CBRT-DT is now 720p. The quailty of the signal is also not as good as before.

No noticeable change in signal strength over in Hillhurst/West Hillhurst.

Almost all Calgary stations are coming in strong for me (I live just off 130th Ave SE) with the exception of CTS. Does anyone know if that station's broadcast power is not at full strength yet?

UPDATE: Never mind, I moved my indoor antenna to a different spot and now everything is coming in strong :)

Regards,
Visor

Is CFRN down? Yesterday more breakups than usual, and today nothing, on the tv and on my pci card. Global on 13 is still fine.

CFRN is down. It disappeared around 8:50 tonight. It was fine (relatively speaking) up until then.

Yeah, CFRN is definitely down. Here's a nice screen cap from the spectrum analyzer, global on 13 is on the right, and a nice nothingness on 12 on the left!

http://www.ece.ualberta.ca/~hakman/cfrn/207mhz.gif

Hey, look, they're back, but easily 3dB down from Global on 13. Not sure if this is typical for them, as I never bothered to measure it before.

Also, don't look at the overall signal level on the spectrum analyzer as any good measurement. It's coming from a Gray-Hoverman antenna, which is not VHF to begin with, then through a 6dB tap (on the in and out ports, not the 6dB tap port) that I use in reverse as a combiner for my 2 QAM modulators, then to a 3 way 5.5dB splitter, and the spectrum analyzer itself is 50 ohm not 75. The overall measurement is pretty useless, but the relative difference between Global and CTV is interesting.

http://www.ece.ualberta.ca/~hakman/cfrn/12_back.gif

Oh, wow, that sure didn't last long, and now they're gone again! Must be having a real problem with something.

I noticed them down last night as well when I tried to tune in to the 11'oclock news. They were back on this morning for Canada AM. Some of the picture and sound breakups as of late I've noticed OTA, and others have reported as well, also happen on the Shaw feed, so its not just an issue with the OTA signal.

Interesting. In the past couple days I've been having numerous issues listed in my SageTV log about CFRN. Like not being able to detect a particular show and restarting the tuner 41 times in a row. I was starting to believe that I just needed a new antenna (but was puzzled on why the signal was going from "just fine" to "can't even detect it").

Heh, if CFRN-DT (12.1) didn't exist I would be 100% happy with my roof mounted RCA ANT751. Maybe I should just hold off pulling the trigger on new gear until this gets worked out. I keep thinking to myself "if my antenna is good enough for 13.1 it should be good enough for 12.1".

Because of some of the issues described earlier in this thread, I was starting to believe that maybe the "correct" answer to this problem would be to build a custom antenna that would be a relatively small design but optimized for picking up 12.1 and 13.1 specifically (as well as UHF). With both vertical and horizontal rabbit ears to work with the signal characteristics that MikeFM described this post (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1314145&postcount=518).

From the time I started watching (my first post, roughly 9:00) until I went to bed (at 2:00 after conan) they were up and down many many times. Good thing there's other channels to flip to, and just keep an eye on the spectrum analyzer when they disappear. Not sure what's going on today, haven't looked at all.

With my U8000 mounted on the chimney at the cabin south of the city I am getting everything from Edmonton, except CFRN.

With a folded dipole I made out of some old twin lead, nailed to the side of my cabin and the two antenna tied together with an archer cable splitter, I am now able to get CFRN, but I lose CBXFT and CTS.

If I can find a proper UHF VHF combiner with low loss somewhere locally in Edmonton or Calgary I'll try it, otherwise I'll run with 5 channels.

I have not had a reply to the email enquiry I sent to CFRN asking if they were having problems. Perhaps the recent up and downs are an indication they are trying to resolve some issues.

Wondering if any of you are seeing a pair of very thin, black lines cutting across the centre-bottom of the screen on Omni Calgary (CJCO-DT).
The top line is longer than the bottom line.
It is clearly evident to me when the test pattern is shown overnight, but it is also visible against light backgrounds when regular programming is being shown.
I don't see this on other channels, so I suspect there is an issue with the particular station.
Any thoughts?

I noticed small white lines sitting on the white part of the colorbars this morning at 5:30 am in north red deer.

They were blanks , perhaps for a title that was missing ??

This was on a 32" 2010 panasonic tv, perhaps your tv interperts the lines in black , instead of white ?

Hi,
I seem to be having trouble receiving CKAL (CityTV) in Douglasdale and wondering if anyone else is receiving it. I can receive CFCN, CKCS, CICT, CJCO, and CBRT without trouble but can't get CKAL.

TVFool indicates an indoor antenna is sufficient for me and my bowtie antenna is working fine for the other channels. TVFool also indicates that CKAL should be one of the stronger signals I receive. rabbitears.info indicates that CKAL is running.

Is anyone else getting CKAL?

FYI, I'm using a hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 as a tuner, if that makes a difference?

Thanks!

Everything OK at 7:40 am in Signal Hill. In fact CKAL (5-1) is the strongest of the 7 OTA channels [2-1, 4-1, 5-1, 9-1, 16 (analog) 32-1 and 38-1]. I'm LOS (line-of-sight) at 2.9 miles from the CBC tower with an indoor Stealth Hawk, version 14-52.


Another question for all: is CFCN (CTV network) on 4-1 (real 29-1) going to increase power sometime ? My reading of Industry Canada list seems to indicate that they're operating at about half of their approved strength. I'm 1 Edge (hill) on the TV Fool, but at only 2.4 miles distant, should be coming thru gangbusters. Of the other two signals on the same CTV tower 38 (Omni) comes in stronger, and CTS (Christian TV) comes in about the same or slightly weaker than CTV.

DMcK,

I'm just south of you (Cranston), and I receive CKAL no problem with a simple indoor antenna. It's the strongest signal I receive. Sometimes just moving the antenna slightly makes all the difference if there is a path issue. Also using a Hauppauge by the way.

Hi, thanks for the responses. So I moved my antenna a few times and finally received the station...but CJCO disappeared. I found that odd given that they are on the same tower. Looking a bit deeper I see that they use the same Transport Stream ID. I'm guessing MediaPortal, the media centre program I use, doesn't like that. And I'm having trouble adding it manually to my list of channels. Off to the MP site...

For you folks experiencing reception difficulties with CBRT-DT (CBC Calgary), I just received an email that station's Director of Transmission Operations:

"CBRT-DT Calgary is still running transitional parameters, that being ch 21 with 1.8 Kw of transmitter power. Our final parameters will be Ch 16 with about 12 Kw of transmitter power. <snip>

The reason we are not at final parameters is that ch 16 is still in use by our CBRFT French analog service. That service is expected to run for 1 more year. When channel 16 is clear, it will be repurposed for our full power English digital service."


So I wouldn't feel too badly if the reception is spotty -- CBC Calgary is running at far less than their mandated EIRP. I just wish that CBRT would update its website to advise all of us OTA folks about the transition situation.

Tim (frustrated) :(

Hi, thanks for the responses. So I moved my antenna a few times and finally received the station...but CJCO disappeared. I found that odd given that they are on the same tower. Looking a bit deeper I see that they use the same Transport Stream ID. I'm guessing MediaPortal, the media centre program I use, doesn't like that. And I'm having trouble adding it manually to my list of channels. Off to the MP site...

I wish I would have seen this post earlier.

If you still haven't solved your issue, I have a bit of a work around.

I found with MP a channel will scan in and update an existing one instead of reporting it as new. So until they resolve this issue I have done the following.
I should note that I have never had this problem with the OTA channels, but it happens frequently when I am scanning FTA channels on my DVB-S cards.

First I use the backup settings plugin for TV server ( I run a dedicated server with seperate clients) and do a fresh export of all my data.

Once my exisiting channel data is backed up, I will do a scan. In this example, let's say that I only have 6 OTA channels in my channel list and I am missing CKAL. When I do a new scan I should have 6 channels found as updated and 1 channel found as new. Instead you will see as it's progressing that it will find 7 freqs but when the scan is done it will say that it only found 6 channels as updated. You need to look at your channel list to figure out which on has been overridden. In your case you already know that CJCO was updated with the CKAL tunning parameters.

Do an import in backup settings to set your channels back to the way they were before the corrupt scan. Go to the channels window in TV server and highlight the channel (CJCO). Click edit to bring up the edit channel window. In the tunning details section, highlight the channel and click edit to bring up the Add/Edit ATSC Tunningdetails window.
In the fields for Transport ID, Service ID, and PMT PID, add a number to the begining of the values in each of the three fields such as 9.
So for examle, the transport ID of 16405 is now 916405.

Rescan. It should now list some channels found as updated and 1 new channel for CKAL. Now go back into the edit/add tunningdetails window and undo the changes you made to CJCO.
You should have all the channels now and you can back up your channel settings.

I am in Somerset and I am using a home made antenna in my attic with a channel master pre-amp, MP tv server 1.2.1, and 3 HVR1650's for OTA.
I have all the Calgary channels coming in at close to 100% with the exception of CBRT at high 80s.