Week in New Jersey: WWOR, N2RJ, SnellKrell
By Trip Ericson on Friday, May 28 2010, 11:08 - Opinion - Permalink
I'm calling this "Opinion" even though it really isn't because I'm not sure how to better characterize it with regard to my existing categories.
This week, I've been in New Jersey visiting relatives. As it has been an extended stay, it's given me the chance to go out and do some interesting things while I've been here. I figure there are readers here who would be interested in hearing about it.
On Monday, I got the chance to visit the WWOR-9 studio in Secaucus, New Jersey. The tour was given to me by Howard Hoffman, and I got a chance to meet Earl Arbuckle. I was very impressed with the facility. In particular, three stations (WNYW, WWOR, WUTB) are switched out of the master control there, which also has triple redundancy. The facility is enormous by my standards, which are mostly smaller markets, and was very nicely laid out.
On Tuesday evening, I visited N2RJ, who is a member of both AVS Forum and DTVUSA Forum. He lives in Sussex County, New jersey way back in the hills, and has his VHF/UHF antennas on his 70 foot tall ham tower. I went to visit so as to be able to hook my spectrum analyzer to his antenna system and primarily determine what his problem was with WNYW-44 and its poor reception for him. It was also interesting to test both before and after his distribution amp, which added 5-8 dB to the noise floor. So here's a picture of me (green CW shirt) with him, and below that is a table of what he could receive. Things that were buried in the noise floor have been skipped.
| Physical Channel | Display Channel | Call Sign | Transmitter | Comments | |
| 6 | 06-1 | WPVI | Roxborough | Too low/distorted to decode. | |
| 7 | 07-1 | WABC | Empire State Building | Perfect. | |
| 8 | 58-1 | WNJB | Warrenville | Perfect. | |
| 10 | 08-1 | WTNH | Mad Mare Ridge | Too distorted to decode. | |
| 11 | 11-1 | WPIX | Empire State Building | Perfect. | |
| 13 | 13-1 | WNET | Empire State Building | Perfect. | |
| 18 | 63-1 | WMBC | Little Falls | Perfect. | |
| 24 | 25-1 | WNYE | 4 Times Square | Perfect. | |
| 25 | 64-1 | WASA-LD | 4 Times Square | Borderline decode. | |
| 26 | 03-1 | KYW | Roxborough | Borderline decode. | |
| 27 | 54-1 | WTBY | Beacon Mountain | Perfect. | |
| 28 | 04-1 | WNBC | Empire State Building | Perfect. | |
| 29 | 66-1 | WFME | West Orange | Perfect. | |
| 30 | 68-1 | WFUT | Empire State Building | Perfect. | |
| 31 | 31-1 | WPXN | Empire State Building | Perfect. | |
| 33 | 33-1 | WCBS | Empire State Building | Perfect. | |
| 34 | 10-1 | WCAU | Roxborough | Too low to decode. | |
| 35 | 35-1 | WYBE | Roxborough | Too low to decode. | |
| 36 | 47-1 | WNJU | Empire State Building | No decode due to W36AZ. | |
| 36 | N/A | W36AZ | Franklin | Probably BW only due to DT-36. | |
| 38 | 09-1 | WWOR | Empire State Building | Perfect. | |
| 40 | 41-1 | WXTV | Empire State Building | Perfect. | |
| 41 | 41-1 | WNJJ-LD | Weldon | Perfect. Strongest signal. | |
| 44 | 05-1 | WNYW | Empire State Building | Multipath problem. | |
| 46 | N/A | WMBQ-CA | Probably BW only due to low strength. | ||
| 48 | 48-1 | WRNN | Beacon Mountain | Perfect. | |
| 51 | 50-1 | WNJN | Little Falls | Perfect. | |
| 55 | N/A | WPZA235 | Various | Perfect. |
Finally, yesterday I took the bus into New York in order to meet AVS Forum member SnellKrell, who is very frequently in contact with both myself and Falcon_77 and has become a good friend. I met him at Faces and Names and we spent a very long time discussing broadcasting issues of all sorts. I wound up missing the bus back to New Jersey that I had intended to catch and caught the next one instead, but it was a very fun trip outside of dealing with New York City itself. I'm not a huge fan of cities, let alone major cities, but it was well worth it to get a chance to meet him.
In addition to that, earlier in the week I hooked up my grandparents' roof antenna to my computer and was able to get TSReader data on WKOB-LD 2 for RabbitEars. I'm also trying to get updated data with my Silver Sensor on the other New York stations, though I've not yet been able to get new data on WEBR-CD 17 and WNYN-LD 39, due to low signal strength in this area. I still have no data at all for WPXO-LD 34 or WBQM-LD 3, but those signals are directional away from me in Fair Lawn and I did not expect to receive them.
Comments
Nice to see you Trip, and thanks for running the spectrum analyzer on my setup. It was MUCH appreciated. I'll probably borrow one or even get one of my own for further adjustments as it could prove useful for antenna experiments.
I think I may have figured out why WNYW is experiencing multipath. There is a hickory tree smack dab in front of the antenna about 100ft away. I I think I'm going to trim off some branches. I have to call my tree guy up here anyway for some other work. But believe it or not it is a lot better than when I first put up the first CM4228 - I couldn't even get a lock on WNYW at all.
I also found a problem with a cable splice (water/corrosion) which I fixed and it seemed to have some effect. Luckily I used commscope flooded cable for the tower to basement run so water wasn't able to wick up the cable. I'm replacing it with RG11 anyway (the RG6 was only temporary).
Interestingly enough I tried a shorter cable with the preamp (portable TV by the tower) and WNYW-44 was better even with the multipath problem. But trimming the branches should have an effect so I'm going to try it.
W36AZ used to be clear and strong here and even receivable with an older portable (analog) TV with a 2ft whip indoors. But alas no more Hamburg mountain is LoS. I may have been able to see (eyeball) them from up on the tower with a pair of binoculars I think. Now they are a mess. I suspect something happened to them and their power output went way down. Now I just hear audio and it is flashing bright/dim. Others in the area say that it simply disappeared for them. I will probably call/email and see what's up with them. Maybe I'll take a drive up to crystal springs and see what I get close to the transmitter.
WMBQ-CA is mostly b/w on my other TVs but on the samsung TV I can eek out a noisy color picture. Doesn't matter to me as I don't watch much religious programming.
Anyway thanks and if you're up here again sometime please let me know. I may have some more antennas up or maybe show you around some of the other places you didn't get to see.
Hi, Trip. Very sorry to hear of your grandfather's passing.
It was a great pleasure to meet you and your mom at WWOR. You're always welcome at any of our 27 Fox O&O stations. Just let me know if/when you expect to be in one of our markets and I'll be delighted to arrange a tour.
Very best regards,
Earl K6EFA