Lengthy Week

What a week.

You may skip this paragraph if you don't care about my technical troubles.

On Wednesday I got the brilliant idea to reload my system with the Kubuntu-KDE4 RC. I backed all of my data up as I wanted to change the partition layout, then reloaded. Everything went well until I tried to install KDE3's Guidance Power Manager. The thing decided to suspend itself right away. When I tried to wake it up again, the wireless card and LCD backlight wouldn't turn back on. Two hours of panicking later, it fixed itself somehow. Still not sure what's up with that, but so far everything is working alright.

Anyway, on to actual news. Apparently WJJA is going to change call letters to WBME now that it's picked up the "Me-TV" name. I also picked up some updates here and there which are now shown on the Updates page of the site.

As for features, I imagine most who have looked at the technical data can now see the little visual directional patterns. Bruce implemented this a few days ago and the directional patterns have been parsed so the images show up. I hope it is useful for those who wish to see what stations' directional patterns look like.

Finally, I got a gift in the mail at home. I'll post more about it once I'm able to get home and take some pictures.

My updates may become more spaced out as I have exams this coming week. Computer Science is on Monday, then three over two days next Friday and Saturday. Then I go home for a while and come back the following Thursday for Economics. Once that is all said and done, I'll be home for the summer.

Have a good weekend!

O Canada!

Hello once more!

I spent a decent amount of time today adding Canadian stations from southern Ontario to the listings. I did this mainly because they are needed for the Available Channels search to work properly in the border areas. I may separate the Canadian stations into their own DMA listings beginning with #501, but I haven't decided yet. We'll see what happens; right now they're numbered along with the nearest US market geographically.

A couple of changes of note. First of all, WJJA in Milwaukee finally had its sale to Weigel close yesterday, and by evening the station was "MeTV Milwaukee," simulcasting 58-3. It airs classic shows, much as RTN does.

I received a message informing me that KLUZ 41-2 in Albuquerque is now showing LATV instead of TeleFutura. That change has been made in the listings.

Also of note, congratulations to my local CBS station, WDBJ in Roanoke, for beginning HD newscasts! I can't wait to return home from college and see what it looks like and get some screencaps.

Another new feature is in the works. I will post about it when it becomes available.

Portland, Oregon is Completed

Post-Midnight Edit: KTOO-DT has filed for an STA to go silent. Apparently an avalanche has cut a mile and a half of power lines which fed Juneau's power, so the whole town is being run off of diesel generators. KTOO wants to kill their digital signal so as to save energy which is expected to spike 400% in terms of cost. Given that their digital signal is twice as powerful as the analog, this makes sense. This is noted in the DTR, along with all other new filings from the weekend.

As I stated, I got another market this evening. I didn't actually plan to get Portland, but I'm not arguing!

My source was unable to receive KPXG or KORS-CA, so I guessed at KPXG based on another ION station. I'd be very interested to see KORS-CA, but such is life.

Also, note that the previously mentioned new feature is in testing. If you sign up for an account, I can send e-mails when the site is updated either daily, weekly, or monthly, and it can be customized for whatever markets, networks, owners, or stations you'd like. Check it out if you're interested.

Of course, it's not automated in any way yet, so it relies on me remembering to send it at the moment. I'll get it in my script eventually and then it'll be more regular.

I hope to have another market in the very near future. If I'm really lucky, I'll have three.

Another Market Complete

Good Sunday afternoon!

Before I start, I just want to note that I forgot to mention that yesterday morning I was able to decode WJLA-DT and WBAL-DT. The latter is 132 miles away (the former is 98 miles away), and I was quite surprised to get it to decode with just my little Silver Sensor inside a cinderblock building. So those stations now have data associated with them.

Anyway, onto the news of today. I added more links to the FAQ page, so hopefully those will interest some people. I've also done some more work on the Credits page.

But the big news is that I have technical data on another city now. Thanks to Terry Knab, with whom I frequently have conversations about DTV, I now have complete technical data on the stations in Springfield, MO. I'm still missing screencaps and history, but those aren't top priorities for me. I now have these markets finished as far as technical data or at least mostly finished:

• Cincinnati
• Little Rock
• Dayton
• Roanoke
• Springfield, MO
  
• Charlottesville
• Lima
  

The following are partially finished:

• Columbus
• Louisville
• Richmond
  
• Lexington
  

I think that's about it for today so far. I hear that I may be getting information for another city in the very near future, and if I do get that information, I will do the updates and make a post about it.

Have a pleasant conclusion to your weekend!

FAQ is Almost Complete!

Good Saturday evening.

I spent a decent amount of time on the FAQ today. Most of it is done, with the exception of the site layout section. I'm still attempting to figure out how to do that. Bruce has suggested that I use screenshots with comments in them, but I'm concerned about load time for dial-up users. Perhaps if I compress them enough it will work out alright...

Bruce has added a feature to show what updates I make to subchannels and whatnot. You'll find the link to that feature in the Updates section. Today I updated WMUM and WXGA, both of which apparently signed on in the last week finally.

He also added the direction stations are in to the available channel search. So if a station is close, you can figure out which direction you need to move in to (hopefully) make it fit.

I still have to work on the Credits page some, and I have more links to go in the FAQ, but that can happen another time. I dedicated most of the day today to this site and almost none to homework, so I figure I should do something with that tomorrow.

I hope everyone has a pleasant conclusion to their weekend.

Progress on FAQ Page

Site Update Notice: The site is fully up to date as of today. Next FCC data comes out after midnight eastern time on Sunday evening, and all the non-FCC information I have is up to date.

I'm hard at work on an FAQ page, and I hope to finish it this weekend. So far I've put up some profiles for myself and Bruce, which may or may not be expanded, and some "cool links," along with the headers for everything else. I'm not sure when the Site Layout section will get finished exactly, since I need to do some things with that which will likely require Bruce's help, but in the mean time, I hope to have it mostly finished by Monday.

The Available Channels search continues to improve, as it has been refined to list stations' zones using data from the FCC database rather than guessing based on which state it's in. I'm also working on getting data on channels reserved for land-mobile added into the database, but I'm encountering some issues. They're being treated as regular stations, so they do not show up properly in the list, but I figure that it's a small enough problem that it can be manually determined on a case-by-case basis.

The other note is that another new feature is on the way. Look for that in the next few days.

I'm still anxious to receive updates and information from people, so as soon as that shows up in the FAQ, it will be most appreciated.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a good weekend. Enjoy!

New Search Feature Added!

Site Update Notice: The site should now be up to date. No subchannel updates today, but I did an FCC update and everything looks correct now. Updates to FCC data appear on the Updates page.

Good Wednesday to everyone. Another day, another update.

First of all, I've been going through the e-mails I had not read in the account listed on the contacts page. I sincerely apologize to all who did not receive a response from me over the last several years. For a very long time I'd given up on the whole idea of ever getting a site going and just ignored e-mails about it. While I sent some people responses to their ancient e-mails, there's simply too many to respond to all of them individually. Again, my apologies.

Second note, I've updated the Credits page. While it still doesn't list everyone who has assisted me, I'm still trying to compile the list, it's certainly getting there. If you're on the list and do not wish to be, please let me know and I will accommodate you.

Last and most certainly not least, the site has a new feature today! Bruce has implemented a feature you'll find at the bottom of the search page. It is a search for open channels in an area, for use in the future for digital television. It uses the FCC's guidelines about minimum distance separation (which do not apply to existing stations from what I understand, only to new ones) and computes which channels might be available for use in the future. Check it out and if you see any problems, either comment here or e-mail or let me know in some other way.

Anyway, enjoy, and have a good day!

It Has Launched!

Site Update Notice: I attempted to pull updates from the FCC site this afternoon, but it seems the downloadable database did not get updated last night, so any new applications that came in last night will not show up today.

Welcome one, welcome all, to the new RabbitEars, now available to the general public!

At just after noon today, I took down the old RabbitEars and replaced it with the new one, which has been under construction for exactly one month. That's right, all of this was put together in just one month's time.

Granted, it's not finished. There's still tons of markets that are incomplete. The only ones which are even close to completion are:

• Cincinnati
• Little Rock
  
• Dayton
• Roanoke
• Charlottesville
• Lima

So make sure you check those out for a representation of what is to be available on the whole site.

Also unfinished is the FAQ section, for which I need to write up some detailed FAQs about just what all the parts of the site mean and refer to, how to send me updates, information about the digital transition (including a printable page to share with others), and a list of links to other interesting sites about broadcasting.

I am also keeping a running list of people to add to my Credits page, so that will be updated in the near future as well.

So I hope that everyone enjoys the site. Don't hesitate to contact me and tell me what you think about it or any suggestions that you have. I'm glad to hear them all!

Welcome!

Hello all!

Welcome to RabbitEars. This site is dedicated to providing the most information on digital television technical data and the history of television stations overall. It'll be a long and arduous path getting all this data and getting it entered, but I feel it will be rewarding not only to myself, but to anyone who needs this extensive information.

I plan to use this blog to list site updates that are not part of the FCC database, post interesting news updates regarding digital and HDTV, and post some opinion from time to time.

I also hope to give Bruce the ability to post here to post whatever he feels like, either updates to the site or his own opinion pieces if he wishes. Bruce is the generous genius who has built this site from the ground up, and I hope he continues to remain involved in one way or another.

The informational half of the site is nowhere near completion, but I hope to correct this in the future. If you wish to help me, I'm going to be posting up the information I require and you can easily send it to me at the e-mail address listed on the Contact page.

Thanks again for visiting, and I hope you have as much fun looking at this site as I do putting data in it!