Raleigh HD Locals

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GoWulfpack said:
I e-mailed WRAL about the free OTA antenna. When I got home today, I had a huge antenna designed for roof mount sitting on my porch. I was expecting a TV top antenna, not this huge thing. Living in Clayton, I can literally look out of my window and see 3/4 of WRAL's tower. Why did they send me this huge thing? Does anyone think they will send me a smaller one?
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Stop complaining and be thankful they sent you one for free! If you don't need it for WRAL's towers, use it for PBS or some other tower not in your back yard. I guarantee you that your HD reception will be better with what they brought you than you will ever get with something cheap that sits on top of your TV...not to mention it will not be sitting on top of your tv :)
 
Not complaining one bit. My point is they were supposed to send me what I needed. As I mentioned, I only live 3.2 miles from the tower so I dont need something that can pick up Al-Jazeera OTA.

I should be able to pick up all I want with something small thanks to my location. As for PBS, I dont care to watch anything produced by Commie College in Chapel Hill. :)
 
Does anyone in the Raleigh area have any problems with either RAL or RAZ reception using the free OTA antenna (or any significant size antenna)?
If so, aprox how far are you from Clayton?
 
I'm about 11 miles from the towers in the 40/42 area. I have no problems picking up anything with an antenna in my attic. Just use antennaweb to determine the direction you need to point. I went in the attic with a compass and got it close, then just slight bumps till it maxed out. Rarely dip below 95 on CBS or FOX, never falls off 100 on ABC and is usually 85+ on NBC. NBC gave me fits with dropouts at first, but a slight adjustment of about 2 degrees made all the difference. Now no dropouts at all. I can't remember for sure, but I'm pretty sure I'm using a 50" Radio Shack VU-75 antenna.

Sometimes I do have issues with WRAL, but those are few and far between. Back before Christmas I think they had to cut the power on the HD transmission for a weekend some reason. I had recorded all the Charlie Brown and Frosty the Snowman Christmas shows for my kid and they were full of dropouts. The news was also broadcast in SD that day. But that's the only problem I've seen in 10 months.
 
I live in Holly Springs and must be close to 30 miles away from their towers...and my WRAL / WRAZ signal is outstanding! In fact, I can sometimes loose my D* signal during a very hard rain storm, but I never loose the WRAL / WRAZ signals. Now, I have a completely different experience with WTVD and NBC 17, which I tend to loose when the wind blows on a sunny day! All their towers are clustered together, so it must be that WRAL / WRAZ broadcast a stronger signal.
 
I currently have a cheap set of 'Rabbit Ears' sitting on top of the TV and normally I get WRAL OTA at 85-90 signal strength but WRAZ comes in at 80+ but drops constantly about every 5-10 seconds - not sure what is up with that.

I did have an issue with WRAL recently on a cold, very windy night and the signal dropped to 70-75 and became almost unwatchable due to minor drops and pixelation.

Strange to see the weather affect it that way - in this case, the Satellite feeds of WTVD and WNCN were rock solid.

My biggest issue is still the OTA guides since I am finding now that even when the Guide info is available for WRAL-HD OTA, none of my Timers are set anymore in the schedule (I bring up the DVR and look at the schedule and none of the timers show up but if I bring up the Timer list, they are there. If I add the show again, it appears in the schedule again (and now appears twice in the Timer list).

Strange again.....
 
Pakbackr said:
I live in Holly Springs and must be close to 30 miles away from their towers...and my WRAL / WRAZ signal is outstanding! In fact, I can sometimes loose my D* signal during a very hard rain storm, but I never loose the WRAL / WRAZ signals. Now, I have a completely different experience with WTVD and NBC 17, which I tend to loose when the wind blows on a sunny day! All their towers are clustered together, so it must be that WRAL / WRAZ broadcast a stronger signal.
Click to expand...

Also, the WRAL TV towers are only 13 miles (line of sight - as the crow flies) from downtown Holly Springs.... And I live in the Holly Springs area as well.
 
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DISH_NC said:
Also, the WRAL TV towers are only 13 miles (line of sight - as the crow flies) from downtown Holly Springs.... And I live in the Holly Springs area as well.
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I never would have believed that, but I pulled it up on a map and you are right. I suppose the drive route we take over to the Logan's at White Oaks just seems like 30 miles. :) I stand corrected!
 
Still NO CBS or FOX HD in Raleigh

Since Capitol broadcasting and Dish cannot get this worked out, it seems that I need to "move " to Charlotte now that they have all 4 networks in HD.

Does anyone know if Charlotte is on a spotbeam and know if I can receive it here in Raleigh?

Thanks

M
 
none of the locals at 118.75 are on a spotbeam so a "move" to charlotte is definitely possible. just check the signal strength on transponders 8 and 21 at 118.75 degrees.
 
psnarula said:
none of the locals at 118.75 are on a spotbeam so a "move" to charlotte is definitely possible. just check the signal strength on transponders 8 and 21 at 118.75 degrees.
Click to expand...

Transponder 22 is the one used for WNCN out of Raleigh so the power levels should be very similar...

Unfortunately, when I was tuning our 118 signals, the lower transponders (<12) were very weak (in the 60's)....



And I stand corrected on the WRAL Tower location. I read somewhere online in my searches that WRAL moved their tower to their main studios in early 2002 but I can't seem to find that again.
 
Last edited:
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