WTTV Channel 4-1 Info:
If you happen to have had HD before VOOM as I did with DirecTV, or your VOOM receiver maps 4-1 (WTTV) and you don't receive a signal, you may never receive one! Before March 1, 2004 this Channel was received on 59-2, and yes I received it. I was confused and thought the Station was working on this issue and it would return. WRONG! Thanks to a great reply (posted below) from Rick Poiling, RF Supervisor of WB4 you may now understand this issue. Hope this helps others.
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59-2 was WTTV's DTV signal for about a year and a half, ending March 1 of this year. This was part of our package to appease the FCC while we built the current low-power DTV stations. The FCC was angry with us because the previous owners of WTTV had not done enough to get their DTV stations built before the May 2002 deadline. So that was not your imagination. But no, it is not coming back on 59-2. There is not enough bandwidth available on WXIN-DT to run 2 HD programs, as I explained in the email you mentioned.
I ran AntennaWeb using the 46060 zip code, and you are right, 4-1 is not listed, nor should it be. WTTV-DT 53 (aka 4-1) does not cover Noblesville. But WTTK-DT 54 (aka 29-1) does, and it is correctly listed by
AntennaWeb.
You will not receive 4-1 in Noblesville anytime soon. That transmitter will always be in Trafalgar, which is a very long reach to you at any power level. Even at the maximized power level we have applied for, you would be at the edge of WTTV-DT's coverage area. You are much closer to our Windfall site than you are to Trafalgar.
You may, however, someday be able to get 29-1. We would like to move this one to Indianapolis, but whether we can or not is up to the FCC and we don't expect a decision anytime soon. But, even if we can't, and had to build a full-power transmitter at Windfall, that would still be your best bet.
You mentioned your directional antennas. Do you know what the front-to-back ratio is? It may be that you can move your antenna just a little and get 29-1 off the back side of the antenna. You'd have a much better chance today of getting 23-1, as they are full power and not far away from you at all (the transmitter is in Strawtown). After looking at your station list that you do receive, it may actually be that your antenna is TOO directional. You really should be able to get 23-1 by sticking a coat hanger up in the air from Noblesville.
Note that WTTV and WTTK are restricted in where their transmitting site can be located, due to the fact that WTTV is licensed to Bloomington and WTTK is licensed to Kokomo. So we must always put a "city grade" signal over those cities. Note that neither station is licensed to Indianapolis, so we can't just move the tower to Indianapolis without proving that we can put a good signal into the "city of license", which in most cases is not possible. So, while you may expect that it would be right for you to be able to get 4-1 just because you get everyone else, there is a reason why that is not a valid expectation.
Now from a business perspective, we'd love to serve the Indianapolis area better. And we'll do everything we can to achieve that better service. But, we also have to do it the realm of the FCC rules and the licenses that we have.
Hope that begins to explain what is going on here. In a nutshell, WTTV/WTTK has been dealt a bad hand when it comes to covering the Indianapolis area. The applications we have on file will make the best of the situation, and if we get to move 29-1 (WTTK-DT) to Indianapolis, that will solve the problem. But we think it may be up to a year before we get an answer on that one.