people that they needed a VHF antenna to receive WTNH-TV (ABC) channel 8 here, since they use channel 10 for their digital. Then if you told them there were four different sites in this market (Avon, Farmington, Montville and Hamden...5 sites if you included Bozrah for PBS of Norwich), they were like "Whaaaaaaaaa??". Sad, but true.
 
Fox and CBS are on VHF in Providence.

IMHO one confuses viewers by providing more technical information than is requested. All they want to know is how to receive their favorite channels. They need an all-channel antenna, and they need to know they may need to "diddle with it" to receive every channel.
 
chrish said:
Skynet, I have to bet they are all HD UHF's, if there s a VHF you live very close in.
Click to expand...


Most are UHF. WPRI is VHF, but I'm close. I think there is a Home Shopping Club or something on Channel 10 about 20 miles from me. I've never been able to get that at all. Digital VHF truly does suck. I remember losing WHDH when they went digital. They were on Channel 7 at that time and the signal was just non existant for me. So I actually sent a letter to the owners house in Miami. I said to him that you've got to fix this. The problem up here with your station is BAD. He sent me back a nice letter explaining how they were going to be switching back to a UHF Frequency. Thank God they did.
 
The home shopping channel on VHF Skynet is referring to is WWDP TV 46 in Norwell, MA which operates on digital channel 10, but it's only at 5kw power with a short antenna.
 
Build one or two of these and you'll be all set:

http://www.tvantennaplans.com/

Cheap, easy and works like a charm. I have two on my roof on a mast, one facing roughly North and one Southwest. I am getting about 10 channels from around 60-65 miles away.
 
It must depend on your location as to whether VHF digital works or not. I have no trouble receiving all of the available VHF digitals from around my area - I am 20 miles west of Worcester in an elevated area and receive WPRI on channel 13, WNAC on channel 12, WWLP (Springfield) on channel 11, and WTNH (New Haven, CT) on channel 10. On occasion, if I aim my outdoor antenna towards the south, I can pick up WEDN (Norwich, CT) on channel 9. Also, when WHDH was briefly on digital channel 7 it boomed in without a problem, despite being 60 miles from Boston. So I will respectfully disagree about how VHF digital doesn't work. It works for me, although I know some people have trouble with it. The antenna setup may also play a role. I have a Channel Master eight bay bow UHF on the roof with a rotor and pre-amp and it works awesome on all UHF digitals. I also have a secondary UHF/VHF antenna on the roof which pulls in the VHF signals. Indoor antennas simply can't match the power of outdoor antennas, especially when it comes to digital signals, which are far more finicky than the old analog ones.
 
mysticnitekatt said:
The FCC should have moved ALL stations over to UHF.
Click to expand...

Should? Yes, they should have, but UHF is the place where everyone wants to be now. My how times have changed eh?
 
You must be very highly elevated, central Mass has some interesting terrain elevation as you go west, areas of Fitchbug had superb reception back in the analog
days looking right into the Providence TV towers but getting nothing from New Hampshire on the other side. When looking right into the apature of broadcast antennas even at a distance it is amazing the field strength you receive. I once took an FIM-41 to the beautiful business complex on the hill over looking
the lake in Waltham where we we thinking of relocating JAM'N 94.5, the FM signal intensities from the antenna farm were astounding.
 
"smaug07" apparently has an ideal setup. High elevation combined with an exceptional antenna setup on the roof. This is clearly why he gets such great reception on all frequencies. However this is very rare. Most people have bad antennas or indoor antennas. The rest of us don't live in a highly elevated area.

I pull in 30 channels with my indoor antenna, but I'm on the top floor of an apartment and well within range of all Boston/Providence stations. So I am very happy. Even with the best outdoor antenna made I still wouldn't pull in much more than I already get. My town is not at a high elevation and there aren't many other stations within range anyway.

Hypothetically I could spend $500 on a fancy antenna system and still probably only get four additional stations anyway. Three ion channels which would be duplicates and maybe a home shopping channel.
 
Does this effect On-Demand network shows?On-Demand is network based and not affiliate.
Another question,Probably answered in the past could COX temporally add WBZ or WFXT if LIN decides not to play ball in a case like this.COX had both in the past and its not like its New York stations
 
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