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KWDA LIGHTS UP IN DALLAS

B

Bob E. Nelson

KWDA/30 (RF-21) is now on from Bank of America:

Program 1 Dios-TV
Program 2 VidaVis
Program 3 MCTV
Program 4 VisionC

If that's a 2 kW signal, I'm amazed at its raw signal strength, just a couple dB less up here than KLEG's 15 kw. More amazing is that yet another LPTV sees fit to light up in this ultra-saturated market.
 
Oh, joy; more Spanish Godcasters ::) They even have programming on 30.3. (The others are currently color bars.) It's a simulcast of 18.2, though. KPFW/18 has shown an interest in diversifying their programming before (although the Urban Superstation clearly fell through), so maybe they'll come up with something interesting someday :D

I was wondering what their virtual channel number would be. It couldn't be their old analog channel number (11 in Denison), their RF channel number (21), nor even the RF channel number of the holder of virtual channel 21 (29), because those are all taken. I guessed it'd be 30, which is the RF channel number of the holder of virtual channel 29.

Turns out I was right but it was really just an inspired guess. (Weirdly, though, my DVR added it as channel 70 ???)
 
Is that what my DVR added at 72-1 thru 4? 3 channels of color bars and some Hispanic programming on one channel. RF is channel 21, 515 mHz. It's only identified here as "DTV"
 
JHBrandt said:
Oh, joy; more Spanish Godcasters ::)
Click to expand...

Considering that one of the reasons Congress authorized the LPTV service in 1982 was to provide a home for ethnic and niche programming, I'd say that this channel fulfills that purpose perfectly.
 
dhett said:
JHBrandt said:
Oh, joy; more Spanish Godcasters ::)
Click to expand...

Considering that one of the reasons Congress authorized the LPTV service in 1982 was to provide a home for ethnic and niche programming, I'd say that this channel fulfills that purpose perfectly.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining that they're in Spanish. I'm not even complaining that they're Godcasters. What I'm complaining about is that this particular ethnic niche already seemed quite adequately filled. (Admittedly, we did lose Genesis some time ago and KVFW, 34.2, and 50.2 more recently, but I thought that reflected a surplus of this particular kind of programming.)

With the exception of MTV Tr3s, it seems every LP broadcast in DFW, whether in English or Spanish, is either general-interest programming, Christianity, or infomercials. What niche programming there is appears on the full-power subchannels, not on LPTV.
 
Megapsycle said:
Is that what my DVR added at 72-1 thru 4? 3 channels of color bars and some Hispanic programming on one channel. RF is channel 21, 515 mHz. It's only identified here as "DTV"
Click to expand...

Yep, that's it. There seems to be something hinky about their PSIP. I've had two receivers pick it up correctly and two others that picked up neither the virtual channel (30) nor the channel names. On Dish Network receivers, it assigned a bogus channel number of 70 to avoid duplicating KTXA; my Philco converter box just gave me two channels 21 (one with 4 subchannels and the other, KTXA, with one).

If others are experiencing this, KTXA is going to raise hell.
 
tested said:
Impressive signal. I'm getting 92-97% here in Plano.
Click to expand...

Confirmed. KWDA's reading in the 70's on my Philco, while KPFW and KLEG are only in the 50's.

By all rights KWDA should be 9 dB below the others. Perhaps their signal is received especially cleanly due to the lack of an adjacent full-power station.
 
I tried it as 30 but no-go on my TV, then I tried 21, and sure enough: 2 21.1s, besides the .2-.4, and 3 of the 4 have color bars. At least I didn't lose the KTXA/21 setting in the process.

You'd think with all these choices, that somebody would be interested in putting MeTV on around here....
 
easttxtv said:
You'd think with all these choices, that somebody would be interested in putting MeTV on around here....
Click to expand...

That could be the problem. I haven't heard anything about Dallas specifically, but I've heard definitively that MeTV is talking to more than one broadcaster in some markets and that's delaying things while they decide who the affiliate will be.

Not sure why so many people are seeing it as 21-x. They have a valid TVCT which says 30-x in it. http://www.rabbitears.info/screencaps/tx-dfw/130929-0_0.htm

- Trip
 
tested said:
Impressive signal. I'm getting 92-97% here in Plano.
Click to expand...

Here are point-in-time readings from Frisco for all of the Dallas area LPTVs. These were measured with a Sencore SLM-1446 and the power reading is in dBmV. The UHF antenna is a 91XG from AntennasDirect. Stations marked with an asterisk are transmitting from Bank of America and the rest are from Cedar Hill:
Code: 
+----+-----+-----+------+----+
! CH.!LEVEL! MER ! BER !DIG.!
!  !POWER! CCN !   !QLTY!
!  !dBmV ! dB !   !  !
+----+-----+-----+------+----+
! 18 ! 4.6! 35.1!3x10-8!PASS! KPFW  *
! 20 ! 1.8!>36.0!3x10-8!PASS! KBOP
! 21 ! 8.6!>36.0! <10-9!PASS! KWDA  *
! 25 !- 0.5!>36.0!6x10-8!PASS! K25FW
! 27 !- 2.1! 35.3!4x10-8!PASS! KODF
! 28 !- 0.2! 33.6!5x10-9!PASS! KHPK
! 31 !- 0.4!>36.0!5x10-8!PASS! K31GL
! 34 !- 1.5!>36.0! <10-9!PASS! KJJM
! 44 ! 9.7!>36.0! <10-9!PASS! KLEG  *
! 50 !- 3.4!>36.0!3x10-9!PASS! KATA
! 51 !- 3.7! 35.1!3x10-9!PASS! KHFD
+----+-----+-----+------+----+

It's interesting that KWDA has more raw strength here since they're only 2 kW whereas KPFW, with the same antenna pattern and at the same height, shows a lower reading with 15 kW. In theory, KPFW ought to be 8.75 dB hotter than KWDA.
 
Bob E. Nelson said:
KPFW, with the same antenna pattern and at the same height, shows a lower reading with 15 kW. In theory, KPFW ought to be 8.75 dB hotter than KWDA.
Click to expand...

Part of the mystery may be their different antenna rotations. KWDA has its 2 kW maximum at 10, 60, and 110 degrees. I'm pretty close to 60 and I suspect Bob is pretty close to 10.

But at those azimuths KPFW is only at about 80% of its 15 kW maximum, or about 12 kW.

That explains 1 dB of the discrepancy. But I have no explanation for the other 8 or so ???
 
Today KWDA's signal is reading much weaker at my S. Garland location, on par with KLEG/44.

Bob, can you confirm, or is it still unexpectedly strong at your location?
 
JHBrandt said:
Today KWDA's signal is reading much weaker at my S. Garland location, on par with KLEG/44.

Bob, can you confirm, or is it still unexpectedly strong at your location?
Click to expand...

Absolutely -- I was just about to post that, but you beat me to it. They're now down to 2.3-2.8 dBmV compared to the searing 8.6 dBmV yesterday. I have a script running every other hour that logs signal power and signal quality so that I can spot trends among the stations.

The drop occurred sometime after 16:30 and 17:30 on 20 JUN 2011. It has been consistently around 2.5 dBmV since that time so it's not just a point-in-time wobble.
 
Bob E. Nelson said:
Absolutely -- I was just about to post that, but you beat me to it. They're now down to 2.3-2.8 dBmV compared to the searing 8.6 dBmV yesterday. I have a script running every other hour that logs signal power and signal quality so that I can spot trends among the stations.

The drop occurred sometime after 16:30 and 17:30 on 20 JUN 2011. It has been consistently around 2.5 dBmV since that time so it's not just a point-in-time wobble.
Click to expand...

What happened? Tonight at 9 PM I could barely get a lock at all! Is it tropo from Austin or Mineral Wells, or did they cut the power again?
 
JHBrandt said:
What happened? Tonight at 9 PM I could barely get a lock at all! Is it tropo from Austin or Mineral Wells, or did they cut the power again?
Click to expand...

Not tropo since the raw power remained the same (when I noticed the same thing). The signal quality (MER) dropped to the point of not being able to decode and the BER soared.

When they came back on, I noticed a total of five subchannels with 30-4 showing a DVD screensaver.

To put it charitably, KWDA is apparently a "work in progress".
 
Now that the technical issues seem to have stabilized, .2 has programming and .4 has a "coming soon"-type animation. .1 and .5 are still color bars and .3 is still a simulcast of 18.2.
 
JHBrandt said:
Just checked again: .5 has programming now but .2 is dark.
Click to expand...

On closer inspection it appears .5 is carrying the programming intended for .4 ::) So to summarize:
.1: Color bars
.2: Dark
.3: MCTV (also seen on 18.2)
.4: Vision Celestial animated logo
.5: Vision Celestial programming

And it still shows as channel 21 on my Philco despite deleting and re-adding several times.
 
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