On WJAR's website there was information that the station was boosting power and raising its DTV transmitter to the top of its Rehoboth tower effective June 16th, to improve its fringe coverage area. I just heard from friends in Melrose, ,MA that as of last night the signal is coming in pretty strong, whereas before Friday's transition they were getting no signal at all. And surprisingly, WLNE-DT went from no signal to a pretty strong as well - and they had no announcement of this . Great work!
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WJAR-DT AND WLNE-DT
- Thread starter alg2468
- Start date
There has been some tropo enhancement over the past couple days, especially Saturday night. Is this when you noticed the improved signal? Both are exactly the same here 20 miles south of Boston, they show around 25% on the meter on the Insignia/Zenith converter box, but will no decode at all. I hope they haven't made any changes yet...
Agreed on the tropospheric enhancement: Providence FMs were booming in to Merrimack, NH on Saturday night and Sunday morning. We were even pulling in most of the FM stations from Cape Cod. That was a pretty strong episode of enhancement and it seemed to favor signals from SE New England.
Digital TV signals propagate just the same as they did when they were in analog. Check and see if you're still getting great DTV signals from WJAR-DT in Melrose once it had died down.
Digital TV signals propagate just the same as they did when they were in analog. Check and see if you're still getting great DTV signals from WJAR-DT in Melrose once it had died down.
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necrat123
Guest
The analog 10 antenna is still on top of the tower as of Friday night.
The chief engineer of WLNE just called me and said there have been no changes to their DTV signal to explain the improved reception, but the fact that the Boston stations went off analog Friday night could be an explanation. Very friendly and professional, like the entire staff and management at the station, and always very responsive to viewers calls and emails. And they have a very good newscast. My friends in Melrose, MA are still getting a strong clear signal from chs. 6 and 10 since Saturday, so it may be a permanent and not temporary eskip. It's really unfortunate that they are having problems with KingWorld (see the other post about this on the New England board). Hopefully this can be resolved and the station will be in better shape soon.
By the way, as of today, they are simulcasting all their newscasts on AM 990.
By the way, as of today, they are simulcasting all their newscasts on AM 990.
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necrat123
Guest
Skynet74 said:
We never left VHF. We've always been there. VHF works well if you have the right antenna, proper setup and everything is installed correctly. Like when WHDH-DT 7 went back to VHF. After I pulled off my UHF only antenna and went back to my "high tech" VHF antenna (a single telescoping rod), I had no problems receiving them in East Providence. The problem is a lot of people were given bad information from stores like Best Buy, etc., that all digital TV signals are on UHF. And there are several antennas/pre-amps sold on the market that are great for picking up UHF only, but are terrible with VHF. Believe it or not, the old tried and true standard of rabbit ears works great. Our signal in Barrington is city grade and blankets Barrington without any trouble spots. (Believe me, viewers are very receptive and will call us if there are ANY problems...) So before we get blamed on here for having a bad signal, make sure your equipment is correct for VHF reception. (A VHF Hi antenna, the wire going from the antenna to the box is decent coax, and the box/tv set has a decent tuner in it.) Also in Barrington, you want to make sure you DON'T use a pre-amp. You can easily overload your signal from there with one and that can cause the signal to cut out. There are some tuners out there which are basically junk as well. I'll be more than happy if you want assistance with your setup to receive a better signal from us. You can email me if you wish, off list at kb1hwh 'at' gmail.com.
And back in February, after the "real" transition date, I drove around, all of Rhode Island, and parts of Southeastern Mass, measuring our signal using both a high end broadcast spectrum analyzer, and a $40 coupon converter box I bought off the shelf at Best Buy in Seekonk. Out in Western Foster on the CT line, our two signals (WPRI-DT/WNAC-DT) were the only two RI signals you could get from the main 6 stations. (WPXQ-DT comes in well there, as does Hartford, CT, I picked up WFSB-DT/WTIC-DT/WVIT-DT all from the location I was at there). And stopping in places such as Barrington, Johnston, Scituate, Smithfield, Jamestown, Newport, Westport even Swansea, I didn't detect a single problem with our signal, other than the usual RF limitations out in the furthest points (lack of height, poor antenna, etc).
I do agree that most people mistakenly bought UHF ONLY antennas. However I do find UHF to be more reception friendly. I have a TERK HDTVa indoor antenna. It handles both UHF and VHF. http://www.hdtvantennalabs.com/reviews/Terk-HDTVa-reviews.html
However even with this antenna I occasionally have drop outs of WPRI and WNAC. I also lost WHDH when it moved to VHF and I have never been able to get digital channel 10 from Boston.
I am glad to hear that you haven't had issues with VHF. Unfortunately the majority of people seem to have a different experience than you. Even those who use VHF antennas. The bottom line is that for some people VHF signals may be fine. But the signals on VHF sure seem to lack the power that UHF signals provide.
However even with this antenna I occasionally have drop outs of WPRI and WNAC. I also lost WHDH when it moved to VHF and I have never been able to get digital channel 10 from Boston.
I am glad to hear that you haven't had issues with VHF. Unfortunately the majority of people seem to have a different experience than you. Even those who use VHF antennas. The bottom line is that for some people VHF signals may be fine. But the signals on VHF sure seem to lack the power that UHF signals provide.
Remember the FCC said that stations that stayed on their original DTV allocation will get protection of that signal. Stations which moved back to their analog channels or chose another channel will not. That means those stations that moved would have to conform their signals, through lower power or directional antennas, so they wouldn't interfere with adjacent channels or other stations on the same channel that had a DTV allocation on that channel.
DTV channels can only be next to each other if they are at the same antenna farm or their transmitters are only a certain distance from one and other.
So simply by moving some stations would have a worse signal, not necessarily because they went to VHF but simply 'cause they had to conform their signal not to interfer.
DTV channels can only be next to each other if they are at the same antenna farm or their transmitters are only a certain distance from one and other.
So simply by moving some stations would have a worse signal, not necessarily because they went to VHF but simply 'cause they had to conform their signal not to interfer.
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necrat123
Guest
Skynet74 said:
I don't disagree with you John, except for the UHF is better part. I think there is definatley a need to look into the power levels of VHF DTV signals. However, I think that if you were to go through the cases where people are having issues with VHF high reception, you would find 75% of them are antenna and poor setup related.
From what I've seen UHF seems to be working a lot better in metro-urban-suburban areas, and VHF-HI is working better the more rural you go.
The bottom line is this, and I think you'll agree with me on this, that the FCC needs to re-look into the whole allocations process, including power levels, and see what can be done to help alleviate a lot of the issues that seem to have arisen in urban centers like Boston and New York.
Necrat said:
Don't know about the VHF-HI working better the more rural you go. After WHDH moved to 7, several people in the Providence area lost the station. I would say that Providence is pretty rural to Boston ;-) I even sent a letter to Ed Ansin's house because I wanted to make sure the Boss knew what was going on. He was nice enough to promptly send me an email letting me know that he was aware of the signal issues and that he wanted me to rescan my TV so I could get the station from their UHF allocation again.
You are correct about the FCC needing to look into this further. Especially power levels. They will do plenty of testing in the coming weeks and I am sure everything will ultimately be ok.
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