WISN

[Gregg Lengling]

I dumped a note to WISN complaining about the lack of meeting the deadline....here's the BS response I got.

Quote
"
Thank you for your comments. I can assure you that we are working diligently to
resolve the issues so we can move forward. Our goal is to provide a high quality
HDTV signal to the Milwaukee market as soon as possible.

Regards,

Dean Maytag
Director of Broadcast Operations
WISN-TV
" Unquote.


------------------
Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
gregg@camelcomm.com

[Kevin Arnold]

This is interesting. I checked the minutes of the zoning appeals board here in Milwaukee and found the latest result of their appeal dated October 4, 2001. Here's what it said:

1 21824
Special Use
Hearst corporation, WISN Division
Rick Henry, Vice Pres.
Request to construct a 115' addition to the
existing 1106' transmitter tower.
5201 N. Milwaukee River Pk.
1st Dist.
Action: Denied
Motion: Scott Winkler moved to deny the appeal. Seconded by Catherine Doyle.
Vote: 5 Ayes – Doyle, Winkler, Szymanski, Jackson, Zetley 0 Nays, 0 Abstained.

And from the month earlier:

1
21824
Special Use
Denied
Hearst corporation, WISN Division
Rick Henry, Vice Pres.;
Request to construct a 116' addition to the
existing 1103' transmitter tower.
5201 N. Milwaukee River Pk.
1st Dist.
Action: --
Motion: The Board moved to concur with the recommendation of the City Attorney that
the recent decision from the Circuit Court be appealed.
Vote: Roy Nabors not voting -- Georgia Cameron, alternate, voting. 5 ayes, 0 nays


So the permit was denied unanimously. Looks like there's a lot of room for negotiation here. Lots of people on the fence. And thanks to WISN for their candor. Viewers and mushrooms....treat 'em the same.

[This message has been edited by kjarnold (edited 05-16-2002).]

[Kevin Arnold]

And for an even deeper explnation of what's going on with WISN and their tower as well as 58's involvement and MATC link to this Shepard Express article.
 http://www.shepherd-express.com/shepherd/20/51/scoop/news.html

[kjnorman]

That was a very interesting article in the Sheperd-Express.

I must say that I would really support the city's desire to reduce the number of towers that there are.  

Having grown up in Britain (moving here a couple of years ago) I must say that I find it amazing that there are so many towers - each one seemingly owned by a station, with some stations owning more than one.  In Britain, for each TV region there is one main tower from which all broadcasters transmit.  Should that tower not reach certain viewers (hills in the way etc) then there would be a local "repeater" transmitter (usually vertically polarized so as not to interfer with the main horizontally polarized main tower) to serve those viewers in the black-out area.

Why stations here can not share one tower, I do not know.  Someone has said that it is because the stations do not want to pay rent to other stations.  I can see that argument, but I can also see the counter..  

If the local broadcasters co-operated, then they could set up a holding company, owned equally amounst the stations.  The holding company owns the tower and is responsible for maintenance.  Space on the tower is then lease to the stations for their transmitters.  The lease pays for the land rental and maintenance.

Benefits?  Well, customers would only need to point their attenna to one tower, the stations get a cost benefit by sharing the tower cost amongst themselves.  I am sure the city would consider a proposal with one super high tower (1500 ft?) holding all the local station transmitters, if the stations agreed to a plan to dismantle their old towers.  

It is interesting to note that the New York stations that lost their transmitters in the WTC disaster are now collaborating and are planning on building the world tallest tower (around 2000 ft) to house their transmission.  It they can co-operate, why can not our stations?

In the article, WISN refuses the 10/36 tower because
 

was "not the best possibility," due to shadowing from other antennas.

But, again if stations consolidated on to one tower and dismantled the old towers then the shadowing issue would disappear.  It would also clear up the look of the city skyline.  

So is this all pie in the sky, and will I be seeing pigs fly next?  Probably, but I needed to vent!

Kerry

[MesaV]

Bravo! kjnorman Bravo! Alas, your comments make way to much sense and are way to logical! They'll never buy into it!   Look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a...  

[kjnorman]

Oh look!  There goes a flying pig.  

[gparris]

I live near the lake close to the Illinois border-does anyone out there get the Chicago DTV stations and if so, what do you recommend for my RCA DTC-100 ? I am hoping for an inside UHF antenna or Terk 55 aimed at Chicago. I am giving up on getting Milwaukee stations for now on the HDTV side, what with all the problems I have read to date in this forum. Any suggestions will be appreciated as I find the anntenna websites confusing. Thanks in advance.

[Kevin Arnold]

Chicago is probably your best bet, but there is one problem. CBS there has their digital signal on channel 3 and AVS posts mention that its not too strong.  All the other stations are UHF. So a Radio Shack 4 bow tie antenna in the attic will get you eveything except CBS(which as you know has mucho HD programming). Maybe a rotor on the antenna would enable you to get 46 CBS out of Milwaukee, since there is mention here of one viewer in Antioch. Rooftop would, of course, be the best.