I just set up my Dish 811 over the weekend and was overall pleased with the reception in my area. I am about 50 miles east of Mt. Wilson in Moreno Valley and get 85-90% signal on all but two of the LA area digital channels. The two I am having trouble with are KTBN-DT, which comes in OK at about 60-65% (co-channel with KVMD so I can understand that one), and KCOP, which gives me the 49% problem that so many have reported here. Much of the time, if I tune to that channel and leave it on there for 15-20 seconds it will lock in with 65-70% signal. Sometimes, though, it will fail to lock at all regardless of how long I leave it on there. Is KCOP transmitting at a lower power than the other stations on Mt. Wilson, or could there be some other issue? If transmitter power is the only issue, hopefully it will be resolved in July when they are required to use full licensed power. It won't help me watch the final episodes of Enterprise though.

I have the same problem with channel 13 in LA. It usually comes in fine during the day on 13.1, but I can rarely get it at night once the sun goes down. What is the deal with nighttime? I also see this problem with channel 28 and sometimes channel 11 in LA. Do stations lower their power at night, or is the interferance of multipathing, etc. stronger at night?

bobpenn - where do you live? It sounds like your signal path is heavily influenced by atmospheric conditions. If you live more than about 50 or so miles out from the transmitters, especially along the Ventura County coast as I did for many years, you will see changes like that throughout the day. The effect is more pronounced the higher you go in frequency. Channel 13's digital signal is on 66, and I think channel 11's is on 61 (not sure about that one). Both are at the high end of the UHF band so they would be more subject to this effect. As I recall it has something to do with a differential in temperature between air masses in the troposphere, or something like that. I remember as a kid growing up in Oxnard, some of my favorite TV programs were on KBSC channel 52 (now KVEA). Their transmitter power was much lower than it is today. Sometimes the picture would be pretty good, and sometimes it would be unwatchable. You could even see it fade in and out sometimes, especially when the fog started rolling in.

Thanks for the info. I am around 25 miles from Mount Wilson. I am assuming for now that the antenna is not aimed properly at the transmitters. The angle should be 281 degrees (according to www.antennaweb.org ). Do you happen to know how many degrees it can be off before signal begins to degrade.

So I guess that would put you somewhere in the Ontario area? That is the same beam heading I use in Moreno Valley, about another 25 miles further out. Unless you are right up against the foothills there you should have no trouble at all. If you are using an indoor antenna try setting it close to a window, or, if possible, use an outdoor antenna. In answer to your question, you don't have to be much off of the beam heading at all for signal to start degrading. Even a change of a couple of degrees either way can start bringing in reflected signals which can cause ghosting on an analog picture, or total loss of signal lock on a digital signal. It depends mainly on how directional your antenna is, though.

I really feel better about the trouble I am having with KCOP knowing that people much closer in are having the same problem. I heard from another guy in Perris, about 5 miles further out than I am, who is also having trouble getting KCOP. They must be using very low power or just have some sort of odd engineering quirk.

You can check their ERP here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~w9wi/tvdb/index.htm

The DirectTV guy came out and raised the antenna and now KCOP comes in perfectly. But this is a mystery: when they broadcast in HD I always get a 4:3 picture with black letterboxes. Normally I get a grey letterbox with SD and 4:3 so this would indicate that KCOP is broadcasting in this manner. All of the other OTA HD stations look fine. What is the deal with Channel 13? I have never seen a 16:9 image from them, or anything that actually looks HD in clarity. Anyone seen this?

Presently channel 13 is not broadcasting in HD yet....I have the VOOM STB and even though the guide says its HD it is not... I went to upn 13 webbsite and clicked on check HD and it indicates that channel 13 is not broadcasting in HD also channel 9 did not make the transition yet...Im in the south bay Torrance area...I get Channel 2,4,5, 7, 11, PBS 28 and KOCE 50 in HD..Most of the locals are in HD during prime time the PBS 28 and KOCE 50 are HD most of the time during the day as well

Something has changed with KCOP. This last Friday (April 29) when I watched Enterprise my HDTV wouldn't allow the zoom feature anymore, which implied it had detected an HD broadcast. Up until now I could use the zoom feature to get rid of the black bars. And the picture quality was definitely much better than before, it seemed to be HD. But it still had the black bars at the top and bottom. Maybe they are transitioning to HD but still have a few bugs to fix.

I sent them an email to KCOP regarding this, but haven't received a reply yet.

I have read that KCOP is now broadcasting in 1080i full time. But they are not in 16:9. Their signal looks very sharp, I agree. Strange why they would only go halfway at this point.