Before last Friday’s DTV transition, when all analog TV signals were switched off in favor of digital ones, We used to receive the digital signals from Chapel Hill’s WUNC-TV Channel 4.1 like a cannon, thanks to our attic’s mega-huge Yagi antenna being pointed right at the tower. All that changed during Friday’s transition, however. The stations changed their channels’ frequencies as part of the move and UNC-TV mysteriously disappeared from all of my TVs.
Bits and pieces of information filtered out of UNC-TV. This was posted on the unctv.org website on Sunday:
– SPECIAL NOTICE –
As part of the final transition from analog to digital broadcast television required by the Federal Communications Commission, WUNC-TV – Chapel Hill permanently turned off its channel 4 transmitter located in northern Chatham county at midnight on June 12, 2009.
WUNC-TV also changed it digital broadcast transmission from channel 59 to channel 25. This requires that tuners in digital TV sets and converter boxes be re-scanned to allow them to acquire WUNC-TV (digital) on its new operating channel. It will still appear as 4.1, 4.2, etc when tuning TV sets and converter boxes.
During this transitory stage WUNC-TV digital channel 25 is operating at significantly lower power than the previous channel 59.
Equipment is currently being moved from other transmitter sites to allow the final operating power of WUNC-TV to be greater than it previously was. Antenna and transmission work is also being done on the WUNC-TV tower that will improve transmission power and antenna coverage.
An interim improvement in signal strength is expected within the week with full operating power being achieved by late summer.
Thank you for your patience as we address this problem.
And my brother Allen learned this from emailing them:
“They are upgrading their analog antenna to digital – they have a digital one already, but the strength is not enough to reach all their viewing areas (i.e. my house). Techie suggested better antenna or waiting 90-120 days for project completion.”
Today the N&O fleshed out the story a bit more:
UNC-TV spokesman Steve Volstad says the biggest problem was at a transmitter site near Chapel Hill. A temporary digital antenna had to be mounted to the 1300-foot tower in Chatham County, which had to be switched on at the time the older antenna were switched off.
The new antenna was mounted lower on the tower, for safety reasons, and it’s the lower elevation of the antenna causing reception problems for people in the Triangle, as well as people in low areas or behind hills. The power supply for that antenna is also lower, temporarily, which contributes to the weaker signal.
Word has it that it will be the end of summer before the new digital antenna makes it to the top of UNC-TV’s Chatham County tower. In the meantime I suppose there’s always the online videos.
Update 17 June 2009: In the comments of the UNC-TV DTV blog, a user points out that the signal power dropped from 100 kW to 45 kW, and the active antenna went from 464 meters to 307 meters HAAT, according to the FCC database. This results in a 12dB drop in signal – a huge decrease.
Update 26 Jun 2009: UNC TV has posted a video explanation of its tower situation.
Update 23 August 2009: UNC TV is now back at full power!
Wow!! Someone should have told them that the switch was coming so they could get prepared.
No kidding.
Gov’t run TV. The efficiency of government is astonding!! Can’t wait for the gov’t to run my healthcare, auto industry, banking…etc.
I think I spelled astounding incorrectly. I wish I could edit my posts.
Yeah, like government-run postal service, or police, or fire department, or libraries, or universities, or schools, or roads, or national defense. Let’s privatize it all!
Why do you want to turn over every part of our lives to the government?
You bring up some good points. I think the postal service does a fine job in delivering the mail. They may even be financially self supporting. I don’t know.
I went to public school and received fine education (accept I cannot spell very well). Police and fire are in place to protect the public, as is national defense.
In fact, national defense in laid out in the US Constitution as one of the duties of the federal government.
I don’t think we need gov’t run tv. How much is this costing the tax payers of NC? I enjoyed Sesame Street as a kid, but if there is enough demand for the programming on gov’t TV, then let the FREE market provide that service.
Mark, I don’t understand. You served to protect our freedoms, yet it seems that you want to give them away. One of the things this country was founded on was freedom from an oppressive government. The larger the gov’t gets, the more oppressive it will become and the more control it has over what you and I can do, say, hear, see…etc.
I registered at Mark Turner Dot Net for the sole reason to post a reply to the nonsense you have posted about WUNC, which is one of the premier public television channels in the nation. I am 68 years old; and for most of my life, WUNC – along with its affiliated channels across the state – has provided the highest quality public television service to North Carolina.
I don’t know why WUNC’s transition to all-digital broadcasting is taking so long. But there is absolutely no evidence that I have seen to suggest that it’s connection to the government has even the remotest relationship to whatever problems exist. The gibberish posted above is nothing more than a quantum leap into illogical conclusions… born of prejudice and ignorance. All I can say is, “Prove it!!!” It’s the same type of argument blaming the current economic crisis on Barack Obama… after eight years of the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress channeling the nation’s money into the dividend checks of defense industry, spending a once profitable federal budget into oblivion, and giving the business community free reign to wreck the economy. It’s obvious that you guys have been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh… the world’s biggest dope.
Since you smart-alecks have all the answers, explain this to me. Why, in God’s name, does the US have to scrap it’s perfectly good analog tv infrastructure for the sake of HDTV? How is the true quality of anyone’s life improved by having a 16:9 ratio tv image that is oh-so-crispy-clear? Could it possibly have to do with gazillions of dollars the American people will have to shell out just to watch the garbage produced by commercial tv? Could it be that the tv media and manufacturing lobbies have us all by the short hairs, thanks to the congress they have bribed to support their cause. It’s the American people who are getting screwed here.
Focusing on the glitches at WUNC is like blowing your horn at the little old lady crossing the street. It’s dumb and rude.
So there….