MystryBkwrm

MystryBkwrm

I'm near Riverside and I lost all the KABC stations. I have a UHF/VHF antenna. I get CBS & NBC & KTLA fine and everything 18 & above but nothing from 7 - 13.

MystryBkwrm

i checked my TV menu & it's reading 'antenna" rather than "cable" but that doesn't change my reception problems. I guess I'll just have to be patient & keep rescanning.

Don_M

Sorry about the delay, Mystery, but apparently you had us all stumped there for a while! If you were getting watchable analog broadcasts from those stations before June 12, digital should be OK as well. As you may know, all four of those DTV stations are back on their VHF assignments, and the LA stations' migrations from temporary UHF channel assignments have caused a lot of headaches. There's a more comprehensive re-scanning procedure that may resolve this issue:

* Completely detach the antenna coax cable from the converter box or TV.

* Scan for channels. You won't get anything, and that's the point: This will help erase the tuner's memory. Sometimes, the pre-transition channel assignments (which were different from the displayed channel number for these stations) get "stuck," and regular scanning doesn't remove this information.

* When the scan is complete, pull the tuner's power plug from the outlet. Wait at least five minutes.

* Plug the power cord back in, and re-attach the antenna cable.

* Re-scan for channels a second time.

This steps need to be performed on every DTV tuner in the house. Good luck, and let us know how it goes. We'll try to respond more promptly next time. Promise!

MystryBkwrm

It was weird that i got 7 - 13 digital the morning of June 12 but not that evening. I rescanned and got nothing. I figured I'd lost access to those stations. I did read the responses below, particularly the one about unplugging the antenna and rescanning. I thought, before I started unplugging things, I'd do a channel scan again on my TV. Well, in addition to a bunch of foreign-language stations, I now am able to receive 7 - 13. I didn't have to unplug anything.
I have one 27" digital TV I bought a few months ago after i'd tried hooking up a digital converter box and ended up running out of outlets behind my entertainment center and having three remotes. The antenna on my roof has been there for over 15 years. The coax cable was split to connect to two TVs, one about 15' from the antenna, the other 50' from the antenna. That's the one that remains, the 50'.
Considering that I don't watch all that much TV (certainly not enough to justify paying for cable or dish - although I really like the History & Discovery channels), I am pleased that digital CBS signal is so much clearer than the analog CBS signal. That's the only station that I've really noticed any difference in appearance although I did notice that analog volume was much louder than digital volume. I have set my TV sound anywhere between 30 - 45 where the analog sound was good at 25. I also only use the speakers in the TV set.

Thank you for your reply.

MystryBkwrm

My antenna is probably 20' off the ground and roughly 15' long. It's attached to the back of my mobile home. There's also a router on it but that stopped working years ago. It's pointed in the general direction of the W282 that most of the stations transmit from (a couple are at 281). I have no way to adjust the antenna or check where it's aimed at except visually from the ground. I don't even know what brand it is except that my late husband probably bought it either at Sears or Radio Shack in the early 90s.

Don_M

Glad to hear it! You probably have an RS VU-190 or VU-210 antenna. Purists like to sniff at them, but they've kept a lot of people very satisfied for very long periods of time.

You don't need to do a thing from the sound of it, but I'd like to offer a little bit of advice for the future: If reception ever starts to deteriorate on all or most of your channels and at both TVs, replace the coax transformer on the antenna and the coax cable leading from the transformer to inside your home. At 15 years old, the outside cable is pretty much at the end of its useful life. It can be replaced inexpensively, if not all that easily.