More guide issues

[Radioguy41]

If you take a look at the image you will see that the top most channel lists as 44-01, WMCN and displays a PBS listing. However it is actually ShopHQ, a shopping channel. This particular problem was initiated by the ever helpful (?) FCC. WMCN was broadcast out of Atlantic City NJ but with the FCC's approval moved their xmitter to Philadelphia. The problem is that the FCC never made them change their beam's footprint so a beam that used to broadcast north from Atlantic City to Philadelphia now broadcasts north from Philadelphia towards the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre market. What has happened is WMCN ch 44 now overrides WVIA ch 44 out of Scranton. WVIA is, in fact, a PBS channel so what we have is the WVIA listing being applied to the WMCN channel. Explaining the problem to both the FCC and WVIA has led nowhere so I can no longer receive WVIA. Gotta luv it!

But wait, it gets better, look at the channel listing just below WMCN, WLVT ch 39. WLVT is actually PBS but shows a duplicate listing of the channel just below it, religious channel 35. This is just a small sample of how really messed up the guide is and has been with no improvement for all the many months (years?) people on this forum have commented/complained about it.

One last comment, will somebody please put that worthless ch 100 out of it's misery and give us back the free preview listing? Huh, pretty please?

 

[KyL416]

WMCN was broadcast out of Atlantic City NJ but with the FCC's approval moved their xmitter to Philadelphia. The problem is that the FCC never made them change their beam's footprint so a beam that used to broadcast north from Atlantic City to Philadelphia now broadcasts north from Philadelphia towards the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre market.

WMCN sold their spectrum in the auction and is now hosted by WHYY's RF 13 signal, so they can't change their OTA signal's coverage area. (WVIA also sold their spectrum in the auction and is now hosted by WNEP's RF 21 signal)

Explaining the problem to both the FCC and WVIA has led nowhere so I can no longer receive WVIA.

Try sending a message directly to WVIA's chief technology officer or reach out to them on social media at @wviaeng, with your location so they can start a formal virtual number conflict complaint with the FCC which would force WMCN to change their virtual number back to their former analog number 53 as the contours of their host stations overlap.

WLVT is actually PBS but shows a duplicate listing of the channel just below it, religious channel 35.

35.1 isn't a religious channel, it's WPPT/PBS 39 Extra. It's the former WYBE/35 who cashed out in the auction and donated their license to WLVT, so it's now hosted by WBPH/60's RF 9 signal in the Lehigh Valley that also hosts WLVT/39 and WFMZ/69.



BTW, unless you are intentionally hiding them from your list, you might want to do a rescan to pickup additional subchannels. WTXF now has Fox Weather on 29.5, WPPT has PBS World on 35.2, and WLVT has PBS Create on 39.2 and France24 on 39.3

 

[Radioguy41]

A: I wasted a lot of time trying to get thru to the engineer's at both channels what the problem was. The word "dense" comes to mind.
B: That image reflects this mornings scan.
C: Religious or not doesn't alter the fact that the listings are wrong.

 

[sam_gordon]

A: I wasted a lot of time trying to get thru to the engineer's at both channels what the problem was. The word "dense" comes to mind.
B: That image reflects this mornings scan.
C: Religious or not doesn't alter the fact that the listings are wrong.

If you can, hook up your antenna to a TV, do the scan, then see what the PSIP guide says. It should match what is on the station's webpage. Assuming it does, the issue is with DISH. All the station engineer can do is contact Dish and tell them the information they're putting out is wrong. Which WE know Dish knows.

 

[Radioguy41]

We already know the guide issues lie with Dish.

 

[sam_gordon]

We already know the guide issues lie with Dish.

So then calling the station really won't get any results.

 

[Radioguy41]

Sorta. There are two issues at play here; the FCC's screwup of allowing WMCN to continue to transmit using it's original footprint after moving from Atlantic City to Philly thereby overblowing WVIA's footprint, and Dish's messed up guide that should, but doesn't, recognize the difference between the two. I communicated with WVIA in hopes that it would spur them to contact the FCC about correcting the issue since they were the ones losing market. After several back and forths with their engineer I began to wonder who took his exams for him since he seemed to be as dense as a post. WMCN, on the other hand, couldn't care less since WVIA wasn't complaining.

Part 2, the Dish guide issue is the gargoyle in the room that won't go away but just sits there looking ugly. I have given up any hope of Dish fixing the problem since it's been ongoing for so very long now. If they cared it would have been fixed by now. Essentially I'm just venting.

 

[sam_gordon]

Well there are no required exams to be a TV Engineer.

Can't tell how strong the signal is based on your image, but if you get both stations, I don't understand what there is to correct.

 

[KyL416]

Again, WMCN did not move its previous RF 44 signal to Philly's tower farm in Roxborough, their former owners sold their spectrum and in 2018 started sharing with WHYY's existing RF 12 signal and followed them to RF 13 when they were repacked in 2020, so reducing that signal's coverage to protect WVIA's virtual 44 was never an option as the power reduction and/or null needed to make sure WHYY's signal that's hosting WMCN doesn't overlap with WNEP's signal that's hosting WVIA would result in much of the Philly DMA losing the ability to receive WHYY.

The fix for the duplicate 44s in your area is to have WMCN change it's virtual number, but that requires WVIA to file a formal complaint. (Similar to what WFSB Connecticut and KYW Philly had to do to get WJLP to leave virtual 3 for virtual 33 after their previous owners moved them to NYC)

They are also far from the only fringe station who found a host that improved their coverage in the main city of the DMA, i.e. in NYC the two full power Hudson Valley stations WRNN and WTBY sold their spectrum and are now being hosted by NYC based signals.


For Dish, the fix for the bad guide matching would be to list the host station's TSID in their OTA EPG entries for guest stations instead of their pre-repack TSID. But handling virtual number conflicts would likely require them to recode their firmware to support duplicate virtual numbers.

 

[llokey]

We already know the guide issues lie with Dish.

If you are in any way able to get Dish to address their part of the problem, please let us know how you did it. My Dish OTA guide shows three CBS stations of which two are not CBS. My CW station shows CBS. My Heartland station shows CBS. Also there are two ABC stations of which only one is ABC. I've reported these problems several times but Dish doesn't seem to care.

 

[jpmarto]

Since we're on the subject of the guide... in the big scheme of things not a big deal, but this morning my Smerconish (CNN, ch 200, 6 am PST) did not record, and next week's schedule shows "not a new episode". Fortunately, there is a 12pm PST time slot to which I cleverly changed my timer from "New" to "New and Reruns". I will never, ever give up!

 

[That American Girl]

I will never, ever give up!

"Never give up! Never surrender!"

 

[MikeD-C05]

My local home town (Beaumont/Pt.Arthur Texas) finally got there guide information corrected for Fox 4 . It is now on 6.3 and it is correct guide and channel logo. The old site 4.1 is showing Dable like it is supposed to, but without guide of course. The channel logo is now showing ota. So it only took them years to fix it but it is correct now.

 

[lgb0250]

Should there be guide data in the dish anywhere app? Mine show the channels but no data info and when I try to click on them I get the message “no data forthe current listing”?

 

[rvvaquero]

Should there be guide data in the dish anywhere app? Mine show the channels but no data info and when I try to click on them I get the message “no data forthe current listing”?

Yes, I certainly have guide data on the app.

 

[tpribors]

Dish doesn't care about guide info for OTA. The Las Vegas map is so screwed up - wrong channel on some, right channel name, wrong programming, and grids that are just 1 hour blocks of the station name. It's so useless that I keep a window open to Titan TV.