Outage?

[joelbav]

Has anyone else using a QAM-capable tuner attached to BH cable had issues this past weekend?

The stations my Samsung SIR-T451 tuner would normally see on 106 (106.1-.3 WEDU & 106.4 WTSP) went away Friday evening, although other channels (79.1 WTVT, 79.2 WFTS, 79.3-.6 WUSF, 91.1 WFLA, as well as those I normally pay no attention to) seem to be fine.

Have re-scanned for channels, re-booted, left the unit’s power unplugged for 10 or so minutes, etc, with no change. Since the problem seems to be restricted to only the 106 channels, I’m finding it hard to blame my tuner.

Anyone else, esp. in West Bradenton? Could a cable issue affect a neighborhood (namely, mine!) and not show up elsewhere? Too bad tuners aren’t cheap enough to buy in 2-packs so we could swap and troubleshoot before calling for service.

Thanks in advance…

- Joel
:)

[joelbav]

As of Monday night, the 106.x channels are back. All is well again in HD-land.... :)

[jaymer]

am glad thats fixed for you... thats just the way the industry is right now, strange things happen from time to time.
if regular TV went out, everyone would be on the phone calling them, but with the new digital stuff, its hard to pin down who's issue it is.

i've never used a QAM-tuner TV so I really don't have any clue what you're talking about . :lol: :lol: :lol:
jaymer...

[joelbav]

Hey, Jaymer,

In my personal and professional life, I've made a good living by never let "not having a clue" stop me..... :D

I've noticed since those channels returned Monday eve that there are not nearly as many incidents of tiling as there had been previously. Maybe that's coincidence, but I like the theory that equipment upstream of me was getting funky and finally altogethered, necessitating replacement. In any case, until I have to go back to antenna to see Enterprise on UPN Friday, I'm a happy camper again.

I've seen Pace and SA boxes on BH before and am familiar with the 6xx range of channels that we commonly see referred to here. Each station has its’ own channel, as one would expect.

But I recall another poster some time ago mentioning what sounded like the same scheme I see with my QAM tuner, so I’m guessing it’s an issue of BH vs non-BH equipment.

If anyone is interested...using a non-BH tuner, I see a channel number that doesn't match up with what BH-provided equipment would indicate for the same station. I will see a channel number such as 106, and within that channel I'll see sub channels more like OTA, such as 106.1, 106.2 etc, sometimes as high at .11.

For example, the WEDU stuff shows up at 106.1 (the familiar SD feed) 106.2 (the SD PBS Kids) and 106.3 (where PBS HD shows up.) Wanna watch WTSP? Go up one more to 106.4, and there ya are.

Plenty of other channels are detected, too, but there is no content to watch on them (I wildly assume these are things like Discovory-HD, the CD-quality music channels, etc.)

Of course, I don't get to record these channels with my tuner. But at least I can set up favorites and not have to scroll thru the crap I'm not interested in (like the four WUSF-SD feeds!)

There seems to be no functional difference, other than if someone says there's a great show on 603, I have to find out what the call letters are for that BH channel and look for it on my line-up. Sorta like the good ol' days of cable TV back 20 years when a VCR would sometimes identify channels differently than the cable-supplied tuner (which use to overheat and die, showing that the more things change, the more they stay the same...)

Clear as mud?

:)