More for the HD rumor mill

[slacker9876]

I hate to be the one to start gossip but...

Last night I decided to scrolled though the whole guide on my HD receiver and may or may NOT have picked up on some oddities. The following channels were listed in the guide that I have not noted before. The thing I found compelling was the fact they were blank entries of said "to be announced."

PPV 111, 112, 114, 115, 196, 198
DTV 515
CBS 617, 618, 619

So, I may be smoking crack but, I have never taken note of these channels before and I scan the guides about once a week to see about channel mapping. I was not able to tune any of the channels but this did not surprise me in the least.

Conclusions, I am hoping that they are not adding Cinemax HD which on the map it would appear so. The PPV's especially could be any thing, however, these are normally populated whenever I have looked before. I have not ever seen the ones with the high numbers. On the optimistic side since 515 is gone now maybe this will be on of the new HD slots. As far as the CBS's were concerned I am thinking that these were here and I never noticed.

Like I said, just more for the rumor mill.

 

[fredfa]

The CBS channels have, in the past, been used for regional football and basketball games.

 

[Alan Gordon]

Not really related to the topic that much, but I figure it's a good place to ask.

I don't have CBS HD East or West, but quite a bit lately, during primetime, I can turn to that channel and it will say something along the lines of "Programming not available in your area. Please check the guide for alternative programming". Then, later in the night (sometime after midnight) CBS HD East will start giving me the message "no signal" on that channel. I check the signal, and I have a GREAT signal on that channel. I have a Hughes HTL-HD receiver.


~Alan

 

[ckudrna]

Do you HAVE to be in a rural area with no other local CBS in order to get those two HD CBS?

I am in Metro Phoenix, quite far from rural, but I would love any more dedicated HD channels from Directv.

 

[towelie]

Call Direct and ask if you're eligible for CBS HD. they'll check and activate it for you if you are (assuming you have the HD package).

 

[Lem52]

If you can get your locals on satellite or antenna, they won't activate it. I tried to get CBS HD and they wouldn't let me have it. I live close to 80 miles from the station and over the air is a grade b signal.

Lem52

 

[slacker9876]

Since I have officially be hijacked ....

The correct answer is (drum roll please) .................... contact the CBS affiliates that serve you directly. For my market this happened to be KCNC (Denver) and KGWN (Cheyenne). I sent them both an e-mail usually readily available from their site and specifically requested an HD waiver and was granted this from BOTH in under 4 hours.

Both affiliates faxed me a copy of the waiver and also sent it to DirecTV. When requesting the waiver from DirecTV I was declined by KGWN, likely because it was not HD specific. Well not HD specific but DTV specific ... there is a big diff there.

In response to the hijacking, I am quite infamous for doing this myself, so party on dudes!

 

[Neutron]

You're lucky slacker. I was just rudely told by WLKY (my CBS affiliate) that they will not give waivers for High Definition. Not too thrilled since thats one of my weakest stations OTA and their HD channel comes and goes.

 

[fredfa]

Sadly, ckudrna, KPHO in Phoenix has long been adamantly refusing waiver requests -- even though (as I understand it) they do not pass through the CBS HD signal.

 

[Neutron]

Is there anyway to force an affiliate to get a waiver for HD?

 

[slacker9876]

I felt lucky, could not believe it went that quickly. LOL I say as NBC as NOT responded to my request AT ALL.

I do not think there is. It is their signal and they can do with it as they please. Just out of curiosity is this one of those 1Kw stations or is it high power? If you wanted to force the issue and they're CBS O&O there is always the option of certified mail to the corporate office, since it is their policy to allow this. I would have some data available for them if you do.

 

[Neutron]

This is a local not O&O by CBS unfortunately.

 

[slacker9876]

way off track now ... things than make you go Hmmm

Here is an excerpt from FCC 98-302 (I say get a crappy roof top antenna that meets the minimum standard)

B. Grade B Contours and Signal Intensity
4. The Grade B intensity standard is a Commission-defined measure of the strength of a television
station's broadcast signal.13 Developed in the 1950s, the Commission has used the Grade B standard for a
variety of purposes, many of which were not envisioned at the time it was adopted.14 Significantly, while the
Commission anticipated that the Grade B standard might be used generally to determine the service area, or
contour, of a television station, use of the standard to identify individual unserved households under SHVA was
not then at issue. Grade B represents the field strength of a signal 30 feet above ground that is strong enough,
in the absence of man-made noise or interference from other stations, to provide a television picture that the
median observer would classify as "acceptable" using a receiving installation (antenna, transmission line, and
receiver) typical of outlying or near-fringe areas.15 The Grade B contour is defined as the set of points along
which the best 50% of the locations should get an acceptable picture at least 90% of the time.16
Federal Communications Commission FCC 98-302
5. The Grade B contour values (which represent the required field strength in dB above one
micro-volt per meter) are defined for each television channel in Section 73.683 of the Commission's rules:
Channels 2-6 ................ 47 dBu
Channels 7-13 .............. 56 dBu
Channels 14-69 ............ 64 dBu
Section 73.684 contains the Commission's "traditional" methodology for predicting station service coverage
and Section 73.686 describes a procedure for making field strength measurements.

BUT ... you're probably better off to just wait it out, come 2006 satellite will be required to carry the DTV signals they are provided with.

 

[Alan Gordon]

The correct answer is (drum roll please) .................... contact the CBS affiliates that serve you directly. For my market this happened to be KCNC (Denver) and KGWN (Cheyenne). I sent them both an e-mail usually readily available from their site and specifically requested an HD waiver and was granted this from BOTH in under 4 hours.

Actually, the point of my question was actually referring to whether or not anybody else was having this pop up on their screen when tuning to CBS HD. However, I am currently in talks (via email) with both my two "Grade B" CBS affiliates (WRBL in the Columbus, GA DMA and WCTV in the Tallahassee, FL DMA), and while I have not heard much of a answer from one of them yet (I'm fixing to write him back), the other seems doubtful they will give me a waiver, even though I'm 73 miles away from their tower. I won't know for sure though until I request a waiver through my satellite company, and unfortunately my satellite company is still Pegasus.

I've mentioned it before on other boards, and probably this one, but I should be "grandfathered" with waivers for CBS, but during 2000, I had to replace a broken receiver and Pegasus said we had to reapply for waivers for both ABC and CBS since we replaced a broken receiver and added another. We did this and we lost CBS. Last year, after reading on message boards that you could reapply for waivers every so often, I decided to do that, so when I downgraded my programming package, I decided to ask to reapply for waivers for CBS, when I was told that unless I moved or made a change to my account, I was unable to reapply for a waiver for CBS. Then a couple of months later, I ended up getting a letter back saying that I had been turned down for waivers from ABC and FOX. The stupid thing is, I already had ABC, and I would NEVER ask for a waiver from FOX as I am in their DMA, and delivers a "Grade A" signal to me. I might not agree with the Grade A signal, but I still know I would never receive one from them.

So, I plan on waiting until I get switched over to DirecTV before I ask for a waiver. Then I will find out if I can get CBS E&W and CBS HD again.


~Alan

 

[Neutron]

Pegasus was just bought by Directv today, so you should be good to go to try through Directv.

 

[Alan Gordon]

Pegasus was just bought by Directv today, so you should be good to go to try through Directv.

Right, but I have to wait until I'm switched over before I can do that though. When I didn't get my call from DirecTV on this month's billing date, I decided to call them, and I was told that my paperwork had not been processed yet, and it might be another two to three weeks before that happens. I was told that I could call back at anytime to find out if my paperwork had been processed. I plan on calling back sometime around the middle of the month.


~Alan

 

[Neutron]

I still don't see why the local CBS affiliate won't give me a waiver for just the HD side. I thought Congress was supposed to pass a law concerning receiving distant HD nets?

 

[TBarclay]

Congress is working on it--but nothing yet.

 

[Neutron]

I just hate getting told rudely that "we don't do waivers, tough luck".

It would be nice to see the shows in HD but I can't get a reliable OTA HD from the local, and they won't always pass the HD signal anyway.

 

[Alan Gordon]

I still don't see why the local CBS affiliate won't give me a waiver for just the HD side. I thought Congress was supposed to pass a law concerning receiving distant HD nets?

The ironic thing on my story is that if McCain/Ensign's bill passes, I should be able to get CBS HD over satellite as my closest station is broadcasting HD from some 52 miles away at (I believe) 1000kw. However, I'd also like to have access to the analog signals of CBS programming as I can't afford a HDTIVO right now, and I can't always watch what I want to watch when CBS wants me to watch it. If "Significantly Viewed" gets passed, I would probably have access to a CBS affiliate (WCTV is already uplinked), but I figure I would probably have to wait until my own locals are available before I could receive them.


~Alan