# Any news on latest rollout for HD locals?



## UT06 (Jun 27, 2006)

I see in the sticky post that there are quite a few citied on the "soon to have HD locals list", with Austin being one of them. Any word of when that will happen?

I just had Dish Network installed yesterday and I would hate to go through the expense and effort of adding an antenna and then have the HD locals show up next week.


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## blueeyedman196 (Mar 13, 2006)

how bout greenville sc









how bout greenville sc?


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## TechniKal (Nov 4, 2003)

UT06 said:


> I see in the sticky post that there are quite a few citied on the "soon to have HD locals list", with Austin being one of them. Any word of when that will happen?
> 
> I just had Dish Network installed yesterday and I would hate to go through the expense and effort of adding an antenna and then have the HD locals show up next week.


Where in Austin? FWIW - I'm in NW Austin in the 620/2222 area. I use a $20 Zenith 'Silver Sensor' indoor antenna on top of my entertainment center and pick up every local channel except for Fox just fine. There's some kind of incompatibility between Fox and the 622 that screws that one up even though I'm able to pick it up perfectly when connecting directly to my TV.

Even if Dish adds HD Locals, having the OTA antenna will give you the flexibility of an additional tuner as well as access to channels Dish won't carry in HD - such as PBS, CW (and likely NBC since the local Austin affiliate isn't allowing re-transmission of that signal in HD without the provider paying $$$). Plus, you get HD locals today rather than some indeterminate time in the future whenever Dish gets around to adding them.

Well worth the investment if you can get the channels with a cheap indoor solution.


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## UT06 (Jun 27, 2006)

I'm actually in Pflugerville and I just moved into my new house. On the antenna selection website, it shows that I would need an antenna with an amp, etc. I would rather not do this now (having to place a large antenna in the attic, run wires, etc) especially if Austin is going to go live soon.


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## Mr.72 (Feb 2, 2007)

Hey Technikal (you are Kyle right? I know you from another forum)... what's this 622/Fox problem? Every network TV show I watch is on Fox. If the 622 won't work with OTA with Fox then I really do need to rethink ordering Dish. It works fine with my current DirecTV HR20 and my home-made UHF bowtie with a reflector (in fact, it's freakin' awesome with that, from Cedar Park ... signal levels over 95% on every channel except KNVA, which is about 75%).

So tell me, what's up with Fox/KTBC and the 622?


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## CricTic (Mar 17, 2006)

Unknown. The best theory is that there is a stream incompatibility between KTBC and the 622 receiver.

There are a couple of threads on the topic:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=73419
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=69576


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## TechniKal (Nov 4, 2003)

Yep - it's Kyle.

The issue is that you can't reliably pick up Fox in Austin the the 622. I can get a 90+% signal strength, put the picture will stutter, sound will drop out and then I'll get a 'signal lost' message every few seconds. Circumvent the 622 and connect directly to the TV and all is fine, but, of course, you lose the DVR functionality.


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## Mr.72 (Feb 2, 2007)

yeah i just read the threads.

interesting, if not potentially infuriating.


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## Mr.72 (Feb 2, 2007)

that sux.

sounds very annoying. i only watch stuff off of the dvr so ... hmm. fox works great with my vizio tv and also with the directv hr20 (which is being returned to directv next week).

thanks for the info. see you on the trail!


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## Gut (Jul 3, 2004)

Memphis, Tn was on the list to be available last year, still waiting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

TechniKal said:


> Yep - it's Kyle.
> 
> The issue is that you can't reliably pick up Fox in Austin the the 622. I can get a 90+% signal strength, put the picture will stutter, sound will drop out and then I'll get a 'signal lost' message every few seconds. Circumvent the 622 and connect directly to the TV and all is fine, but, of course, you lose the DVR functionality.


Check out http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=336964&page=91&pp=40, there's this post in it about Fox and the 622 in Austin:

_"Follow up to my post from yesterday, I was experimenting by placing the attenuators just after the antenna signal comes out of the wall, this was easier to access. I have a 2 way splitter to feed the 622 and the tv. When I moved the attenuators between the splitter and the 622 I ended up adding two more to keep Fox clean for a total of 27dB of attenuation. The signal was clean, I could watch and record Fox without dropouts. '_

You might want to try it.


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## TechniKal (Nov 4, 2003)

RAD said:


> Check out http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=336964&page=91&pp=40, there's this post in it about Fox and the 622 in Austin:
> 
> _"Follow up to my post from yesterday, I was experimenting by placing the attenuators just after the antenna signal comes out of the wall, this was easier to access. I have a 2 way splitter to feed the 622 and the tv. When I moved the attenuators between the splitter and the 622 I ended up adding two more to keep Fox clean for a total of 27dB of attenuation. The signal was clean, I could watch and record Fox without dropouts. '_
> 
> You might want to try it.


I messed around with it again last night. I inserted the antennuator that comes with the 622, pointed the antenna away from the towers and hid it behind an aluminium/foil air collection box up in the attic. That got my signal down below 80 - but I still had breakups. I may order some other antennuators since I have no idea what the one included in the 622 box is.

Even if I can make Fox come in by reducing signal level, that's not going to work long term. Fox typically comes in with a signal strength in the low 90's. PBS comes in in the upper 70's. If I knock Fox down, I'm going to make PBS (and NBC, since it comes in worse than Fox as well) unwatchable.

Someone on the Austin AVS forum with a 211 posted that the new software update fixed the issue he'd been having with Fox. I'm hoping that fix is eventually gets rolled up to the 622.


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## Mr.72 (Feb 2, 2007)

the fix would be best. I bet that attenuator is 3dB, but who knows? Those successful in fixing the Fox problem with attenuators seem to be reporting using more like 20dB of attenuation to knock the signal down from the mid 90s to the low 70s (percent ... which really is a meaningless measure).

KTBC-DT (56) is at the opposite end of the UHF spectrum from both KXAN-DT (21) and KLRU-DT (22). The wavelength is shorter for KTBC-DT which means your antenna is likely more efficient at picking it up. A different antenna would even out the reception although I can tell you, KLRU-DT is a weak channel compared to KXAN-DT. So your answer might be a better antenna, and 20dB of attenuation. The better antenna will do a better job of picking up the lower channels (KXAN, KLRU) and then you can tolerate an attenuator on the whole thing.

Ideally you would use a narrow-band filter rather than a flat attenuator so you could just cut the signal on KTBC without affecting the others. Just a low-pass filter would work but you might catch KNVA with it as well (close in frequency to KTBC). Otherwise other tricky RF engineering tricks could be employed. Let me get my 622 installed on Thurs and then hack on it over the weekend, see what I can come up with. I'll roll my own attenuators and antennas


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## Mr.72 (Feb 2, 2007)

incidentally by "better antenna" I don't mean a "more expensive antenna from the store". I mean an antenna better suited to the specific channels you are trying to pick up. I built two like this with junk I had laying around the house. One is in the attic but I can't manage to fish the cable into the wall so I built a Jr. version of it the other day in about 5 mins and it blows the doors off of most commercially-avaliable "gadget store" antennas. What you need for Austin hi-def, for the most part, is a bowtie UHF antenna with a reflector. You can buy one for like $50 with 2 or 4 elements but my Jr. one with just one bowtie works gorgeously. The one in the attic is a dual. I bet I can pick up San Antonio stations with the one in the attic. They are easy to build with just a few bux worth of parts or likely random junk you have laying around (like coat hangers, a donor pair of rabbit ears, a couple of chunks of wood, a piece of sheet metal, some screws and washers).


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## harleylay1 (Nov 22, 2006)

Anybody know the site that tells when what cities will be next in hd locals.


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Dish HD Locals on the EKB.


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## Mr.72 (Feb 2, 2007)

BTW looks like KTBC-Fox in Austin works fine for me as follows:

10dB attenuator provided with the 622
my single-bowtie-reflector antenna
aim the antenna about 75 degrees off-axis from the "correct" direction

I had the same issue as everyone else with it stuttering and dropping about every few seconds, then back up, down etc. with no attenuator and signal level at about 95%. Put in the attenuator and it didn't fix it. I just turned the antenna until the signal was down to about 70% and it works great now. All other channels come in fine for me (over 60% for everything else).

Given that, I think I am inclined to think it must be some distortion problem in the antenna input preamplifier in the 622 tuner. That is not going to get fixed with software. There is likely a more elegantly engineered solution at hand but this is working for me for now.


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## Texxen (Mar 14, 2006)

Fox-Austin has been working for me the past two or three days with my CM 4228 Antenna.
Just unhooked my OTA antenna to hook in 61.5 satellite and Fox/Austin is working good with just three feet of coax picking up the signal.
It seems like something has changed....so far.
No even worth watching(OTA HD) before.......


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## brownover (Jan 29, 2007)

Published in Norfolk newspaper on March 2 that the Norfolk stations have finally agreed to let their hd be broadcast on cable and satellite. Norfolk on Dish Hd schedule since last year. Let's get'up Dish before D beats you to it as they did ln the sd locals. Here is a chance to pick up a lot of new customers!


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## R MaN (Feb 23, 2007)

Madison, WI ??


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