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View Full Version : Local FOX Affiliate Issue.



Mudderoy
01-01-2010, 11:17 AM
My wife and I received some money from my Aunt and my Mom for Christmas. We decided we would get a new TV for the kitchen. The 9" that we had under the cabinet couldn't receive the DTV stations.

http://xjtalk.com/images/special/kitchentv.jpg

I guess it was Tuesday night I noticed that I couldn't get a picture from the local FOX affiliate. 26.1 here in the Houston area.

It was rainy and late at night so I thought they may just be having a problem.

The next morning I checked and still no picture from the local FOX station. I checked the big screen in the living room, and no image there. I tried the tuner in my PC and no FOX. I checked the TV in the bedroom and there is was. The bedroom is a old TV with a DTV converter.

I started checking various things to see if something I had done was causing this problem. I found the signal strength meter on the new 19" LCD kitchen TV and I was amazed to see that 26.1 (FOX) had a signal strength of 97! Yet when the TV was switched to that channel is said "NO SIGNAL". I confirmed a excellent signal on my PC tv tuner.

I did more testing and disconnecting of "things" I have on our internal cable running through the house and nothing made any difference.

Finally I just removed the cable from the back of the kitchen TV and plugged in some rabbit ears. Still NO SIGNAL from 26.1! The signal level was lower but still in the 80's.

After a good solid hour of messing with this stuff I decided this must be an issue with the transmitting station. Yes, a problem with the local multi-million dollar business! I figured I had a snowballs chance in HELL of getting these guys to listen to little old me. This wreaked of a computer type issue. Remember that since the switch to DTV local broadcasters are basically transmitting computer generated "encoded" data streams. This digital data stream in received and decoded by the computer inside the digital TV. If the decoder "software" that the computer in the digital TV can decode the data stream you aren't going to see the picture correctly, and/or hear the sound. Depending on how they handle the software it could just show up as NO SIGNAL instead of a garbled mess.

Feeling that it was going to be difficult (at best) to get the local FOX station to check out this issue, I did a GOOGLE search to see if anyone else was having this problem, and a possible solution. Nothing!

I recently went to the Philips website (the maker of both our living room 42" LCD TV and our kitchen 19" LCD TV) to download and update the software on the 42" TV. I found that we had the most recent version. So upgrading the software wasn't going to fix this issue, at least not until Philips released a new version.

I went to the local FOX website. I poked around, searching for anything that might give me a clue to the solution to my problem. Nothing. So I went to the "Contact Us" link and filled out their online form.

Here is a image of the e-mail that they sent me, if you look at the bottom of this image, you'll see my original message to them.

http://xjtalk.com/images/special/fox26houston.jpg

Basically I sent in the online message. 20 minutes later the message was forwarded to someone I assume is in a technical position at the local FOX station. After about 1 hour he sent me an e-mail asking me "is the signal ok now?"

Now first off I was AMAZED that I got a response. Second I was amazed it wasn't an automatic response telling me someone would responded in the next 72 to 180 days. Third I was amazed and euphoric that someone apparently had TRIED to fix the problem and they wanted me to check it!

I brought up the TV program on my computer and tried 26.1, and yes it worked! Giggling like a school girl, I floated down the stairs (amazing considering I'm 270 pounds) to the kitchen and punched in 26.1. After a few moments, that seemed liked SECONDS, voilĂ* there was FOX 26.1 on my TV!

Continuing the giggling I went to the living room, and YES! 26.1 back on the air!

I am still truly amazed. Not because I was right, I'm used to that, but because the folks at FOX Houston actually listened and reacted very quickly to a consumer's issue. Yes I know it was in their best interest to do so, and no telling how many other complaints they already had but to receive a personal e-mail back was very nice.

So the next time you have a problem and you think there is little you can do, as an individual, try. You may just be surprised at the results. :patriot:

BlueXJ
01-01-2010, 05:34 PM
I am so proud of you Tony. You are the reason most of the Houston metroplex can now get Fox on their TVs.

Mudderoy
01-01-2010, 05:37 PM
I am so proud of you Tony. You are the reason most of the Houston metroplex can now get Fox on their TVs.

Well actually I think it was isolated to a minority of the digital TVs, otherwise I wouldn't have had to inform them.

I wrote about this same story on a local ham mailing list and out of the 40 or so hams that are on that list, only one mentioned they couldn't watch the local FOX. It could be that a lot of them have the local channels on cable or satellite.

BlueXJ
01-01-2010, 05:49 PM
If you helped just one family that would be great but I am sure there are many who were blocked out and are now restored.