WGVU TV weaker up North since the last repack?

[Radio Chili]

They were strong in Newaygo County but now they're weak up here! 5 bars has dropped to 2 bars!

Anyone know why?

Everything else is just as good as they were up here with exception of WWMT & WOOD which have both completely disappeared from my TV sets. Those two have never been very good up here (1-3 bars both) but now they're completely gone! The big outside yagi and the run of RG-6 are still in great shape.

[Honolulublue4life]

Wish WWMT and WOOD would put a repeater up in Muskegon County somewhere.

[MWmetalhead]

The fact multiple stations have dropped in strength, Radio Chili, suggests to me the issue may be with your equipment.

Although, with the recent weather pattern, it would not surprise me if interference from Wisconsin or Chicago is responsible for your recently diminished reception of WWMT, WOOD, and WGVU.

According to FCCdata.org, WGVU-TV has been using the same specs since 2011.

WOOD-TV has had a digital repeater in Muskegon County for years. The signal is very directional, however. Montague, Whitehall, Shelby, etc. receive very little "juice" from the repeater. The repeater, I believe, shares the WOOD-FM tower near Wolf Lake. Pre-repack, the repeater transmitted on RF 46. It now uses RF 34.

For a UHF repeater, ERP is weak. Maximum ERP is only 3.1 kW. It is not intended to serve Newaygo County, other than perhaps the Fremont area. Low wattage, low tower height, and Newaygo County's very hilly terrain make reception a crapshoot. The signal was designed to primarily serve viewers in Muskegon and Grand Haven.

Given the fact Muskegon & Grand Haven are significant population centers, it does surprise me WWMT doesn't have a translator or repeater in the area. Then again, WZZM's signal has been awful in far southern Kent County & far southern Ottawa County for years, and they don't seem to care, either.


https://www.rabbitears.info/contour.php ... 29ef&map=Y

[Jason Kragt]

High-VHF was pretty bad for me last weekend. WOOD had dropouts. WWMT didn't even scan. I would try some more before reaching a conclusion.

Back in the analog days you could sort of figure out what was happening by checking for distant stations. One might see some unfamiliar channels appear at this time of year. Now things are tougher to figure out.

[Bull Shannon]

Given the fact Muskegon & Grand Haven are significant population centers, it does surprise me WWMT doesn't have a translator or repeater in the area. Then again, WZZM's signal has been awful in far southern Kent County & far southern Ottawa County for years, and they don't seem to care, either.

WWMT doesn't have the viewership or the news coverage in the Muskegon/GH area for them to justify the cost of putting a translator in up here.

Even though West Michigan is one big, dysfunctional TV market, WWMT seems perfectly content on being the Kzoo-centric news station and focusing more on the southern half of the market, just like how WZZM doesn't put a whole lot of resources into covering the Kzoo area.

WZZM and WXMI both seem to put more effort into covering Muskegon-area news than even WOOD, let alone WWMT.

[MWmetalhead]

WWMT doesn't have the viewership or the news coverage in the Muskegon/GH area for them to justify the cost of putting a translator in up here.

You seem focused on news ratings. What about the CBS primetime schedule, NCAA basketball, NFL football, and PGA golf?

[ftballfan]

Radio Chili, can you get 9&10 at all? I would imagine in Oceana County (which is in the Grand Rapids DMA in part due to 29&8 being an (historically) awful station [according to TV Factbooks in the 70s and into the 80s, 7&4 and 9&10 were more popular in Oceana County than WOTV or WKZO]), 9&10 was (and still might be) the primary CBS up there.

[mocom70]

We use the master antenna system where we live in Muskegon(80ft tower with frequency cut antennas). WWMT is not there half the time or it's WMVS from Milwaukee in these warmer months. If I want to really watch WWMT shows I can see them on CBS All Access on the Firestick. They should put a translator near Muskegon. It would have helped in the analog days, also as 3 was always the worst signal in the market.

[Bull Shannon]

WWMT doesn't have the viewership or the news coverage in the Muskegon/GH area for them to justify the cost of putting a translator in up here.

You seem focused on news ratings. What about the CBS primetime schedule, NCAA basketball, NFL football, and PGA golf?

Fair point, but even if people don't have cable, there are so many other ways to access that content now via streaming as long they have Internet access.

[Radio Chili]

Radio Chili, can you get 9&10 at all? I would imagine in Oceana County (which is in the Grand Rapids DMA in part due to 29&8 being an (historically) awful station [according to TV Factbooks in the 70s and into the 80s, 7&4 and 9&10 were more popular in Oceana County than WOTV or WKZO]), 9&10 was (and still might be) the primary CBS up there.

I'm in the Newaygo area and can get 9 almost at full scale on the signal meter but only if I swing the rooftop fringe antenna to the N-NE. Then I lose ALL the others. There's no rotator up there so it must stay in the important direction, 170 degrees.

It's worthy of mention that I couldn't care less about the 'big 3' networks. All I care about is getting everybodys interesting sub-channels.