alrightypewriter

Piggie

Depends where you live. If you are fringe or suburban and require an external antenna for UHF, then you need one that is directional. But a lot of markets in the US have moved (long before transition) to a single area. Those lucky enough to live in those towns don't need rotors. They just point at the antenna farm.

Now if you are urban near the towers to near suburban, more than likely you have better luck indoor with UHF than VHF. UHF penetrates window openings in a structure better than VHF due to it's shorter wave length. Many people have noticed this when a station went VHF high band and they lost it using rabbit ears, where their rabbit ears loop did work on VHF before. In these cases the people need a VHF outdoor antenna more so than UHF.

There is not absolute on antennas, it just about comes down to a location by location process.

No, the stations the OP lost were stations that moved from UHF to VHF. He need better VHF antenna maybe outside or wait until they can get permission and complete construction on those two stations raising their power.

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The more I understand, the less I know.

Piggie

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. It's happening all over the US and the stations are saying very little about it. One would think they would talk about it.

Falcon_77 over on the AVS forum has been calling it the "Hidden Transition". because it was digital to digital move and not required by the FCC to announce it to the public.

It is the same thing is why didn't TV stations be more vocal to tell viewers years ago they were already digital. Not that June 12th was a drop dead date. It led many to believe they had to wait till the transition to pick up digital. Where in fact June 12th was the last day of analog, not the first day of digital.

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CptlA

hehe totally joking here but, it might be time for mr know it all might to change his member name here.

bicker

WHDH 7.1 on VHF 7 in Boston has gotten an emergency authorization from the FCC to reactivate their signal on UHF 42, due to how many complaints they have received from folks who have been unable to tune in their miserly-powered VHF signal. The FCC and Sunbeam are working together towards a more permanent solution. Maybe that bozo who owns that station will realize that he needs to use enough electricity so that his viewers actually can tune in his channel, in order for them to watch his programming.

cvoptimus

I actually contacted KTTV to let them know that although I am right in their line of sight, I have lost the signal for their station and its affiliate KCOP. I was told that they have heard from many people and they are working to boost their signals.
So, there appears to be some hope of regaining these channels. I will try rescanning in a few weeks. Anyone else in the area have anything to add?

1inxs

Thanks! for taking the time to update us on the problem.

Piggie

You did the right thing calling the station. They get negative feedback and enough of it they work harder. But remember in some thread around here I posted that KCOP has been authorized by the FCC to construct 120 KW, being one of the strongest high band VHFs in the country. Now KTTV is in a waiting game. They applied to the FCC for 115KW (also incredibly strong for VHF) but to date I have not seen their approval for their application.

The "Hidden Transition" has raised it's ugly head in many places, including Windows Media center.

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The more I understand, the less I know.

HTNut

if only it were just that station. Seems to be ALL of the UHF to VHF converts.

Piggie

WHDH 7.1 on VHF 7 in Boston was told by the FCC engineering specs (done by a private engineering group but to FCC standards) their VHF contour would extend 55 miles compared to the temp UHF that was only 50.

So it's good that both Sunbeam Television and the FCC are involved. It was a mutual mistake. The FCC lead station owners to believe they didnt need the power per contour maps. If you a 25KW going up to 50KW they expand their contour about 5 miles tops. But if you live in the outer half of that contour, you know 25 was not enough power. But not seeing that big a difference in range on the maps, they owners said fine, a 25 KW transmitter is cheaper to buy and run. What they forgot was they were not saturating the contour they had with enough signal.

It will be interesting to see the final result.

Here is their STA application if that interests anyone
CDBS Print

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The more I understand, the less I know.