TiVo Community Forums Archives - Atlanta: OTA channels and guides

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Atlanta: OTA channels and guides
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Posted by: daperlman

Does anyone else in Georgia have their HR10-250 setup. This is my situation. According to DTV-ATLANTA these are what I get: I have heard about guide data being on different channels than the video and audio... is this the case with any of these. Does it mess up recordings? I notice some wierd channels like for upn 63-1,63-2,63-3,63-4?

quote:

AnalogChannel
Station
Network Digital
Channel DTV
On-air date
2 WSB ABC 39 Now
5 WAGA FOX 27 Now
8 WGTV PBS 22 May 2003
11 WXIA NBC 10 Now
14 WPXA PAX 51 Now
17 WTBS TBS 20 Now
30 WPBA PBS 21 October 2002
34 WHOT Ind 48 Unknown
36 WATL WB 25 Now
46 WGCL CBS 19 Now
69 WUPA UPN 43 Now

Posted by: dwester42a

Don't have my tivo yet, but... 63-X is pax tv out of Rome... As far as the rest. 2,5, 11, 17,36 are all sending the right channel remapping (2-1, 5-1, 5-2, 11-1, 17-1, 17-2 and 36-1). CBS doesn't (still 19-1) - ditto with upn(but they only transmit enterprise in hdtv and the paramount movie package).

PBS probably won't be coming on this year. Last I heard was that they were trying to find the money to have all of their georgia stations start transmitting digitally at the same time.

Posted by: daperlman

quote:
Originally posted by dwester42a
Don't have my tivo yet, but... 63-X is pax tv out of Rome... As far as the rest. 2,5, 11, 17,36 are all sending the right channel remapping (2-1, 5-1, 5-2, 11-1, 17-1, 17-2 and 36-1). CBS doesn't (still 19-1) - ditto with upn(but they only transmit enterprise in hdtv and the paramount movie package).

PBS probably won't be coming on this year. Last I heard was that they were trying to find the money to have all of their georgia stations start transmitting digitally at the same time.

My CBS is mapping to 46-1. So I think even that is working :)

Posted by: daperlman

My first recording...

Posted by: tfederov

*sniff* It's beautiful, dude.... you must feel very proud. One day Ma and I would like to get one of our own....

Seriously, I envy ya. It's gonna be a while until we get one of our own. I have a while to figure out what I'm gonna record first... probably The Sopranos.

Posted by: Gromit

I don't have my channel listing in front of me, but I think I have these enabled:

2 WSB ABC 39
5 WAGA FOX 27
8 WGTV PBS 22 - Not sure, I may have disabled this.
11 WXIA NBC 10
17 WTBS TBS 20
30 WPBA PBS 21 - Probably not (likely disabled).
36 WATL WB 25
46 WGCL CBS 19
69 WUPA UPN 43

Posted by: tsbrady1

Any of you guys having problems getting 46, I put a CM4228 in my attic in Jan, and got a great signal through the 1st week in April, when I went to watch the golf tournament last weekend back to the pre 4228 horrible reception, all other channels are fine, I live in Sugar Hill, probably 35-40 miles from the towers. I know they are not broadcasting at full strenght but have they cut back more?

Posted by: kdonnel

quote:
Originally posted by tsbrady1
Any of you guys having problems getting 46

I live in Buford and have a 4228 in my attic with a pre-amp.

My reception definitly depends on the season.

When the leaves are fully in, falling off, or completely gone I get everything except CBS(46).

While the leaves are coming in I DO get CBS(46) but lose 5(FOX).

Luckily I managed to qualify for channels 80 and 81(CBS HD from DirecTV) and DirecTV has already announced they will be offering FOX-HD soon. (Atlanta will qualify to receive FOX-HD). That takes care of my two problem stations.

Now if the fools at NBC(WXIA-11) can just be counted on to flip the switch when HD shows are on I will be set.

Posted by: Darin

I don't yet have an HD-TiVo, but with my Samsung TS160, I have several channels that don't have guide data (FOX, NBC, and CBS). But others are getting it, so I assume it's an issue with the way my receiver is dealing with the PSIP signals on those channels... for some reason it's not identifying those channels as what they are. I don't get any weird sub-channels for UPN, just the main one.

But I do get good signals on everything except PAX (not even a trace of a signal on that, but nothing lost there). I live near Little Five Points.

Posted by: DixonJDixon

Darin: I read a while back about your adventures with getting a good OTA antenna. Since you and I are both roughly in the same place - you're in IP and I'm in Va-Hi, what suggestions do you have for buying and hooking up an antenna?

Any help avoiding the mess you had to go through would be greatly appreciated!

Posted by: DEP78

kdonnel -

I live in Lawrenceville and also have difficulties with 46 despite having a monster antenna and pre-amp in my attic.

How did you qualify for the east coast Directv feed? Was it difficult?

Thanks,

DEP

Posted by: Hood7

I'm also in Atlanta, and fairly close to the towers. My house is fairly well elevated on a hill, with no trees/structures to block reception. I'm near LaVista/Clairmont intersection. I was hoping that when I do get my HD-Tivo, I'd be able to just use a SilverSensor or other indoor antenna to get the OTAs. But hearing that folks in places like Little5, Va.Highlands and Inman Park (all pretty close to the towers also) are using outdoor antennas makes me wonder. Have you guys tried indoor antennas at your locations, or did you just go with outdoor antennas from the get-go?

I know the standard (and valid) advice is for me to go ahead and try various antennas to see what works best, but I was just wondering if you'd had any Atlanta experience to relate regarding SilverSensor, the DoubleBowTie, or other indoor models. Thanks!

Posted by: Darin

Dixon, despite our relative closeness (probably about three miles), our issues are going to be different (though similar). My problem is, I've got stations all around me in all directions, and being so close to downtown and other objects, an omnidirectional antenna is not a good choice due to multi-path. The best place to start is to go to antennaweb and look at the directions of all the towers relative to your address. This is what mine looks like:

http://home.comcast.net/~dscline/Shared/digitalmap.gif

For you, I'd expect the stations that are north of me to be most east of you, as those are off briarcliff (Fox, CBS, 17, 36, etc.). ABC and UPN will probably be due south to you. NBC will probably be SSW, but that's VHF, so depending on what antenna you get, it may be a separate antenna (being upper VHF, channel 10, some UHF antennas will pick it up.

Once you get the map, it's easier to figure out what to do. Depending on how far apart, in degrees, the furthest north tower is (19, which I think is CBS) to UPN/ABC, you may be able to get them all with one antenna pointed more towards the NBC tower. But it will have to be one with a fairly wide reception pattern. A Silver Sensor might even do it, as it has a pretty wide reception pattern. That's a cheap, easy thing to try first. Like me, you are lucky in that you are relative close to all the towers. Our problem is, we are so close, they are in all different directions.

Posted by: Darin

quote:
Originally posted by Hood7
I was just wondering if you'd had any Atlanta experience to relate regarding SilverSensor, the DoubleBowTie, or other indoor models. Thanks!

As you can see fromthe map above, I'm near L5P. I'm using a Winegard PR4400 mounted on a mast on my roof, pointed north. This gets all the towers up Briacliff, as well as ABC to the NW of me (near the Carter Center). I also have a VHF antenna pointed East, to get NBC, and also PBS (8/12) when it goes live (if it ever stops getting postponed). Those two are joined with a VHF/UHF joiner. The combined signal comes in to my attic, where it is then joined with a JoinTenna tuned for UPN, which is received with the rat shack double-bowtie in my attic aimed at that tower, to the southwest of me (off of I-20).

Initially I tried getting UPN with just the roof antennas, as it's direction to me appeared to be perfect to get in via one of the rear lobes of the PR4400's reception pattern, but no dice. Nada. Zip. The double-bowtie aimed specifically at UPN's tower solved that, but introduced a new problem... the frequencies of UPN and ABC are close enough that the jointenna doesn't do enough filtering of ABC, which is VERY strong for my location. I'm significantly attenuating the input of the double-bowtie, and MOST of the time I can get both ABC and UPN just fine. Some times though, I still lose ABC for short periods, and/or I lose UPN. I got a variable attenuator... it's an extremely fine line of attenuating too much so that UPN doesn't come in, and not attenuating enough so that I get multi-path on ABC.

But it does appear that the double-bowtie works well - I'm attenuating its signal significantly, (probably around 15db), and I'm still getting UPN, and even enough of ABC to cause problems, even though ABC is close to 90° off of where that antenna is aimed.

Posted by: Hood7

Wow, Darin, you've done a lot of work! Hopefully my setup will be much simpler. Antennaweb shows me that all the stations I need/want to receive are within 3-7 miles and within a range of 39 degrees (southwest) from my house. They all show as "yellow" for my antenna type, so hopefully the SilverSensor will pick them all up, although maybe I should try a VHF/UHF antenna first to make sure I pick up NBC. Or have people been able to pick up NBC (digital broadcast assigned to frequency 10) with SilverSensor? RS-DBT?

Anyway, thanks for your comments. I even understood some of them! :)

Posted by: daperlman

quote:
Originally posted by Hood7
Wow, Darin, you've done a lot of work! Hopefully my setup will be much simpler. Antennaweb shows me that all the stations I need/want to receive are within 3-7 miles and within a range of 39 degrees (southwest) from my house. They all show as "yellow" for my antenna type, so hopefully the SilverSensor will pick them all up, although maybe I should try a VHF/UHF antenna first to make sure I pick up NBC. Or have people been able to pick up NBC (digital broadcast assigned to frequency 10) with SilverSensor? RS-DBT?

Anyway, thanks for your comments. I even understood some of them! :)

If you are where you say you are... Silver sensor will probably do well to get them all. I am in downtown Decatur and I recently had to extract my large channel master antenna from the roof... in the mean-time I have been using a Silver Sensor and it gets everything.

The big drawback to the Silver Sensor is, some channels come in better when you move it... and with a DVR taping while your gone that is gonna be tough. For instance I cannot get ABC and FOX with SS in same position. NBC is pretty solid no matter what though.

By the way you happen to live near the best butcher in town. If you haven't already be sure and try the Filet's from Oak Grove Meats (On Oak Grove and La Vista).

Posted by: kdonnel

quote:
Originally posted by DEP78
How did you qualify for the east coast Directv feed? Was it difficult?

Plug you address in here and see what it says.

In my case it correctly identifies the fact that even with an outdoor antenna I can not receive a signal from CBS. I called DirecTV and they turned on channels 380, 80, 381, 81.

Posted by: tsbrady1

kdonnel, thanks for the info, I just pm'd you about this so disregard my message

Darn, I get a Grade B signal on 46 so I guess I am stuck with a crappy signal from an unconcerned broadcaster.

Posted by: Hood7

quote:
Originally posted by daperlman
By the way you happen to live near the best butcher in town. If you haven't already be sure and try the Filet's from Oak Grove Meats (On Oak Grove and La Vista).

Thanks for the SilverSensor advice. I hope it works well enough, as I'd hate to have to pay somebody to install an outdoor antenna (no way am I going up on my roof, it's too steep and too high and I don't like heights).

And I totally agree re: the butcher shop/deli - it's a great place! I think it's actually called Oak Grove Market, though. It's just down the street from me, and has been a very welcome addition to the neighborhood.

Posted by: DixonJDixon

Great stuff, Darin, thanks.

Someone posted a link for a OTA HD Atllanta yahoo group a while back. Does anyone have it?

Posted by: ToddD

http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/ahdtv/

Posted by: DixonJDixon

Thanks, Todd, I'm all over it.

Posted by: That70sGAdawg

Any of you folks in Atlanta - Where can I find an HD Tivo in stock? I'm on a waiting list at HiFi Buys, but can't find it in stock anywhere!