WBKI Channel 34 Question

[KR4BD]

For several weeks, I have not been able to receive WBKI Ch 34 (digital Ch 19) here in SW Lexington. They are usually a very strong signal here. I can still receive WBNA and WHAS from Louisville 100% of the time, so I don't think I am having any antenna issues (55 feet on top of my tower). I have tried contacting the WBKI management listed on their website (General Manager, Chief Engineer, and Program Director) but all email attemps bounce back as "unknown".

Have they belly-upped?

 

[KyDXIn]

Have they belly-upped?

This post on another weblog dated July 23, 2010 says it was sold.

http://jakesdtvblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/louisville-cw-affiliate-selling-its-low.html

 

[Bengalsfan]

They have been having transmitter issues down in Raywick. That might be contributing to not being able to see them.

 

[The King Bee]

If what Jake's DTV Log says is true (that the two digital LPTVs WBKI held are to be sold) then I think it's a big mistake to sell them. Their Channel 19 full-power coverage doesn't reach Jefferson County, and the two digital LPTVs should have been flash-cut from analog to digital a couple of years ago at the deadline to provide some OTA covereage in Big Jeff.

 

[KR4BD]

OK...I finally got to the bottom of this. This morning I heard from the GM of WBKI. Here's what he said:


We had a major malfunction at the transmitter site last week. We are working on it and hope to have it up and running by the end of the day tomorrow.

Thank you for your patience.

Terry Glaser
General Manager
WBKI CW Louisville
6100 Dutchmans Lane
Louisville, KY 40205

 

[The King Bee]

WBNA comes in clearly where you are, KR4BD? Shoot, that's pretty good, considering they don't light up in a huge chunk of Jefferson County due to terrain shielding, a short tower, low ERP, the troublesome high VHF band position at Channel 8, and antenna location.

(They can't raise their tower higher to clear the southern Jefferson County hills to push their horizon into the heavily-populated valley because their tower site is too close to the clear zone for the two 14,000-ft NNW-SSE runways 17-35 at Louisville International Airport/SDF.) Since they've been run on a shoestring budget since sign-on iin the mid '80s, they won't consider a move to the tower farm in Floyds Knobs, IN where they really belong.

 

[KR4BD]

Yes...WBNA usually comes in quite well here via my unamplified, modest antenna... a rather small VHF-UHF Radio Shack Combo up about 55' on my ham tower. I am in SW Lexington and normally see the Louisville area stations as follows:

WHAS-11 (RF Channel 11) 99% reliable
WBNA-21 (RF Channel 8) 99% reliable
WBKI-34 (RF Channel 19) 100% reliable (when they are on the air!)
WLKY-32 (RF Channel 26) 50% reliable (usually after dark)
WMYO-58 (RF Channel 51) 40% reliable (usually after dark)
WDRB-41 (RF Channel 49) 40% reliable (usually after dark)
WAVE-3 (RF Channel 47) 10% reliable (surprisingly weak to me!)
KET-68 (RF Channel 38) 10% reliable
KET-15 (RF Channel 17) 5% reliable

 

[KR4BD]

WBKI was back on-the-air Monday Evening, July 25.

 

[Bengalsfan]

Since they've been run on a shoestring budget since sign-on iin the mid '80s, they won't consider a move to the tower farm in Floyds Knobs, IN where they really belong.

And where they used to be. WDJX's FM antenna is strapped to the old channel 21 antenna that they used to own. Really, they wouldn't need to move to the knobs, if they just moved to one of the towers on Mitchell Hill, it would help them into Louisville.

 

[The King Bee]

When digital ATSC works right, it's wonderful...but there are a lot of quirks and gremlins that have popped up since the transition. WBNA should take the reponsible broadcaster's route and correct this signal problem in Jefferson County (pop. 745,000, 14% of which rely on OTA signals) ASAP...it makes business sense as well as giving them the ability to fully cover their city of license!

I have set up friends' digital OTA tuners with amplified indoor antennas downtown in The 800 Building at the 25th floor level south-facing the WBNA tower site in Brooks, KY(approx. 250' AGL)...no lock on Channel 8! I got Bloomington, Lexington, Elizabethtown and even WLWT from Cincinnati, but no 'BNA.

 

[The King Bee]

When digital ATSC works right, it's wonderful...but there are a lot of quirks and gremlins that have popped up since the transition. WBNA should take the reponsible broadcaster's route and correct this signal problem in Jefferson County (pop. 745,000, 14% of which rely on OTA signals) ASAP...it makes business sense as well as giving them the ability to fully cover their city of license!

I have set up friends' digital OTA tuners with amplified indoor antennas downtown in The 800 Building at the 25th floor level south-facing the WBNA tower site in Brooks, KY(approx. 250' AGL at 4th and York Streets)...no lock on Channel 8!

 

[KR4BD]

When digital ATSC works right, it's wonderful...but there are a lot of quirks and gremlins that have popped up since the transition. WBNA should take the reponsible broadcaster's route and correct this signal problem in Jefferson County (pop. 745,000, 14% of which rely on OTA signals) ASAP...it makes business sense as well as giving them the ability to fully cover their city of license!

I have set up friends' digital OTA tuners with amplified indoor antennas downtown in The 800 Building at the 25th floor level south-facing the WBNA tower site in Brooks, KY(approx. 250' AGL)...no lock on Channel 8! I got Bloomington, Lexington, Elizabethtown and even WLWT from Cincinnati, but no 'BNA.

This is strange. WBNA and WHAS are both reliably received at my home in SW Lexington on a small, unamplified UHF/VHF combo antenna up 55'. WBKI is also always received, but the others (WMYO, WAVE, WLKY, WDRB, etc.) must have slight tropo conditions going on to get them to me...

 

[The King Bee]

Believe me, KR4BD...north of Eastern Parkway in Louisville into Clarksville and Jeffersonville, there's a huge dead zone for WBNA, and reception is at best unreliable south to about Outer Loop. I've actually seen a V-Soft analysis done on all Louisville market digital TV/Class A/LPTV signals, and it's plain as day on the plot.

 

[KR4BD]

Believe me, KR4BD...north of Eastern Parkway in Louisville into Clarksville and Jeffersonville, there's a huge dead zone for WBNA, and reception is at best unreliable south to about Outer Loop. I've actually seen a V-Soft analysis done on all Louisville market digital TV/Class A/LPTV signals, and it's plain as day on the plot.

I fully believe what you are saying. Just seems strange that they have such a close-in null in that direction. I also realize there are some terrain issues involved as well.

The thing that really surprised me during all the analog to digital swithover was the fact that WAVE minimized their coverage by a huge amount. Their analog signal delivered a grade-A signal to Lexington and also could be seen quite well in the Cincinnati area. I don't understand why they retreated to their old Floyds Knob site for the digital switch when they had a 1700' stick in LaGrange. WAVE is hardly ever seen here in Lexington anymore.

 

[KyDXIn]

Don't expect much from WBKI anymore. They laid off most of their workers and cancelled "Louisville Live" today.

 

[Bengalsfan]

Believe me, KR4BD...north of Eastern Parkway in Louisville into Clarksville and Jeffersonville, there's a huge dead zone for WBNA, and reception is at best unreliable south to about Outer Loop. I've actually seen a V-Soft analysis done on all Louisville market digital TV/Class A/LPTV signals, and it's plain as day on the plot.

They have the same problem that 105.1 used to have. Mitchell Hill.

 

[radiorob2.0]

Believe me, KR4BD...north of Eastern Parkway in Louisville into Clarksville and Jeffersonville, there's a huge dead zone for WBNA, and reception is at best unreliable south to about Outer Loop. I've actually seen a V-Soft analysis done on all Louisville market digital TV/Class A/LPTV signals, and it's plain as day on the plot.

I fully believe what you are saying. Just seems strange that they have such a close-in null in that direction. I also realize there are some terrain issues involved as well.

The thing that really surprised me during all the analog to digital swithover was the fact that WAVE minimized their coverage by a huge amount. Their analog signal delivered a grade-A signal to Lexington and also could be seen quite well in the Cincinnati area. I don't understand why they retreated to their old Floyds Knob site for the digital switch when they had a 1700' stick in LaGrange. WAVE is hardly ever seen here in Lexington anymore.

If they had built that mast even twenty years earlier it would have made a difference. By the time it was erected much of the audience utilized Cable.

The reason for abandoning the tower for DTV was due to the distance from the market. Yes, analog WAVE had a wonderful signal in Lexington. All you had to do was lay the dipoles horizontal and there it was. But there is no money for WAVE in Lexington and the risk of signal issues in the home market outweighed that monster signal. WMTW Portland, Maine abandon Mt Washington for the same reason.

 

[KyDXIn]

The thing that really surprised me during all the analog to digital swithover was the fact that WAVE minimized their coverage by a huge amount. Their analog signal delivered a grade-A signal to Lexington and also could be seen quite well in the Cincinnati area. I don't understand why they retreated to their old Floyds Knob site for the digital switch when they had a 1700' stick in LaGrange. WAVE is hardly ever seen here in Lexington anymore.

If they had built that mast even twenty years earlier it would have made a difference. By the time it was erected much of the audience utilized Cable.

The reason for abandoning the tower for DTV was due to the distance from the market. Yes, analog WAVE had a wonderful signal in Lexington. All you had to do was lay the dipoles horizontal and there it was. But there is no money for WAVE in Lexington and the risk of signal issues in the home market outweighed that monster signal. WMTW Portland, Maine abandon Mt Washington for the same reason.

With the digital signal, I've read about the possibility of more than one transmitter broadcasting on the same frequency the same signal. I've heard this utilizing LPTV towers, but would it be possible for the LaGrange tower to be the main tower, and have the Floyds Knob tower act as a secondary tower for Louisville and points west? I think this site might explain it in more detail: http://www.bcs.co.in/whitepapers/Single frequency network overview.pdf

 

[BobOnTheJob]

The thing that really surprised me during all the analog to digital swithover was the fact that WAVE minimized their coverage by a huge amount. Their analog signal delivered a grade-A signal to Lexington and also could be seen quite well in the Cincinnati area. I don't understand why they retreated to their old Floyds Knob site for the digital switch when they had a 1700' stick in LaGrange. WAVE is hardly ever seen here in Lexington anymore.

If they had built that mast even twenty years earlier it would have made a difference. By the time it was erected much of the audience utilized Cable.

The reason for abandoning the tower for DTV was due to the distance from the market. Yes, analog WAVE had a wonderful signal in Lexington. All you had to do was lay the dipoles horizontal and there it was. But there is no money for WAVE in Lexington and the risk of signal issues in the home market outweighed that monster signal. WMTW Portland, Maine abandon Mt Washington for the same reason.

With the digital signal, I've read about the possibility of more than one transmitter broadcasting on the same frequency the same signal. I've heard this utilizing LPTV towers, but would it be possible for the LaGrange tower to be the main tower, and have the Floyds Knob tower act as a secondary tower for Louisville and points west? I think this site might explain it in more detail: http://www.bcs.co.in/whitepapers/Single frequency network overview.pdf

One thing that's a given in digital TV is that any interference results in no lock...even if the tuning meter shows a healthy signal level. I'd think that having two of them on the same frequency would result in huge problems. Speaking of signals on same channels, I wonder when the LPTV in Salem Indiana on channel 17 will be moving? WKPC DT is on the same channel 23 miles away...this amazing short spacing has been in effect for years! I'm nearly 60 miles from the LPTV and it used to have about 20% snow in it here until WKPC DT came on. All traces of the LPTV are gone here. Looks like they've had a CP to move to channel 40 for about 5 years now, but they're still on 17. Amazing...

 

[KyDXIn]

With the digital signal, I've read about the possibility of more than one transmitter broadcasting on the same frequency the same signal. I've heard this utilizing LPTV towers, but would it be possible for the LaGrange tower to be the main tower, and have the Floyds Knob tower act as a secondary tower for Louisville and points west? I think this site might explain it in more detail: http://www.bcs.co.in/whitepapers/Single frequency network overview.pdf

One thing that's a given in digital TV is that any interference results in no lock...even if the tuning meter shows a healthy signal level. I'd think that having two of them on the same frequency would result in huge problems. Speaking of signals on same channels, I wonder when the LPTV in Salem Indiana on channel 17 will be moving? WKPC DT is on the same channel 23 miles away...this amazing short spacing has been in effect for years! I'm nearly 60 miles from the LPTV and it used to have about 20% snow in it here until WKPC DT came on. All traces of the LPTV are gone here. Looks like they've had a CP to move to channel 40 for about 5 years now, but they're still on 17. Amazing...

It may be only 23 miles, but it's about 20 years behind the times