WBRE and WYOU in PA question

[FTA4PA]

Can anyone who normally receives WBRE and WYOU (both High VHF in Pennsylvania) confirm that these are presently on the air. Turned on tv to watch this evening and we get absolutely no signal from them using our main VHF antenna. I then tried a secondary VHF antenna and we get nothing on that one either. All other OTA channels we receive are UHF and are coming in fine. Thanks!

 

[harshness]

Have you performed a channel scan recently? Both of those stations are moving (or have moved) frequencies as part of the reverse auction repack.

It appears that WYOU isn't scheduled to move until phase 9. The rabbitears notations are a little obscure but it looks like it may be a two-stage move as they show it lit up on both RF13 and RF25 with a final destination of RF12.

According to a rabbitears live band scan, someone picked the station up out of Poughkeepsie on RF13 in the last 24 hours but they can't receive it now. This may be a skip thing at that distance (~130 miles).

Your best bet would be to call the stations and ask what's up.

 

[Trip]

WBRE is not moving in the repack. WYOU is moving from 13 to 12 in Phase 9, which is in 2020. (25 is their DRT in Waymart.)

I've not heard anything, but I usually wouldn't hear about short outages.

- Trip

 

[FTA4PA]

Have you performed a channel scan recently? Both of those stations are moving (or have moved) frequencies as part of the reverse auction repack.

It appears that WYOU isn't scheduled to move until phase 9. The rabbitears notations are a little obscure but it looks like it may be a two-stage move as they show it lit up on both RF13 and RF25 with a final destination of RF12.

According to a rabbitears live band scan, someone picked the station up out of Poughkeepsie on RF13 in the last 24 hours but they can't receive it now. This may be a skip thing at that distance (~130 miles).

Your best bet would be to call the stations and ask what's up.

WBRE is not moving in the repack. WYOU is moving from 13 to 12 in Phase 9, which is in 2020. (25 is their DRT in Waymart.)

I've not heard anything, but I usually wouldn't hear about short outages.

- Trip

Thanks to both of you for responding. I did some testing and found that the mast-mounted amp has failed on our main hi-vhf antenna. The secondary antenna I tried is smaller and was not providing enough signal to lock these. I got it working on the secondary after adding a better amp. Not as strong a signal as before but good enough until I can service the main antenna. Again, thank you for the replies.

 

[harshness]

WBRE is not moving in the repack.

I could have sworn that there was a right-arrow on the RF frequency when I looked yesterday. It wouldn't be the first time I saw a ghost in tabular data.

(25 is their DRT in Waymart.)

Is the semicolon your notation for a translator? I (as I suspect many others here) am not entirely well versed in FCC OTA TV TLAs.

Some footnotes describing the notations would surely be useful if there isn't an practical way of inserting a tooltip.

 

[Trip]

I could have sworn that there was a right-arrow on the RF frequency when I looked yesterday. It wouldn't be the first time I saw a ghost in tabular data.

I didn't change anything.

Is the semicolon your notation for a translator? I (as I suspect many others here) am not entirely well versed in FCC OTA TV TLAs.

You spend enough time here that some of the TLAs should have worked their way into your head through osmosis!

But this is one of those cases where I wouldn't have done what the FCC did (and I wasn't with the FCC at the time). Digital Replacement Translators are licensed as part of the main facility, and that makes listing them a challenge. The semi-colon is how I ultimately settled on separating out those stations on their own physical channels, but even that isn't perfect. Ideally, they should be their own "stations" and I've done manually that in places where the DRT isn't a perfect mirror of its parent, but it's a lot of work and maintenance. This is a nice compromise.

Some footnotes describing the notations would surely be useful if there isn't an practical way of inserting a tooltip.

I try not to use documentation when feasible, as I never remember to keep it updated. Adding a mouse-over for it is probably the better solution. I'll ponder it.

- Trip

 

[harshness]

Digital Replacement Translators are licensed as part of the main facility, and that makes listing them a challenge.

I fancy that's not the only challenge that globbing all the facilities together causes. It surely makes searching easier, but I imagine it kind of hurts trying to figure out what frequencies might be in use in the heart of the DMA.

 

[Radioguy41]

Can anyone who normally receives WBRE and WYOU (both High VHF in Pennsylvania) confirm that these are presently on the air. Turned on tv to watch this evening and we get absolutely no signal from them using our main VHF antenna. I then tried a secondary VHF antenna and we get nothing on that one either. All other OTA channels we receive are UHF and are coming in fine. Thanks!

Glad you got it figured out. How are you receiving WVIA ch 44? Starting a few weeks ago WMCN Princeton, NJ locks in at 44.1 and 44.2. 44.3 still locks as WVIA Create. Apparently WMCN is also broadcasting on virtual ch 44 but with them sharing WHYY (Wilmington DE) ch 12's transmitter there's no way they should be overriding WVIA here in NEPA.

 

[FTA4PA]

Glad you got it figured out. How are you receiving WVIA ch 44? Starting a few weeks ago WMCN Princeton, NJ locks in at 44.1 and 44.2. 44.3 still locks as WVIA Create. Apparently WMCN is also broadcasting on virtual ch 44 but with them sharing WHYY (Wilmington DE) ch 12's transmitter there's no way they should be overriding WVIA here in NEPA.

Thanks! We are getting WVIA at nearly 70% strength with 100% quality. I see they are now sharing transmission facitlities with WNEP (RF channel 50). We occasionally have a brief break up when the local Life Flight flies by but very steady reception other than that.

 

[harshness]

Apparently WMCN is also broadcasting on virtual ch 44 but with them sharing WHYY (Wilmington DE) ch 12's transmitter there's no way they should be overriding WVIA here in NEPA.

Stations don't broadcast on virtual channels -- they broadcast on RF channels. If there is a collision between subchannel layouts, it falls on the viewer to clean up the mess. You should be able to whack the Wilmington subchannel after a channel scan.

If there are a significant number of viewers who can pick up both stations, one of the stations should logically pick a new virtual channel (and those aren't constrained by the repack).

 

[spongella]

WBRE is coming in fine here. Don't think I can get the other station.

 

[Radioguy41]

Stations don't broadcast on virtual channels -- they broadcast on RF channels. If there is a collision between subchannel layouts, it falls on the viewer to clean up the mess. You should be able to whack the Wilmington subchannel after a channel scan.

If there are a significant number of viewers who can pick up both stations, one of the stations should logically pick a new virtual channel (and those aren't constrained by the repack).

In effect they do even though physically they don't because it doesn't matter what digital channel they actually broadcast on it's the PSIP that determines where it appears on your TV and both are using virtual ch 44. Rescanning (3 times) does not fix it. The FCC may have screwed this one up. WMCN was originally located in Atlantic City NJ but when they sold their freq they reached an agreement with WHYY to share with them. WHYY doesn't reach AC so the license was transferred to Princeton NJ and WMCN continued to use virtual ch 44. The problem comes about because WHYY's signals broadcast northward and I'm not sure the FCC took into consideration that there was an existing ch 44 northward. I can receive WHYY clear as a bell so it's not totally surprising that the shared broadcasting by WMCN also reaches here.

 

[FTA4PA]

In effect they do even though physically they don't because it doesn't matter what digital channel they actually broadcast on it's the PSIP that determines where it appears on your TV and both are using virtual ch 44. Rescanning (3 times) does not fix it. The FCC may have screwed this one up. WMCN was originally located in Atlantic City NJ but when they sold their freq they reached an agreement with WHYY to share with them. WHYY doesn't reach AC so the license was transferred to Princeton NJ and WMCN continued to use virtual ch 44. The problem comes about because WHYY's signals broadcast northward and I'm not sure the FCC took into consideration that there was an existing ch 44 northward. I can receive WHYY clear as a bell so it's not totally surprising that the shared broadcasting by WMCN also reaches here.

Perhaps you could try putting some sort of rf shield at the rear of your antenna to block out reception of the WHYY (WMCN) signal. This should (hopefully) allow WVIA to be picked up.

 

[spongella]

It's becoming more confusing as time goes by. I remember WMCN from AC, now it is in Princeton?

 

[Radioguy41]

Perhaps you could try putting some sort of rf shield at the rear of your antenna to block out reception of the WHYY (WMCN) signal. This should (hopefully) allow WVIA to be picked up.

I lock 68 channels from all directions so it's not possible to shield just one.

 

[Radioguy41]

It's becoming more confusing as time goes by. I remember WMCN from AC, now it is in Princeton?

The license is located in Princeton but the transmitter is in the Roxborough area of Philadelphia.

 

[FTA4PA]

I lock 68 channels from all directions so it's not possible to shield just one.

Agreed, an rf shield may not be a viable option in your case. I do hope you can figure out a solution.

 

[harshness]

Rescanning (3 times) does not fix it.

Rescanning by itself won't fix the problem, You also have to manually remove (or "whack" as I said in my earlier post) WMCN's channel 44 from the table that each receiver maintains. I do this for a translator that is on the same virtual channel by design (Oregon has a lot of translators).

If you want both stations, that's a serious problem. Stations are never happy about changing their virtual channel as that is their public face.

 

[Radioguy41]

For the immediate future I'm going to let WVIA deal with it. I've emailed them about the issue and there is concern that WMCN is costing them viewership which means, since they are a PBS affiliate that relys on donations and fund raisers, that it could result in a loss of income. WVIA would have the most weight behind it to spur the FCC to force WMCN to change virtual channels.

 

[harshness]

WVIA would have the most weight behind it to spur the FCC to force WMCN to change virtual channels.

Commercial channels are a least as interested in eyeballs as public stations. Commercial stations are paid based on the potential for reaching viewers. Fortunately for the commercial stations, it is pretty hard to figure out whether or not they actually cover the areas they claim.

My guess is that it will take some time for a "rebranding" regardless of which station does it so you're probably doing to have to work around it in the interim.