No locals via Dish in Tulsa. No hope for them in the future

[wavoka]

I know OTA is better, but because of the fact we live in a valley with very steep elevations all around our OTA reception is terrible at best.

Here's my story.

Before signing up with Dish last March I called them to speak with them about their serivce and the fact that locals in HD was not available from them. During my conversation with the sales rep I was told Tulsa was "next on the list" and would be completed "sometime in April." So I went ahead and signed up.

When the installer came I was talking to him about Tulsa locals and he said the same thing. "We're next and it will be complete in April."

Well today is August 1st and still no Tulsa locals in HD via Dish.

I have contacted Dish several times about this and always get the same run around answer of "they are working on it." and "We can't give specific dates service will be available."

As you can imagine this pisses me off to no end. I was lied to in order to get my business and have been put off anytime I try to get an answer as to when the service might finally be available.

 

[jayn_j]

As you can imagine this pisses me off to no end. I was lied to in order to get my business and have been put off anytime I try to get an answer as to when the service might finally be available.

I bet you believed the Army recruiter too about those condos at Fort Ord.

Seriously, these people have absolutely no idea about DISH plans. Further, their job is to get you to sign on the dotted line, and this is how they are ranked.

If you had come here first (hindsight is 20/20), you would have seen hundreds of posts about how you should never count on futures at E*, even when they have been announced. You can't afford to believe it until you can see it.

Tulsa HD has been a hot topic here for some time. At this point, you really only have four options.
1. You can sit tight and wait until they arrive.
2. You can "move" to Oklahoma City which does have HD locals.
3. You can cancel DISH, pay the penalties and go with a different carrier.
4. You can pick up lifeline cable as they are forced to provide the HD feeds in the basic package.

 

[boba]

I used 74103 for a zipcode on AntennaWeb and come up with a compass heading of 113-118 for most of the Tulsa broadcasters and 20-25 miles distance. Seeing most are currently using UHF I would try a UHF 2 bay bowtie antenna with the hopes that the digital signals get into your valley. An alternative is on Ebay a dealer from Denton, TX was running a Winegard GS-1100 antenna for $9.95 buy it now with a $9.95 shipping. You don't post what you have for a receiver but seeing your interested in HD I assume your DISH receiver has an ATSC tuner built in, try a $20-50 investment in OTA antenna to see what you can actually get. Many of the digital signals work where the analog didn't.

 

[boba]

I went back into Ebay if you search for auction 350077753049 it will bring up the expired auction at that time he had 97 left so you should be able to contact him through the information in that auction to see if the $20 price is still good.

 

[wavoka]

Sorry about leaving out my receiver type. It is a 722.

I have tried OTA. Have a Radio Shack, can't remember the model number, boom/yagi/whatever you want to call it, antenna located on a 35' pole. No real luck with it. Best signal I can usually get for the locals is in the mid 40's to sometimes near 60's. We aren't actually in Tulsa, a little south in a suburb. Zip is 74043

 

[Poke]

Yeah I get the OKC Locals in HD but I do not know what the hold up is for T-town due to I know Dish had them on the list along time ago..

 

[boba]

74043 gives an even better reason to try an outdoor TV antenna, you are now only about 10 miles away from the broadcasters. Unless you have a mountain between you and the towers it would seem like you should get some reception. Maybe you are trying too hard for a digital signal, try roof top with a small (indoor) UHF antenna. Antennaweb shows a railroad track going in more or less the direction of your broadcasters and Railroads tend to follow line of least resistance so I am guessing that is the way the valley goes.

 

[osu1991]

Tulsa won't be available until Ciel 2 launches to replace the sat at 129. Been common knowledge for a while and definitely a hot topic, as it appears all three of the other Oklahoma DMA's will be up in HD on Dish before Tulsa. 3 of the Tulsa stations will be going back to VHF for the final digital changeover (KJRH, KTUL, OETA) will all be VHF. He may be too close but any outdoor antenna properly connected should get the OTA signal we pick them up with rabbit ears in Broken Arrow at my office. Make sure you have it pointed towards Oneta (NE) about half way between Broken Arrow and Coweta. My inlaws live in a valley west of Glenpool and I put a small outdoor yagi from Radio Shack and get them all perfectly.

 

[okiekevn]

i know the area he is in. he is has some hills that seperate between him and the broadcasters. funny thing is that when i lived in tahlequah, i could get great reception. but if he is where i think he is, he is right at the bottem of the hill. the radio waves go right over the top of him. if he were approx ten miles south, then the radio waves would have spread again and he would have reception.

 

[levibluewa]

Wavoka...

sent you a private message.

 

[wavoka]

i know the area he is in. he is has some hills that seperate between him and the broadcasters. funny thing is that when i lived in tahlequah, i could get great reception. but if he is where i think he is, he is right at the bottem of the hill. the radio waves go right over the top of him. if he were approx ten miles south, then the radio waves would have spread again and he would have reception.

Exactly....

 

[Adkeith]

This is the radio shack antenna I have always used and has worked great on my Dish 622. I live in Owasso now but also had one in the attic in Claremore when I lived there and it worked perfect. My readings are in the upper 90's all the time.

80" Boom Length, 32-Element Antenna
Model: VU-90 XR | Catalog #: 15-2152

Ideal for the city or suburbs, this antenna is a must have. The 80" Boom Length, 32-Element Ant...

 

[wavoka]

Talked to an installer here today so of course I asked him if he had heard anything about HD locals for Tulsa. He said they have been asking constantly because they are losing sales and current subscribers and that all they have heard is that it is possible after 2nd quarter 2009.

IMO that is pathetic if true.

 

[okiekevn]

on charlie chat the other night they listed ada oklahoma/sherman tex dma as one of the 20 or so next dmas to get hd. that dma does not even have an ABC i think and they are getting it before tulsa. i currently use OTA myself in tulsa, but am unable to get ABC in hd because from what i have been told is that the ORU broadcast tower a mile from my home knocks out the ABC ota signal. dont know if its true or not, but no one in my apartment can get ABC ota analog or digital. my last place 3 miles away, had abc crystal clear. someone said there was a filter that could be used, but i dont know nor really care enough about abc to go through the troubles.

 

[osu1991]

Ada/Sherman only has 2 stations 3 if they pick up Fox Hd that KXII also broadcasts, which I don't think they will. It will also be on a spotbeam from 61.5, so it doesn't require a lot of bandwidth and it is a small market that fits on a spotbeam probably with another market. None of the 61.5 spotbeams hit the entire Tulsa Market. Unless something changes with 110 we are not going to get HD locals until Ciel 2 is up and running at 129, if you can't get it with an antenna then go to Direct because that is the only place your going to get them anytime soon.

OkieKevn you might try an attenuator, like comes with the dual tuner dvr's for the tv 2 output. If KGEB(ORU) is overloading the signal 1 or 2 attenuators might knock it down enough to pull KTUL in. I just finished hooking everything up at my sisters new house a couple of weeks ago. She is now 3 miles from the broadcast towers and I couldn't get a signal, (drove me batty for an hour), until it occurred to me that I might be getting to much signal. Put a couple of attenuators on the antenna and now everything comes in at a nice steady 85%. ORU broadcasts on UHF channel 49 and KTUL is on VHF 10 and KTUL has been off the air a lot for the past month with hardware failures, which might account for some of your problems

 

[okiekevn]

thanks for the great suggesstio ORU. however, right now i am setting at signals between 68 and 72 points for fox nbc and cbs. i cant even get 41mytv(not that that channel really matters). will the annteuater lower the gain for those channels that i do get, beacuse of right now i am borderline on keeping the signal for them. or will it help improve? well, i guess it would be simpler to just throw on the annteuater and try. i will give it a go and post back.

 

[Poke]

Yeah you might email them see what they say I dont know what the hold up is Dish had Tulsa on it's HD list for awhile for local they had plan on adding. MY guess is maybe contract hold ups and the local stations end or something but I think Dish when get them on when they can..

 

[okiekevn]

no luck, 10 db annteuater shot all my ota locals to zero signal strength. worth a try though.

 

[osu1991]

Yeah if your signals were already that low the attenuator would kill them.

 

[okiekevn]

does an inline amplifier work for digital signal?