Is it just me or is WFAA's signal much lower than usual? It's usually a good 90% here but it's been fluctuating between 0-60%.
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WFAA's signal...
- Thread starter eskipper411
- Start date
It might be the weather conditions. Winds, humidity and dry air all play a factor in where a signal goes, especial if your home lies out of the 50dbu range. For example, my bro lives in Gonzales, and he usually receives KXAN in Austin with 70-80% signal strength. Now he only receives 0-50% signal.
93 to 98 as usual here.eskipper411 said:
eskipper411 said:
It's been fine and dandy in Frisco at full scale on a consumer set's meter and an unwavering +11 dBVm on a Sencore which shows a steady 36 value for MER.
The only recent anomaly in all of D/FW television was KDAF being off for a few hours overnight this past weekend.
WFAA applied for an extension of their STA to operate at 55 kW on Oct. 18, but the FCC hasn't yet acted on their application. So WFAA may have had to revert back to 45 kW until the FCC approves their STA extension.
That's only a 22% difference, but there were definitely some folks who needed the extra power to get WFAA reliably. So if that's what happened, I'm not surprised some of you are seeing a big dropoff while others like Bob and I are receiving it just fine.
That's only a 22% difference, but there were definitely some folks who needed the extra power to get WFAA reliably. So if that's what happened, I'm not surprised some of you are seeing a big dropoff while others like Bob and I are receiving it just fine.
It may have been just the weather because it is back up to its 90% status.
WFAA has applied to upgrade their auxiliary facility to 71.5 kW. Of course that antenna isn't as high, but it wouldn't surprise me if most of their service area gets a better signal from the upgraded "auxiliary" facility than from the main one.
If that turns out to be the case, I wonder if WFAA can apply to swap the two?
If that turns out to be the case, I wonder if WFAA can apply to swap the two?
That was my thinking when they went from 45 to 55 kW: BFD! But to my surprise, several folks actually saw a noticeable difference.
My guess is that 71.5 kW would make them a bit stronger throughout most of their coverage, but the height loss would weaken them considerably at the fringes and in low-lying areas. Whether that would be a net gain or loss isn't clear, but I'm sure WFAA would do a detailed study before making such a change.
My guess is that 71.5 kW would make them a bit stronger throughout most of their coverage, but the height loss would weaken them considerably at the fringes and in low-lying areas. Whether that would be a net gain or loss isn't clear, but I'm sure WFAA would do a detailed study before making such a change.
Perhaps the move from 45 to 55 involved another change such as a new exciter delivering better SNR? Linear has been pushing their new stuff rather aggressively, and supposedly the numbers delivered are really good. I have no information as to what WFAA is actually using, just tossing out an idea.
I believe the "detailed study" for KFWD consisted of determining that 2kW TPO costs 1/20th as much to operate as 40kW TPO. Belo has never been able to figure out what they want to do with KFWD.
I believe the "detailed study" for KFWD consisted of determining that 2kW TPO costs 1/20th as much to operate as 40kW TPO. Belo has never been able to figure out what they want to do with KFWD.
coyoteaz said:
Sounds like a good question for Bob Nelson.
coyoteaz said:
I've been following the goings-on at KFWD. They have a CP to go from 13 to 55 kW ERP (with a more directional antenna to avoid interfering with KCEN), but Bob has a source who says they're unlikely ever to act on it. OTOH, their signal strength jumped a great deal in mid-July, then went back to where it'd been late last week, which made me wonder if they were doing some testing.
coyoteaz said:
I know that LPTV KHFD/51 is using a Linear exciter. Randy Weiss, the owner of EICB, explained that he and his son, Caleb, put it online on December 15, 2010. I wrote to Randy because I noticed a huge difference in KHFD's signal quality reading (both on a consumer set indicator and with the MER value on the Sencore). In spite of being a mere 5 kW at the top of the current UHF band, little KHFD has a superb signal quality. As it turns out, I met the area rep for Linear at an SBE/67 meeting a few months back and told him that I observed a big improvement when the Linear equipment was put in.
As for WFAA, one of their CPs for an aux facility (BXPCDT‑20081118AAS) is interesting. It's for 39.8 kW on the new Hill Tower (not the old truncated one damaged by the plane in the 1980's). The HAAT is 1728' in contrast to the now-licensed 55 kW at a slightly lower 1673' HAAT.
I've been unable to get away from work to head to any SBE meetings for several months so I have no insight into what this is all about. The height difference is a mere 55 feet. I haven't been out to Cedar Hill in quite a while to look around but I wonder if there's another, higher channel 8 antenna atop the "new" Hill Tower? As I recall, that's a 3-way candelabra now used only by 2 stations, KDFW and WFAA. KXAS moved off a long time ago.
JHBrandt said:
See my prior remarks about KHFD and their equipment upgrade.
To the best of my knowledge, WFAA made no equipment changes other than to increase the ERP from 45 to 55 kW when they made the change, under an STA, on April 20, 2010. Like I said in the other message, my work schedule has kept me away from SBE meetings so I've been unable ask my typically nosy questions to the engineers.
JHBrandt said:
What little I know from an off-the-record source, WFAA was testing M/H over the past few weeks. They were switching between circular and horizontal polarization for these experiments. My guess (and that's all it is) that the adjacent channel interference to RF-9 was reduced somewhat when RF-8 was doing the testing.
I can state with certainty that the Sencore raw power readings did show fluctuations over the past few weeks on WFAA. I observed as much as much as 5 dB differences on RF-8. Meanwhile, KFWD on RF-9 has been invariant in terms of its raw power readings. Like JHBRandt, I did notice increased MER values on KFWD and those did correlate to the times when WFAA's raw power had dropped.
And the CP for KFWD's 55 kW plant expires on May 21, 2012. If they're running anything other than the current 13 kW when that date rolls around, I'll be 100% astounded.
Bob E. Nelson said:
Sounds reasonable to me. Circular polarization makes sense for M/H, and WFAA's main antenna is circularly polarized; but their backup's horizontally polarized with less power.
I haven't seen any changes on RF 8, but I don't have any equipment to measure raw power; all I see is a constant, high reading that apparently depends only on the error rate. So if WFAA's power drops, it might not affect their reading at all, while KFWD's reading climbs due to reduced errors on RF 9.
BTW, KFWD's reading jumped way up again yesterday, so I guess WFAA isn't done testing.
Been noticing audio dropouts on Ch 8 lately. Watching the diagnostics screen on my Sony TV the errors counter will jump up from 0 to 20-50 or so for the instant this happens. I was thinking my OTA DVR was doing it, but this happens with the TV's tuner and a Zenith converter box on an older analog CRT set too. Otherwise WFAA's signal is 98-100%. WFAA is the only channel doing it although I have not watched 52 on RF9 for any length of time be sure.
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