Welcome to the world of digital television. WEYI-TV has been digital broadcast signals since 2004 and we are broadcasting our digital programming on channel 30. You should be able to locate our channel easily since 30.1 is our HD feed (when nbc provides HD programming) and currently 30.2 will be our SD feed of our NBC programming.
For 2 years now WBSF-TV 46 has been on the air (analog) and we were approaching the time when the WBSF station will be making the change to digital. This station sometime after November will receive its digital equipment and begin broadcasting on digital channel 46. While both stations are "sisters" that is owned by the same operator we need to be able to clearly define signal issues and the cross carriage of the CW programming on the NBC affiliates signal was confusing to the market and the station was not receiving the proper credit for viewing.
If you don’t know if your antenna is suitable you can go to www.antennaweb.org and receive more information about applicable antennas.
If you received the Digital channels earlier and for some reason you cannot receive them today you need to do the following:
- First make sure your antenna is oriented in the proper direction towards the station.
- Secondly you need to ADD the CHANNEL or RESCAN ALL CHANNELS in your digital box.
Sometimes you need to power cycle (turn on and turn off) the decoder box waiting 30 seconds before you apply power again to clear the memory of the decoder. Read your manual carefully.
Some decoder boxed have a “Factory Reset” that clears the memory.
You will notice that when you tune your converter box to channel 30 that the label will identify it as channel 25 for your convenience and ease of identification. Remember to orient your antenna towards Birch Run/ Clio area to receive our signals. Remember also that ch 12 and ch 66 are in the same area just east of Chesaning and Ch 5 is located just east of the Zilwaukee Bridge in Saginaw. Do you get other channels such as Delta College ch 18?
First reports are finding that ANALOG antennas perform differently than DIGITAL antennas. Digital signals are less prone to accept multipath than digital. For digital signals on any antenna you need to get the strongest possible signal.
First, your antenna direction must be accurate. We are located approximately 2 miles east of I-75 between Clio and Birch Run Michigan. You will need to rotate your antenna in the proper direction. Second, your antenna is probably the original antenna you used for your ANALOG television set. Improve the UHF gain by adding a specific UHF antenna segment or replace the antenna with one that has 20db or better gain on the UHF segment.
Third you can improve the height of the current antenna.
Forth you can check the coaxial down lead and remove any splitters or dividers that are reducing the signal level. Replace them with amplified splitters. Replace the RG59 coaxial with RG6 (Less line loss).
Jon Bengtson
ANTENNA SELECTION
Go to the website www.antennaweb.org which is a non profit site that will tell you what type of antenna you need for your location. There are lots of designs and options. Each antenna has a different GAIN. GAIN is the strength of the antenna to receive television signals. The web site uses colors to represent the various distances you can expect to use for various gains of antennas. Compute the distance and select the color which represents the gain of the antenna you need. Then shop for that color of antenna. Most dealers will understand what you need if you know the distance from your home to the transmitter site of each television station. This web site will also tell you those distances.
Remember to increase signal level it is a combination of ANTENNA GAIN, ANTENNA HEIGHT, MINIMAL LINE LOSS.
Thus choose the strongest antenna by gain in the UHF band. Remove passive splitters or other devices from your antenna downlead path to the television set. Replace them with amplified splitters (distribution amplifiers). Check your antenna coax cable most have RG59 however your can reduce your line loss by using RG6 if needed. You will improve your reception with addional height added to your antenna.
Antennas are chosen by the range of reception. For individuals over 35 miles from television stations use Deep Fringe antennas with maximum gain possible. Digital signals are very directional so a ROTOR or some method for turning your antenna will be needed.
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