State TV stations preparing for digital switch

[HogDriver]

Just another case of, "Catering to the idiots!" They have been talking about this for over a year. They said not everybody would be able to get coupons so register early. The letter that came with them in the mail stated quite clearly that there was an expiration date on the coupon. But, as usual, Congress is catering to the idiots that haven't taken action by delaying the transition.

 

[rfradioconsult]

KOTV Channel 6 in Tulsa is going digital at 1:00 pm Tuesday.

 

[roxcomrox]

From Saturdays Tulsa World Tulsa World: Most TV stations go digital Tuesday

-snip--

These local stations will continue to broadcast in analog after Tuesday:

KJRH (NBC), channel 2
KTUL (ABC), channel 8
KOKI (FOX), channel 23
KTPX (ION), channel 44

These local stations will cease their analog transmissions Tuesday:

KOTV (CBS), channel 6
KOED (PBS), channel 11
KDOR (Trinity), channel 17
KQCW (CW), channel 19
KRSC (Rogers State University), channel 35
KMYT (MyTV), channel 41
KWHB (independent), channel 47
KGEB (Oral Roberts University), channel 53

 

[woodyrr]

The hard part is over with.

Well, that was exciting.

I was watching KWTV 9 analog and at 1:00 without a "by your leave" or "kiss my foot", <BOOM!> there was nothing but snow and noise.

On the digital side, the set with the converter box froze on the last frame that it received and put up an "unable to tune signal" banner.

I am doing the rescan now: The converter box found 9.1 13.1 and 13.2 after the flash cut and all is well. The DTV that I have is still searching. One more converter box to scan, and I'm putting this garbage behind me: YIPPPEEEE!

 

[Patio_RF]

Well, that was exciting.

I was watching KWTV 9 analog and at 1:00 without a "by your leave" or "kiss my foot", <BOOM!> there was nothing but snow and noise.

Same here except I'm on Dish and my Channel 9 HD went to a green screen. Flipping to the Ch 9 SD it has a purple screen. Same for OETA Ch 13. Well, I just got off the phone with the Dish Techs and they said that they ARE "DTV ready" and that was not supposed to happen. The tech person said they were getting the same reports for the PBS station in Oklahoma City. The tech had me change a couple of satellite settings but it is still green and purple. Then she says, "Those colors are weird, we are only supposed to have snow, black, or blue." In the mean time PBS Ch 13 in SD did come back on my Dish channel, but still no Channel 9 in SD or HD.

So anyway, after 35 minutes on the phone, all she could do at this point is say the engineers are supposed to be working on it. Sigh.

 

[woodyrr]

Do you think that the Dish people knew that 9.1, 13.1 and 13.2 were flash cutting thier digital signal from their temporary digital frequency where they have been all this time to their "old" analog frequency? If Dish didn't reconfigure their receivers after the analog cutoff to receive those channels on their old frequencies, they need to.

That was one aspect of the analog cut off that I thought needed to be better explained to the viewers. There is going to be a great number of OTA viewers that are digital ready that did not understand about the requirement for a spectrum rescan after the cut off. Note that this only applies in OKC to KWTV 9 KETA 13 and KOCM 46 (which will not flash cut until later). KOKH 25 and KOCB 34 will be keeping their digital broadcast on the frequency where they are now.

 

[woodyrr]

KWTV 9 Ceases Analog Broadcasting in Non-Violent Transition of Power

Of all of the stations in the nation, if the FCC denies KWTV the ability to shut down its analog transmitter, it will be the one where the station manager strolls into the transmitter building on February 18 and asks knowingly: “What happened to the analog transmitter?”. The broadcast engineer trying, with difficulty, to conceal a big old sledge hammer behind his back, .....

BTW, on the newscasts today KWTV 9 did an interview with David Griffin talking about KWTV's switch. Behind him in one shot was some equipment in a rack. I couldn't help noticing there was this huge hammer laying on top of one of the pieces of equipment. Hmmmm.

 

[Patio_RF]

BTW, on the newscasts today KWTV 9 did an interview with David Griffin talking about KWTV's switch. Behind him in one shot was some equipment in a rack. I couldn't help noticing there was this huge hammer laying on top of one of the pieces of equipment. Hmmmm.

I saw that, too! It was a big rubber mallet. Too funny.

Also, Dish Network finally figured it out and both the SD & HD channels for KWTV 9 and OETA 13 are back on the air.

I’m curious how bad the phone banks lit up at KWTV 9 and OETA 13 after the 1:00 pm cut-off with people that did not have anything ready for the switch.

 

[Sparky_one]

What KWTV and KETA did were to switch their digital transmission frequencies to the frequency their analogue transmitter was currently on. In order to pull this feat off, they had to power down all their transmitters and bring up the digital transmitters on the same frequency as analogue. KWTV simply realigned their digital transmitter to the new frequency at lower power then brought it up slowly as it was burned in. KETA went a totally different route. They fired up a brand spanking new state-of-the art digital transmitter that had been sitting cold for several months. Its a shining beauty with all the pure copper wave guides and totally new chassis and hardware. The beautiful part are the cavities, traps, tuning points, splitters, combiners, all made of beautiful shining copper. Then you also have the air conditioner sized dummy load.
Oh, Ion Media, formerly known as Pax was going to go off but decided to keep the 60 stations they run on the air until June. They are mainly known now for the WB and Paramount movies they run on the weekend and the unique digital offerings. They offer the largest nation-wide children's network for free on 62.2.

 

[PolarBear25]

Story on DTV from News 9.1

News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports | How to Get Your NEWS 9 Digital Signal

 

[Freqed]

What I didn't realize was that when KOTV 6 in Tulsa went digital we lost the famous FM 87.7 feed as well.

 

[PolarBear25]

What I didn't realize was that when KOTV 6 in Tulsa went digital we lost the famous FM 87.7 feed as well.

Really? Ok, I will bite why?

 

[Freqed]

KOTV's audio was broadcast on 87.7 and could be tuned in on the FM dial, now it's gone due to the digital switch.

 

[KD5WLX]

87.7 Audio

The FM Broadcast band is "officially" 88 - 108MHz (really 88.1 to 107.9). However, most radios will tune somewhat beyond the band edge (and in the case of analog radios with mechanical tuners, sometimes SIGNIFICANTLY out of band).

Channel 6 Analog is VSB from 82-88MHz, with the audio overlay as an FM audio only centered on 87.7 - hence, if you're radio will tune down that far, you could receive the audio on any standard radio receiver. The same thing happens 300kHz below the top of every TV channel. Channel 2 audio is FM on 59.7 (the video is VSB/NTSC from 54-60MHz, channel 3 is on 65.7MHz (the video is 60-66MHz), etc. Note that there are gaps in the TV allocations - 2, 3, and 4 are 54, 60 and 66MHz, but 5 is 76-82 and 6 is 82-88 and thus up against the FM broadcast band. The gap between 4 and 5 is a VHF-lo business band. Then with the FM broadcast and then air band, ham 2m band, and public safety bands, the next VHF TV channel is up in the 170's (I believe - I haven't looked it up). They skip again for Mil-air, then pick up for the UHF channels up in the 500's.

Bottom line, if you know the base frequency range, you can always get the FM audio track just below the top of that range for any analog TV broadcast. The trick is having a receiver that will tune that freq, and receive Wide FM (broadcast width) - there are three widths of FM - narrow public safety (the new narrow FM stuff), normal public safety (the old wider spacing stuff) and broadcast quality stereo (wider yet). With the old FM public safety being in the middle, in some radios it's labeled "wide" when the also support the new stuff, and in others it is the "narrow" when the radio is set up to also receive broadcast FM or TV audio (like the Yaesu VX series transceivers). Your scanners will probably tune any TV audio carrier, but won't demodulate it very well unless it supports the broadcast-wide FM mode. Your FM car and home radios will receive it fine - but won't tune any of them except channel 6 without a transverter.

Of course the problem with Channel 6 in Tulsa is that they cut off the analog transmitter - so no audio is being transmitted. And if they move the digital back to their "old" freq (I don't remember if that's in the works or not) then you still won't demodulate it because it will be a digital format, not analog FM.

 

[PolarBear25]

KOTV's audio was broadcast on 87.7 and could be tuned in on the FM dial, now it's gone due to the digital switch.

The FM Broadcast band is "officially" 88 - 108MHz (really 88.1 to 107.9). However, most radios will tune somewhat beyond the band edge (and in the case of analog radios with mechanical tuners, sometimes SIGNIFICANTLY out of band).

Channel 6 Analog is VSB from 82-88MHz, with the audio overlay as an FM audio only centered on 87.7 - hence, if you're radio will tune down that far, you could receive the audio on any standard radio receiver. The same thing happens 300kHz below the top of every TV channel. Channel 2 audio is FM on 59.7 (the video is VSB/NTSC from 54-60MHz, channel 3 is on 65.7MHz (the video is 60-66MHz), etc. Note that there are gaps in the TV allocations - 2, 3, and 4 are 54, 60 and 66MHz, but 5 is 76-82 and 6 is 82-88 and thus up against the FM broadcast band. The gap between 4 and 5 is a VHF-lo business band. Then with the FM broadcast and then air band, ham 2m band, and public safety bands, the next VHF TV channel is up in the 170's (I believe - I haven't looked it up). They skip again for Mil-air, then pick up for the UHF channels up in the 500's.

Bottom line, if you know the base frequency range, you can always get the FM audio track just below the top of that range for any analog TV broadcast. The trick is having a receiver that will tune that freq, and receive Wide FM (broadcast width) - there are three widths of FM - narrow public safety (the new narrow FM stuff), normal public safety (the old wider spacing stuff) and broadcast quality stereo (wider yet). With the old FM public safety being in the middle, in some radios it's labeled "wide" when the also support the new stuff, and in others it is the "narrow" when the radio is set up to also receive broadcast FM or TV audio (like the Yaesu VX series transceivers). Your scanners will probably tune any TV audio carrier, but won't demodulate it very well unless it supports the broadcast-wide FM mode. Your FM car and home radios will receive it fine - but won't tune any of them except channel 6 without a transverter.

Of course the problem with Channel 6 in Tulsa is that they cut off the analog transmitter - so no audio is being transmitted. And if they move the digital back to their "old" freq (I don't remember if that's in the works or not) then you still won't demodulate it because it will be a digital format, not analog FM.

Ok thanks guys.

 

[Freqed]

What I didn't realize was that when KOTV 6 in Tulsa went digital we lost the famous FM 87.7 feed as well.

Not to mention that if your scanner supports TV Broadcasts they will disappear from there as well. Don't know if new scanners will support Digital TV or if it would even be possible, but this is something I will miss when traveling. I used my scanner to listen to local stations when driving through area's for national news broadcasts.

 

[gmclam]

TV Channel 6 audio

TV Channel 6 uses 82-88 MHz. The audio carrier for an NTSC signal is actually 87.75 MHz. Many standard broadcast FM tuners are able to tune to this frequency, although the audio will sound a little weaker than FM broadcasts because NTSC TV audio uses a narrower signal than broadcast FM radio.

But that is all changing because analog TV broadcasts are going away. With ATSC there is no "audio signal", everything is broadcast as a digital stream. Whether you use an analog TV, an FM radio or a scanner to listen to TV sound, you will no longer be able to do so when the TV station you're listening to stops broadcasting in analog. All full power analog stations are currently required to terminate broadcasting by 6/12/2009.

But wait! As it turns out, very few TV stations across the entire USA will be using the low band TV channels (2-6) for their digital signals (I believe it is 48 out of the nearly 2000 stations). The fact that so many people were listening to TV audio this way is news to many broadcasters. Some have started talking about resuming an audio only (analog) broadcast on TV channel 6 even after the digital transition is complete. If I find some official news on this I'll post it here on RR.