Q's for WinTV-D owners...

[Dave-OR]

So it's hard to tell if your WinTV-D card is working when your only digital station is running <500w and is 15 miles away... where you can't even get a decent pic on the analog version running 50KW. (KTVZ 21, KTVZ-DT 18).

However, I -have- had the Sync Lock light up when pointed towards Bend. My Q is this: are there spurious sync locks? Similar to spurious RDS data?

Next Q: Does WinTV-D remember anything "useful" when a station is received and deconded? i.e. if I leave the diagnostics window up and leave the WinTV-D tuned to channel 2 this summer, if I come back after being gone for a week might I find evidence that anything was ever tuned/decoded? I noticed that the sync lock dB setting didn't go away until the window was closed.

Any other tips and tricks a new WinTV-D owner should know about?

Thanks!

Dave

[Mike-CT]

If your sync-lock lights up, that's good. There is a DTV station on that channel.

Check your average/20sec number. You can detect a DTV station with an average down to only a couple of db.

You'll need an average of 12-14db before the eq box will turn green. At that time, the pic should decode. However, as we have found because of conditions, etc., you might need a higher number, or the card just simply might refuse to decode at all, which has happened during tropo conditions.

Spurious sync locks? Never seen one.

If the card decodes a picture, then the signal drops out, the screen will still show the final picture. I think that at that point you will still be able to right click on the pic, go into diagnostics and get the PSIP info. This is different from all the STBs I've used because the picture went to black when the slignal dropped.

[Dave-OR]

If your sync-lock lights up, that's good. There is a DTV station on that channel.

Check your average/20sec number. You can detect a DTV station with an average down to only a couple of db.

You'll need an average of 12-14db before the eq box will turn green. At that time, the pic should decode. However, as we have found because of conditions, etc., you might need a higher number, or the card just simply might refuse to decode at all, which has happened during tropo conditions.

Spurious sync locks? Never seen one.

If the card decodes a picture, then the signal drops out, the screen will still show the final picture. I think that at that point you will still be able to right click on the pic, go into diagnostics and get the PSIP info. This is different from all the STBs I've used because the picture went to black when the slignal dropped.

Thanks for all of the info, Mike. Yes, I've gotten KTVZ-DT up to about 7db (20 sec/average)... this is using my FM-6 which is obviously not going to do it for UHF. Guess it's time to throw up the CM3671 monster again.

Of course if they'd run at 50KW instead of <500W, I'd have a better chance. I've got a call into KTVZ engineering to ask when they are going to up to full power. Also trying to determine (with my contact at OPB) when KOAB-DT 11 will finally come on. Believe it or not, the issue there is a zoning/EIR one at the tower site - transmitter has been installed for almost 2 years. As KOAB-3 and KOAB 91.3 will go off the air for 2 weeks when they do the work, of course I'm hoping for a late June/early July date :-).

Nice feature that the box will "remember" the final picture. This may be useful come Es time.

Dave