Roger, wilco.

Jam - see your PM

They're back on now.  I'd like to know what knocked them off in the first place.  The website made a cryptic mention of the snow, but I can't imagine how a few inches of snow could knock one station off the air.  Especially when I consider that they just installed a whole new transmitter facility, presumably with al of the latest heaters, driers, radomes and other gear to keep the effects of the snow to a minimum.

And what's with the power?  If the storm threatened to knock down the utility lines, why wasn't the generator powering the transmitter by noon?  Going to offline power used to be SOP in my day--we'd go to genset to prevent induced lightning damage, and to burn off Diesel, which doesn't store forever and must be replaced with fresh fuel one way or another.  Running the generators made sure that the tanks had a supply of fresh, clean fuel, that our fuel suppliers remembered how to find us in case of a real emergency, and gave the gensets a good workout.

I just don't get it.  Someone fill me in, please.

You may need to spend more time on antenna placement and aiming.  It's a tedious job, even if you have great test equipment.  Don't be afraid to try mounting an antenna somewhere between vertical and horizontal polarization, or pointing it a bit away from what should be the direct compass path to the target(s).  Be creative.

Now that we're 100% ATSC, you should try using an antenna amplifier.  If you have with NTSC, and had bad results, you may be surprised at how much you can turn up the gain on the new digital signal.

Your location in Watertown puts all of the main antenna locations within a few degrees, so a single high gain antenna should pull in all Madison stations well.  OTOH you have downtown Madison between you and the transmitter sites.  Given the curvature of the earth and the height of the downtown buildings, the Fresnel effect could be taking away some signal.  (That's just a wild guess w/o any solid numbers, though.)

Remember that you can probably get a good signal if you have a high enough antenna location, sophisticated enough antenna designs, better performing wiring, elaborate enough RF electronics etc.  The trick is to do it all within a reasonable budget, without angering your wife and neighbors, and without the need to spend more time tweaking than watching.

Yes you read that correctly, WMSN-DT and all of its subchannels are completely and totally out for OTA viewers.  They say that the power is out at the transmitter site, which comes as a big surprise.  When I toured the facility, it had enough generating capacity to keep the lights on in all of Madison!  Apparently none of those gigantic power plants belong to WMSN.

If you want to see the Packers game, you'll need to have a pre-existing Charter HD account (something that Charter has been unable to accomplish IME).  So in other words, start aiming your antennas to other towns.

This is an extreme embarrassment for WMSN, and IME the kind of mistake that gets people fired.

mostly for JamPro (sent him an pm)

I am still receiving reduced signal strength here in Watertown even after repointing my antenna after the wind storms earlier.

Is the situation where many of the stations, transmitters?, are together being resolved?

If not, does anyone have an idea when to expect it??

No problems with the updates!

Kerry did say to me the few days of high winds did delay the scheduled date.

My DISH 722 DVR only had me 'find channel' then plug in '49' and it was found so then I only had to 'add channel' without the need for a rescan. Now I have Milwaukee on DISH and Madison OTA

Happy camper here!

If you own a TiVo, and are getting WMSN over-the-air, you're going to have problems for a while.  I did a channel scan on my two HD TiVo boxes, and although they did get the PSIP information for the new "channel 49" assignment, they still have their program guide data locked onto the now defunct "channel 11" assignment.  Even the Charter ClearQAM 47.x entries have no program guide information associated with them.

If you want to record anything broadcast by WMSN on a TiVo, including subchannels, you MUST create a manual recording!  The same applies to any DVR hardware or software that uses Tribune Media Services as the source of program guide information.

According to the TiVo representative, program data is "several weeks" old before it reaches your TiVo.  So you may be stuck doing manual recordings for a long time to come.

Everybody with an ATSC tuner needs to re-scan for channels.  WMSN-TV Fox 47 has a new frequency.

Details are here.

I just got off the phone with Kerry.  He says that WMSN is now active on its new UHF ("channel 49") frequency, and that the old ("channel 11") transmitter has been powered down.  If you haven't already re-scanned your tuner, or aren't getting WMSN (47.1, 47.2) right now, it's time to re-scan your tuner!

According to Kerry, calls to the station have been relatively light.  This may be because a lot of the tuners in DVRs and other "smart" equipment auto-detect the PSIP automatically.  My DISH VIP722 DVR found the new frequency without any input from me.  My year-old Sony TV didn't.  If you have multiple tuners, double-check them all.  Don't forget TVs in other rooms.