Zinwell converter timer issues
TJ
change in the channel list. Last week, when one station (WTVH, virtual
channel 5) installed a new piece of equipment, for a while they ran an
SD sub-channel, 5-2. I believe they were testing the ability to
broadcast content from a semi-sister station in case that station's
transmitter broke down, but that's purely my speculation. At any rate,
my Zinwell converters picked up the sub-channel and added it to the
channel list automatically - but changing the channel list also changed
the channel settings for the timer, so that recordings made at that time
were on the wrong channel. It also restored another station's
sub-channel to the list that I had deleted months ago because it was
simply an SD version of the HD main channel, and redundant. I
reprogrammed the Zinwell, but didn't notice when the test of the 5-2
sub-channel ended and it was no longer broadcast OTA. That changed the
list on the Zinwell once again, and once again I had to reprogram it.
On the plus side, this morning the "Time Zone" setting for the clock is
once again correct, and the Fox station from Rochester that I picked up
the day after the June transition is once again stable this morning on
one of those Zinwell converters, despite the fact that the signal
strength reads 20% (% of what I don't know) and the quality meter varies
from 4% to 25% (again % of what I don't know). Yet another indication
that those converter meters are pretty much worthless. Whatever they're
measuring, it has little to do with stability.
TJ
TJ
>
> On the plus side, this morning the "Time Zone" setting for the clock is
> once again correct, and the Fox station from Rochester that I picked up
> the day after the June transition is once again stable this morning on
> one of those Zinwell converters, despite the fact that the signal
> strength reads 20% (% of what I don't know) and the quality meter varies
> from 4% to 25% (again % of what I don't know). Yet another indication
> that those converter meters are pretty much worthless. Whatever they're
> measuring, it has little to do with stability.
>
Coming in for lunch a few minutes ago, I see that whatever phenomenon
resulted in receiving my distant station has passed, and I now see "no
signal" in its place. I doubt I was receiving a direct signal from that
station, as there are several sets of hills between me and it, one of
the largest just two miles from my house. At this distance, curvature of
the Earth becomes a factor, too. My guess is that the signal bounced off
of some clouds with just the right configuration that have since moved
on, but that's only a guess.
However, it occurs to me that this on-again, off-again station is acting
much like Daniel's reception in stability. It's there for a while, then
gone without notice. Sometimes it's there, but barely stable. Could it
be that something, I couldn't know what, is blocking the direct signals
from Daniel, and all he receives are the weaker, unstable, indirect
signals? It would explain much of the differences we see. In my case,
the combination of strong, direct and weaker, indirect signals resulted
in intolerable ghosting on analog, something that digital largely
eliminated. In his case, if he only had the weak signals to watch, he
would have trained himself to get along with snow and such, as long as
he had stability.
Trust me when I say that you can learn to get along with a lot of crap,
if that's all you have. I have been there, and not just with TV.
TJ
Daniel W. Rouse Jr.
news:hckh86$le2$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> TJ wrote:
>
>>
>> On the plus side, this morning the "Time Zone" setting for the clock is
>> once again correct, and the Fox station from Rochester that I picked up
>> the day after the June transition is once again stable this morning on
>> one of those Zinwell converters, despite the fact that the signal
>> strength reads 20% (% of what I don't know) and the quality meter varies
>> from 4% to 25% (again % of what I don't know). Yet another indication
>> that those converter meters are pretty much worthless. Whatever they're
>> measuring, it has little to do with stability.
>>
>
> Coming in for lunch a few minutes ago, I see that whatever phenomenon
> resulted in receiving my distant station has passed, and I now see "no
> signal" in its place. I doubt I was receiving a direct signal from that
> station, as there are several sets of hills between me and it, one of the
> largest just two miles from my house. At this distance, curvature of the
> Earth becomes a factor, too. My guess is that the signal bounced off of
> some clouds with just the right configuration that have since moved on,
> but that's only a guess.
>
the signal was good enough to receive a color picture even through snow, but
then the next time there was so much snow that the color component was gone,
and there was so much noise in the audio that while it could be watched and
listened to, it wasn't really worth it. (UPN was one such example when I had
analog reception.) That said, the picture and sound still didn't outright
die, as is the case with DTV.
So in the room with better reception, I can occasionally get 6-1 XETV, "The
CW" (RF 23) but within an hour or so, it's gone (7% signal at most, if not
outright zero). Conceptually, it's interesting when I get the channel and
when I don't, but since the overall programming it just not worth the
effort, I just rescanned during a time when I couldn't get the channel and
it's permanantly out of my channel list.
> However, it occurs to me that this on-again, off-again station is acting
> much like Daniel's reception in stability. It's there for a while, then
> gone without notice. Sometimes it's there, but barely stable. Could it be
> that something, I couldn't know what, is blocking the direct signals from
> Daniel, and all he receives are the weaker, unstable, indirect signals? It
> would explain much of the differences we see. In my case, the combination
> of strong, direct and weaker, indirect signals resulted in intolerable
> ghosting on analog, something that digital largely eliminated. In his
> case, if he only had the weak signals to watch, he would have trained
> himself to get along with snow and such, as long as he had stability.
>
Whatever it is, I would have preferred several more years of stable analog
reception with snow and ghosts over this on again/off again stuff. For me,
analog just worked well enough, and the few stations I received (15, 39, 51,
69 UHF) were more than sufficient. Using the TERK TV-5 antennas in both
rooms with both TV's, I most certainly had reasonably watchable analog
despite snow and ghosts (and UHF 51 was often void of snow despite visible
ghosts, such that one might have thought it was an analog cable feed, except
for the presence of the ghosts). Also, only slight rotations of the antenna
were needed when audible noise or increased snow started to occur for a
given station.
> Trust me when I say that you can learn to get along with a lot of crap, if
> that's all you have. I have been there, and not just with TV.
>
DTV is the worst "crap" ever because its failure cases are a dead picture
and no sound. Plus, even though the converter box I use (Digital Stream
DTX9950) has an audio only mode, the darn thing refuses to lock into Audio
Only mode so the end result is something like this:
Black Screen showing Weak Signal.
Black Screen showing Audio Only. (Audio is heard for a moment, screen
remains black).
Black screen changed to a picture that tries to reappear, but as the audio
cuts in when the picture moves a few frames the picture soon freezes so the
audio cuts out again.
Black screen with either Audio only or Weak Signal appears.
Now, repeat that a few times before the picture either stabilizes or remains
at the black screen with the Weak Signal indicator... at that point, I
absolutely give up and change the channel at the minimum, usually, though, I
just shut all DTV equipment off if it's not the morning or evening news. So
yeah, I only bother adjusting the antenna to watch the news at this point,
nothing else is compelling enough to watch to fight with DTV reception,
period.
(Even a black screen with an Audio Only message that actually stayed in
audio only mode would be preferable to the reception constantly being
unstable, no picture but continuous sound is still preferable to no picture
and no sound.)
Sal M. Onella
This is hard to write. I must be fair and accurate and avoid being
rude and cruel.
From my location in San Diego County, I can literally see the antenna
sticks for Chs. 15, 39, 51 and 69 UHF on Mt. San Miguel from my
backyard and so, of course from my rooftop antennas. I'm just a skosh
too far away from Mt. San Antonio, Tijuana BC Mexico to see the XETV
antenna; ditto for channels 8 & 10 on Mt Soledad. Nevertheless, I
get flawless San Diego pictures from them too, using only a couple of
stupid little El Cheapo antennas a few feet above the roofline on my
suburban home.
Besides that, because I'm on a slight rise above the surrounding area,
I also get a large number of LA stations, too. I receive something
approaching 40 OTA DTV channels (subject to anomalous propagation from
LA, which sometimes wipes out a few). My locals are always there and
always beautiful. No exceptions -- ever.
I honestly feel sorry for my fellow San Diego County residents who are
having reception problems but I wish they had the good sense to
realize that geography is to blame for their problems, not physics.
(In my prior regional location [1979 - 1982] my expectation of
receiving most OTA signals was low, due to a 100' hill to the north;
I was grateful for cable-tv.) Look at it this way: Some places on
Earth are deserts; some places are swamps. Blame the rain??? Blame
the wind?? Nope, you can't do it. It's unrealistic to expect that
all locations are equal. Same with TV: Some places will just not be
effectively covered by TV broadcast signals. It's not the signals'
fault.
You can yell, scream and carry on that 8VSB is a bad modulation. You
can pitch a bitch that the US should have retained analog TV. You can
weep, wail and gnash your teeth about how unhappy you are but it all
comes down to one key point: You are an infinitesimal minority. The
mass of Americans, a vast, overwhelming majority, is satisfied -- even
delighted -- with the results of Transition.
Bottom line: condemning 8VSB OTA digital TV gets you nothing.
Nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. If your reception sucks, it's because your
locations sucks. Not you, not your family, not your living room
furniture, not your dog -- your location. LOCATION, LOCATION,
LOCATION. You simply suffer from a bad case of the Luck of the Draw.
Your best hope may lie with fill-in transmitters. Take it up with the
broadcasters. In the meantime, there's no payback for coming in here
and metaphorically waving around a soiled diaper.
Sal
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, November 11, is Veterans Day. Please fly a flag that day.
TJ
Daniel's posts speak volumes more than he actually says. His problem is
not with his reception. From his descriptions, he had lousy analog
reception, too. It's just that he had learned to live with that,
probably because that was all he had. But he doesn't want to learn to
live with lousy digital reception, because the effects are different. In
his opinion, intolerably different. Perhaps he could have improved
things with a more effective antenna, mounted somewhere else, but he
seems steadfast in wanting to use the same equipment in the same way he
used it for his lousy analog reception. Perhaps it's some principle,
perhaps he has no choice. I don't know. What I do know is that grousing
about it won't get him anywhere. It certainly hasn't worked so far.
TJ
Daniel W. Rouse Jr.
[snip...]
> Daniel's posts speak volumes more than he actually says. His problem is
> not with his reception. From his descriptions, he had lousy analog
> reception, too. It's just that he had learned to live with that, probably
> because that was all he had.
I wouldn't call a stable picture "lousy", even with snow overlaying a full
color picture. I definitely wouldn't call a picture void of snow but having
ghosts "lousy", again because it was in full color. I wouldn't call constant
sound "lousy". The analog reception was usable, it was watchable. The
picture may have rolled occasionally. The picture may have sheared (and the
audio buzzed) very occasionally.
> But he doesn't want to learn to live with lousy digital reception, because
> the effects are different. In his opinion, intolerably different. Perhaps
> he could have improved things with a more effective antenna, mounted
> somewhere else, but he seems steadfast in wanting to use the same
> equipment in the same way he used it for his lousy analog reception.
Of course it's intolerably *defective*. Trying to explain it away as
different speaks volumes about trying to convince others that these are not
defects, but guess what, it's defective by design and stable by luck. It's
not just "different".
So again, how much am I supposed to spend on a transition that big
government forced on me? I *cannot* use an outdoor roof antenna. I am *NOT*
spending hundreds of dollars on buying or building alternative antennas when
I had stable analog so no, I do actually expect the government and
broadcasters to fix the problem they caused. The fixes have not been quick
enough.
I do not wish to solve reception puzzles that the government and the
broadcasters have created, they must solve them. The TV's will not move. The
antenna locations will remain the same. It is not interesting to me to
experiment (and spend additional money) on different antennas. I do not wish
to rearrange rooms just because DTV cannot propagate to the same location
where the TV's have been for years.
> Perhaps it's some principle, perhaps he has no choice. I don't know. What
> I do know is that grousing about it won't get him anywhere. It certainly
> hasn't worked so far.
>
What it does do, however, is let other people know--when they see the posts
protecting DTV for whatever personal/financial/simply to take the other side
of an issue type of perspective (depends on who is defending it)--that they
are not the only ones having DTV reception problems when their audio drops
out, when their picture goes to blocks, or smears, or gets jerky from frame
dropping, or outright freezes, or begins to get gray bars, and eventually
goes to a black screen with some sort of problem indicator (depending on
converter box model, can appears as No Signal, No Program, Weak Signal,
Audio Only).
If I cannot solve the DTV reception problem so that I get 24/7 stable DTV
reception, then the least I can do is let others know--among those who
*must* defend DTV at any cost, despite its very obvious defects--that the
problems are real, they do exist, and there is no current solution.
Daniel W. Rouse Jr.
news:caca8c89-6f21-4af2...@j19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
[snip...]
I honestly feel sorry for my fellow San Diego County residents who are
having reception problems but I wish they had the good sense to
realize that geography is to blame for their problems, not physics.
(In my prior regional location [1979 - 1982] my expectation of
receiving most OTA signals was low, due to a 100' hill to the north;
I was grateful for cable-tv.) Look at it this way: Some places on
Earth are deserts; some places are swamps. Blame the rain??? Blame
the wind?? Nope, you can't do it. It's unrealistic to expect that
all locations are equal. Same with TV: Some places will just not be
effectively covered by TV broadcast signals. It's not the signals'
fault.
*** Unlike analog, they knew they were going to force this technology. They
had the obligation to test all counties--coastal, inland, North, South, East
County--to ensure that the signal would get there, stable and usable, and
not just for moments at a time. They either failed, or used overly
optimistic mathematical models, because it doesn't work in all areas. There
are multiple entitites to blame for that, multiple problems with the overall
8VSB-based DTV technology too.
Explain to me why I could be far away from the towers and still get analog
using an amplified antenna, but DTV cannot consistently propagate for stable
reception. Geography? Nope, I got signals with analog reception. Weather?
Again, no, I still got signals even with more noise with analog reception?
ATSC is miserably deficient except in line of sight, clea weather, and
nearly lab perfect reception conditions? Very likely, although apparently in
some other geographical areas in other states, they did manage to get the
reception correct to propagate over hills and such. I wonder what they did
right, that isn't being done so that my area gets 24/7 stable DTV reception?
Anyway, I've done all the testing I care to do at this point, and the
antenna setup I am using is the best possible without being able to use an
outdoor antenna or having to spend time and money trying and returning
antennas. So my non-changing opinion is that DTV *is* a failure, plain and
simple, whenever an existing antenna setup previously used for analog cannot
be used for DTV at all or with workarounds. The technology should have
required *no change* in configuration whatsoever, except for replacing an
NTSC tuner with an ATSC tuner converter box as needed.
[snip...]
TJ
> "TJ" <T...@noneofyour.business> wrote in message
> news:hd97up$kj5$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
> [snip...]
>
>> Daniel's posts speak volumes more than he actually says. His problem
>> is not with his reception. From his descriptions, he had lousy analog
>> reception, too. It's just that he had learned to live with that,
>> probably because that was all he had.
>
> I wouldn't call a stable picture "lousy", even with snow overlaying a
> full color picture. I definitely wouldn't call a picture void of snow
> but having ghosts "lousy", again because it was in full color. I
> wouldn't call constant sound "lousy". The analog reception was usable,
> it was watchable. The picture may have rolled occasionally. The picture
> may have sheared (and the audio buzzed) very occasionally.
>
on certain channels was more than occasional. In some rooms, some
channels were stable, as well as snow- and ghost-free, but in no room
was every channel free from problems. I considered that lousy, and still
do. I assumed it was because of the geography and the nature of TV, but
I was wrong.
TJ
dmaster
wrote:
...
> I wouldn't call a stable picture "lousy", even with snow overlaying a full
> color picture. I definitely wouldn't call a picture void of snow but having
> ghosts "lousy", again because it was in full color. I wouldn't call constant
> sound "lousy". The analog reception was usable, it was watchable. The
> picture may have rolled occasionally. The picture may have sheared (and the
> audio buzzed) very occasionally.
You wouldn't call it lousy, but I would. So would a lot of other
people. Different strokes for different folks.
...
> I do not wish to solve reception puzzles that the government and the
> broadcasters have created, they must solve them. The TV's will not move. The
> antenna locations will remain the same. It is not interesting to me to
> experiment (and spend additional money) on different antennas. I do not wish
> to rearrange rooms just because DTV cannot propagate to the same location
> where the TV's have been for years.
...
> If I cannot solve the DTV reception problem so that I get 24/7 stable DTV
> reception, then the least I can do is let others know--among those who
> *must* defend DTV at any cost, despite its very obvious defects--that the
> problems are real, they do exist, and there is no current solution.
Unfortunately, to me this sounds like, "I won't do anything to improve
my situation, but I'll complain about it." As for me, I've done
digital OTA installs in 4 locations with very different conditions,
and in every one, using appropriate reception equipment has lead to
exceptional results. The only difference between us is that I'm
willing to spend a few dollars and do a little experimentation...and
enjoy clear, stable OTA digital TV reception.
I'm also never going to say that OTA DTV is perfect, as opposed to you
who insists that it is completely broken. I'll be realistic and say
that OTA DTV can be great for most people *if* they use the
appropriate equipment. I'll also say that there is a small minority
who aren't going to get great reception with any equipment. But to
constantly complain that OTA DTV is "broken", but refuse to take any
steps to help oneself, sounds awefully petty to me.
Dan (Woj...)
GMAN
Maybe someday Daniel will realize that rabbit ear antenna's just don't work
that well in his mother's basement?