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Latest Area Repack Developments

Just checking in with a post-repack reception report from my location, roughly 5 miles SE of Providence RI:

* No signal at all of the RF-5 stations WGBH 2.1, WGBX-44.1, WFXZ-24.1

* Very strong signal of the seven PBS/Comcast-NBC channels occupying RF-32

* Strong signal on WBZ RF-20, but with strange pixilation

* WUFT was coming in very strong earlier this morning, but appears to be gone now

* Strong signals on WFXT and WCVB

* Medium strength signals on WUNI and WBPX, with no dropouts

* Weak signal on WNEU, with too many dropouts to be watchable

* WPRI on RF-7 is actually stronger than the RF-13 it replaces, BUT now much more finicky regarding antenna placement
 
Here's what I observed with the changes located about 5 miles northeast of Providence:

I have pretty similar results to what Channel 83 just posted, with these exceptions:

RF 32, which carries the 5 PBS channels of WGBH and WGBX, as well as NBC Boston and Cozi, is pretty strong at my location. And as Channel 83 stated, WBZ is constantly pixellating, and WNEU has a weak pixellatinig signal. NBC Boston and Cozi did the right move by keeping these stations on WGBX's subchannels rather than moving them as WNEU's subchannels.
 
alg2468 said:
Here's what I observed with the changes located about 5 miles northeast of Providence:

I have pretty similar results to what Channel 83 just posted, with these exceptions:

RF 32, which carries the 5 PBS channels of WGBH and WGBX, as well as NBC Boston and Cozi, is pretty strong at my location. And as Channel 83 stated, WBZ is constantly pixellating, and WNEU has a weak pixellatinig signal. NBC Boston and Cozi did the right move by keeping these stations on WGBX's subchannels rather than moving them as WNEU's subchannels.
Click to expand...
Your results on the 7 stations which occupy RF-32 does not differ from my report:

* Very strong signal of the seven PBS/Comcast-NBC channels occupying RF-32:)
 
Last edited:
I actually just noticed that WGBH and WGBX have pixelation on Verizon FiOS. I know they said cable and satellite viewers wouldn’t be effected but I find it hard to believe that it’s not related. How do cable and satellite providers receive the signals?
 
The problems with some of WGBH's channels going to low VHF makes me think that viewers of WGBH are feeling as angry as Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street (which is shown on WGBH).
 
alg2468 said:
The problems with some of WGBH's channels going to low VHF makes me think that viewers of WGBH are feeling as angry as Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street (which is shown on WGBH).
Click to expand...
Not only have I lost the stations which now share RF-5, but now, overnight, WPRI went from being a strong signal and an "easy get" on RF-13 to now on RF-7 still strong but now very finicky regarding antenna placement.

I can just imagine how annoyed I'm probably going to be once WSBE re-packs. OY!
 
WGBH-HD and WGBX-HD have gotten stronger throughout the day for me.

WPRI is still hit and miss.

The problems with WBZ seem to have been resolved.
 
2 and 44

Ch.2 and 44 still not operational. 44.2, 44.3 are.
 
Can I explain something to you guys about why a lot of you are having trouble with 2 and 44?

The reason why you're having trouble getting them is because your antenna is not capable of receiving VHF channels 2-6. From the DTV transition in 2009 up until now, there were no channels on VHF channels 2-6. So you have to make sure your antenna is capable of receiving them.
 
I have a Terk indoor antenna with old-school extending arms for VHF in addition to the UHF element. I'm getting all the 2's and 44's since the repack here in Somerville.
 
When looking on Amazon, it’s hard to tell which antennas support low-band VHF. I would assume most of them don’t. Though I got the impression VHF was VHF.
 
ssetta said:
When looking on Amazon, it’s hard to tell which antennas support low-band VHF. I would assume most of them don’t. Though I got the impression VHF was VHF.
Click to expand...

The average length of a VHF antenna element in a pair of rabbit ears is 30 to 40 inches when fully extended. That's OK for Channels 5 and 6 (and FM), but too short for Channels 2, 3, and 4. That's why us old timers put pieces of aluminum foil at the end of each element, back in the analog days. It added loading that brought the resonant frequency of the elements down into the lower VHF range. That made the antenna work better on 2 thru 4, without hurting 5 and 6 much.

I don't know if it would improve things with digital, since there are no VHF-LO stations in Phoenix to test with (local Channels 3 and 5 are on UHF; 8, 10, and 12 stayed on their VHF-HI analog channels). Has anybody else here done any testing?
 
You know, I wonder if there could be something wrong with my TV set. I have 2 TVs that are hooked up to antennas, both the same type. The other one gets WGBH just fine, and I tried that antenna on the TV I've had trouble with, and got the same results as before. The TV in question is a cheap Dynex I bought years ago. Though I did hook up an old set of rabbit ears I had, and could get WGBH with those, but the UHF channels didn't work as well. So I would need an antenna that can accommodate both VHF and UHF.
 
This is the antenna I use, though I don't think it's still currently being manufactured.

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-7w2aqhKUOAi/p_209HDTVA/Terk-HDTVa.html

These are the channels I now get consistently on it here in Somerville, though it doesn't get them all at once without repositioning because it's directional:

Virtual channels and info display:
2-1 WGBH-HD
2-2 World
2-3 WGBH-SD
3-1 WHDT (LD)
4-1 WBZ-DT
4-1 WBZ 4.2
5-1 WCVB
5-2 MeTV
7-1 WHDH
7-2 THIS-TV
8-1 WBTS-LD
8-2 Tele
8-3 Cozi
8-4 TeleXo
10-1 NBC
10-2 MeTV
10-3 Comet
10-4 TBD
15-1 WYCN-CD
15-2 Cozi
24-1 WFXZ
25-1 WFXT
25-2 ESCAPE
25-3 LAFF
26-1 WCEA (LD)
26-2 TELESUR
26-3 VoA
26-4 DomREP
26-5 Colomb.
26-6 DOMREP
26-7 Test
27-1 WUTF-DT
27-2 LATV
27-3 TBD
27-4 Stadium
27-5 CourtTV
38-1 WSBK-TV
38-2 WSBK.2
38-3 WSBK.3
38-4 WSBK.4
44-1 WGBX-HD
44-2 WGBX-SD
44-3 Create
44-4 Kids
50-1 WWJE-DT
56-1 WLVI
56-2 BUZZR
58-1 IonPLUS
60-1 WNEU-DT
60-2 Xitos
66-1 WUNI-DT
66-2 Bounce
66-3 GetTV
66-4 Grit
68-1 ION
68-2 qubo
66-3 Shop
68-5 QVC
68-6 HSN
 
Something I noticed doing a re-scan was finding channels 7.3 through 7.7 or so. There is nothing broadcasting on these channels, but the TV doesn't display 'no signal.' I seem to recall this happening on other channels, but am not sure. Do these channels showing up mean anything?
 
Channels 7.3-7.7 are for WPRI, which I actually have been able to get since the rescan, but not consistently. I was never able to get it before.
 
Status from Merrimack NH

Still trying to figure out how to recover from repack.

On RF channel 5, I'm getting a great signal but I have an old Radio Shack roof top combo from circa 1983 in my "spare" bedroom, the privilege of an old single white guy with 3 bedroom house. The signal is reported by various receivers as on par with RF 32. Rescans of TVs, converter boxes, DVRs, Tablo, Tivos find both and report similar signal strength. An amp at the antenna plus another amp splitter feeding two 4 way splitter to 1 TV, two magnavox DVRs, 2 Roamois, 1 older TIVO, 1 Tablo.

Tablo figured out how to map its guide data by PSIP data as far as I can tell.

But Tivo needs the RF channel plus virt/logical channel code to do the mapping and so far has not updated its database as fed to user boxes (just updated half an hour ago).

Thus I can get TIVO guide data WGBH 2.1 on RF 5 but not World 2.2 on RF 32 because Tivo has 2.2 on RF 5, but not in the the logical channel for WGBX 44.1 which is on RF 5 after the Aug 2 change. A channel scan detects all the RF 5 logical/virt channels 2.1, 44.1, 24.1.

And on RF 32, TIVO mapping WGBX-HD 44.1 to an unused logical ch on RF 32 instead of to RF 5, but does properly map Create 44.3 and Kids 44.4, as well as NBC WYCN 15.1 and Cozi 15.2 on RF 32. Missing are 44.2 WGBX-SD and WGBH-SD 2.3

Anyway, that's a Tivo (Rovi) guide data problem, compounded by the FCC databases still in a kludge of old RF transmitter to broadcast channel, even as both repack and ATSC v3 strategy is based on broadcast channel being independent of the transmitter/antenna.

Ok. That's about RF 5 and 32.

Now about RF 34 which carries FOX 25.1 WFXT, 25.2 ESCAPE, 25.3 LAFF..... the RF signal is very weak compared to the signal I got when on RF 31. Or maybe too strong??

Did WFXT successfully move from "gbh" to a new tower at a much higher effective radiated power (288 up to 1000kw) on Cabot St Needham?
 
mulp said:
Still trying to figure out how to recover from repack.

On RF channel 5, I'm getting a great signal but I have an old Radio Shack roof top combo from circa 1983 in my "spare" bedroom, the privilege of an old single white guy with 3 bedroom house. The signal is reported by various receivers as on par with RF 32. Rescans of TVs, converter boxes, DVRs, Tablo, Tivos find both and report similar signal strength. An amp at the antenna plus another amp splitter feeding two 4 way splitter to 1 TV, two magnavox DVRs, 2 Roamois, 1 older TIVO, 1 Tablo.

Tablo figured out how to map its guide data by PSIP data as far as I can tell.

But Tivo needs the RF channel plus virt/logical channel code to do the mapping and so far has not updated its database as fed to user boxes (just updated half an hour ago).

Thus I can get TIVO guide data WGBH 2.1 on RF 5 but not World 2.2 on RF 32 because Tivo has 2.2 on RF 5, but not in the the logical channel for WGBX 44.1 which is on RF 5 after the Aug 2 change. A channel scan detects all the RF 5 logical/virt channels 2.1, 44.1, 24.1.

And on RF 32, TIVO mapping WGBX-HD 44.1 to an unused logical ch on RF 32 instead of to RF 5, but does properly map Create 44.3 and Kids 44.4, as well as NBC WYCN 15.1 and Cozi 15.2 on RF 32. Missing are 44.2 WGBX-SD and WGBH-SD 2.3

Anyway, that's a Tivo (Rovi) guide data problem, compounded by the FCC databases still in a kludge of old RF transmitter to broadcast channel, even as both repack and ATSC v3 strategy is based on broadcast channel being independent of the transmitter/antenna.

Ok. That's about RF 5 and 32.

Now about RF 34 which carries FOX 25.1 WFXT, 25.2 ESCAPE, 25.3 LAFF..... the RF signal is very weak compared to the signal I got when on RF 31. Or maybe too strong??

Did WFXT successfully move from "gbh" to a new tower at a much higher effective radiated power (288 up to 1000kw) on Cabot St Needham?
Click to expand...

WFXT did move back to Cabot St. and with 1000 KW should have a better signal than before, but there are several postings from folks having reception problems, so possibly they are having a technical problem?
 
15.3 and 15.4 are now on, duplicating the same programming as 15.1 (NBC) and 15.2 (Cozi), but I think they are shared on the WNEU (virtual 60) signal rather than the WGBX (virtual 44) signal.
 
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