Severe Weather, DTV doesn't work!

[Poledo]

I started this thread in a rant, early in the morning... so let me clarify my complaint. Mobile is a long TV market, and most non-tropical weather comes from the west. I was channel surfing and caught the wall-to-wall coverage of what was happening 40 miles west of me. I surfed back later and the storms were approaching the local TV Antenna Farm. This is when the stations all went haywire, the signals froze, dropped audio, just about everything went wrong. 3 of these stations are UHF digital and 1 us VHF, I believe 3 of these stations plan on significantly increasing their power and/or height after the June deadline. The 4th station is already setup in it's final, full power, digital facility, that station had the best reception during the weather event, but the weather staff was asleep. The other three stations were wall-to-wall for 4 hours or longer, but as soon as the storms were over the Antenna Farm they were unwatchable, I got the exact same results from cable and a rooftop antenna, which was similar to the "rain fade" problems I used to have with DirecTV. When I started fiddling with the TV and hooked up a cheap set of rabbit ears I was able to pick up good signals from the old analog transmissions. This is what was frustrating, the old analog was working but there was no way to watch the digital signals. By the time the storms reached me and blew around the overhead cable TV lines and got them wet, I was put out of service again and had to disconnect the digital converter and hook the cable straight through to the TV to watch "analog cable" rebroadcasting OTA digital TV signals.
The problem is that digital TV stations don't appear to be able to broadcast when a thunderstorm is over the Antenna Farm.
As earlier posts stated, I'm in the middle of Tropical Storm/Hurricane country. If a regular series of spring showers can knock out television weather coverage, which I was prepared for with backups of everything... all I don't have is satellite TV, what's going to happen when we get a salt filled tropical storm or hurricane? I know WKRG, WALA, and WPMI are going to upgrade their digital plants, but that probably won't matter when a "real" storm hits.

I know starting this thread was a mistake to start. I was tired and irritated by the "new technology" fouling up before it's ever had a chance to really be tested. Y'all already know the problems with DTV and the FCC doesn't seem to care or they would have left well enough alone.

 

[willcail]

I don't have cable since I have to deal with Time Warner. When I called the local Time Warner office and ask them about the very basic cable packages, witch cost about 14.99 to 19.99 a month. They want an exuberant installation fee. I lived in a apartment complex wired with Time Warner cable service. I don't want to play 100 dollars for some to come out and flip a switch/connect something in the basement. Plus I have an high speed DSL connection, The current trend of streaming full episodes online, Netflix thinking about streaming premium cable shows, there is little reason to pay for cable. Just turn on my Mac Mini with Windows XP SP3 installed for Netflix, Sony Sound Forge, and Nokia PC Suite for backup internet connection. (My Nokia 5310 can function as an modem.) My HDTV have an HDMI port, and since DVI and HDMI are 100% compatible no loss in video quality. I can used my HDTV as an monitor as well.

Both TV's I have have an ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuner. The Digital TV signals comes in clearer than the analog signals. I'm occupying an apartment on the fourth floor. The only analog signal that comes in clear were WOSU TV and WCPX LP48. I used an RCA omni directional HDTV antenna. (the one that is shaped as a square). Using the amplifier that comes with it All the local stations comes in clear. Plus I don't want the HD feeds to be compress.

 

[Silkie]

Don't have that problem with cable, although a lightning strike can pretty well do anything in for a time - tv, phone service, Internet service.

 

[kenglish]

Since, admittedly, DTV was not tested to the extent that it should have been (i.e.: under almost every possible scenario), I wish that people who are having problems could/would/should contact someone at the local stations who could do some evaluation of the problem. This, of course, requires someone with proper test equipment and plenty of RF receiving experience (say, a ham or radio hobbyist). And, they've gotta be at the right place, at the right time...almost like those "Storm Chaser" folks.

I suspect that some of the "weather-related" problems may be due to loose and corroded elements on the receiving antennas, or unsecured cabling. I think that some of it can be attributed to people not having a direct signal, but relying on a "bounce" (secondary signal), and having trees, or whatever else is attenuating the direct signal, moving in the wind, causing rapid changes in the direct-to-indirect ratio of the signals....i.e.: a fluttering multi-path signal. Some of these problems might be fixed by different antenna placement.

But, to prove any of this, we really need some more "real-world" experience at the receiving end of the path.

Just had a thought...Anybody, near Salt Lake City, got a bigggggg wind tunnel where we could experiment?

 

[Nate Wesley]

Tonight (Friday April 10th) both of Montgomery, AL news stations WAKA (CBS) and WSFA (NBC) are running severe weather coverage, and they have been since at least 8pm CT. No Friday night CBS or NBC primetime for Montgomery!

Meanwhile, in the WKRG (CBS) Mobile viewing area, they're keeping viewers posted on severe weather in Clarke & Monroe counties (both northeast of metro Mobile) with a bottom screen radar graphic.

 

[Mario500]

Meanwhile, in the WKRG (CBS) Mobile viewing area, they're keeping viewers posted on severe weather in Clarke & Monroe counties (both northeast of metro Mobile) with a bottom screen radar graphic.

Whenever those graphics appear on WKRG-TV or WPMI-TV, the program broadcast in the 16:9 aspect ratio is reduced to 4:3. WKRG-TV recently updated the weather graphic to be more noticeable (and distracting) along with the ticker, which also reduces wide-screen programs. Such programs on WEAR-TV are not affected by these graphics, which are even more intrusive on Channel 3, as they tend to block words for network news programs and scores for basketball games.

A poster at the AVS Forum wrote the overlay equipment at WPMI-TV has not been updated.

 

[willcail]

WBNS DT in Columbus Ohio is planning to launch an 24 hour weather digital subchannel (June 12th) to minimized interruptions on the main station. I welcome it since I'm in the minority that misses Weatherplus.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I had my first experience with severe weather and DTV.

There were no bulletins for my immediate area. Just lightning, which wasn't particularly bad. No effect on DTV reception.

I would have turned to one of those digital weather channels, but by the time I thought of doing that, the 11:00 news was already on and there was everything I would have wanted to know. Up until then I had been watching NBC (on cable; I have no NBC digital signal) or programs I had taped, and during the NBC shows they had crawls and annoying stuff on the screen, but no interruptions beyond bulletins during commercial breaks--the proper way to do it, since they could be considered commercials for the 11:00 news. And this is one of those stations with excessive coverage, so you know there was nothing bad. I also watched part of the 10:00 news on the Fox station (on cable again, since the taping was also done from NBC, on cable) during the time I was taping.

For those wondering why I didn't try analog, my analog NBC recption is pathetic. One TV that got a good NBC signal has been upgraded and the rabbit ears have been removed.

 

[Mario500]

WBNS DT in Columbus Ohio is planning to launch an 24 hour weather digital subchannel (June 12th) to minimized interruptions on the main station. I welcome it since I'm in the minority that misses Weatherplus.

I hope your local station has fewer interruptions soon, as the weather sub-channels for WPMI-TV and WKRG-TV in Mobile have made no difference in the number of interruptions on those station's main channels. In fact today, WPMI-TV interrupted regular programming on both the main channel, which had NBC's "Today", and its co-owned independent station WJTC-TV, which had paid programming. It was sad to hear WPMI-TV's weather reporter Kelly Foster speak with a case of laryngitis. She had been on the air as early as 4:58 AM, when I was awake this morning.

WKRG-TV had a "first alert weather bulletin" for a tornado warning in northwest Florida during a commercial break for "The Price is Right", but viewers still missed the sixth prize up for bids and the last Pricing Game for the day.

 

[Silkie]

WBNS DT in Columbus Ohio is planning to launch an 24 hour weather digital subchannel (June 12th) to minimized interruptions on the main station. I welcome it since I'm in the minority that misses Weatherplus.

I hope your local station has fewer interruptions soon, as the weather sub-channels for WPMI-TV and WKRG-TV in Mobile have made no difference in the number of interruptions on those station's main channels. In fact today, WPMI-TV interrupted regular programming on both the main channel, which had NBC's "Today", and its co-owned independent station WJTC-TV, which had paid programming. It was sad to hear WPMI-TV's weather reporter Kelly Foster speak with a case of laryngitis. She had been on the air as early as 4:58 AM, when I was awake this morning.

WKRG-TV had a "first alert weather bulletin" for a tornado warning in northwest Florida during a commercial break for "The Price is Right", but viewers still missed the sixth prize up for bids and the last Pricing Game for the day.

It's better to have a bona fide meteorologist announcing the weather, whether on TV or on the radio. That way there is nothing else that the weather can be mistaken for or used for.