A Chinese restaurant I frequent in the Stop & Shop Plaza on Route 6 in Bristol, Connecticut just had TVs put in. They do not have cable. Tonight they had WCCT Channel 20.1 on. There was a lot of digital break-up. They must have a crappy antenna if there was digital break up on Channel 20. Isn't their antenna on "The Snake" on Route 6 in Farmington? That's not very far. (Less than 10 miles) from Bristol.
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OTA Reception Comment
- Thread starter MarcB
- Start date
The WCCT-TV (CW) channel 20 transmitter is on the WTIC-TV (FOX) channel 61 tower, along with that of WEDH-TV (PBS) channel 24. [WVIT-TV (NBC) channel 30 uses the slightly shorter tower next to it.] It could be their antenna is receiving a reflected signal bouncing of something nearby or facing the wrong direction. Could you even see their antenna, period?
I'm in the south end of New Britain. I have problems with Avon Mountain to this day, since I'm near the bottom of Walnut Hill (the hill which has the hospital and the WWI monument nearby). WFSB-TV (CBS) channel 3 is there most of the time. WUVN-TV (UNI) channel 18, which I could never get clean in the analog days, still breaks up about 1/3 of the time.
I'm in the south end of New Britain. I have problems with Avon Mountain to this day, since I'm near the bottom of Walnut Hill (the hill which has the hospital and the WWI monument nearby). WFSB-TV (CBS) channel 3 is there most of the time. WUVN-TV (UNI) channel 18, which I could never get clean in the analog days, still breaks up about 1/3 of the time.
Could there be an adjacent channel protection of Land Mobile UHF-T services? The FCC allows two-way radios to share UHF-TV spectrum on channels 14-20 under Part 90.3xx Subpart L. In the analog days, Land Mobile had to protect the co-channel or adjacent channel TV station from interference. Now in digital, the TV stations have to protect the Land Mobile, including especially stringent "mask" requirements.KML-224 said:
Can't Channel 5 Boston use another digital channel instead of 20? How about 5 if that isn't already used.
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Laurence Glavin
Guest
A friend of mine who lived in rural western Massachusetts used a TV antenna to get OTA channels from the Albany market and a dish of some sort (presumably WITHOUT the local channel option) for cable channels. When WRGB-TV channel 6 went from channel 6 analog to channel 6 digital, he lost the station entirely, including all CBS shows and a football team that has lost all the games it's played in February so far. When I visited his place one time, I had read (probably on radio-info.com) that WRGB was airing its shows on channel 45.2 or 45.3. He was able to pick up digital channel 45 perfectly, and was happy to get WRGB back. He thought I was a genius! (I get that a lot). The higher-number V's seem to do ok in digital, but the lower-number V's, not so much.
WCVB would never ever want to use a low band VHF channel for HDTV. Don't you remember the WHDH-TV debacle of a few of years ago? they temporarily went to UHF while high band VHF channel 7 was rebuilt with a complete new HDTV system. They turned channel 7 back on and WHDH-TV disappeared from Boston and New Englands existance. They had to abandon the entire new mess and make their temporary UHF channel 42 permanent.
VHF is bad for HDTV, low band VHF is suicide.
VHF is bad for HDTV, low band VHF is suicide.
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Laurence Glavin
Guest
chrish said:
Do you have any information on how WMUR-TV DTV channel 9 and WENH-TV DTV channel 11, both in southern NH are doing? And WWLP-TV DTV channel 11 in Springfield, MA also. Back in the day, I must have read several stories about how Springfield TV Corp just LOVED the UHF band. WWLP started out on channel 61 thern moved to channel 22.
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necrat123
Guest
DTV-Chief said:
The clearest LM allocations are in NYC and Boston, NYC uses "14,15,16", and Boston uses "14", "16".
Bristol to the RF20 transmitter is very close in distance, and there are only one of two issues here.
1) The antenna is inside the steel framed building and is so badly attenuated that the reception is choppy
or
2) There is too much RF, they are using a pre-amp with a small rooftop antenna, and a whole bunch of garbage and it's overloading their receivers.
Good advice from Necrat.
Couple things I can add.
1) ALWAYS turn the FM trap ON! The only signals in TV land sporting a continuous signal are the FMs. Energizing the FM trap will keep a ton of garbage from swamping the amp! If you want FM, a separate antenna and amp dedicated to FM may save you many woes.
2) You might want to think long and hard before involving yourself in gigs like that. If they need a "savior", it is best that they call cable or satellite. It is very difficult to jury rig such a situation. It is FAR more difficult to "un jury rig" something another person threw together!
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Couple things I can add.
1) ALWAYS turn the FM trap ON! The only signals in TV land sporting a continuous signal are the FMs. Energizing the FM trap will keep a ton of garbage from swamping the amp! If you want FM, a separate antenna and amp dedicated to FM may save you many woes.
2) You might want to think long and hard before involving yourself in gigs like that. If they need a "savior", it is best that they call cable or satellite. It is very difficult to jury rig such a situation. It is FAR more difficult to "un jury rig" something another person threw together!
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I live in Middletown, and I always have more problems with Ch 61 from Rattlesnake than with Ch 20, or 24 (channel 30 has been a little finicky lately) I'm suspecting that I'm getting reflections from somewhere and that it's not an RF signal strength issue. I'm using a 2-element bowtie antenna from inside my apartment. When trying to watch FOX, I have better luck pulling in Ch 40 from Springfield than with Ch 61.
WMUR-DT channel 9 awful, I can almost see Mt Uncannonuc from my balcony and get virtually no signal from channel 9 though WNEU-DT and its subchannels come in like gangbusters. During the analog years had no problem receiving WMUR-TV with rabbit ears. WENH-DT 11 one word "furggitaboutit" no sign of it what so ever though WENH-TV 11 analog had a perfectly clear picture with rabbit ears. Excellent HD reception out of Boston...all UHF though the New Hampshire VHF HD signals are much closer. Very bad judgement on both stations part.
My brother and his wife vacation at the old Riccar Inn resort in Poland Springs, the main inn has cable in each room but the cottages have a U/V antenna system.
pointed at the Sebago Lake antenna farm. Though the Riccar Inn was once the studio home of WMTW-TV channel 8 guess which channel does not come in at all It is the one VHF WMTW-HD.She had to go up to the Inns lobby to keep up on "her stories" every afternoon. The management told her they have tried to get the problem solved to no avail and it is too expensive to wire all the cottages for cable.
My brother and his wife vacation at the old Riccar Inn resort in Poland Springs, the main inn has cable in each room but the cottages have a U/V antenna system.
pointed at the Sebago Lake antenna farm. Though the Riccar Inn was once the studio home of WMTW-TV channel 8 guess which channel does not come in at all It is the one VHF WMTW-HD.She had to go up to the Inns lobby to keep up on "her stories" every afternoon. The management told her they have tried to get the problem solved to no avail and it is too expensive to wire all the cottages for cable.
I know that WMTW-TV has a separate digital channel in Portland itself on UHF channel 26. However, that signal is not going to reach up to Poland Spring. Here in Hartford/New Haven, WTNH-TV (ABC) channel 8 of New Haven uses VHF-Hi channel 10 for their digital signal. The signal is spotty here in southern Hartford County. Their sister station, WCTX-TV (MY) channel 59 of New Haven, uses UHF channel 39 for their digital and it usually comes in OK.
chrish said:
I can actually see Mt. Uncannonuc right outside of my perch at WNEU-TV, six miles from the transmitter. 'NEU's signal is PSIP 60/RF 34 and does just fine with my portable DTV set up. It basically decodes with no problem and I see all three virtual channels (60.1, 60.2 and 60.3). WMUR (PSIP 9/RF 9) has barely enough steam to make my decoder work. I have to move-around to find the best place to get WMUR to decode. When it does, I get both the main channel on 9.1 and MeTV on 9.2. But it is subject to drop outs.
VHF, while it was fine for analog TV, just simply doesn't work in today's DTV world. DTV should have been moved to UHF in the first place. Unfortunately when Channels 52 through 69 were erased from TV, a lot of the VHF'ers had no place to go but back to their original RF slots. WPVI in Philadelphia is a perfect example on what can happen when DTV does not work on VHF. They used to be on UHF during the transition and covered the Philly market almost as well as the analog 6. But when the transition ended and they went back to VHF 6, nobody could get it. Like WPVI, WMUR's transitional DTV on UHF Channel 59 covered quite well. When WMUR moved back to VHF 9, the coverage suffered greatly. There's no contest.
DTV is prone to drop outs on VHF lo and hi due to the high noise floor and the relatively bigger antennas that are needed to bring in the signal. UHF on the other hand has a very low noise floor and requires a much smaller antenna to receive the signal. The receivers on UHF have improved dramatically over the years as well. It's sad that OTA is now so constrained now due to the loss of 52-69 and the limited viability of 2-13. Cable and satellite have gone through the roof in terms of costs for the average consumer.
Laurence Glavin said:
WWLP's current DTV signal on Channel 11 is pretty bad. It doesn't cover the area very well. Unfortunately when WGBY (PSIP 57/ RF 22) got the DTV 22 assignment, WWLP had no choice but to stay on Channel 11. Their coverage is further limited due to WENH/NH and WPIX/NY using their old analog slots on Channel 11 as well. Cable and satellite coverage with WWLP is their saving grace. The Springfield, MA market has been wired for cable for over 30 years. But for those who cannot afford cable or satellite, they're out of luck. I do believe that WWLP has a DTV translator on 28 on Mt. Tom to compensate for the loss of coverage from Provin Mtn. (Agawam).
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