SF OTA DT stations transmitter problems (1 Viewer)

[Dennis Nicholls]

Yesterday I turned on my OTA-ATSC reception using my Samsung DLP RPTV. Until that time I had always had rock-solid reception of OTA ATSC channels (I'm in San Jose with a large rooftop antenna). But yesterday there was NADA on KTVU-DT, KRON-DT, KPIX-DT, KQED-DT, and KBHK-DT. I feverishly checked some more channels, and determined that my tuner at least was functional.....for I had good reception on KNTV-DT, KTSF-DT, KICU-DT.

I wondered....did Sutro Tower blow over in the recent storms?

But no, I tried several analog NTSC OTA stations such as KRON-TV and KPIX-TV, and I was getting these fine.

I then logged on to the web-sites of the affected stations, expecting to find a banner at the top stating something like "Please note: Our Digital Transmitter is currently OFF the AIR." But there was nothing about this at ANY of the station's web sites.

So I just wasted the better part of the day pulling down and troubleshooting my rooftop antenna. I cleaned all the bolts and connections, resoldered the 300:75 ohm transformer leads, and the like, and then put it back up. No change.

I had gone over everything in the path....and the stations involved gave no notice of transmitter problems. As a last resort I checked the broadcast forum over on AVS to see if anyone else was having problems.

Bingo. The digital transmitters on Sutro Tower are off line.

Why the heck don't the stations involved have the common courtesy and decency to let people know when they are off the air? They have full-time staffers running their web sites...how hard would a public service banner be to install?

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

All the DT stations except for KQED are now back up.