Translator issues in Pahrump NV

[autodidact]

Thanks for that. The rf14 file confirms that there is no PAT (PID 0) in the mux but there are lots of programs in it. Perhaps it is out of spec and send infrequently if it works sometimes.

RF 14 never works on my devices.

Do those channels work on a TV connected to an antenna?

RF 14 cannot be scanned. It's content is useless to my devices. RF 33 can be scanned and its channels can play (choppily) on my devices. I don't know how to Sinclair Engineer manages to get a screenshot of programming playing on his monitor. The screenshot is clearly the output of some commercial Multiviewing software package like those available from TAG Video Systems or Evertz. Maybe the mutiviewer is misconfigured so it shows RF 33 video with a caption that identifies it as RF 14. I don't know.

What was your reason for sending rf33, it seems like a good transport stream?

RF 33 receives KSNV programming OTA from the main transmitter on Black Mountain near Henderson NV. With a good antenna here in Pahrump, the RF 33 signal can be tuned by any digital TV. From the perspective of somebody standing on the crest of the Spring Mountain range, which Mount Potosi is a member of, and having the Las Vegas valley on one side and the Pahrump valley on the other, the gold standard for KSNV transmissions would be the signal from Black Mountain. From the perspective of someone here in Pahrump, like me, who cannot get the Black Mountain transmission, the gold standard has to be RF 33. The RF 14 signal should carry programming identical to that from RF 33. So we can look at RF 33 to see what RF 14 should look like. RF 14 gets its input from fiber, not OTA. So whatever they're using to send video across that fiber is not faithfully reproducing their OTA broadcast, which we see on RF 33.

[emveepee]

From the perspective of someone here in Pahrump, like me, who cannot get the Black Mountain transmission, the gold standard has to be RF 33. The RF 14 signal should carry programming identical to that from RF 33. So we can look at RF 33 to see what RF 14 should look like. RF 14 gets its input from fiber, not OTA. So whatever they're using to send video across that fiber is not faithfully reproducing their OTA broadcast, which we see on RF 33.

OK thanks I see yes the PMT and PAT PIDs in RF 33 are what are missing in RF 14 (plus the OTA EPG)

Martin

[jasonl]

Yeah, nothing on 14 except the ES PIDs and nullpackets. No PAT, PMTs, base PID, or EIT/ETT. It's still technically possible to watch TV from this if you have a receiver that caches the PAT and PMT data, but that's generally not a great idea because then it might convince you the broadcast is OK when it's clearly messed up . PATs are required to be transmitted every 100ms or less except if there is a lot of PAT and PMT data, in which case it may be allowed to only happen every 140ms. PMTs are required to be transmitted every 400ms or less.

[autodidact]

I sincerely appreciate the time people have taken to look at this issue and to educated me. Thank you. The NAB is about to kick off so the Sinclair engineer will probably tied up for a few days. In the mean time, there is another avenue I can pursue. There is yet another translator in town that nominally broadcasts KSNV programming. K17CL-D is a legacy translator operated by the town that predates Sinclair's RF 14 translator. The problem there, is that K17CL-D is currently configured to retransmit RF 14. So now we have two translators with corrupted feeds. I'm going to spend some effort trying to convince the town's Buildings and Grounds dept to rescan the input device for K17CL-D so it picks up and retransmits the uncorrupted but weaker RF 33 signal from Potosi.

Thanks again.

[autodidact]

Well, I failed to persuade the Town's Buildings & Grounds crew to rescan the input for K17CL-D on RF 17 and bring swift relief to viewers. However, late last night somebody fixed the missing table problem on RF 14 so now RF 14 and RF 17 are both transmitting uncorrupted, tunable TV signals. Viewers have been advised to do a rescan on their home TVs. For the time being... problem solved. Thanks again.