# First atsc 3.0 station in Seattle market switches on



## 1948GG

Sometime in the last couple of days, the Tegna station KING-TV in Seattle switched to atsc 3.0 and reworked its subchannels radically, increasing from the original two subchannels to seven, many of them in full 1080. There hasn't been any press release as of yet, and there's been nothing as to the other Tegna stations in the Pacific Northwest in Portland OR or Spokane WA. As this station group is currently being hawked for sale, I wonder if any of the other stations around the country have made the switch. 

One would think some press release would be forthcoming; the station completed its frequency repack a while back, moving from uhf 48 to 25. That was a pretty radical switch requiring a new transmitter and antenna array, and it seems they went all in.


----------



## James Long

Who can see the new feed? ATSC 3.0 tuners are not common.


----------



## Rob Williams

James Long said:


> Who can see the new feed? ATSC 3.0 tuners are not common.


I have a second home in Olympia. I'm here every two or three months or so, for a month or two at a time. Thanks to the advice from folks on the forum at TVFool.com many years ago, I bought a large TV antenna and have been enjoying OTA for many years. I've received all four major networks (CBS, ABC, FOX, PBS, and NBC) for many years. In the past four months or so, I have not been able to tune in KING-TV from Seattle (virtual channel 5.1). There's just no signal there at all. I have done my research, and the KING-TV broadcast antenna seems to be the same one (or mounted at the same site) as ABC (4.1) and CBS (7.1). Would anyone know why I am not getting the KING-TV signal? Do I need a new ATSC 3.0 tuner to receive the KING-TV signal, or should I still get the KING-TV signal with my old antenna and tuner setups (HDHomeRun, a couple of HDTVs with ATSC tuners). Yes, I have rescanned several times.


----------



## BLueSS

Rob Williams said:


> In the past four months or so, I have not been able to tune in KING-TV from Seattle (virtual channel 5.1). There's just no signal there at all. I have done my research, and the KING-TV broadcast antenna seems to be the same one (or mounted at the same site) as ABC (4.1) and CBS (7.1). Would anyone know why I am not getting the KING-TV signal?


Not sure. I still receive KING-TV just fine after the repack.



1948GG said:


> Sometime in the last couple of days, the Tegna station KING-TV in Seattle switched to atsc 3.0 and reworked its subchannels radically, increasing from the original two subchannels to seven, many of them in full 1080.


What are the additional 5 channels?

I suspect there's no press release because the official word is that ATSC 3 is still "coming soon" for the Seattle area.


----------



## Rob Williams

BLueSS said:


> I still receive KING-TV just fine after the repack.


Hi BLueSS: Do you still get KING-TV on channels 5.1, 5.2, etc? I realize that these are the virtual channels but believe that after rescanning, my TVs should get KING-TV on channels 5.1, 5.2 etc still. Thanks!


----------



## BLueSS

Rob Williams said:


> Hi BLueSS: Do you still get KING-TV on channels 5.1, 5.2, etc? I realize that these are the virtual channels but believe that after rescanning, my TVs should get KING-TV on channels 5.1, 5.2 etc still. Thanks!


Yes! They are still on 5.1, 5.2, 5.3.

Do you have an amplifier in use, or anything to help your signal? You're about 50 miles (depending on where in Olympia) from the antennas, so if you're getting KOMO-4, I'd be surprised as well. You're not in a great location for OTA.


----------



## Rob Williams

BLueSS said:


> Yes! They are still on 5.1, 5.2, 5.3.
> 
> Do you have an amplifier in use, or anything to help your signal? You're about 50 miles (depending on where in Olympia) from the antennas, so if you're getting KOMO-4, I'd be surprised as well. You're not in a great location for OTA.


My antenna is a big one and dtvmaps shows I am 39 miles from the KING, KOMO, and KIRO antennas. I forget the exact model, but yes, it's big and it took a while to get right. It worked for years without an amplifier (I tried an RCA but it did worse than just the antenna and required me to install it outside by the antenna, a PITA), but in recent years I've had a Mohu Jolt amplifier in the house right before the Electroline ED2400 splitter. I usually get all four major networks with any tides over 4 feet or so. I'm getting KOMO and KIRO right now and it's a 2.2 foot tide. Thanks! Hey, just realized that I should try it without the Mohu Jolt amplifier (but it has worked wonders in my other house).


----------



## scooper

Try doing a rescan for channels, then take out the amp and try rescanning.


----------



## Rob Williams

scooper said:


> Try doing a rescan for channels, then take out the amp and try rescanning.


Yep, tried this about three times over the past few days. I get 4.1, 7.1, 9.1, 11.1, 13.1 (the main broadcast channels); all except 5.1 KING-TV. There's nothing there that my antenna can see. And it used to pick up 5.1 just fine.


----------



## scooper

Are they simulcasting ATSC 1 and ATSC3 ? If not I'm not sure WHERE you can find a consumer ATSC3 tuner right now.
Edit - 
Ok - I just did a Google search for ATSC3 tuner, and it found one article that had a system -for $2000 - $3000 (as they stated - prosumer). That article also stated that simulcasting ATSC1 and ATSC3 is required. So the issue is what does TV Fool have to say about your location and that station (the ATSC1 version) RIGHT NOW ?


----------



## zmarty

I am somewhat certain the original poster was wrong. I have a HDHomeRun with ATSC 3.0 and there are no ATSC 3.0 channels yet in the Seattle market.

But there will be soon: NextGen TV Eyes December Launch in Seattle | TV Technology


----------



## harsh

There are no stations broadcasting NextGen TV in Seattle Washington. Further, it will be years before any stations in the US are allowed to "switch" to NextGen TV.

I suspect that the TS was misinterpreting something.

You'll know when NextGen TV arrives in your area as you'll be bombarded with advice about re-scanning your channels when the DTV stations shuffle around to make room for NextGen TV.

The FCC decided that no additional TV channels will be made available to provide for NextGen TV so the stations are having to move channels around to make room.

According to an article on the TVTechnology.com website, KING and KONG are planning to move their DTV signals to RF25 and KONG (RF31) will be carrying the NextGen TV versions sometime next month.


----------



## zmarty

ATSC 3.0 is live in the Seattle area. For real this time.

ATSC 3.0 is Live in Seattle | Cord Cutters News


----------



## P Smith

so, are the station helping local people to buy new receiver ?


----------



## Davenlr

7 stations on one transmitter. That should look good.


----------



## James Long

Davenlr said:


> 7 stations on one transmitter. That should look good.


It could. ATSC 3.0 isn't limited to the same codecs and formats as the old ATSC.


----------



## P Smith

so, there is same user-friendly-technical-question: what OTA receiver does support the ATSC 3.0 modulation(s) and can decode unlimited formats ?


----------



## harsh

P Smith said:


> so, there is same user-friendly-technical-question: what OTA receiver does support the ATSC 3.0 modulation(s) and can decode unlimited formats ?


Some TV tuners in the LG line are enabled as is the SIlicon Dust HDHomerun Connect 4K. The Sony X900H tuner hasn't been turned on yet.


----------



## harsh

James Long said:


> It could. ATSC 3.0 isn't limited to the same codecs and formats as the old ATSC.


In the case of Seattle, the only stations with 7 channels is the Ion affiliate and a Spanish Language LP station and they're still on DTV.

The unintended consequence for wishing for Nextgen TV to arrive is that most of the transitioning stations have added one or more subchannels to their DTV broadcasts. My local MyTV channel went to SD.

Most Nextgen TV stations are carrying either three or four HD channels and they aren't noticeably better than their DTV counterparts were.

Until DTV goes away, there won't be much in the way of improvements outside of any reception improvements that Nextgen TV modulation may (or may not) deliver. The plan for 4K for the foreseeable future is that it will be streamed.


----------



## James Long

ATSC 3.0 is still OTA "DTV" ... so trying to use "DTV" as a label for ATSC 1.0 is not helpful (and is confusing as "DTV" is commonly used for a certain satellite carrier).


----------



## harsh

James Long said:


> ATSC 3.0 is still OTA "DTV" ... so trying to use "DTV" as a label for ATSC 1.0 is not helpful (and is confusing as "DTV" is commonly used for a certain satellite carrier).


In the context of OTA, I respectfully disagree.


----------



## eyewanders

Rob Williams said:


> I have a second home in Olympia. I'm here every two or three months or so, for a month or two at a time. Thanks to the advice from folks on the forum at TVFool.com many years ago, I bought a large TV antenna and have been enjoying OTA for many years. I've received all four major networks (CBS, ABC, FOX, PBS, and NBC) for many years. In the past four months or so, I have not been able to tune in KING-TV from Seattle (virtual channel 5.1). There's just no signal there at all. I have done my research, and the KING-TV broadcast antenna seems to be the same one (or mounted at the same site) as ABC (4.1) and CBS (7.1). Would anyone know why I am not getting the KING-TV signal? Do I need a new ATSC 3.0 tuner to receive the KING-TV signal, or should I still get the KING-TV signal with my old antenna and tuner setups (HDHomeRun, a couple of HDTVs with ATSC tuners). Yes, I have rescanned several times.


Just throwing in my bit of experience in the Olympia area as well. Around the same time I noticed a change in KING as well, right aroudn the repack finalization, but for me the result was suddenly *receiving* King reliably. I also was able to *occasionally *pick up KCTS-9, but since the repack that is much, MUCH more seldom. KING however now comes in much more reliably. Seems they added power.
In regard to ATSC3.0 I noticed very little in my brief time with an HDHomeRun Flex4k I picked up in the past week. I have a roof-mounted stacked UHF/VHF (Denny's) with a Channel-master amp. One thing of note is that I have hardly ever been able to pull in KOMO unless I do some multipath trickery and point my antenna quite a bit off-axis; I never really bother because KOMO is my least cared about. Rescanning with the HDHome run (and mucking about at the antenna a bit) KOMO is displayed as channel 104.1, KIRO as 107.1, and KUNS as 151.1.... Of these, the only one I can pull in reliably is KOMO, but it is nearly always in HEVC codec and is *very often* in HDR. The programs are very clearly 1080p upscaled 4K picture to my eye, but it's *something*. Weirdly though, there is never any program data pulled for the channel in the SiliconDust app, and none of the subchannels are there, just the main channel content. When I rescan or try to manually tune KOMO with my LG tv, which is ASTC1.0 only, I can never see KOMO at all, and that tuner is actually a good bit better than the HomeRun's. So, something is clearly going on up there.
To me at least, the good news is that I can see easily that KCTS-9 is POUNDING my antenna with very strong signal power, but awful quality SQ signal (2Edge and a huge row of evergreen putting the final nail in the coffin; plus all sorts of multipath I'd guess). This signal profile looks almost *identical* for KOMO on my signal meter, but with the HDHomeRun and ATSC3.0 KOMO comes in just fine most of the time (occasional drop-out and break-up but watchable). If KCTS ever gets some funding to makes the switch I may finally get to watch it here, which is the one channel I've wanted most (other that KCTS for football, but that one has always been clear as a bell!).


----------



## eyewanders

KCPQ-13 for football, I mean.


----------



## P Smith

eyewanders said:


> Weirdly though, there is never any program data pulled for the channel in the SiliconDust app, and none of the subchannels are there, just the main channel content.


I would dig into parameters of video/audio/EPG streams by TSreader if it's support the SiliconDust tuners. You'll get a lot more info than by TV .


----------

