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Old 8-Jul-2015, 5:31 AM   #1
Battledad
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ota - reception on different tv's

downstairs samsung 62"; upstairs in mbr samsung 40"

Denny's stacker antenna. cable run ~50ft connected to a winegard amp. split to 6 lines.

All fine until recently. 32.1; 32.2 and 32.3 come in clean downstairs. upstairs 32.2 is ok but 32.1 and 32.3 break up.

tuner sensitivity? all other stations fine on both.

address: 11416 ne 177th circle, battle ground, wa 98604

the 32's are from salem, or about 70 miles south.

appreciate any thoughts
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Old 8-Jul-2015, 9:57 AM   #2
ADTech
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KRCW-TV transmits from Skyline, 18.4 miles to your south southwest, just like all the rest of your Portland stations. It doesn't transmit from Salem although its city of license is Salem. That just means their license requires them to provide a specific level of service to Salem, at a minimum.

It is not possible for your issue to be a reception problem as the individual sub-channels within a single station's channel are not individually distinguishable until the signal gets inside the tuner system and the individual data packets are decoded and assigned to their respective A/V streams.

Try doing a "double reset" on the TV with the issue or look for a "factory reset" in the setup menus (probably in a technician access menu). You might also check to see if there are any firmware updates available for the set.

https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/at...C-291403A1.pdf
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Old 8-Jul-2015, 5:15 PM   #3
Battledad
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Couldn't find a factory reset option. Called Samsung and explained the issue. The 40" uses a less sophisticated tuner than the 60" does. checked the software and 40" is up to date. The person at Samsung said that there may be a slight difference in the signal quality across 32.1; 32.2 and 32.3 which, when read by the tuner, causes the breakup on 32.1 and 32.3.

going to take the 40" downstairs and plug it into the cable for the 60" and see if the issue is corrected.
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Old 8-Jul-2015, 5:35 PM   #4
Battledad
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Follow up

1) Took the 40" from upstairs downstairs and plugged into the cable the 60" uses and same exact issue. 40" breaks up on 32.1 and 32.3 but fine on 32.2 up and down.
2) Given the Samsung comment about the differences in tuners between the 40" and 60" their respective ability to handle small differences in signal must account for the issue
3) Nothing that appears to be doable to make the 40" handle the 32.1 and 32.3 that we can see.
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Old 8-Jul-2015, 6:12 PM   #5
Greenish Apple
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Have you checked ALL the cables and connections? Anything loose could change the reception.

David
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Old 8-Jul-2015, 6:18 PM   #6
ADTech
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Quote:
The person at Samsung said that there may be a slight difference in the signal quality across 32.1; 32.2 and 32.3 which, when read by the tuner, causes the breakup on 32.1 and 32.3.
There shouldn't be any such difference across those sub-channels. The signal off the antenna, once decoded, is basically just packets of data with a header that identifies which virtual channel they belong to. It's not possible for only certain subs to be affected.

Might as well carry the 40" set downstairs and hook it up where the big one is at. That will tell you if there's a difference in the signal to the two sets.
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Old 8-Jul-2015, 6:21 PM   #7
Tim
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Battledad View Post
The person at Samsung said that there may be a slight difference in the signal quality across 32.1; 32.2 and 32.3 which, when read by the tuner, causes the breakup on 32.1 and 32.3.
I think I would call Samsung back and try to go up another level in tech support. That answer sounds a little fishy to me.
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Old 8-Jul-2015, 8:19 PM   #8
Battledad
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Took the 40" downstairs and plugged into the very same cable the 60" is using and....same issue. The 40" gets garbled 32.1 and 32.3 but clean 32.2 upstairs and downstairs.

Hooked the 60" back up and 32.1; 32.2 and 32.3 all come in just fine.

The only variable is the tuner. The 60" uses a tuner with three (3) components (according to Samsung) while the 40" uses 1.

Wonder if the heat we've been having the last couple of weeks (when this started) is part of the issue? Again, if it was then the same issue would appear across all TV's and doesn't.

So...we are back to the tuners. Something is slightly different. Note: I have a Heidecker (BB's cheap brand) 32" in another room upstairs. It was doing the same thing as the 40". 32.1 and 32.3 breaking up and 32.2 fine. It uses a different cable outlet.

Bottomline: Must be tuner related.
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Old 8-Jul-2015, 10:16 PM   #9
Tim
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That is so very strange. Looking at the TV Fool report for your area I see that there is a KRCW-TV on real channel 33 and a KRCW-LP on real channel 5, both in the same direction and at similar signal strengths. I wonder if the TV set in question is receiving virtual 32.1 and 32.3 on real channel 5 and virtual 32.2 on real channel 33?
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Old 8-Jul-2015, 11:23 PM   #10
ADTech
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That's an interesting observation. KRCW operates the channel 5 transmitter as a translator for their main UHF channel. If both signals are received, the tuner is *supposed* to manage the duplicate virtual channel numbers.

Here's a test to see if the situation can be isolated on the 40" Samsung. It takes advantage of my general experience in having noticed that many Samsung sets have a "direct channel access" mode. If your set has it, it may be helpful.

1. Disconnect the coax.
2. Run a full channel scan. This should erase all channels. Verify.
3. Reconnect the coax.
4. Using the remote, enter channel 33.
5. If the feature is available, the tuner will go to RF 33, find a digital station there, decode it and add virtual channel 32.1-.3 to the channel list.
6. Watch channel and see if the previous symptoms are present. Note results.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 substituting "05" or just "5" in place of 33.
8. Repeat steps 4 & 5 to ADD the RF 33 feed back into the mix.
9. See if it's working or not.

If you find that it works well when either RF channel is tuned in but not when both are in memory, the most expedient corrective action would be to put several HLSJ filters in cascade before the amp to remove all signals below channel 7. Three of them should be plenty.

Let us know how the testing goes.
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Last edited by ADTech; 8-Jul-2015 at 11:27 PM.
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Old 9-Jul-2015, 12:59 AM   #11
Battledad
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Ok...so I went back and rescanned and saw that 32.1; 32.2 and 32.3 showed up twice. Nothing that appeared on the scan to differentiate them. I then changed channel to each and found that one set of 32's worked with no issue. The other all broke up.

I sent found the bad channel's one-by-one and deleted them. we now have a full set of 32's working. Never noticed the duplication before...something must have changed locally on the broadcast?

I also see that the 22 series is duplicated in the 47 series. However the 47 series has an LD? after the name. Can anyone tell me whether there is a difference for the same ION channels being broadcast on 22.x vs. 47.x and what does the LD stand for?

thanks everyone for the comments and feedback.
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Old 9-Jul-2015, 1:07 AM   #12
Flint Ridge
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LD is Low Def I think vs HD High Def. 720 vs 1080???
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Old 9-Jul-2015, 3:12 AM   #13
MarcCharette
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I had a Samsung 40 inch up until February that had a bad tuner (often pixelated, cutting out). I thought for years that I just had really bad reception where I am, then I got a new TV and all the channels I should get worked perfectly. I sold it to someone who didn't use OTA tv so don't know the model number so can't say if it is a similar model to yours but just wanted to throw that out there
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Old 9-Jul-2015, 10:30 AM   #14
ADTech
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Flint Ridge View Post
LD is Low Def I think vs HD High Def. 720 vs 1080???
No. The "-LD" suffix after the call letters denotes a "Low-power Digital" broadcast license, a different legal class of broadcasting than the full power stations which usually use either "-DT" or "-TV" as their suffix for their legal identification.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tation_classes and scroll down to the section headed "FCC service table" near the end of the article.

Low-power broadcasters seem to be lax about filing for the correct license suffix and the FCC doesn't seem to care enough to enforce the rules, so there are a number of low-power stations with an out of date suffix. KRCW is an example.


Battledad,

Glad, you figured out a solution. Tim's observation was key to getting on the right track, so give him a big "thumbs up"! I think his idea of that you were getting the different sub-channels from the different broadcast stations was the correct identification of the issue.

If would be useful to determine which of the two KRCW broadcasts was the issue. Your Sammy probably has a diagnostics or signal meter screen that identifies either the RF channel or frequency. If you have a chance to follow up on that (or the procedure in my post from last evening), it would be appreciated.
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