# After Digital Cutover Cannot View Some OTA Sub Channels



## denkbar (Nov 10, 2005)

Have a 722K with an OTA module installed, and a 622. View a few digital sub-channels on both with a separate external antenna on each box. Prior to the 6-12 cutover, no problems with either unit. On afternoon of 6-12, no subs were receivable on either one. 

Did a Local Channel Rescan and Save on each. All of the previously viewable subs are viewable on the 622, but the 722K there are a few subs that are not. Get message box "739 The Offair Signal has been lost ....". Today (6-13, rescanned the 722K just in case some "settling down" had taken place with the local stations over night. Same results.

Prior to the cutover, the signal strength on the 622 ranged from 74-86, and the 722K from 68-78. After the cutover, the strengths are 72-84 and 68-74.

Since most of the subs come in on the 722K unit, doesn't sound like its a 722K problem to me, so have not called Dish. Does anyone have any thoughts on what the problem could be?

The specific sub we installed the antennas for a couple of months ago is 18.2 KSCI in California's Los Angeles/San Bernardino area. In summary: Prior to the cutover, worked fine on both units, now it (and a few others) are only receivable on the 622. 

Softare levels: 722K - L652; 622 - L618


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Sounds like a combination of things.

1. Two antennas installed in different locations will give you different results; even if the antennas are identical in all other respects.

2. If the antennas aren't identical (or aren't all that good at VHF), it is possible that you've been nailed by a change in frequency by one or more of the stations.

3. If you're having trouble seeing the main channel but you can see the subchannels, wait a little longer.


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## denkbar (Nov 10, 2005)

Thanks. 

I agree about different antenna locations, but since I was getting good results before, and the "after cut" results are close to the prior-cut results on most of the other subs, thought I'd at least see some kind of signal on the "strength bar" for the few that can't be seen, even it it was in the 1-20 range. But its a completely white bar with no green in it at all.

The antennas are the same: RCA 1500, which is a flat indoor unit. Once I got them oriented a couple of months ago, have had excellent results. As you point out, it may be a frequency change. I'll contact the station Tuesday and check on frequency changes. 

On the Channel 18 series, I can see the main (18.0), but none of the others - 18.1, 18.2, .... Naturally, 18.2's the one I'm interested in.


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## rbyers (Jan 15, 2004)

I've got a 622, and I can see a bunch of 18.x stations. They all had very good signal strength ... 100. I wasn't interested in these channels, so I deleted them. But, I had noticed that I had very good signal strength. 

I did have to run the scan twice this morning. After the first scan I was still missing Ch 9, 11, & 13. On the rescan I got everything I cared about.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

denkbar said:


> The antennas are the same: RCA 1500, which is a flat indoor unit.


The performance curve on these guys is anything but flat. They are a fair-only UHF antenna. If you've gained any VHF channels (even high VHF) recently, you're probably going to need a better antenna.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

denkbar said:


> Have a 722K with an OTA module installed, and a 622. View a few digital sub-channels on both with a separate external antenna on each box. Prior to the 6-12 cutover, no problems with either unit. On afternoon of 6-12, no subs were receivable on either one.
> 
> Did a Local Channel Rescan and Save on each. All of the previously viewable subs are viewable on the 622, but the 722K there are a few subs that are not. Get message box "739 The Offair Signal has been lost ....". Today (6-13, rescanned the 722K just in case some "settling down" had taken place with the local stations over night. Same results.
> 
> ...


You only scan for the One broadcast channel not its subchannels. With some of my subchannels, I had to make sure they were first deleted and than readd just the one channel (using its real broadcast channel number) in order for it to properly pick up the subchannels. I assume part of the problem was caused by changes the local OTA stations were making. For the Dish receivers its best , after a mostly successfull full digital scan, to only add the one channel to avoid the potential of dropping other channels.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Well I just did a scan tonight on my 722 and I have lost 7 and 11. I have scanned twice with the same results. I am going to check out my 612 later but it appears that 7 and 11 have dropped off of my system. I am showing no signal strength for these stations. I also seem to be not getting anything from 9 and 13. They all seem to be low RF numbers.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Update.. 

I Tried removing MY OTA... Hard reboot... Rescan to clear out... Hard reboot. Hook OTA back up and Scan. I get the same 60 channels found. 9, 11, 7, and 13 are not found.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Another update.. Did a little bit of research.... Figured since I was getting my OTA I was cool with the digitial transfer, but looks like I was wrong. I have UHF only and from what I can tell the channels i am having moved to lower numbers and these would represent VHF right? Looks like I am going to have to change out my antenna.. Any vouchers for that?  

Any recommendations for a small UHF/VHF antenna. I currently have a CM 4308/3022 and would want one with a similar size.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Ron Barry said:


> Looks like I am going to have to change out my antenna.. Any vouchers for that?


Good luck finding an antenna. The prices doubled in February and all but the crummy UHF slabs are long gone from the shelves.


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## daveray (Feb 12, 2004)

I am using a CM4228HD it does well with high vhf 7-13.
I get digial 7 and 10 both out of my DMA rock solid.


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## citico (May 18, 2004)

Ron: I have on order a Winegard SS 3000 indoor amplified UHF/VHF antenna.
I have the same problem you have now. Antenna will not arrive until Thursday so I can't say how well it will work.


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## TheFoxMan (Aug 25, 2008)

harsh said:


> Good luck finding an antenna. The prices doubled in February and all but the crummy UHF slabs are long gone from the shelves.


I've seen several postings trashing Terk, but I'm getting excellent reception from the Terk Indoor Amplified HDTV Antenna (Model: HDTVA), currently selling for $74 at Best Buy. It's mounted in the attic of our one-story house, which is surrounded by two-story houses, but I seem to be in a pretty good location within 30 miles of the three towers that serve our area (Cedar Rapids, Ia). Mileage may vary, but it may be worth a try.


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## stol (May 31, 2006)

I saw that one of my channels also changed from UHF to a VHF frequency in Detroit.

www.Antennaweb.org used to show the old broadcast frequency and the planned new frequency, but now it only show the new.


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## 4bama (Aug 6, 2006)

tnsprin said:


> You only scan for the One broadcast channel not its subchannels. With some of my subchannels, I had to make sure they were first deleted and than readd just the one channel (using its real broadcast channel number) in order for it to properly pick up the subchannels. I assume part of the problem was caused by changes the local OTA stations were making. For the Dish receivers its best , after a mostly successfull full digital scan, to only add the one channel to avoid the potential of dropping other channels.


You're correct about that. After the switchover (we had some locals change frequency, including UHF to VHF) I rescanned the 622 with odd results. The 622 kept some channels that changed frequency but left them asigned to the "old" frequency, therefore the signal strength was zero...it also kept some subchannels that had been removed (like our local APT-PBS went from 4 to 3 subchannels by dropping the SD feed from .2 and moving .4 to .3 and .3 to .2 and nothing on .4) and the 622 rescan did not get any of those changes except it kept 26.1 correctly (The before and after HD feed).

So, following your experience I went into the 622 OTA menu and deleted ALL channels and stored the results...then did a rescan and stored those results and everything came out correct.

So, after any major event like the digital changeover it's best to delete all channels and rescan from scratch. After it was all complete the guide came out correct without having to force a new guide download...

My DtvPal's do a better job when a rescan is performed...it deletes/replaces frequency changes and subchannel reassignments on the fly...without having to manually delete them before the rescan..

You can also do a single frequency search for a channel but that will not replace the "old" data in the 622 unless you first delete that "old" data.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

Most of the anecdotal stories about trouble with the digital change over seem to deal with channels moving from UHF to VHF. People seem to be of the opinion that since the virtual channel did not change, the signal is still in the same band, but that is often not the case, especially is the virtual channel is in the 2-13 range.

The garbage channels, I call them, that the FCC assigned to the temporary digitals seem to have caused more confusion than necessary. there should have been more care taken to keeping VHF channels in the VHF range, especially if the were going to return there eventually. All in all the process was shoddily handled by the FCC, choosing 8VSB for the modulation, poor temporary channel assignments, political gerrymangering, but what can you expect from the government.

If you loved the digital change over, you'll adore government death (health) care.


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## CABill (Mar 20, 2005)

4bama said:


> So, after any major event like the digital changeover it's best to delete all channels and rescan from scratch. After it was all complete the guide came out correct without having to force a new guide download...
> 
> My DtvPal's do a better job when a rescan is performed...it deletes/replaces frequency changes and subchannel reassignments on the fly...without having to manually delete them before the rescan..


Boy, is your DtvPal experience different from mine. I got two for a neighbor and on Sat, I went over and had to unplug both from power to even get them to turn on. A Scan does NOT delete anything - just tries to add. Channels that had new transmit frequencies would show up in the 70s on one box and numbers over 100 on another box. It might be because these boxes had the really crappy initial firmware, but I needed to reset to Default and scan to get them usable. We had UHF to VHF channels and some just different UHFs, but a Channel Master had no problem just doing a re-scan. The next day, I at least knew to tell people that called to reset to Default to get their DtvPal to rescan.


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## RASCAL01 (Aug 2, 2006)

My DTVPal (dvr) has scanned fine. You need to make sure that you have the latest update.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

CABill said:


> Boy, is your DtvPal experience different from mine. I got two for a neighbor and on Sat, I went over and had to unplug both from power to even get them to turn on. A Scan does NOT delete anything - just tries to add. Channels that had new transmit frequencies would show up in the 70s on one box and numbers over 100 on another box. It might be because these boxes had the really crappy initial firmware, but I needed to reset to Default and scan to get them usable. We had UHF to VHF channels and some just different UHFs, but a Channel Master had no problem just doing a re-scan. The next day, I at least knew to tell people that called to reset to Default to get their DtvPal to rescan.


Don't do a scan, do an Initial setup. I did this on a DTVPAL DVR and 3 DTVPALs and they were all successful.

Oh - and on the DTVPAL DVR - you need to check your timers and edit / delete / recreate them. - The same thing probably applies to the DTVPALs as well.


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## CABill (Mar 20, 2005)

These DtvPals have either F102 or F103 firmware (about a year ago), but the only "update" I was aware of was to send them back to DISH within the 1st 90 days. Is there some other update path? They didn't even have them fixed in the first 90 days - if you add a channel that uses a lower frequency, timers for a channel that use a higher frequency start using a new (semi-random) channel.

I did just look at the menu and passed up the Channel Setup choice and found a Setup Wizard that would be a better choice since it deletes the old channel mapping.

For my 722, I manually deleted the channels that I knew were changing frequencies so I could just "add" and keep some SF that I don't always receive. Eventually, I started from scratch on the 722 too though - lots of changes to the distant SF stations.


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## darkstarchuck (Feb 7, 2007)

Ron Barry said:


> Another update.. Did a little bit of research.... Figured since I was getting my OTA I was cool with the digitial transfer, but looks like I was wrong. I have UHF only and from what I can tell the channels i am having moved to lower numbers and these would represent VHF right? Looks like I am going to have to change out my antenna.. Any vouchers for that?
> 
> Any recommendations for a small UHF/VHF antenna. I currently have a CM 4308/3022 and would want one with a similar size.


Sorry none yet, however, wouldn't there be some indication of signal? Even if it were too low to "lock"? I have the same situation, I may try the "rabbit ears" I used before the digital tuner and the nicer UHF antenna, similar to yours. Rabbit Ears, being sized and conducive to VHF band reception, may work again. Checking antennaweb.org, channels 7,9,11,13 have gone back to VHF! Maybe a different antenna is in the future, or a wait and see approach, as other local markets are experiencing some of these same issues.


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## SaltiDawg (Aug 30, 2004)

Ron Barry said:


> Update..
> 
> I Tried removing MY OTA... Hard reboot... Rescan to clear out... Hard reboot. Hook OTA back up and Scan. I get the same 60 channels found. 9, 11, 7, and 13 are not found.


Ron,

I'm in the Maryland suburbs of DC. Two of our network stations went from a temporary UHF digital channel to a permanent VHF digital channel on June 12th.

The Washington Post had a long article about the difficulties people were having, including the UHF => VHF issue, and other problems with getting reception for all available. The article quoted a couple of knowledgeable people as suggesting that one should actually do *two* rescans. For the first rescan, actually *disconnect* the antenna and perform the scan - this will delete *all* digital channels. Next, *re-connect* the antenna and get a nice clean rescan of all available channels.

EDIT: Link to Article and quote from expert:

" (Expert) suggests trying a "double rescan," which involves unplugging the antenna from the converter box or TV, rescanning, turning off the box or TV, then turning it back on, plugging the antenna back in and rescanning once more. The process should clear the tuner's memory so it can locate the digital frequency."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061603381.html

The link may require that the viewer be logged on.


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## Scotty (Aug 10, 2006)

Ron Barry said:


> ...Figured since I was getting my OTA I was cool with the digitial transfer, but looks like I was wrong. . I have UHF only and from what I can tell the channels i am having moved to lower numbers and these would represent VHF right? Looks like I am going to have to change out my antenna....
> 
> Any recommendations for a small UHF/VHF antenna. .


Rob,

I live about 30 miles from the Sacramento Area in N. California and also lost the VHF locals that switched from UHF.

I have an Antennas Direct - 91XG Uni-Directional Antenna (UHF only). Had outstanding signal (100%) prior to conversion.

Now these new VHF locals will not scan on my 722 OTA tuner.

Question: Is it possible to put up another VHF antenna and tie it in with the input to the 722 using some type of device?

Would be nice to not have to take down an exceptional antenna!


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## Scotty (Aug 10, 2006)

Scotty said:


> Rob,
> 
> I live about 30 miles from the Sacramento Area in N. California and also lost the VHF locals that switched from UHF.
> 
> ...


To Answer my own question, after some research, I found that I can add a compact VHF antenna to my existing mast and use a combiner to route both UHF and VHF signals to my 722 over existing cables.

Link: http://www.antennasdirect.com/C5-Clearstream-DTV-antenna.html


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

Scotty said:


> Rob,
> 
> I live about 30 miles from the Sacramento Area in N. California and also lost the VHF locals that switched from UHF.
> 
> ...


I have a 91XG without an amplifier in my attic (2 story house). I'm 39 miles northeast of the Houston antenna farm and everything is working great. I did have to rescan to get the frequency changes and then rescan one of the 622s a couple more times because it was feeling stubborn: p The other 622 and the Tosh picked up everything on the first rescan. I have the antenna split in the attic to go to 2 drops for our 622s and the drop in the family room is split for the 622 and directly into the Toshiba 65. Some channels better than before the switch. And 2 of our channels are high vhf, 8 and 11. And there are thousands of trees on the northeast side and to top it off, downtown Houston is in the LOS to the farm. I know of a guy about 2 miles south of me that has a CM4228 in the attic and it lost channel 11. After reading all the comments in the Houston Locals forum at AVS I'm convinced it may be a hit or miss thing in my area. And the antenna that works in my attic may well not work a couple of blocks away.


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## SaltiDawg (Aug 30, 2004)

Jim5506 said:


> ... People seem to be of the opinion that since the virtual channel did not change, the signal is still in the same band, but that is often not the case, especially is the virtual channel is in the 2-13 range. ...


Jim,

I thought that digital channels were restricted to UHF and the high VHF channels (7-13).


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

SaltiDawg said:


> I thought that digital channels were restricted to UHF and the high VHF channels (7-13).


I recall seeing at least one station in the Great Lakes region that was going to channel 2. The bounce isn't an issue if you don't have anything to bounce off of.


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## softwiz (May 12, 2005)

4bama said:


> So, following your experience I went into the 622 OTA menu and deleted ALL channels and stored the results...then did a rescan and stored those results and everything came out correct.
> 
> So, after any major event like the digital changeover it's best to delete all


I have a 722 and 622.

A channel scan was all that was required on the 722

However, on the 622 a channel scan wouldn't by itself pick up the new channel. I had to remove the channel then do a channel scan before it would "take" the change.


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## darkstarchuck (Feb 7, 2007)

Ron Barry said:


> Update..
> 
> I Tried removing MY OTA... Hard reboot... Rescan to clear out... Hard reboot. Hook OTA back up and Scan. I get the same 60 channels found. 9, 11, 7, and 13 are not found.


After doing all this,  I found an ancient vhf bandpass 300 ohm filter and screwed those terminals to some old rabbit ears and then landed the other leads (VHF Out) on the 300 to 75 ohm xfmr that the Nice UHF antenna leads are attached, and, POW! 7, 9, 13, appeared. The theory is correct, now just getting a Nice VHF antenna and maybe a more user friendly filter/combiner and we are in business. Channel 11 will be there, and higher signal strength will make for less drop-outs.

FYI, The electronic, amplified mini antenna on the 211 got the new 7, 9, 13 on the first rescan after deleting all.


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## HeyNewbie (Jun 27, 2009)

Two local OTA channels switched from their temporary UHF channels 52 and 53 to VHF 5-WMC and 13-WHBQ. My 622 did not find these during the scan and they cannot be individually added, however my TV had no problem with these channels when I rescanned it. The antenna feed is split so that there is a feed to both the TV and the VIP622.
I had reported this to Dish and they said they are aware of the problem receiving these two VHF channels and I would have to keep trying to add them because the support person would be unable to communicate when they would have it fixed.

I thought that this last program update might have had a fix, but it didn't.


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## 4bama (Aug 6, 2006)

HeyNewbie said:


> Two local OTA channels switched from their temporary UHF channels 52 and 53 to VHF 5-WMC and 13-WHBQ. My 622 did not find these during the scan and they cannot be individually added, however my TV had no problem with these channels when I rescanned it. The antenna feed is split so that there is a feed to both the TV and the VIP622.
> I had reported this to Dish and they said they are aware of the problem receiving these two VHF channels and I would have to keep trying to add them because the support person would be unable to communicate when they would have it fixed.
> 
> I thought that this last program update might have had a fix, but it didn't.


I had the same problem with my 622 on stations that changed broadcast channel frequencies...

The "fix" is to go into your OTA menu and delete all, save, return to OTA menu and scan again, save...for some reason the 622 (and 722 I think) will not "replace" existing entries with new data...


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## SaltiDawg (Aug 30, 2004)

harsh said:


> I recall seeing at least one station in the Great Lakes region that was going to channel 2. The bounce isn't an issue if you don't have anything to bounce off of.


Apparently, "VHF 2 - 6 are rarely used by DTV broadcasters due to ongoing problems with impulse noise."

I'm sure we all recognize that a station that has a given *displayed* Channel number may well be broadcasting on a totally different *actual* channel.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

SaltiDawg said:


> Jim,
> 
> I thought that digital channels were restricted to UHF and the high VHF channels (7-13).


There is no "restriction" from using the VHF Low Band, it's just that nobody wants to be there anymore.

It appears that some of the LPTV stations that have to move off the "out-of-core" UHF channels (53 & above) may take over the low band VHF. some may even be digital on these channels. So VHF Low Band is not dead!


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## HeyNewbie (Jun 27, 2009)

4bama said:


> I had the same problem with my 622 on stations that changed broadcast channel frequencies...
> 
> The "fix" is to go into your OTA menu and delete all, save, return to OTA menu and scan again, save...for some reason the 622 (and 722 I think) will not "replace" existing entries with new data...


I see that at least one of your channels did the same as mine. Your Montgomery channel 12 WSFA was broadcasting digital on UHF 14 and was switched back to 12 VHF when they shut off their analog transmitter.


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## RASCAL01 (Aug 2, 2006)

CABill said:


> These DtvPals have either F102 or F103 firmware (about a year ago), but the only "update" I was aware of was to send them back to DISH within the 1st 90 days. Is there some other update path? They didn't even have them fixed in the first 90 days - if you add a channel that uses a lower frequency, timers for a channel that use a higher frequency start using a new (semi-random) channel.
> 
> I did just look at the menu and passed up the Channel Setup choice and found a Setup Wizard that would be a better choice since it deletes the old channel mapping.
> 
> For my 722, I manually deleted the channels that I knew were changing frequencies so I could just "add" and keep some SF that I don't always receive. Eventually, I started from scratch on the 722 too though - lots of changes to the distant SF stations.


Yes, there is a newer update. I think we are in the 2xx now. Just go to the DTVPal web site and down load the current update to your computer (file might need to be unzipped). Put the new update on a USB memory stick ( make sure the the stick has nothing else on it) and plug it in the back of the DTVPal and follow the on screen prompts.


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## CABill (Mar 20, 2005)

RASCAL01 said:


> Put the new update on a USB memory stick ( make sure the the stick has nothing else on it) and plug it in the back of the DTVPal and follow the on screen prompts.


Thanks, but that won't work for me because I (really neighbor) has a real DTVPal and TR40-CRA. I see something you can download for a DTVPal DVR, but the regular DTVPal doesn't have a USB port to put a flash drive into. I've never opened one up. When they first came out, there were hints leaked by beta testers that there might be some way to update them OTA from CBS Owned and Operated stations.

I'm looking for an update for a DTVPal, not the DVR. They don't even sell them now on DTVPal.com, so I suspect I'm stuck with the original crap firmware.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

SaltiDawg said:


> Apparently, "VHF 2 - 6 are rarely used by DTV broadcasters due to ongoing problems with impulse noise."
> 
> I'm sure we all recognize that a station that has a given *displayed* Channel number may well be broadcasting on a totally different *actual* channel.


Help me to understand what you're trying to say here.


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## Jim148 (Jun 22, 2004)

harsh said:


> Help me to understand what you're trying to say here.


I think he is referring to the RF channel vs virtual channel numbers. For example, I live in the Minneapolis Saint Paul DMA. The local PBS affiliate KTCA 2 was on analog between 54 and 60 mHz. They are now virtual channel 2 and kept that number so viewers recognize who they are. The actual RF channel for their digital assignment is 34 590 - 596 MHz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_channel


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

In my case almost all of the local channels are broadcasting on a channel that is different then their virtual channel number. See attached screen shot from tvfool.com

WGVK is broadcasting on channel 5, shows up in the guide as channel 52.1
WOTV is broadcasting on channel 20, shows up in the guide as channel 41.1
WXMI is broadcasting on channel 19, shows up in guide as channel 17.1

and so on....

Just a side note... see that WGVK, a local PBS station, is broadcasting on low band VHF channel 5.


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## jsk (Dec 27, 2006)

I was more confused by the term "impulse noise" so I Googled it:

* This article says that it is man-made interference
* This is a more technical description of the problem

Thunderstorms interfere with VHF much more than UHF. That seems like much more of a case against using VHF because people rely on OTA during severe weather when their cable/sat/power goes out and they may need to seek shelter where they can't rely on large outdoor antennas.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Jim148 said:


> I think he is referring to the RF channel vs virtual channel numbers. For example, I live in the Minneapolis Saint Paul DMA. The local PBS affiliate KTCA 2 was on analog between 54 and 60 mHz. They are now virtual channel 2 and kept that number so viewers recognize who they are. The actual RF channel for their digital assignment is 34 590 - 596 MHz.


I understand the concept of virtual channels but I was talking about analog frequencies as I thought was appropriate in the context. Somewhere in the DTV transition after tvfool.com became vogue there were a few posters that commented that their channels would be moving back to frequencies once occupied by analog channels 2 or 3.


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