If you currently use an Insignia or Zenith model converter box and are experiencing trouble picking up KETC’s digital stations, here is a tip submitted by a Channel 9 viewer that you can try before adjusting your antenna:
Using the converter box remote, bring up the menu that allows you to scroll through all of your channels. Scroll to Channel 39 and select it, even if it says “no signal”. Program Channel 39 into your channel list.
By adding “39″ (this is what’s called KETC’s RF assignment), the viewer was able to bring in all four digital channels without making any antenna adjustments.
If you have a tip to share, please let KETC know! Call our DTV hotline at (314) 512-9617 or e-mail asmith@ketc.org.
Consumer Reports has rated some of the available converter boxes at:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/electronics-computers/televisions/digital-tv-converter/ratings/dtv-converter-boxes-ratings.htm
Some Off-Air viewers who buy a converter box have problems receiving the same stations digitally with the box installed as they did without it or get no broadcast stations at all (with converter boxes that don’t pass analogue signals). Including the tip mentioned above and excluding the possibility that they have a defective converter box or have installed it incorrectly, there are many more likely reasons why this happens:
There are many more likely reasons why this happens:
1. They have an old antenna that has corroded over the years
2. They have the wrong antenna (VHF only) for UHF reception where most of the digital broadcast signals are and will be located
3. They may have received an acceptable analogue picture for years, but a) the broadcast station analogue signal was not that powerful in the first place (signal power or distance) producing a little snow) and/or b) the old antenna is not powerful enough to receive and send a strong digital signal to the digital tuner in the converter box. Unlike analogue, no strong signal, no picture, just a blue screen
4. Many of the TV antenna designs now in use and on the market today such as the Yagi and rabbit ears have technology roots going back 30 years or more and may not work well with the digital chip sets in converter boxes.
5. The analogue signal passed through trees, but the digital signal passing through tress, especially through pine trees, will not be strong enough to be decoded by the digital tuner.
6. Their antenna is aimed at the old analogue tower location and the digital towers have been relocated or it was aimed wrong all these years, but received a marginal analogue picture.
7. The digital stations may be broadcasting in low power until the transition.
8. If you live less than 5 miles from the station, you might need an attenuator to reduce the signal strength and prevent overloading the tuner.
9. They may be dealing with multi-path. Multi-path (bounced signals) is caused by buildings, hills and any other hard object in the line-of-sight to the broadcast towers. They cause signals to reach the antenna out of phase, confusing the ATSC (Digital) chip set in the converter box (or digital TV set tuners.
10. They may have not performed the correct search procedure on their TV to find the digital stations. Many stations have changed channels, mostly to UHF (14-69)
11. The old incoming cable and/or connectors may be bad. These do not last forever.
And while cable and satellite program providers will continue to serve the great majority of homes as the primary signal source, missing HD local reception, compression issues, higher costs, billing add-ons, service outages, contact difficulties, in-home service waits and no shows have left many of these subscribers looking to OTA antennas as a good, alternative.
But TV reception starts with the right antenna.
Viewers should certainly try their old antenna first. It is true that any of these older antennas will pick up some signals, maybe all the broadcast signals a viewer wants to receive, depending on their location. If they are getting all the OTA channels they want and almost completely uncompressed DTV and HDTV, unlike cable or satellite, than they are good to go.
While it is correct that antennas cannot tell the difference between analog and digital signals, there are definitely certain models which have higher DTV batting averages than others. Not all antennas are equally suited for DTV. A percentage of viewers will require something a little more tailored for DTV reception.
With one of the newer and smaller OTA antennas, with greatly improved performance, power and aesthetics, viewers may also be able to receive out-of-town channels, carrying blacked out sports programs, several additional sub-channels or network broadcasts not originally available with analogue. And for those with an HDTV, almost completely uncompressed HD broadcasts.
OTA viewers can go to antennapoint.com to see quickly what stations are available to them, the distance, UHF or VHF and compose heading to help in choosing and aiming their antenna. And if they decide to buy a newer antenna, they should buy it from a source that will completely refund their purchase price, no questions asked, if it does not do the job for them.
My father’s tv has programmed in on the converter box, Channel 9-1, 9-2, 9-3, etc. for Channel 9, but there are no pictures on these channels. He is a dedicated viewer of the Donnybrook show and since we’ve hooked up the box, he can no longer view it. He had excellent reception of 9 with his antenna before the box was hooked up. Any suggestion would be highly appreciated. He lives in the country, is 88 and totally enjoys the Donnybrook program. Thanking you in advance, Karen Lipsey
Ms. Lipsey,
Thank you for submitting your concern to KETC’s DTV blog. To ensure that your father can keep enjoying Donnybrook for years to come, here are a few suggestions:
1. If you haven’t tried already, enter “39″ into the converter remote instead of “9″ as mentioned above.
2. Though reception was excellent before, the digital signal travels in shorter waves and is therefore trickier to receive. It is more important than ever to have the antenna pointed right at our broadcast tower, located at Highway 55 and Butler Hill Rd. in southern St. Louis County. Visit http://www.antennaweb.org, enter his exact address and it should give you a good idea of how to turn the antenna.
3. Depending on how far out in the country he lives, the antenna he’s using might not be strong enough or it might be too low to get a good signal. If the antenna is over 10 years old, you might consider replacing it with what is called a “high gain” outdoor antenna that is UHF only (consultants at electronics stores should know what this means). If it’s a newer antenna, you might try moving it to a higher elevation using a mast.
I hope one of these suggestions solves it for you. On KETC’s end, we plan to increase the height of our digital antenna approximately 100 feet after next February’s transition. This should help many of our viewers in fringe areas receive better signals, but if the antenna is misdirected or too weak, this benefit might not reach you.
We just got a new Dish TR-40 converter box and it automatically picked up the other channels (2, 5, 11, and 30) but didn’t find channel 9. I was getting worried until I found this hint. I manually added channel 39 (all four channels) and the reception looks great so far. The program guide and multiple Channel 9s are wonderful. This is in University City over rabbit ears.
We just got the RCA DTV Converter box, and we are also having this problem. All other channels 2,4,5,11,30 were found with no problem, but channel 9 is nowhere to be found. This particular box does not have an option to add channels manually. Any other suggestions?