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WJFB is (Maybe) at Full Power Now


- Posted October 28th, 2019 at 9:31pm
I can now receive WJFB 44 on their new channel. Ever since they changed networks on Sept. 23rd, I have never been able to receive them until just an hour ago. The reason I say "Maybe" in the title of this post is because I have no proof that this is their full power output right now. I will have to wait until they apply for a license with the FCC. I hope that a lot of you folks can now receive MeTV and the other networks. Again, until more news breaks, that's all for now.

3 Comments




gregsfc
- Posted on October 29th, 2019 at 5:21am

Thanks for the info. I'll scan during a better atmospheric condition time and see if we have it back. At this time, I'm not getting much at all in southwest Overton County, and if I rescan right now, I'll have very little. My t.v. tuner doesn't have an add channel function nor does it have a way to tune by channel number; only an up and down function of the channels that came in on it's latest scan. I do have a hide function to skip channels or sub channels that I don't want, but no add function. I've not been getting WJFB (44) since around the time that MeTV went to them. I'm not really sure if it was exactly at that time, since I rarely watched 44, but when MeTV 2.2 was telling us about the change, I periodically looked to see if I could receive 44, and every time I checked I could get it, but once they moved their, I could receive it only in the middle of the night, and then since they moved from 44 to 25, I've not got them in a single time. I have gotten in 40 on the other tower, but only a time or two. I don't understand why all the broadcast stations didn't come together and set up a twitter or FB site where they could report their current statuses to all Nashville area viewers, or at least communicate via each of their websites. Of course this station doesn't have a website, but they could have set themselves up on FB.



n2radio
- Posted on October 29th, 2019 at 7:45am

This describes my situation perfectly. I did not scan late last night. However, I was receiving several of the current full-power stations running at reduced power since the re-pack (5, 17, 58). I am guessing it was just a better atmospheric condition as you suggested. I am a bit surprised that BG stations were able to accomplish their tower work and have it completed by 10/18 while Nashville stations have scrambled. WNKY built a brand new tower and the KET station increased their tower height and top mounted their antenna. Aside from WNKY being down in the middle of the night, there was no other interruption in full power service. That having been said, the size of the tower is more likely the culprit. The Nashville towers are all closer to 1400' while the BG stations have towers around 600' (WNKY) and 800' (KET/WKGB). I suspect this is the difference as the taller towers likely require more experienced crews and fewer available resources for these types of projects.


gregsfc
- Posted on November 4th, 2019 at 5:19am

@n2radio. I think one of the differences from what you've stated is that some of the BG stations actually constructed or lengthened their towers and that allowed them to do more pre work before changing frequencies; then all they had to do was switch over to their new antenna at the same time as the actual move. By contrast, if we take the most proactive station in Nashville, which is WTVF-5, as you say, they already have a very tall tower. They could not simultaneously work on constructing a 100K transmitting antenna on RF-36 while also transmitting concurrently 100K on RF-25. Besides space restraints, there is also a radiation hazard for the crew. So what WTVF is doing is all that they can logistically do, and that is to have a side-mounted, lower-power for safety, temporary antenna ready to go at the time of the repack. When they hopped over to RF-36, they began transmitting on the temporary antenna and started working on their new antenna that sits right where the old, RF-25 antenna sat before. It's a little different if they were building a new tower. Luckily for me, our family is still getting WTVF most of the time even at the reduced power and reduced height.

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