By now, you have heard a lot of messages about digital television and what you need to do to prepare for digital-only broadcasting. In fact, you're probably getting tired of all those messages!
But it’s not enough just to know – it’s important to act now to make sure you’re ready. And besides, you can watch digital programming right now, so there's really no need to wait.
Set up your digital television, or connect your converter boxes, and make sure you receive the all channels you expect to see. We hope you find you’ll see even more.
If you can’t get a digital signal even with the right equipment, contact your local retailer. They can help you determine if your antenna needs an upgrade too. Better to find out now if you need to get on the roof to install a new antenna than in January!
And feel free to contact us with questions or to schedule an information session. We want your transition to digital television to be as smooth as possible.
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13 comments:
We have received IPTV from the Mason City affiliate for many years with aan antenna on a tower. We live southeast of Rochester, MN. Our new TV set is DTV compatable but it skips from channel 15 to 31 and will not let us key in 24. Do you use a different channel # for your digital broadcasting?
We live in Nebraska and currently enjoy Iowa public tele. I am concerned that this will be a problem for us, as the Minnosota family is experiencing! Please fill us in on your new IPTV channels!!!!
I live in Northwest Iowa, two miles from the tower and receive analog reception perfectly. We have converted our t.v. to digital and receive all channels but IPTV. Are they not broadcasting in digital yet?
I am having the same problem, we receive all other all channels great, but we don't get any IPTV or other state's PTV which we used to get. Do we need to change a setting or just wait until they switch over?
I live west of DeSoto and receive a digital signal using rabbit ears. How will we receive channels 5,8,11,and 13 wich are VHF designated band frequencies, after the change to UHF channels 14 to 69? Am I currantly receiving them on UHF with my purchased digital convertion boxes?
Those not getting IPTV digital now may be getting their reception via a low power translator that is still only running analog. The switchover to digital for translators should begin soon after 2/17/09/
We live in Davenport. There is no coverage for IPTV Digital service, or for that matter any real digital coverage (5 channels two really spotty).
I was told you are awaiting FCC permission for your towers in Orion.
So I guess we will be on the roof in February trying to get an antenna - or we stop watching tv all together.
We live in Earlham - just outside of Des Moines. We can view all the digital IPTV channels with our HDTV in our camper, but not at home with our cable provider. Could our local cable company be blocking our channels until February 17th? I wonder if they will ever let them through without buying their extra equipment. The channels are great if we could get them at home. What stumps us is we can get other local digital channels like channel 8.1, 8.2, 13.1, and 13.2. Digital IPTV is a mystery so far!
To the Earlham viewer, I would guess the cable provider isn't passing along the digital channels to their subscribers. What a shame since there is some good programming on those "extra" digital channels as you have been seeing in your camper. Probably a small indoor antenna could enable you to pick up IPTV over-the-air from channel 11.
To the Davenport viewer, be patient. I know KWQC will be going to a different UHF frequency next February that will give them a better signal. I would guess you are getting WQAD and KLJB the best. That is the way it is here in Mount Pleasant. I don't know how much power IPTV's Quad City transmitter is running. I know that some QC viewers can even get IPTV's station from Iowa City/West Branch. IPTV does have digital service in your community because I have received it here during good signal propagation. You may have to install a modest outside antenna to get reliable digital reception since I've heard "rabbit ears" antennas don't work real well in Davenport. Most of the stations transmit from Orion, except WHBF which is in Bettendorf. Not sure about IPTV.
An update for the Davenport viewer. IPTV's Quad City transmitter, KQIN-36, will be moving to Orion, IL sometime in the near future and will be running much more power than it is currently. This should give much better coverage for the Quad Cities and eastern Iowa. If you have or will put up an outdoor antenna, make sure it is pointing toward Orion. All the commercial stations except WHBF are transmitting DTV from this same location. WHBF-4 has chosen to have their digital signal on VHF channel 4, transmitting from Bettendorf. This will require antennas to be "all-channel", not just the UHF variety. And depending where a person lives, they may want their outdoor antenna rotatable so they can zero in on the channel 4 location if they have trouble getting them with the antenna pointing to where everyone else is transmitting from.
.....Dave in Mount Pleasant
Will everyone need to rescan their converter boxes or TV (if digital ready)after 2/17/09 when some stations change to a different RF channel, such as KIIN going back to channel l2 from their current channel 45 on digital?
Regarding rescanning, the answer is yes. Scanning is the process that the receiver uses to associate the station's actual digital broadcast channel with the station's virtual channel which is their analog channel assignment. In the case of KIIN, our analog service is currently broadcasting on VHF channel 12 and our digital service is on UHF channel 45. When you scanned your receiver, it went through every channel in the television band, 2 to 69 and checked to see if there was a digital service on that channel. If there was, it decoded it and found data in the content that told the receiver that the virtual channel was 12 so it associated the physical UHF channel 45 with the virtual channel 12 and reports to you that you are watching channel 12.1 when in reality the tuner is tuned to channel 45.
After we shut off channel 12 analog and move the digital service over and turn on channel 12digital we will shut off channel 45. At that point, the digital receiver is lost because it still thinks it has to tune to channel 45 when you ask for channel 12. Rescanning the receiver will reestablish the association between the actual digital broadcast channel which will then be VHF channel 12 and the virtual channel which will also be channel 12.
Bill
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