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Goodbye Analog Television

R

radiorob2.0

In Evansville, it went like this:

WEVV is the "Here's what is going on." channel in English and Spanish. WFIE aired the National Anthem while WTVW, WNIN, WEHT shut off the analog signal in the middle of programming.

It's worth noting WEHT is moving its digital service to Channel 7 now that WTVW has ceased analog operation.
 
WFIE aired the National Anthem while WTVW, WNIN, WEHT shut off the analog signal in the middle of programming.
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WFIE is the only station that I have noticed aired the National Anthem, and gave the analog shut down a classy sign off.
 
Silkie said:
WFIE aired the National Anthem while WTVW, WNIN, WEHT shut off the analog signal in the middle of programming.
Click to expand...

WFIE is the only station that I have noticed aired the National Anthem, and gave the analog shut down a classy sign off.
Click to expand...

I thought at least one of the stations would air a retrospect but it didn't happen. Deep down, I wish WFIE had ended analog with a vintage moment of Marcia; but the National Anthem was nice.

One more thing, does anyone in Evansville still sell the Channel 7/9 VHF yagi?
 
Fort Wayne as far as I know didn't do much of anything. (I didn't see it happen, but the noon news on WANE showed their chief killing the analog on the Thales rig.)

Saturday morning on the NORTHEAST side of Fort Wayne I was getting WNDU and WSJV's digital signals. On a (once again) homemade antenna. 4 bay catwhiskers of 12ga. Romex stripped bare. At least this changeover is giving me some work to do. Thanks Uncle Charlie.
 
There had been some hope that when the analogs signed off the DTV signals would be easier to receive, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
 
WRTV ch 6 (Indiana's 1st TV Station) did a Classy sign off with images from the WFBM days. check it on their website.
the analog sign off was in a way kind of sad.
 
Seems ABC (WEHT) 25's signal is not reaching too many of us over 20 miles from their north Henderson, KY tower... Radio Rob is having trouble getting them across the flats to Owensboro and I am north in Oakland City... Every other station seems to do fine..... 7/9/14/44
 
WEHT has a pretty pathetic power output. Licensed for roughly 10kW on RF channel 7. I'm guessing they're operating off of a temporary side-mounted antenna since 7 is a much different frequency than 25 or 52 where the transition digital signal was. Might not be at full power, even.

EDIT: It seems that WEHT is broadcasting with 8.7kW side-mounted. They will eventually upgrade to 12.5 kW top-mounted (approx 1,000 ft AGL)
 
Thanks for the link Bob. Lot of work went into that. Even digging out the old title card probably took someone several minutes.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
WEHT has a pretty pathetic power output. Licensed for roughly 10kW on RF channel 7. I'm guessing they're operating off of a temporary side-mounted antenna since 7 is a much different frequency than 25 or 52 where the transition digital signal was. Might not be at full power, even.

EDIT: It seems that WEHT is broadcasting with 8.7kW side-mounted. They will eventually upgrade to 12.5 kW top-mounted (approx 1,000 ft AGL)
Click to expand...

10kw digital for that frequency range is about the norm in today's digital world. Since all went digital I've noticed the signals are better here in Owensboro except for Channel 25. My front receiver is six years old and still holds on to analog 7 in its memory so I have to figure out how to delete or reset the whole receiver. The newer receiver in the back room even with a comparable indoor antenna only receives 14, 44, 31 and 7 while 9 is occasional and 25 won't lock. I'm using a dual bowtie set top antenna in the front room and the Zenith log periodic UHF indoor antenna in the back room.

By the way, what about WAZE Channel 19? I have never been able to lock on to their digital signal. KET from Hopkins County on the other hand does lock into my receiver.

Also, thanks for the link to WRTV's sign off. It was a classy way to go.
 
WAZE is not broadcasting a digital signal. When Roberts Broadcasting sold the place in April, they had really no plans for building a digital site, and you can't just put one together in 6 weeks.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
WAZE is not broadcasting a digital signal. When Roberts Broadcasting sold the place in April, they had really no plans for building a digital site, and you can't just put one together in 6 weeks.
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So how are they distributing programming? Despite the sale there should have been something done, this change to digital was in all the papers for many years. Besides, none of the Evansville stations are digital in a 16:9 sense. Unless I'm mistaken, they pass through HD programming while local is just converted from analog to digital and sent out 4:3.
 
WAZE's low-power satellites are still on the air in analog.

Roberts Broadcasting thought they had a deal to begin constructing a digital site near the beginning of the year, but they I believe failed to close on tower land. That's why there is no WAZE-DT signal now.

None of the Evansville television stations are capable of producing an HD broadcast, but they are perfectly capable of digital - with the exception of WAZE. I don't expect to see any HD programming originating in Evansville for some years.

In larger markets like Indy, local HD broadcasts only began at WISH and WRTV last summer and were did not complete their equipment upgrades until the fall. I don't think WXIN has switched to HD yet.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
In larger markets like Indy, local HD broadcasts only began at WISH and WRTV last summer and were did not complete their equipment upgrades until the fall. I don't think WXIN has switched to HD yet.
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I think you're right about WXIN, although their local news quality is very good for not being in HD. WTHR was first with a local HD newscast, WRTV has HD News now as well, WISH has an HD logo on their news, but I don't hear them bragging about the news being in HD like WRTV and WTHR do, so there is doubt there.

If you want to see a reminder of what analog TV looked like, look at WDRB Fox 41/Louisville. It's a good station with a fair amount of local content...hopefully they have plans to upgrade their studio to HD or at least to 21st century analog standards...As it is now, on my 50" Samsung, it looks like they aimed a camera at an analog TV...I wish I were exaggerating.
 
Surpisingly nothing changed on Comcast except WIPB is no longer on the cable lineup which stinks. Most of the time they air any good PBS programs that the indy affiliate doesn't.
 
BobOnTheJob said:
PTBoardOp94 said:
In larger markets like Indy, local HD broadcasts only began at WISH and WRTV last summer and were did not complete their equipment upgrades until the fall. I don't think WXIN has switched to HD yet.
Click to expand...
I think you're right about WXIN, although their local news quality is very good for not being in HD. WTHR was first with a local HD newscast, WRTV has HD News now as well, WISH has an HD logo on their news, but I don't hear them bragging about the news being in HD like WRTV and WTHR do, so there is doubt there.
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WISH is also broadcasting their news in HD and has been doing so for the last several months. WRTV was the last of the "big 3" in Indy to broadcast HD newscasts.
 
ChiefEngineer said:
Surpisingly nothing changed on Comcast except WIPB is no longer on the cable lineup which stinks. Most of the time they air any good PBS programs that the indy affiliate doesn't.
Click to expand...
I noticed that WIPB was added to the "Locals" on Dish Network a few months ago.
 
Chief: Comcast across the country has been removing secondary PBS affils from the analog cable lineup. Apparently you'd get it back with digital cable (discussion has been going on in the National TV board)
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
WAZE's low-power satellites are still on the air in analog.

Roberts Broadcasting thought they had a deal to begin constructing a digital site near the beginning of the year, but they I believe failed to close on tower land. That's why there is no WAZE-DT signal now.
Click to expand...

Interesting they are only relying on LPTV. I guess what goes around comes around since WAZE is a decedent of W52AZ. One of the charms of Channel 19 was its cable coverage. When the screaming preachers owned the frequency they insisted on must carry on every cable system in their coverage area.

I haven't checked the Owensboro cable system (I have Dish and receive networks off air) to see how they are handling WAZE and WDRB Louisville. As of a month ago, Channel 41 was still on the line up.
 
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