WUOA-DT 6

[ALRocker]

I know this is a radio board, but here goes. Does anyone know when they are signing on? They seem to have a big coverage area. Any ideas if their programming will change. Thanks. Also, it's seems strange not to hear Fox 6 on 87.7 anymore.

 

[whit979]

If they have not already done so, I would imagine that it will happen within the next few hours or days. Also, it still remains to be seen whether or not they will identify themselves on-air as "Channel 6". Word I had from a source within Birmingham TV said that they would, thus forcing WBRC into the position of whether or not they would continue to ID as Fox 6. With the recent trend of Fox stations starting to identify themselves as MyFox [City], it might be a possibility, unless someone can confirm otherwise.

 

[Nate Wesley]

If they have not already done so, I would imagine that it will happen within the next few hours or days. Also, it still remains to be seen whether or not they will identify themselves on-air as "Channel 6". Word I had from a source within Birmingham TV said that they would, thus forcing WBRC into the position of whether or not they would continue to ID as Fox 6. With the recent trend of Fox stations starting to identify themselves as MyFox [City], it might be a possibility, unless someone can confirm otherwise.

I wouldn't think Raycom wants to pay for a re-branding if they don't have to. If the PSIP agreement maps WBRC to channel '6', then the digital WUOA is going to map to 23 (even though they'll actually be on 6).

 

[w9wi]

If they have not already done so, I would imagine that it will happen within the next few hours or days. Also, it still remains to be seen whether or not they will identify themselves on-air as "Channel 6". Word I had from a source within Birmingham TV said that they would, thus forcing WBRC into the position of whether or not they would continue to ID as Fox 6. With the recent trend of Fox stations starting to identify themselves as MyFox [City], it might be a possibility, unless someone can confirm otherwise.

WUOA can call themselves channel 6 if they want, but you're going to have to punch 23 on your remote to watch them.

(unless they feel like violating FCC regulations, which require a DTV station to remap to its old analog channel. That said, violations are not unheard-of.)

For the same reason, WBRC is required to remap as channel 6.

 

[Chad-Stevens]

WUOA is on the air right now in fact, on RF channel 6 and branding as 23. WBRC signed off its analog around noon and presumably WUOA took over then. (Did you re-scan your channels?)

They were showing a test message last night, but now they are showing reruns of Alabama football on 23.1 and 23.2

They have audio-only feeds on 23.3 and 23.4 Does anyone know where those audio feeds originate from?

I can't get a digital signal from ABC33/40, WPXA 44, or WTJP 60 to note what they did.

And while we're on the subject of Central Alabama TV, what are the low-powers doing?

• WBXA-CA 2 - Can anyone confirm whether this station still exists? I used to get a faint analog signal from them but haven't seen it in years
• WBUN-CA 24 (Daystar) - Still on in analog
• W34BI (HSN) - Still on in analog, though I noticed the call letters on screen yesterday
• W46DK (TBN) - Still on in analog
• W47DC (Way TV) - No signal. I was getting their analog yesterday. Did they flash cut to digital? Their website hasn't been updated in months.
• WBMA-LP 58 (ABC) - I can't get either of ABC 33/40's digital signals so I was hoping this will go digital. As best I can tell, its still on in analog

 

[ALRocker]

I'm on cable here in Cullman, so I doubt they'll add UOA to the line up, unless it falls under the must carry rule. As for the LPs, I think they have a year or so to go digital. I have no info on any of the ones you mentioned. Ch. 60, 44, and 33/40 all pixate some here and like I said I'm on cable, so I bet they'd be real bad on a regular roof top antenna set up.

 

[tomservo]

Chad if you find out some more info on those subchannels of WUOA I'd appreciate it if you'd pass them on. I can add the info to my website.

I've heard that WBXA-CA 2 is still on, highly directional to the north, carrying MTV2. Last I'd heard anything about them was probably early last year. WBMA-LP has a permit to go digital on channel 11, but I haven't heard anything about that in a long time.

I noticed that WCFT is supposed to drop their VHF channel to go back to 33; perhaps with them on UHF and WJSU sticking to VHF they think the coverage in town will be sufficient?

I imagine their relocation is part of a scheme to get put on more cable headends in the Birmingham metro. LPTV channel 7 will continue to serve Tuscaloosa, as far as I know. WUOA is carried on DirecTV and Dish, and all day yesterday was off with a slide noting the DTV transision was occurring and the station was temporarily unavailable.

 

[w9wi]

And while we're on the subject of Central Alabama TV, what are the low-powers doing?

• WBXA-CA 2 - Can anyone confirm whether this station still exists? I used to get a faint analog signal from them but haven't seen it in years

Has a permit to go digital on channel 12 with 300 watts from the same site as the analog.

• WBUN-CA 24 (Daystar) - Still on in analog

Has a permit to move to channel 24 and roughly double power, but no apparent plans to go digital.

• W34BI (HSN) - Still on in analog, though I noticed the call letters on screen yesterday

Has a permit to move to channel 14, later superceded by one to increase power to 30kw but remain on channel 34. Nothing digital.

• W46DK (TBN) - Still on in analog

Has a permit to go digital on channel 31 with 2kw from the same site as the analog.

• W47DC (Way TV) - No signal. I was getting their analog yesterday. Did they flash cut to digital? Their website hasn't been updated in months.

Has a permit to make the analog move to channel 47 permanent (W47DC is a Special Temporary Authority) with 38.6kw, but nothing digital.

• WBMA-LP 58 (ABC) - I can't get either of ABC 33/40's digital signals so I was hoping this will go digital. As best I can tell, its still on in analog

Has a permit to convert to digital on channel 11 with 300 watts.

_________________________________________________

As for the LPs, I think they have a year or so to go digital.

The FCC hasn't yet set a deadline for LPTVs. I suppose it could be as soon as a year, but I think 2-3 is more likely.

It could become a moot point. I don't think most viewers are going to be willing to switch between digital and analog. LPTVs are going to have to convert or die. financially.

 

[Chad-Stevens]

Chad if you find out some more info on those subchannels of WUOA I'd appreciate it if you'd pass them on. I can add the info to my website.

I've heard that WBXA-CA 2 is still on, highly directional to the north, carrying MTV2. Last I'd heard anything about them was probably early last year. WBMA-LP has a permit to go digital on channel 11, but I haven't heard anything about that in a long time.

I noticed that WCFT is supposed to drop their VHF channel to go back to 33; perhaps with them on UHF and WJSU sticking to VHF they think the coverage in town will be sufficient?

I imagine their relocation is part of a scheme to get put on more cable headends in the Birmingham metro. LPTV channel 7 will continue to serve Tuscaloosa, as far as I know. WUOA is carried on DirecTV and Dish, and all day yesterday was off with a slide noting the DTV transision was occurring and the station was temporarily unavailable.

UPDATES:
W47DC is back on in analog. I get a reliable signal from them, so when I couldn't receive anything yesterday they had to be off the air or at greatly reduced power. I did hear a mention on WGIB a few months back during one of their pledge breaks that they were raising money to convert WayTV to digital, and that it would extend their signal range in doing so, but didn't specify a transition date or channel. Can anyone confirm if their translator on ch. 15 in Alabaster is on? I worked in Alabaster and could never get a signal from them.

I found the sweet spot on the rabbit ears that will get WJSU or RF ch. 9, by raising the rabbit ears and sticking it up on a curtain rod by the window and positioning ever so precisely. Whew! Just don't stand too close to the antenna or... I'm less than 3 miles from WBMA's transmitter and figure I should be getting some sort of signal from them.

The WUOA audio feeds on 23.3 and 23.4 are two different feeds. 23.3 is WUAL-Alabama Public Radio. 23.4 is XPoNential Radio from WXPN-Philadelphia. (What? Can't 90.7-The Capstone get some love and a subchannel?)

 

[WBGR FM 93.1]

Since I know there's one more person besides me on here thats from the Cullman area, I thought I would bring this up... WCQT Channel 27. What are their DTV plans? I read they have 18,000 watts, but I think they have the worst signal of any of the LP's. I live 15 miles from Cullman and i can barely pick them up on an outside antenna, but am able to get 34 and 47, and after the other night transition was able to hear some religous station on 33. Does anyone know why 27's sgnal is so terrible?

Travis

 

[w9wi]

Since I know there's one more person besides me on here thats from the Cullman area, I thought I would bring this up... WCQT Channel 27. What are their DTV plans? I read they have 18,000 watts, but I think they have the worst signal of any of the LP's. I live 15 miles from Cullman and i can barely pick them up on an outside antenna, but am able to get 34 and 47, and after the other night transition was able to hear some religous station on 33. Does anyone know why 27's sgnal is so terrible?

Travis

WCQT's licensed analog power is 16,000 watts.

They have a permit for digital operation on channel 38 with 2,000 watts. (same site as the analog)

Trinity Broadcasting Network has an 11,000-watt station on channel 33 in Decatur.

 

[tomservo]

Can anyone confirm if their translator on ch. 15 in Alabaster is on? I worked in Alabaster and could never get a signal from them.

I know for a fact it was on a couple of years ago, but it didn't cover anything even remotely close to what the FCC's contour map shows. I got completely lost all up and down a bunch of dirt roads hunting for the TX site one night a few years back. Had a portable TV with me and even when I got as close as I could, it was never strong enough to decode in color, but it was definitely a relay of Way TV at the time. The coordinates show it being right on Fulton Lake Road just east of where 31 and 65 cross but I went up and down that road and never saw anything sticking out of the hilly forests...

The WUOA audio feeds on 23.3 and 23.4 are two different feeds. 23.3 is WUAL-Alabama Public Radio. 23.4 is XPoNential Radio from WXPN-Philadelphia. (What? Can't 90.7-The Capstone get some love and a subchannel?)

Hmm, I had someone tell me 23.3 was rock of some sort, earlier, and that 23.4 was off. Maybe they're switching them around? I agree that putting 90.7 on a subchannel would be kinda cool. That XPoNential Radio is on WUAL's HD-2 if I'm not mistaken.

 

[WBGR FM 93.1]

... but am able to get 34 and 47, and after the other night transition was able to

I made one mistake on my previous post.... I said I was able to get channel 47. I meant channel 46, the TBN station in Tuscaloosa

Btw.... If WCQT in Cullman moves from 16KW at ch 27 to 2KW at Channel 38, and at their current transmitter site, isnt that going to make their coverage less than desirable than it is already?

Travis

 

[Poledo]

Sap Up!

Hmm, I had someone tell me 23.3 was rock of some sort, earlier, and that 23.4 was off. Maybe they're switching them around? I agree that putting 90.7 on a subchannel would be kinda cool. That XPoNential Radio is on WUAL's HD-2 if I'm not mistaken.

Back in the analog days, many PBS and some commercial TV stations carried a radio station on their SAP channel. Can this be done with DTV? Does SAP still exist in the DTV world? Could a station broadcast 5 TV feeds and 5 radio/audio only feeds on the SAP channels. I know WRJM-TV out of Troy carried WRJM-FM out of Geneva (Dothan) on the SAP, which extended it's coverage area into the majority of the Montgomery market. Also, WFSU-TV in Tallahassee, FL carried WFSU-FM on the SAP.

This statement dropped an interesting idea into my head... could a TV station's SAP be used to feed a translator in the commercial band?

 

[Chad-Stevens]

Hmm, I had someone tell me 23.3 was rock of some sort, earlier, and that 23.4 was off. Maybe they're switching them around? I agree that putting 90.7 on a subchannel would be kinda cool. That XPoNential Radio is on WUAL's HD-2 if I'm not mistaken.

As of right this moment, the subs are as I listed them with WUAL on .3 and XPoNential on .4.

Did WJSU-40 (9) raise power? I'm having a lot less trouble this morning receiving their signal than over the weekend? There was a DTV information table set up at a local department store and I asked the guy if anyone else seemed to be having trouble receiving 33/40. He said that about 90% of the people he had spoke to had that exact problem and that the FCC and the station were very aware of the problem.

 

[w9wi]

Re: Sap Up!

Back in the analog days, many PBS and some commercial TV stations carried a radio station on their SAP channel. Can this be done with DTV? Does SAP still exist in the DTV world?

WMVS-DT (PBS) in Milwaukee is doing it. They're running two radio stations - a classical music station and an jazz station - both automated.

It isn't really SAP as such, it's a subchannel.

This statement dropped an interesting idea into my head... could a TV station's SAP be used to feed a translator in the commercial band?

A year ago I'd say "no way". But now, with analog translators relaying stations' HD-2 and HD-3 programs, I wouldn't be surprised if they allowed relaying TV sound.....

 

[tomservo]

Besides having audio only subchannels, I'm pretty sure that the video channel can carry multiple alternate audio feeds as well, probably 3 or more. Of course I haven't seen anyone do that yet. I know WBRC used to carry NOAA and Spanish translated audio of certain Fox shows - do they still do that on digital?

 

[w9wi]

Besides having audio only subchannels, I'm pretty sure that the video channel can carry multiple alternate audio feeds as well, probably 3 or more. Of course I haven't seen anyone do that yet. I know WBRC used to carry NOAA and Spanish translated audio of certain Fox shows - do they still do that on digital?

Yep, there may be multiple audio feeds associated with any given program. I'm not sure what the limit is - probably 99.

 

[Poledo]

Sap Up! again

Your replies all mention TV stations carrying seperate audio programs on sub channels but not using the old SAP (Second Audio Program?). Why didn't TV stations ever take advantage of the SAP option? I think they intended it to be used to carry Spanish audio for the English language TV shows. I have never seen it used this way. Was Spanish audio carried on the SAP in markets like Los Angeles?

WSRE used SAP to carry a reading service for the blind for at least the last 10 years. WRJM-TV used it to simulcast WRJM-FM into Montgomery. WFSU-TV simulcast WFSU-FM. WCTV ran a 5 minute loop created by the weather guy every morning and sometimes would have live weather audio durring severe conditions while leaving the "regular" programming alone on the main audio channel (in analog days).
Does the new DTV equipment have the SAP feature? I can see where the viewer would have a much easier time finding an audio only program on 23.3 than having to push the SAP button on 23.1, but is the bandwidth and "feature" still available to engineers and TV stations to use? Would adding an extra audio sub channel (ie. 23.3) take up the same amount of bandwidth as a SAP on the main channel, thus making SAP useless if it still exists?

Hypothetical question: If a DTV station, carrying only one SD TV channel, wanted to add audio only channels to fill up the extra DTV bandwidth, how many 128kb audio sub channels could they squeeze in?

Has anyone in the US created a "radio" station on a DTV signal yet?

 

[tomservo]

poledo, I've heard of some cable systems using the SAP channel for alternate language tracks, but the biggest user is probably the satellite broadcasters. I know DirecTV offers alt audio on several channels, like Lifetime, TBS, TCM, HBO, Showtime and others. At one time Bloomberg offered two alternate feeds: one was market reports I think, and the other 1160 Bloomberg Radio from NYC. As I said before Fox 6 used to use theirs to relay NOAA weather radio audio and also offered Spanish on some shows like Cops. NBC 13 had it on but never used it, it just mirrored the main channel. WBIQ used to run the Alabama Radio Reading Service and DVS (Descriptive Video Service) audio for some public programs.

I don't know how extensively analog broadcasters utilized the SAP feature but I do know that a lot of programs on the networks were available both with Spanish on the SAP and Spanish closed captioning on the second captioning channel.

It's a shame the feature wasn't utilized more, but that may change with the new digital scheme. Subchannels and Alternate Audio channels have replaced SAP since there can now be more than one alternate channel. The cableco here where I live doesn't broadcast a single analog cable channel in stereo much less offer SAP; none of the local broadcasters ever upgraded to stereo sound for their analog transmissions, although at one time MPB public TV was in stereo from Oxford, but it got turned off at some point I think.

I imagine a ton of good quality audio feeds can be sent over one digital channel. Going back to my local cableco, they're matrixing TEN standard definition TV channels and 15-18 audio channels on one digital channel according to my TV. Since a cable channel is the same bandwidth as a broadcast channel, I imagine the results could be about the same if they're using the same encoding scheme. In the real world, though, I've yet to see more than 5 SD channels grouped together, or two 720p HD feeds at once, looking as bad you imagine.

Edit to add: I just read an editorial in this morning's Skyreport of a dissatisfied DTV customer in the DC area. That person mentioned that one station in the area is running 10 SD subchannels. Ouch.