When it does it again, I'll be sure to take a video, and put it on YouTube or Vimeo. I've always noticed it in the morning and at night. Do they uplink all the local channels in Hastings, or just the Hastings channels?
One local channel's HD channel resembles bad OTA TV reception...
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Here is a very descriptive response I received in another forum.....
"Here's the issue in a nutshell. Dish Network's uplink center for the Lincoln market is at KHAS-TV in Hastings. KLKN's transmitter near Utica does not put out a strong enough signal to always reliably cover Hastings since they moved from channel 31 to channel 8 in 2009. The problem is that the Lincoln market is really two market areas -- Tri-Cities and Lincoln. DISH (and DirecTV, I might add) are actually both based out of the Tri-Cities side of the market, and can easily receive KHAS, KGIN (which is displayed as KOLN), KHNE (which is displayed as KUON), KHGI, and KFXL (via KHGI DT2). As KLKN does not have a Tri-Cities over-the-air feed, but is received over-the-air from the Lincoln area using a powerful antenna at the KHAS facility, bad weather will disrupt the signal.
Alternatives? KLKN needs to turn up the power, or Dish needs to use an uplink facility closer to Lincoln. The latter's not going to happen, so it's going to take a KLKN power increase to fix the issue. They transmit at less than 30,000 watts and require an OTA repeater on channel 31 in Lincoln just to even provide a local-grade indoor signal to their city of license, Lincoln.
KOLN isn't much better but they at least (a) transmit a little closer to Lincoln, from Beaver Crossing, and (b) have KGIN which provides a reliable signal to Dish and DirecTV.
I don't know why Dish doesn't carry KHGI in HD, since it's the ABC affiliate for the western 1/2 of the Lincoln/Tri-Cities market and does broadcast in HD. They probably figure they already have ABC HD covered with KLKN, but as you are experiencing, ever since KLKN moved from 500,000 watts on channel 31 (which covered part of the Omaha area as well) to 25,900 watts on channel 8 (which is hard to get even in Lincoln) that strategy hasn't worked so well."
"Here's the issue in a nutshell. Dish Network's uplink center for the Lincoln market is at KHAS-TV in Hastings. KLKN's transmitter near Utica does not put out a strong enough signal to always reliably cover Hastings since they moved from channel 31 to channel 8 in 2009. The problem is that the Lincoln market is really two market areas -- Tri-Cities and Lincoln. DISH (and DirecTV, I might add) are actually both based out of the Tri-Cities side of the market, and can easily receive KHAS, KGIN (which is displayed as KOLN), KHNE (which is displayed as KUON), KHGI, and KFXL (via KHGI DT2). As KLKN does not have a Tri-Cities over-the-air feed, but is received over-the-air from the Lincoln area using a powerful antenna at the KHAS facility, bad weather will disrupt the signal.
Alternatives? KLKN needs to turn up the power, or Dish needs to use an uplink facility closer to Lincoln. The latter's not going to happen, so it's going to take a KLKN power increase to fix the issue. They transmit at less than 30,000 watts and require an OTA repeater on channel 31 in Lincoln just to even provide a local-grade indoor signal to their city of license, Lincoln.
KOLN isn't much better but they at least (a) transmit a little closer to Lincoln, from Beaver Crossing, and (b) have KGIN which provides a reliable signal to Dish and DirecTV.
I don't know why Dish doesn't carry KHGI in HD, since it's the ABC affiliate for the western 1/2 of the Lincoln/Tri-Cities market and does broadcast in HD. They probably figure they already have ABC HD covered with KLKN, but as you are experiencing, ever since KLKN moved from 500,000 watts on channel 31 (which covered part of the Omaha area as well) to 25,900 watts on channel 8 (which is hard to get even in Lincoln) that strategy hasn't worked so well."
This issue will probably never get resolved. I'm glad someone could explain the situation. I do know that DirecTV broadcasts both ABC stations (KLKN & KHGI) in HD. This will be a significant determining factor for me when my contract with Dish is up because most of our programs we record is an ABC program.
That was me. The Lincoln market is just plain strange. It's basically defined as the KOLN + repeaters coverage area, and every other station just has to make do with an arbitrarily-defined county area that's impossible to cover fully without using the same repeater network as 10/11. As I stated on the other forum, having the uplink in Hastings makes sense for picking up KHGI and KFXL (really KHGI-DT2) but is terrible for getting KLKN, because KLKN doesn't really try to cover Hastings over-the-air. Lincoln/Hastings/Kearney is really two markets, and needs two uplinks. But that's not gonna happen. Honestly, if bandwidth is an issue preventing Dish from carrying both ABC affiliates in HD, it might make more sense for Dish to switch the main ABC feed over to KHGI. In the Lincoln area, many connect external antennas anyway to get the Omaha stations, which have long been considered local channels in Lincoln. KLKN or KLKN-LD 31 could be brought in OTA with the RTV8 signal as an added bonus. The satellite locals are more needed in rural central Nebraska, especially from about Ord on north, where there's otherwise no reception aside from a NET signal or a 10/11 repeater, and KHGI rather than KLKN would be the local ABC in those areas.
As to KOLN, I didn't realize their signal on Dish wasn't always great either. Since KOLN and KGIN are the same (except at least in the analog era KGIN had different commercials) Dish could just use KGIN's signal -- I actually thought they were doing that anyway. I do remember before the DTV conversion, as late as 2008, Dish was apparently using analog OTA for the SD locals, as KLKN always looked washed out and sometimes even fuzzy compared to KHGI. The signal was obviously very weak and being heavily amplified. Once KLKN shut off their analog signal the picture quality flipped, since KHGI's local content looks terrible when upconverted to 720p. But that also meant that KLKN would drop out when weather got in the way.
If I lived in the Lincoln market (I'm in Omaha) I'd probably go with DirecTV because they have KHGI HD, MyTV 10.2 (25), and I think NET1 in HD as well. Though most people I know have Dish because it's simple to bundle it with their Windstream bills.
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Hopefully Dish will catch on. I had DirecTV for a while. I hated it. I'm much happier I switched to Dish. And don't get me started on Time Warner Cable.... Bleh!
I haven't seen any problems with KOLN or KLKN lately, which is good. I'd rather have a local station in SD, then not have it at all. I've tried to request Dish to carry 10.2 MyTV in their lineup. I'll have to try a little harder. I'm happy with Dish so far. The technicians, especially in the Lincoln market, are extremely nice and professional, something DirecTV could never get right in my experience.
I haven't seen any problems with KOLN or KLKN lately, which is good. I'd rather have a local station in SD, then not have it at all. I've tried to request Dish to carry 10.2 MyTV in their lineup. I'll have to try a little harder. I'm happy with Dish so far. The technicians, especially in the Lincoln market, are extremely nice and professional, something DirecTV could never get right in my experience.
I'm still amazed at how much Time Warner charges. I guess that's what they have to do since they're stretching a physical cable throughout the city what with taxes and whatnot.... And they're they're still the majority pay-TV service here in Lincoln. I don't think people read their bills.
I spoke to advanced support tonight because klkn is pixelating again. The tech said there has been a known issue with this channel since august. I can't believe dish would let this go on for so long when they have an alternative abc channel (khgi) to broadcast in hd. Obviously klkn is not going to fix it.
Another update: I took a video of this happening. I have emailed this video to KLKN's Technical department. I'll post the video link once it uploads to YouTube shortly.
Maybe one of the dish reps on this site can take this thread and send it to the engineers. Then the engineers can convince the executives to switch the local abc hd feed to khgi.
(I know what you are thinking, but one can dream, can't they?)
(I know what you are thinking, but one can dream, can't they?)
Dish is required to show the local channel that is in a given DMA. It doesn't matter if the local channel is having technical issues or not. It is the local channels problem, not DISH....
I don't know what a DMA is but in the Lincoln market, there are two local abc channels. Dish broadcasts both in SD, and only one in HD. Directv broadcasts both stations in HD. If dish doesn't want to broadcast both in HD, then I think they should start broadcasting khgi in HD and stop broadcasting klkn in HD.
KLKN can't fix it without a power upgrade which requires government approval. Dish really needs to just add KHGI in HD to solve the problem themselves, though keeping KLKN in HD too would be good for Lincoln viewers when the signal is working properly.
I was having internet problem's last night, but I finally got the video uploaded.
YouTube - Distortion of video and sound on KLKNTV-HD
I emailed KLKN. Here was there response.
"Thanks for your information. We are aware of a problem that Dish Network seems to be having with the retransmission of our signal.
But the problem seems to be related to the way Dish Network is getting our channel 8 signal from our transmitter near Utica, NE and we are not seeing the problems from our transmitter with our monitoring equipment here at our studio.
My recommendation would be to provide Dish Network with as much documented information as possible such as Date,time and duration of problems.
They may like to have your recorded file as well to help them trouble shoot the problem on there end."
YouTube - Distortion of video and sound on KLKNTV-HD
I emailed KLKN. Here was there response.
"Thanks for your information. We are aware of a problem that Dish Network seems to be having with the retransmission of our signal.
But the problem seems to be related to the way Dish Network is getting our channel 8 signal from our transmitter near Utica, NE and we are not seeing the problems from our transmitter with our monitoring equipment here at our studio.
My recommendation would be to provide Dish Network with as much documented information as possible such as Date,time and duration of problems.
They may like to have your recorded file as well to help them trouble shoot the problem on there end."
The pixellation looks typical for a weak over-the-air signal. I'm still convinced the issue is that KLKN's signal isn't always reaching from Utica to Hastings. They won't notice it at their studio because the studio is nearer to the transmitter.
Basically, KLKN is telling me it's not their problem, it's Dish's problem, and Dish is telling me it's not THEIR problem, it's KLKN's problem. Seems like nobody gives a crap. And why doesn't this happen on Time Warner? The pixelation happens on DirecTV too, a neighbor confirmed this.
Can a Dish CSR on this forum help? Seems like Dish needs to be in contact with KLKN, or something... this shouldn't happen in the first place.
Can a Dish CSR on this forum help? Seems like Dish needs to be in contact with KLKN, or something... this shouldn't happen in the first place.
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I just sent a couple emails out asking for more information on what is actually happening (where the problem lies, and whose fault). I'll post back here as soon as I get any information.
