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Old 20-Jul-2015, 10:24 PM   #38
rabbit73
Retired A/V Tech
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: S.E. VA
Posts: 2,747
Quote:
And yes the call signs are KOMU for ch#8 at around 14NM and KRCG for #13, which is really #12 which always confuses me. Makes me wonder if I cut the balun for the right channel.
It confuses a lot of people. If you cut it for the frequency of the real channel, you're OK. Even if you didn't, you're still OK. Calaveras, who wanted the lowest loss balun possible, cut his half-wave coaxial baluns for his stacked 91XG UHF antennas for the middle of the UHF band. Then, he wanted to eliminate the combiner loss and connected the two 75 ohm lines in parallel, which gave 37.5 ohms. That was converted back to 75 ohms with a quarter-wave 50 ohm matching section.
http://www.aa6g.org/DTV/ABD/Antenna_Block_Diagram.html

The real channel is what the transmitter uses, and it determines what antenna you should use. The virtual channel number is a holdover from analog TV days, and is retained by the station to maintain continuity of identity for the viewer. Sometimes the real channel number and the virtual channel number are the same if the station stayed on the same channel.
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To avoid confusion, an experienced user like you should only use the real channel number. If you use the virtual channel number, it should be in decimal form as, for example, 13.1. Some of the stations on a TVFOOL report don't even have a virtual channel number listed, only a real channel number.

The real channel number is for techs like us; the virtual channel number is what is displayed on the TV for the viewer.
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Last edited by rabbit73; 21-Jul-2015 at 11:52 AM.
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