Channels 32 & 9 ?

[Twanna]

Ever since June 12th transition I am lucky to get channel 15. I live close to Cisco. I have purchased the new antenna with a new booster along with a converter box but still no TV does anyone have any suggestions? Please HELP.

[tvodak]

Understand the frustration and we're sorry that you're having problems.

First off, because there have been a lot of questions from our viewers, the problems we've had with our digital broadcasts have had nothing to do with the shutdown of our analog transmitters on May 12th. It's all pretty much bad timing.

We've been broadcasting our KTAB and KRBC digital signals for that past couple of years without a problem, so we didn't just turn them on May 12th.

In January and again on May 14th we had incidents on our broadcast tower which resulted in an interruption of our digital broadcasts.

Once our analog signals were shut down on the 12th, the FCC effectively took away our license to operate the analog transmitters, as part of the DTV Conversion. We did not have an option to turn the analog transmitters back on when we had problems erupt on the 14th.

This latest incident resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to our broadcast facility. Our digital transmission line which carried the KTAB and KRBC digital signals from the transmitter building to the antenna was nearly destroyed along two antenna components on the tower.

We were off the air for a couple of days as temporary repairs were made to get us back on the air. During that time KTXS TV was gracious to allow us to broadcast KTAB TV on 12-3, one of their digital channels.

A tower crew and engineers from the company which installed the equipment were called iin.

Engineers were able to make temporary repairs to get our digital signals back up and running using the old KTAB analog transmission line.

However, we are not at full power for either station.

We are unable to use two segments of our 3 segmented digital broadcast antenna.

One of the components that splits the KTAB and KRBC signals to allow us to use one antenna for both stations was nearly destroyed ans has been sent back to the manufacturer for repair or replacement.

We also still have to replace the digital transmission line, which can handle a lot more capacity than the old KTAB analog transmission line.

As a result, we have a good signal coming into the Abilene area and to the northwest of our tower.

However we do not have a full strong broadcast signal going to the east and to the south of our tower which is located near Potosi. That may be the majority of your problem.

This has also affected our over-the-air broacast viewers in the Brownwood area.

At this time we are not certain how long it will take to make repairs to get us back up to full power for both stations.

It's possible that some re-engineering may have to take place with the transmitters and antenna system to keep from having the same problem happen again. The current system was designed according to FCC specifications over 3 years ago and the digital technology has improved since then and there may be some changes made.

We certainly want to get the repairs done as quickly as possible so that our viewers can get the best broadcast signal possible.

In our discussions with viewers who are having issues receiving our signal, a majority of the cases have to do with antennas...indoor vs outdoor, old coax cable, etc. There is a lot of troubleshooting that has to be done and each case is different.

Some possible help with antennas...

Here is a link to an FCC Consumer Facts sheet on antennas and digital transmission:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/dtvantennas.html

Here is a link to AntennaWeb
http://www.antennaweb.org

In the meantime, some viewers do have other options than receiving our broadcast signal. We do have a direct feed to the Abilene Suddenlink Cable system.

Dish Network satellite TV also carries our channels.

[sidetrack61]

Thanks for filling everyone in, Tom. I now know why I'm getting 98 signal on KTAB and 89-90 on KRBC. We're in the path of the directional signal. After repairs, more power, and omnidirectional signal!