Metv 49

[Pattizb]

Is there anyone in Dodge county that is still getting METV 49?  We cannot receive it anymore.  We have OTA antenna on a tower and an insignia converter box.  Any suggestions?:confused

[uwgrad]

I too can no longer receive 49.1.  Before June 12, I didn't have any problem getting them.

I'm located about 30 miles north of downtown Milwaukee.  Every other station comes in at either full strength, or just below on my receivers.

[Jack 1000]

I would suggest rescanning the tuner on your digital TV.  I was doing some searching to find a phone number or E-Mail contact for the Milwaukee ME-TV division that people could contact regarding this issue.  I have TWC and last time I checked was not affected by this.  I believe this is an OTA issue exclusively.

Jack

[uwgrad]

Rescanning won't do anything.  Rescanning is what made me loose 49.1.  I rescanned after the 12th to pick up the changes that were made to various channels, and the signal for 49.1 was too weak at the time and the tuner wasn't able to even add it to the channel list.  I was able to rescan a different time when the atmosphere was helping out a bit, and I was able to at least get it back into the list (my TV doesn't allow me to manually add channels - it has to find it during the auto scan).

They are supposed to be on RF 48.  If your receiver shows the actual RF channel, you can verify that what the tuner mapped to 49.1 is correct.  In my case, I can see that the tuner is looking at the correct RF channel.  Under certain atmospheric conditions, I can receive a very weak signal, but it isn't stable by any means.  However, most of the time, it is just black.

They must have reduced power, or made some other change as of June 12 that reduced their coverage area.

[jjallou]

Is there anyone in Dodge county that is still getting METV 49?  We cannot receive it anymore.  We have OTA antenna on a tower and an insignia converter box.  Any suggestions?:confused

Why not call the people that run that channel? CBS-58  (414) 777-5800

[John L]

Isn't ME-TV ch. 49 broadcasting from the WDJT-58 tower?

Much better then when the DT antenna was in Racine.

-John L.

[tbarney]

Isn't ME-TV ch. 49 broadcasting from the WDJT-58 tower?

Much better then when the DT antenna was in Racine.

-John L.

I believe you are correct. According to the FCC website Channel 49 is broadcasting from Milwaukee and I should have a prefect signal from Germantown. If you drill down on it, coverage should have gotten better after the analog shutoff. Take that for what its worth, the government is known to be wrong from time to time.

[mrschimpf]

I know I read something that they're waiting to increase power. As I said in another thread they're definitely still at their lower power because I'm getting the trop effect overwhelming any sliver of a WBME signal I have where I am, and WHME from South Bend (which also is on digital 48) is just powering right through on a good day.

Maybe they're experimenting with trying to keep both signals on an even keel. Go too powerful and they're getting angry mail from viewers of a station they compete with in South Bend (Weigel owns LP ABC/CW/MyNet stations there).

[John L]

I know I read something that they're waiting to increase power. As I said in another thread they're definitely still at their lower power because I'm getting the trop effect overwhelming any sliver of a WBME signal I have where I am, and WHME from South Bend (which also is on digital 48) is just powering right through on a good day.

Maybe they're experimenting with trying to keep both signals on an even keel. Go too powerful and they're getting angry mail from viewers of a station they compete with in South Bend (Weigel owns LP ABC/CW/MyNet stations there).

Seems like the distance between SB and Milwaukee is too close to assign stations on the same freq.  Not only WBME and WHME using 48, same with WSBT and WVCY both using ch. 22.   Its up to the FCC.  They assigned channels a bit closer than with analog.  Perhaps because digital is not putting out as much power as analog.  It could, its up to the FCC to consider allowing digitals to go 5,000 kW ERP.  Maybe they will allow that in the near future. It may require some stations to change frequency or RF channels to avoid interference. Viewer wouldn't notice the channel change, but the TV station would have to spend lots of $$$ to make the changes should that happen.

-John L.

[mrschimpf]

Seems like the distance between SB and Milwaukee is too close to assign stations on the same freq.  Not only WBME and WHME using 48, same with WSBT and WVCY both using ch. 22.   Its up to the FCC.  They assigned channels a bit closer than with analog.  Perhaps because digital is not putting out as much power as analog.  It could, its up to the FCC to consider allowing digitals to go 5,000 kW ERP.  Maybe they will allow that in the near future. It may require some stations to change frequency or RF channels to avoid interference. Viewer wouldn't notice the channel change, but the TV station would have to spend lots of $$$ to make the changes should that happen.

-John L.

There was a problem a few months ago in Kansas City where WISN's sister station KMBC was having immediate interference on their digital channel 7 with a station in Joplin, Missouri after that station did a 2/17 conversion back to channel 7. They got permission from the FCC to switch to digital channel 29 shortly thereafter and all the complaints went away overnight.

I always thought 150-175 miles was the FCC's required buffer to reduce any chance of interference. If you go by Milwaukee for instance, the closest channel 4/6/10/12's outside of there in the analog age were either in Lansing, Flint, Traverse City, or Detroit. Now you have WVCY sharing 22 with WSBT and then WBME with WHME, and also 41 having to move their analog signal because Green Bay and Rockford recieve interference from WMLW. I would've thought the more compact signals would have allowed channels to go out farther, but the way some of these channels are sharing frequencies, they're now more susceptible to interference.

[Cheese!]

South Bend may be a good distance away BUT, i think the FCC should've acounted for lake michigan when assigning channels, out here i have no problem (other than lp channel 8 in madison ever so slightly interfearing with WMVS)