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Can anyone help with digital 36.1?

O

otaguy

Yesterday I spoke with with someone at the company that owns digital 36.1 and he had me try various things to receive the station from Swarthmore 11.4 miles to the south of Roxborough- no luck (I have a smallish rooftop UHF-only antenna on a rotor and I tried moving the rotor, waiting for a lock, moving again, etc and got nothing). The station is low power (3.8 kW) and a lot lower down on the tower (by about 600 feet) than other stations broadcasting from Roxborough. From what the guy said, there are two panels on the broadcasting antenna, one that beams to the north and one that beams to the south, for a two-lobed broadcasting pattern. There is an engineer that monitors the station and has verified that it is on the air and broadcasting correctly and they have had a report of successful reception to the north of Roxborough, but no reports of successful reception to the south.

So last night I loaded up my truck with a stepladder and a fairly large Yagi type UHF only antenna and a battery-powered TV and battery-powered converter box and headed up 476. When I got to a spot where I could see the Roxborough towers I pulled over and set up the stepladder in the back of my truck, with the antenna on maybe a three foot mast on top of that, pointed right at the antenna farm which I could see. I could get other channels, but not 36.1. This spot on 476 is maybe 6 miles south of the Roxborough towers with obviously clear line of sight to the towers. So I'm thinking either I'm doing something wrong or there is something wrong with the south-facing panel on their transmitter.

The station owner is a small little company that has lots of low-powered stations. My contact is in Texas, so can't check this out himself. I'd like to help the guy out. Is there anyone in the Philly area able to receive digital 36.1? If so where are you? If anyone to the north of Roxborough is getting it that would confirm what we think we already know but if anyone to the south of Roxborough is successfully getting it that would be particularly interesting. Also there are two low-power NTSC stations on the same tower (NTSC 33 and 41) - so if you can get those you might be able to get digital 36.1. Thanks in advance for any help.
 
Isn't 36.1 WMGM-DT from Wildwood? If so, no way would you ever receive it in Swarthmore.

And if it isn't, it would be much too close to WMGM-DT to be operating legitimately, if I'm not mistaken.
 
The 36.1 I was talking about is W36DO broadcasting from Roxborough. There is a WMGM in south Jersey on 36.1 but that is about 62 miles from Swarthmore. But now that you mention it I wonder if part of the problem in receiving W36DO is interference from WMGM.
 
otaguy said:
The 36.1 I was talking about is W36DO broadcasting from Roxborough. There is a WMGM in south Jersey on 36.1 but that is about 62 miles from Swarthmore. But now that you mention it I wonder if part of the problem in receiving W36DO is interference from WMGM.
Click to expand...

Just what does this W36DO program, pray tell?
 
Cornerstone religion, but the company that owns it will basically lease subchannels to anyone willing to pay.

- Trip
 
otaguy said:
The 36.1 I was talking about is W36DO broadcasting from Roxborough. There is a WMGM in south Jersey on 36.1 but that is about 62 miles from Swarthmore. But now that you mention it I wonder if part of the problem in receiving W36DO is interference from WMGM.
Click to expand...

Most likely, since the guidelines call for a minimum separation of 150 miles for same-channel.
 
According to the FCC website, it looks like you have stations on both 34 and 36, adjacent to 35. They may be causing some problems, due to the mixing ("n+1 channels").

Also, I see a full-power on 42. Some of the FCC tests of the available boxes have shown a problem with "n+7" channels causing interference. This is a problem we think we are having in Salt Lake City....DTV on 38 and an LPTV on 45. Of course, the LPTV gets clobbered (in analog) by noise from 44 and 26 DTV, but is still watchable.
We're going to order a UHF trap to try and completely eliminate 45, as a troubleshooting tool. The "fix", though, is to find out which boxes are least sensitive to the mixing problem. Some times, attenuating the overall signal strength from the antenna has helped.
 
I have an outdoor UHF antenna, and I'm receiving digital 36.1, clear, the Christian oriented Cornerstone channel. I'm in Marlton NJ. My antenna faces west. I get WGTW(TBN) and its subchannels, Worship-subchannel from ion 61, WBPH 60 (analog), Ch.45 low powered Daystar channel (analog), and part-time with WTVE(read below), and weekends on WFMZ.

In addition, I'm also now receiving WTVE-DT picture, which is something I wasn't getting earlier.

RE: WTVE
I'm sure this means they can push for must-carry carriage on the Comcast Garden State lineup (Cherry Hill-Mt.Holly), which 10 years or so ago, they tried and the FCC sided on Garden State Cable's side...This was when it was very difficult to get WTVE over the air in Cherry Hill. [Too bad we lose TCM and a number of other channels on the analog...but WTVE will get to demand carriage), but anyways I'm switching to Fios here. Are WTVE-DT and WMCN-DT both trying to be the infomercial outlet for the Philadelphia market? I still can't get WWSI Telemundo Atlantic City, the way my antenna faces, though rabbit ear may be a different story, but I don't know why NBC-Telemundo doesn't find an affiliate that broadcasts from a more central location from a business standpoint.

WLVT 39
Verizon Fios offers WLVT 39 in Cherry Hill, Marlton and Voorhees. However doesn't Ch.39 and Ch.12 try to keep some areas exclusive? If by circumstance they now overlap in more and more areas, I'm wondering if Ch.39 should differentiate its schedule more, like how NJN differentiates its schedule from Ch.12 and Ch.13 (NY)?
 
rch66 said:
WLVT 39
Verizon Fios offers WLVT 39 in Cherry Hill, Marlton and Voorhees. However doesn't Ch.39 and Ch.12 try to keep some areas exclusive? If by circumstance they now overlap in more and more areas, I'm wondering if Ch.39 should differentiate its schedule more, like how NJN differentiates its schedule from Ch.12 and Ch.13 (NY)?
Click to expand...

To clarify, for the past 25-30 years or so, WLVT never ventured into Southern NJ or Delaware or Chester County(supposedly), with exception of DirecTV by technology offering it market wide. And WHYY wasn't available on cable in Allentown, until the last 2 years. The thought was that ppl in Allentown pledge to WLVT but not to dilute WHYY's base.
 
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