Blackburst,,,yup, it's a typo, the changover date is in feb, tues 17th, 09, ,,my mistake. My mind is still on vacation i guess. thanks for catching it.

Also, for a couple weeks before the feb 17th date, we are going to operate at reduced power in the aux antenna, so the main antenna and Tx can be re tuned for 22. Some of the effects may occur on 5.1 too, we share an antenna, so the combiner for them will change at the same time as ours. As we get into it i will try to give you guys a heads up on power levels and such.

Blackburst, some callers recognize the free OTA is enough to replace thier cable for thier needs, it's fun,,like a little lightbulb coming on over thier head.
Very fun, indeed.

After the snowstorm we got on Tuesday, I noticed that all of the Mt. Mansfield based stations seemed to come in very strong. Very strong. All except WVNY-DT which was down to zero on my signal strength meter.

Stupid questions... Do UHF signals travel better over terrian covered in snow? Is the opposite true for VHF signals?
i know vhf signals can be strange,and can travel far in special conditions. one time during a storm i was able to receive analog ch4 From Florida. which was very strange.

FraserR, do you know if wcax has any plans to add any more digital sub channels? such as RTN like some other American local channels have? would be a nice addition and a benefit to digital TV.

kool_105

I hope that WCAX-DT doesn't add another sub-channel. Right now, WCAX-DT seems to have the best balance between their main HD channel & their Sub-Channel. The compression seems to be very acceptable. You'll notice that the two PBS stations in the area (WCFE-DT & WETK-DT) offer more sub-channels, but the compression on fast moving or complex images make the channels sometimes un-watchable. Okay for talking PBS heads, or Children's cartoons, but anything more is problematic.

I would hope one of the other stations might add RTN. Perhaps WVNY-DT since they presently only have Color Bars on their secondary channel. That of course might not be great since most of us up here in Montreal can't get WVNY-DT.

I figure once the analogue shut down happens, most of theses stations will re-evaluate their channels, and more importantly re-evaluate their transmittion output.

Any news concerning WWBI-TV. What has hapened to this channel? Are they off air? Are they going to attempt to go Digital? I remember when they first went on air in the 90's I use to get the channel with an indoor antenna.

Also, Is WETK-DT applying to lower their output from 90kw to 25kw? I noticed something on the FCC TV Query site. Is that an old file or is this new. Do we risk loosing another Burlington station? I hope not.

This is from the December 1 2008 Edition:

http://www.fybush.com/NERW/2008/081201/nerw.html

The Burlington/Plattsburgh market also moved closer to having another full-power TV signal last week, as Jeffrey Loper's Twin Valleys Television buys WCWF (Channel 40) in Saranac Lake from Channel 61 Associates, LLC. That group is owned by Floyd Cox, Donald McElhone and WWBI TV Inc. (which owns WWBI-LP, channel 27 in Plattsburgh) - and there's an agreement in place among those partners that any sale over $1,000,000 requires the approval of only two of the three partners. From the paperwork submitted with the sale, it appears that McElhone and Cox signed off on the sale - for a non-coincidental $1,000,001 - without the approval of WWBI.

(WCWF, incidentally, is presently off the air after having operated, apparently briefly, in analog on channel 40; it tells the FCC it's building out a conversion to digital on the same channel.)

The Burlington/Plattsburgh market also moved closer to having another full-power TV signal last week, as Jeffrey Loper's Twin Valleys Television buys WCWF (Channel 40) in Saranac Lake from Channel 61 Associates, LLC. That group is owned by Floyd Cox, Donald McElhone and WWBI TV Inc. (which owns WWBI-LP, channel 27 in Plattsburgh) - and there's an agreement in place among those partners that any sale over $1,000,000 requires the approval of only two of the three partners. From the paperwork submitted with the sale, it appears that McElhone and Cox signed off on the sale - for a non-coincidental $1,000,001 - without the approval of WWBI.

(WCWF, incidentally, is presently off the air after having operated, apparently briefly, in analog on channel 40; it tells the FCC it's building out a conversion to digital on the same channel.)
I've read the document on the FCC and the deal is that WCWF become a broadcaster (Only) and Twin Valleys Television provide the content. i.e. They were ION affiliate but starting feb they will broadcast whatever Twin Valleys Television provide them. From the report they gave to the FCC it seem they will be ready to broadcast digital in feb and some of us might (Will be difficult) be able to pick-up their signal. (see TV-FOOL)

I ran several postal codes around the New York / Quebec border area that I know that are higher and TV FOOL give me a very low reading for WCWF (-107 dBm).

Even Malone NY give me about (-104 dBm).

I don't want to be negative but good luck to all.

I should have check the TV fool results before posting the article from fybush.com

Beloeil give me -121 dBm.

Intravino

Reply for Kool105 (post 783) As far as I know WCAX is committed to transmitting full blown HD, so adding services, if it would reduce the quality of our HD programming, is not likely.

Blackburst (post 784) I'm not aware of WETK lowering thier digital power, but they are in the building just up the hill, so what they are doing is not here where I can hear about it. I do know thier DT is a lot lower in power than thier old analog Tx here on mansfield. They have a bunch of Tx sites around the state, I guess they have the state covered, so less power from this site get's this area covered, and the other sites cover the other areas.

Tonight is the big analog blackout test for all the Vermont stations. During the test we will preempt program with a screen which will say if you see this screen,,,and you are not on cable or satellite, it is time to panic,,,oh wait,,not panic,,Act,,...time to act! and get a converter box. Thankfully they have set up a call center that does not involve me.

how did the blackout test go, did a lot of people call in confused? i can only imagine the amount of calls that must have went through.

:)ABC's WVNY-HD is showing up on 22.1 again; maybe they are remapping again???

:confused: As of this afternoon (Thursday 5:00 pm), WVNY HD 22.1 seems to be switched in wide zoom mode! The picture is streched and quite grainy

Don't know what probs u r experiencing but my ABC HD is normal and not grainy at all and yes 16.9 for the news right now.

OK just checked again and u r right some crap is going on on ABC HD and FOX HD as far as sizing, maybe some testing on their part but as far as reception all is normal and u don't get grainy on HD it's go or no go. Period.

As far as I know WCAX is committed to transmitting full blown HD

Fraser, can I ask a question on this topic?

My wife has mentioned that The Elen Degeneres show on CBS at 4 PM should be in HD but it isn't and I noticed since she's mentioned this that ET at 7:30 pm says it's broadcast in HD but that isn't either.

May I ask why this is?

Fraser, can I ask a question on this topic?

My wife has mentioned that The Elen Degeneres show on CBS at 4 PM should be in HD but it isn't and I noticed since she's mentioned this that ET at 7:30 pm says it's broadcast in HD but that isn't either.

May I ask why this is?
i can answer this, its due to the fact that as he said here http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=812240&postcount=630 there device is not able to record wide screen HD and they have one on order so should be able to output them in hd asap.

Something I noticed that Fraser mentioned:

My goodness...his wife watching CSI on CTV because it is earlier...that's just WRONG! ;) HD baby at 9PM on CBS for my wife and I!

Screw CTV in analog and I ain't paying cable/sat. companies for HD just because they are lagging in technology and the lack of foresight in the growing OTA market. (I keep seeing NEW channel master and yagi antennas popping up on people's roofs all over Montreal where people used to be REMOVING the old UHF/VHF antennas).

Fraser: Did FCC "approve your broadcast power output increase"? so that more viewers can enjoy CSI on Thursday's? ;)

quick note, we had a failure last night, WCAX DT is current at reduced power. we are working feverishly on it, with hope to be back to full power today. I hope to update with news of success before i leave this afternoon

With the snow coming this weekend, good luck!

Kool 105 the blackout test resulted in some calls here, the next day. People either missed the test or did not understand how it was supposed to work, so they called the next day and were routed to here. All the calls were long and confusing, because people who did not understand the test were the ones that really wanted to understand, but were starting from a place of not understanding anything about DTV at all.

Yuprules, we are hopeful the change to OTA ch 22, on feb 17 09, will result in better reception out there on the fringe.

Work is going well on fixing our current problem,,fingers crossed,,more later today.

Late this afternoon WCAX DT returned to full power. We beat the weather for the outside work, by a narrow margin. Once the inside work was done too, it took a few false starts, but the HPA finally came up. It seems some of these systems are a bit persnickity.