Unable to tune to unencrypted ATSC 3.0 channels

[trevoragifford]

I am using a HDHomeRun Flex 4k with a Philips rabbit ears antenna in the Denver market. Channel scan picks up 4 ATSC 3.0 channels which I believe are all broadcast from the same tower. 2 of the 4 I know are encrypted, however the other 2 I am still unable to watch. I'm seeing a signal strength around 60 and signal quality between 98-100, however symbol error quality is always 0.

Code: Select all

e:\Programs\HDHomeRun>hdhomerun_config.exe 10AB5FF5 get /tuner0/status
ch=atsc3:593000000:0 lock=atsc3 ss=60 snq=98 seq=0 bps=0 pps=0

Based on my experience with other channels, it seems like the signal strength and quality would be enough to play this channel. Am I missing something?
https://www.rabbitears.info/s/2317284

[nickk]

That looks fine, although the signal quality will change depending on the PLPs needed.

What does get /tuner0/streaminfo and get /tuner0/plpinfo report?

[jasonl]

ATSC 3.0 adds a new (to North America) feature called physical layer pipes (PLPs), which allows the signal to be divided up into different sub-signals that fall at different points along a line between "easy to receive but low data rate" and "hard to receive but higher data rate", vs. ATSC 1.0 that was fixed at a single point. Denver's ATSC 3.0 broadcast has 2 PLPs on it, PLP 0 that is all the way down at the bottom on that line (but has nothing on it), and PLP 1 that requires a very good signal to receive and carries all 4 of the regular channels. You are able to receive PLP 0 because it needs the equivalent of like 5% signal quality on an ATSC 1.0 channel to receive, while PLP 1 needs more like what would be 65% at the bare minimum. You're probably around 20%, just at an estimate. The HDHomeRun changes the scale to try to present a more useful number for troubleshooting reception issues, which does kind of cloud things when you're comparing dissimilar channels/PLPs.