Home base TV Antenna

wa8yxm wrote:
Regarding Virtual Channels comment.

I referred to what I call "Carrier Channels"

I will give you an actual station WJBK

Virtual channels 2-1 2-2 (not sure if they have a 3)
Carrier channel 7 (note the lack of a dash) this is the frequency they broadacst on. Want to hear somethign funny Just down the road (About 1-2 miles) is WZYZ.. Virtual channes 7-1 7-2 and so on.. YUP Channel 2 took over thir OLD frequency (WXYZ now uses I think 41 but I'm only sure of the forty part)

So when you talk of "Virtual Channels" and I speak of "Carrier" We are actually lookign at the same thing You are looking at the TV channel display and I'm looking at the corrosponding frequency meter.. I'm more frequency oriented because antennas see frequencies .

Not all stations have gone back to their original old analog channel frequency.

Some have chosen to stay with the frequency assignment they were given during the analog to digital changeover or during the repacks. Some have taken the option to swap frequencies with another channel also.

Because of this mish mash, you cannot depend on the readout your TV tuner is giving as the actual channel frequency it is being broadcast on and that is because of the "virtual channels".

To find out what frequency they are really transmitting on you must use an external internet website like THIS

Example, Pittsburgh TV market, KDKA channel 2 (the old analog assignment which which Ch 2 originally was broadcast at 54 Mhz which is VHF Lo band..

With the last repack, KDKA Channel 2 is now broadcasting at 626Mhz which is the old analog UHF Channel 40 broadcast frequency and not on 54Mhz when they were broadcasting in analog.

But, the TV tuner specifically only gives the digital "virtual" channel number assignment of 2-1 or 2.1, it does not give you the real broadcast frequency or even the new channel frequency it is actually being broadcast on. Not exactly how you can think or assume that 2.1 is being broadcast on its old analog frequency of 54Mhz..

Here is sample of what I am talking about..





To figure out what the old analog equivalent is you need to go HERE

Which lists the current TV bandplan..





I have found better websites in the past to translate so they are out there but takes time to dig through to find good websites.

One cannot just assume that the digital OTA channel number corresponds to the exact channel frequency as it did back in the analog days.

"Virtual" channel translation is the reason that if you leave a TV broadcast market, you must always rescan the tuner.