RePack Phase 8 started

[km1125]

Does anybody know what the real issue with WHNE is? What type of equipment did they need that it had to come from overseas?

From WHNE
"Our new broadcast antenna was ordered from a company in Pennsylvania. They needed a custom made part for the antenna. They ordered this part from a specialty company in Italy about 6 weeks ago. Little did anyone know that because of the coronavirus this company has been all but shut down for the last 4 weeks. The custom part is supposed to be ready to ship, but they can't because of a quarantine on shipping in Italy!

Bottom line here in Detroit is WHNE will be off the air for at least another week. We are exploring all avenues to find a way to get this part or another one made somewhere to replace this custom part."

I saw that, but I was wondering if anyone knew the actual parts that had to be made overseas for such an antenna. Hard to imagine that any component of these towers couldn't be made anywhere if you just had the specs. Designing the whole antenna would be the key and the tough part, but manufacturing a given part seems like it would be pretty straight-forward.

[km1125]

WHNE is going to be switching to virtual channel 3. On their Facebook, they made a post referring to their movie channel as "soon to be on channel 3.6"

Seems like their viewership would increase, at least for the OTA viewers. Don't think that would help them with placement on cable though.

[Splouge]

WHNE should add one more channel, 3.13 (like Detroit's area code!)

[szmigiel]

WADL is running a test pattern on 27.1 plus blank 27.2, 27.3, and 27.4
They were off the air for a short time yesterday, so they are a step closer to changing.

[km1125]

WHNE should add one more channel, 3.13 (like Detroit's area code!)

As long as they don't allocate any bits to it, I'm OK with that!

Keep the bits for the channels that need it!

[Splouge]

WHNE should add one more channel, 3.13 (like Detroit's area code!)

As long as they don't allocate any bits to it, I'm OK with that!

Keep the bits for the channels that need it!

I meant that as more of a joke, but yeah, The Bob, Elliott, HSN 2, and JTV are allocated too many bits at the expense of Heartland, RTV, and Drive In.

[Splouge]

I'm getting all Detroit stations except WUDL and WLPC at my house in Melvindale

UPDATE: I am able to get WUDL with an amp, and WLPC comes in when my antenna is in a really weird position.

I may have already said this, but who's even keeping track? My setup is a Clearstream 2 Max with a 12 dB amp in the master bedroom (the only room with a north facing window in my house), and using the old cable hookup, it's distributed to the living room (which faces south, away from WHNE's antenna). I'm gonna replace it with rabbit ears once WHNE comes back.

[Splouge]

I started a phase 9 thread, since we have some phase 9 stations in the area, and because this thread is getting too long, in my opinion.

[km1125]

Anyone have any updates on WHNE? Their facebook page still has their posting from the 12th, anticipating they'd be back 'in a week or two', and it's been about two weeks. Are they making progress or have they been stunted by the Covid shutdowns or some other issue?

[Splouge]

Anyone have any updates on WHNE? Their facebook page still has their posting from the 12th, anticipating they'd be back 'in a week or two', and it's been about two weeks. Are they making progress or have they been stunted by the Covid shutdowns or some other issue?

On March 21, they said they'd be on the air "(h)opefully late next week, but that could change at anytime. Everytime it looks good, it goes bad, so (they) don't know for sure until everything is delivered and installed."

[HD74]

Weather plays a big role in antenna work, the forecast isn’t looking all that good.

[innate-in-you]

I put a set of 'rabbit ears' up in my attic with RG6 to the 2nd floor TV set and pulled the VHF leads 3/4 of the way out and I still had to spend 45 minutes to get both VHF 11 and VHF13 to come-in at 75% regularly in T-town.
Or, is part of the problem the Best Buy and Sony TV's have sh*t for tuners compared to ten years ago when you could get HDTV without an amplifier for your city grade locals?
I mean, I have a 75mile sized log periodic for the 2018 Sony and I have to use a 9dB amp to get the locals, while my 2006 Sony would get all of them on the elevated rabbit ear set without amp (or should I have taken my 2018 Sony back for a problem since it couldn't get any locals without an amp), 9 air miles from the antenna farm?
Hey, who was talking about the luck they had with their folded dipole (FM antenna style)? More details- 8 foot either side of the center connection, ties the ends together, the top and one from each side??

8 feet in total.
Cut an 8' run of twinlead, then strip the insulation (about 2cm) at both of the ends, and at each end, join the two wires together.

On one side, cut one of the wires at midpoint. Carefully strip a small amount of insulation from the wires. This becomes the feedpoint.

You have two options for the lead-in. You can use more twinlead to carry the signal from the dipole to the receiver -just be sure this downlead does not come in contact with metal (that would lose signal strength). You will also want to twist the downlead a little on its way down, lest the downlead act as a top-loaded vertical (Marconi) antenna and pick up undesirable RF noise.

If you can't easily run this lead to your set (e.g. through a complex path, or no path without metal surfaces), you could feed the signal from the dipole to a 300Ω:75Ω balun (electronics stores consider these to be obsolete relics - but they are sold at many "dollar" stores - at the predictable price).

Connect the balun to an RF preamplifier. Since this will feed the signal to a transistor, it will easily carry down the 75Ω coax, and you need not worry about running the coax by metal surfaces or by sources of interference within the house.

If you try to connect the dipole to the balun, using no amplifier, you could lose a lot of signal. Only 60MHz and its odd harmonics (180, 300, 420...) Will show a good match. Other frequencies could suffer, because the signal could bounce back between the antenna and the balun, back and forth and back.... wasting the signal as an infinitesimal amount of heat.

The amplifier will provide a signal with a characteristic impedance of 75Ω (hopefully) over its entire passband.

[innate-in-you]

WHNE is going to be switching to virtual channel 3. On their Facebook, they made a post referring to their movie channel as "soon to be on channel 3.6"

Seems like their viewership would increase, at least for the OTA viewers. Don't think that would help them with placement on cable though.

WHNE-LD is an LD, not a CD. It's not assured cable carriage at all, In fact, a CATV system rarely carries an LPTV at all, unless the CATV carrier owns the LPTV.

[tvbobn]

WHNE is going to be switching to virtual channel 3. On their Facebook, they made a post referring to their movie channel as "soon to be on channel 3.6"

Seems like their viewership would increase, at least for the OTA viewers. Don't think that would help them with placement on cable though.

WHNE is an LP, not a CD. It's not assured cable carriage at all, In fact, a CATV system rarely carries an LPTV at all, unless the CATV carrier owns the LPTV.

You only partly correct. WHNE-LD is their call sign. The "L" stand for Low Power. The "D" signs for Digital. An LP station is still analog. "CA" is a Class A.

You are correct that cable systems rarely carry LP, LD or even CA stations unless the station qualifies for "Must Carry". It's fairly difficult to qualify, so few are on cable.

[szmigiel]

WInds are picking up and I am starting to get Multi-Channel interference
Heavy on CW50 (RF34), WABL 28 (RF27) Pretty much unwatchable
A little on WYXZ 7 (RF 25) WDIV 4 (RF32) Watchable with a few skips
No issues with Fox 2 (RF7), WWJ 62 (RF21), PBS 56 (RF20), My20 (RF31)

Back when CW50 was on RF14 it use to be pretty rock solid, not so much since there move last year.

Once WHNE-LD comes back and I know if I need to change or modify my antenna. I may have to look into trying to get my antenna even higher over the tree line. Currently it is about 30 feet off the ground, I might need to try a chimney strap mount.