WISN-DT 12.1 weaker?

[troyriley]

Over the past couple weeks, my signal strength on WISN-DT 12.1 has been a little weaker. It was consistently at 100%, but has recently been in the mid to upper 80's. It's not a large enough decrease to worry about dropouts, but I'm wondering if they have changed anything, and whether or not the changes are permanent. All other stations' signal strengths have remained the same.

[Northern Fringe]

I have noticed the same thing up here in Oshkosh.  However, I think the atmosphere has not been as conductive to signals lately because all stations have seen a reduction in signal strength at my location.  The stations that seem to carry themselves the best up here are WDJT-DT and WCGV-DT.  At least those are the ones that I can usually receive consistently.

A related question: Are any of the Milwaukee broadcasters going to have power increases when the digital transition occurs?

[WPXE ION]

WPXE is at full power, no planned increases. Do you see WPXE in Oshkosh?

[SRW1000]

I have also been having significant problems with channel 12 for the past few weeks.  There are times that my signal strength is below 50%.  I've had problems with them before (I've switched antennas since then), but it's always been reflected in the S/N ratio, and never the signal strength.

Scott

[Northern Fringe]

Yes, I do receive WPXE here in Oshkosh.  I had thought it originated in Mayville, because the signal is usually very good, but realized that I'm confusing it for another station.  The meter on my receiver usually shows about a 60% signal on it.  Good signal quality, very consistent.

I'm using an Antennas Direct XG-91 along with a Channel Master 7777 amp for UHF.  The setup performs very well for me.

[WPXE ION]

I have heard the Mayville theory before. I don't know where that comes from because WPXE analog is down in racine County, Raymond, and the Digital is up on the same tower as PBS. Maybe getting confused :confused: with another station that broadcasts shows similar to what is on our "Worship" channel?

Thank you for the information. I will now put a dot on the map for Oshkosh.

S/N, Signal to Noise, is a factor in DTV reception, but is has to be pretty poor in order for your receiver not to lock on to the signal. And by then we would hope an engineer is on the way to the transmitter site to correct it.

SRW1000 what are you using to look at the S/N ratio? Just curious.

[LoadStar]

I have heard the Mayville theory before. I don't know where that comes from because WPXE analog is down in racine County, Raymond, and the Digital is up on the same tower as PBS. Maybe getting confused :confused: with another station that broadcasts shows similar to what is on our "Worship" channel?

 WWRS, which broadcasts TBN programming, is in Mayville.

[SRW1000]

S/N, Signal to Noise, is a factor in DTV reception, but is has to be pretty poor in order for your receiver not to lock on to the signal. And by then we would hope an engineer is on the way to the transmitter site to correct it.

SRW1000 what are you using to look at the S/N ratio? Just curious.

My Accurian receiver has a meter the measures both signal strength and the S/N ratio.  Generally, I get dropouts anytime the that the S/N measure drops below 18dB.  For most stations, it hovers around 24-30dB, which produces a solid signal for me.  Strength-wise, I've gotten good reception with signals as low as 20 (on a 1-100 scale), as long as the S/N ratio was above 18dB.  Most full-power stations are usually in the 84-92 range.

From what I understand, S/N ratio fluctuations are most likely caused by multipath or nearby station interference.

That's what I thought was odd about this last problem with WISN.  The signal strength was dipping well under 50, which has never happened before with any of the full-power stations.

Scott