Thin-Air ATSC: The Only Constant Is Change For Me

Has it really been nine months since I last wrote about my longstanding travails at striving to obtain reliable ATSC reception? That’s because until recently, I happily had a stable Windows Media Center setup. Granted, reception would sometimes go temporarily awry, if heavy snow accumulated on one or both antennas, or if inclement weather between the Verdi, NV translator transmission antennas and my residence resulted in unacceptable signal attenuation. But occasional (and explainable) hiccups aside, I was able to reliably snag signals coming from nearby Reno, NV’s major broadcasters…

…until a few weeks ago, that is. That’s when I found myself no longer able to consistently tune in KOLO (ABC), and my ability to receive either KTVN (CBC) or KNPB (PBS) completely ceased. In all three cases, I was attempting to tune in the secondary translator signals coming from Verdi, NV’s Peavine Peak antenna cluster, which historically had been more robust than the Reno, NV primary transmissions. Last night, I finally got around to doing a broadcast frequency scan using the combination of my MSI Wind U100 netbook and a Pinnacle Systems PCTV HD mini Stick. The results were interesting, to say the least.

As my Windows Media Center experiences had suggested, KOLO’s translator beacon was extremely weak, KNPB’s was virtually undetectable, and KTVN’s was nonexistent. I’m not sure what’s going on at Peavine Peak, since I’m still able to tune in KRXI’s transmission from that location just fine. Then again, KRXI’s signal is substantially stronger than that of its translator neighbors, and it’s omni-directional as well. But fortunately, I seem to now have another reliable option for getting both KOLO and KTVN: the primary antennas located on Slide Mountain.

For KTVN this wasn’t much of a surprise; I’d always been able to tune in the Slide Mountain primary transmission, and I’d only been using the Peavine Peak translator because its signal was historically a bit stronger. But KOLO was a shocker; long-time readers of this particular topic series know that I’ve never been able to receive it before. The ATSC signal was originally (and briefly) on UHF channel 23; it subsequently moved to VHF channel 9. Once KOLO shut down its VHF channel 8 NTSC beacon last mid-June, the ABC affiliate moved its ATSC signal there in conjunction with doing some equipment upgrades.

My initial reception testing of KOLO’s ATSC signal on VHF channel 8 was unsuccessful, therefore my continued reliance on the UHF channel 24 translator, but perhaps the broadcaster has done antenna and other enhancements since then. KOLO’s VHF channel 8 beacon is still weaker here than those of its KTVN and KRNV (NBC) Slide Mountain neighbors, but TV Fool statistics suggested that this would always be the case. And I’m still unable to tune in KNPB until the Verdi translator on Peavine Peak is resurrected to its prior robustness; KNPB’s primary antenna on Red Mountain is several thousand vertical feet below and on the other side of the formidable Mt. Rose range and therefore unavailable to me. But I’ve now got ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC back, so I’m reasonably happy.

By the way, in reconfiguring Window Vista’s Media Center application last night, I was happy to see that the issues I experienced last June have seemingly corrected themselves. Media Center no longer suggests, after I enter my zip code, that I should be able to receive Sacramento-area broadcasters a two-hour drive and many Sierra Nevada mountain ridges away. And Media Center also now correctly identifies KOLO’s primary ATSC signal as being on VHF channel 8.

And while I’m discussing ATSC reception, I’ve got an update for you on the Kitz Technologies’ KT-100VG signal booster that I mentioned last August. The initial unit, as I mentioned back then, abruptly failed. Its replacement is still working fine. And after I sent back the original device for diagnostics testing, here’s what Jeffrey Kitz found:

The GasFET amplifier IC was defective. No way to tell why. It could be just a part failure or a touch of lightning?