Some stations may be raising (or lowering) their power during the repack. Try seaching their call letters on www.rabbitears.info to see the details (look under their construction App)
The Repackage
- Thread starter neil_kc1
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Some stations may be raising (or lowering) their power during the repack. Try seaching their call letters on www.rabbitears.info to see the details (look under their construction App)
No, I did not lose the 3 stations because of any station lower power issues, I lost them because DirecTV's AM-21 OTA tuner has pre-set the frequencies in their database for these stations and they are the "old" frequencies before the repack.... Thus, when the 3 stations moved on Friday the DTV OTA tuner could no longer see them.... On my TV's not connected to DirecTV I am able to see these 3 stations after I re-scanned the TV's internal OTA tuner which found the new frequencies.... DirecTV's tuner cannot do that....
It’s been a long time since I’ve had an AM21. I had forgotten it compares the OTA scans against an “expected” list of channels. That is unfortunate. Dish’s OTA tuners are different- they scan in exactly what they find.
Interestingly enough ...
I've found the AM21 to be quite flexible in remapping virtual channels to different physical RF channels should they move by simply rerunning the OTA setup.
Or better reset all the OTA channels first, and then rerunning.
Have you tried that?
And yes I personally think the entire OTA database will eventually be updated.
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I would like to see KAJF and KCMN merge with KCTV5/KSMOTV so Decades,Heroes and Icons,Quest a Sub channel of KCTV5 and GETTV,The Country Network,Tuff TV,Accuweather one of KSMOTV but not going to happen.
Don't assume that every station move is associated with the repack (until the repack starts, it really isn't a repack). Stations who sold their frequency have to work outside the repack to get bandwidth back.
You can't let your greed for more channels overrun the need for bandwidth for each channel. If you lose HD channels in favor of SD channels, is it really a win?
But how much utility do you get from mapping the wrong guide data to a channel in the world of DVRs that work primarily off of guide data?
It may or may not be refreshed, but it seems unlikely to cover all of the available channels due to the limitations on database size and field limitations (there are a limited number of bits allocated to IDing each channel).
The other guys don't suffer this as they have different guide data feeds based on which arc you're pointing at. The benefit being that they've split the service area up into two much smaller databases.
KMCI/WDAF have 3 Sub channels and still a HD channel. KCTV5 0 and a HD channel,KSHB 2 and a HD Channel and KMBC/KCWE 1 each and a HD channel.
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I have already checked the FCC "Repacking Dates" website and the 3 Miami stations that moved on Friday were definitely part of the repack... They did not move for any reason other than the repack as they were protected FP's with already assigned new frequencies... The repack period they were assigned was 12-21-17 to 6-1-18 and all 3 moved on the last day, 6-1-18... The next repack period for Miami stations is 12-1-18 to 4-12-19...
So, to correct your statement, the repack process (for protected stations) has not only started but has been going on for awhile.... The FCC repack website has all the dates by DMA in case you want to research it further.
Thanks, HoTat ! I will try your suggestion to reset all the OTA channels on the AM-21 by clearing out all its OTA memory, reboot it, and start the set-up process again from scratch to see if it picks up the new repack frequencies for the 3 stations which moved on Friday.....
Oh I'm not referring to that popular workaround on the AM21.
What I'm saying is that the AM21 can usually find a new physical channel of a station already in the database if it changes by rerunning the setup.
While I don't know the total numbers available, what DIRECTV is doing is called the "Fake TMS ID" trick to increase the size of the current database. Where they substitute an unused fake TMS ID below their OTA system's 65,535 limit, for the real one.
Now whether there are enough unused IDs beneath 65K (binary) to cover channel increases for all the DMAs, I don't know ...
See for instance Kyl416's posts here:
Transponder Maps: Domestic, Mexico, Latin ~ Data 5/30/2018 - Page 56
Transponder Maps: Domestic, Mexico, Latin ~ Data 5/30/2018 - Page 57
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Sure, but will it pick up stations that have joined with other stations (especially those channels that are no longer the main channel of their frequency)?
Can they add more full channels and still maintain all of the HD channels? It seems like that's what you were asking for and that may cause quality to suffer horribly unless they downconvert one of the HD channels.
Yes ...
We've recently had two stations, KLCS-58 (RF 41)(PBS) and KAZA-54 (RF 47)(MeTV), cease their own broadcasts and enter into CSAs with two other stations. KCET-28 (RF 28) and KHTV-CD 27 (RF 27) respectively. And the AM21s here predictively lost the stations.
But after rerunning the setup, found them again ....
I don't give the AM21 many points, but on this particular feature it works well. Even my OTA TiVo can't do this, and must go through the painstaking process of notifying TiVo of the change. Then wait for TiVo/Rovi to correct the channel mapping on their end, which doesn't always go smoothly.
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My new KLCS/KCET CSA has two HD channels (720p), and 4 SD ones.
I thought it would be a bit-starved mess, but looks fine ...
I think TV stations' multiplexers are better at doing multicasting now ....
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Not going to happen. KCTV and KSMO each have one subchannel only; this is to preserve the high bitrate on their main channels.
