OTA channel moved

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thorhtpc

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OTA channel moved

#1

Post by thorhtpc » Mon Jul 02, 2018 5:48 am

My PBS station 50.1 on OTA stopped working. The guide data is there, but WMC says there is no signal. According to others, the digital channel for this station moved, but the virtual channel is still 50.1. How do I tell EPG123 about this change?

Thanks

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garyan2

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#2

Post by garyan2 » Mon Jul 02, 2018 6:07 am

I'm assuming this is part of the spectrum reallocation. The easiest thing to do would be to go settings->TV->TV Signal->Scan for More Channels and click the [Scan again] button. It will pick up the 50.x channels on physical channel 18 for you. You'll then need to subscribe the listings to the new channels.

You can also manually delete the old and add new in the client if you want... best would be the scan for more channels route.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

Sammy2

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#3

Post by Sammy2 » Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:07 pm

This will be more prevalent over the next 18 months. Is there a way to automate this task?

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thorhtpc

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#4

Post by thorhtpc » Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:33 pm

Scanning for channels in WMC did not work for me. No new channels showed up. How do I do it in the client?

Thanks

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garyan2

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#5

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jul 08, 2018 10:15 pm

First, are you sure you can tune the new channels? You should, but just asking. If you look in the client for your channels 50.x ... the TuningInfo column will show what physical channels are associated with the channel. If you see 'UHF 18.1' for channel 50.1, then it did work but is still trying to tune the old channel perhaps?

Either way, to add it manually in EPG123, click the green '+' sign in the toolbar... you'll want to be sure you are adding the channel to your 'Scanned (Digital Antenna (ATSC))' lineup. The callsigns can be blank, but for completeness, I used the callsigns from the SD lineup.

Callsign: KOCEDT, Channel: 50-1, Physical Channel: 18
Callsign: KOCEDT2, Channel: 50-2, Physical Channel: 18
Callsign: KOCEDT3, Channel: 50-3, Physical Channel: 18
Callsign: KOCEDT4, Channel: 50-4, Physical Channel: 18
Callsign: KOCEDT5, Channel: 50-5, Physical Channel: 18
addChannel.PNG
You can also manually add the channels in WMC going to settings->TV->Guide->Add Missing Channels.

After all said and done, you will have to attach/subscribe the guide listings to the channels, reference 'Manual Importing and Matching' in the EPG123 Installation and User's Guide.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

thorhtpc

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#6

Post by thorhtpc » Mon Jul 09, 2018 1:14 am

The 50.x channels still show up in the WMC guide, but I get 'No Signal' when I select them. When I go the Edit Channel->Edit Source, WMC shows 48.x as the physical channel. To make things a little more complicated, I also have a cable card and 50.1 has been merged with the PBS 50 cable channel, so 50.1 doesn't show up in the guide.

I am currently using EPG 1.1.11, so my client window does not look like yours. I don't see the physical channel numbers, and I don't have the '+' sign in the tool bar. Should I upgrade? Things have been running smooth, so I haven't upgraded.

Also, WMC already has the 50.x channels, so can I still add them manually? Will I need to delete the current one's first?

Thank you for all the help.

Steve

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garyan2

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#7

Post by garyan2 » Mon Jul 09, 2018 2:09 am

It would definitely be worth it to upgrade to v1.2.1, but you could also leave well enough alone. That doesn't mean you can't still use the v1.2.1 client... just download the portable and run the client in a temp folder. It will work for our purposes, but you will not see your lineup on the right side. Due to changes in the EPG123 lineups, the old 'EPG123 Lineups with Schedules Direct' is hidden. The left side still works and you will be able to manually add and delete channels.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

thorhtpc

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#8

Post by thorhtpc » Mon Jul 09, 2018 3:05 am

Do I need to do anything special to upgrade? Just download the new version and install it?

Also, when I run the client, should I delete the current 50.x channels and then add them back with the correct physical channel? Also, do you have any suggestions for dealing with 50.1 since it is merged with the matching cable channel?

Sorry for all of the questions, I'm just trying not to upset the WAF. :)

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garyan2

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#9

Post by garyan2 » Mon Jul 09, 2018 3:17 am

You don't need to do anything special, just download and install. You won't be able to see your EPG123 lineup on the right side of the client until after you run an update (Save&Execute) and import a MXF file created with the new EPG123.

For your merged 50.1 channel, you can split it back out using WMC; EPG123 doesn't have the capability to merge or split. Go settings->TV->Guide->Edit Channels and select channel 50. Click 'Edit Sources', find all the 'Digital Antenna (ATSC)' tuners in the list and click the [Split] button. Once done, close WMC. You will then be able to delete all of them in the client GUI. After that, go ahead and add the new 50.x channels manually.

And don't worry, I've got your back. EPG123 has a high success rate in maintaining, or even increasing, WAF. :D
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

thorhtpc

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#10

Post by thorhtpc » Sun Jul 22, 2018 12:10 am

Finally got around to doing this this weekend. Things did not go as planned.

First I made an image of my hard drive. Next I upgraded to v1.2.1. I split the 50.1 channels in WMC, and deleted them with the EPGclient. Then I added then using the physical channel 18 in EPGclient, and matched them to my lineup. But, when I went into WMC and tried to view the added channel WMC said it was not a valid tuner. The rest of my channels still worked except for the added one. I somehow also screwed up some other channels in the guide, so I restored my disc image and started again.

After some research, I found someone on the AVSforum that had the same problem. In WMC they went to scan for new channels, deleted the current channels, and then scanned for new channels. WMC found all of the new channels, but would not tune to any of them, stating the tuner was busy and I needed to re-start WMC. Restarting did not fix the problem. Rebooting also did not fix the problem. What did fix the problem was doing a signal strength scan and stopping it midway through to test.

Next I went to EPGclient and matched the OTA channels to my lineup using the #'s' option. This worked except now I have 2 entries for all of my OTA channels. One that says it is for an ATSC tuner and one that is not assigned to any tuner (blank). I tried deleting the unassigned duplicate, but it deleted the ATSC scanned channel instead. Everything seems to be working okay, but the duplicate channels make me nervous.

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#11

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jul 22, 2018 5:10 am

This is the second time I've heard of this double channels for similar reasons.

A little history ... I used to have code that would hide merged channels that did not have any tuners associated with them. A few versions back, I decided to go ahead and show those channels and allow the user to delete them manually instead of trying to delete them automatically. I don't, however, know why deleting the channel with no tuners will also delete the channel with tuners. They should be 2 distinct entities in the database but they are evidently leaked somehow.

If you currently still have those duplicate channels, could you create a backup using the database [Backup] button and send me the resulting zip file so I can try and see what is going on here. The backup file will be in the [epg123]\backups folder. I'll PM you my email address.

Question: do you see both channels (with and without tuner channels) in the guide? or just one?
- Gary
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thorhtpc

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#12

Post by thorhtpc » Sun Jul 22, 2018 6:14 pm

Unfortunately, I do not still have the information to help you.

Last night I decided to try one more time. I restored my backup image of my hard drive and this time stayed at my current version of EPG123 v1.1.11. I then went into the WMC Scan For New Channels, deleted the current channels, and scanned for new channels. I again had to do a signal strength test before I could tune a channel and not get the 'tuner busy' display (very strange). I then merged my ATSC and CableCard channels back together in WMC. I then opened EPG123client (v1.1.11) and of course all of the ATSC channels were not linked with guide data. Instead of using EPG123client to link the lineup, I ran a 'Save & Execute' from EPG123. When I went back into EPG123client after the update everything looked normal and there were no duplicates. Everything seems to be running fine.

The WMC guide did not show the duplicates like the EPG123client did. Also, when I deleted the duplicate version in EPG123client and it deleted the version with the tuner associated with it, the channel still showed up in the WMC guide and worked correctly.

Sorry I did not get more info that could help you figure out my problem. I did notice a couple of things. First, I split the ATSC channels from the CableCard channels so I could delete them. I then deleted all of the 50.x channels leaving the CableCard 50 channel. But when I went into WMC, the CableCard 50 channel had no guide data and there were several 50.1 channels still in the guide. Went back into EPG123client and sure enough, the CableCard 50 channel did not have a lineup, but there were no ATSC 50.1 channels. So WMC and EPG123client did not match. Also, when I would try and match channels with my lineup in EPG123client I would get a dialog box that reported something like an unexpected value.

Again, sorry I don't have more useful info to help you out.

Thank you for taking all of the time and effort to help me out.

- Steve

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#13

Post by garyan2 » Tue Jul 24, 2018 4:58 am

All right, all this effort made me look real deep into how I determine the tuning info and how I delete channel(s). I discovered I was completely ignoring, out of ignorance, some tuning overrides. I believe this led to some confusion about what tuners were actually associated with a merged channel. That confusion lead to tuner splits, which lead to channel/tuner deletes.

For the channel deletes, what is not apparent, is you are not only deleting the channel but you are deleting the scanned tuner channels as well (as you discovered). Because you had scanned channels split into multiple channels, when you deleted one it did some funny things with the others.

So I have fixed both. The TuningInfo column will only show what is current for that merged channel. Previously combined channels, and then split back out, will not be shown as a part of the merged channel. When deleting a channel, and the associated scanned channels, any merged channels that no longer have a scanned source and/or tuner associated with it will also be deleted. This makes it nice and clean.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

DSperber

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#14

Post by DSperber » Wed Jul 25, 2018 8:04 am

thorhtpc wrote:My PBS station 50.1 on OTA stopped working. The guide data is there, but WMC says there is no signal. According to others, the digital channel for this station moved, but the virtual channel is still 50.1. How do I tell EPG123 about this change?

Thanks
Don't know if you ever got this resolved. But I had observed a similar issue back on June 20 when I missed a recording of "Nature" on KOCE (50.1) from my OTA/ATSC antenna, also due to "no signal". The Guide data (from SD, via EPG123) was correct but obviously there was no signal for WMC to see where it previously had looked.

If you look at this post of mine in AVS Forum (on the LA OTA sub-forum) and the subsequent few posts (including this one in which I show what TSReader discovered) I determined that this was all caused by the spectrum reallocation in the LA area, for both KOCE (now carried as a sub-channel of physical channel 18) and KLCS (now carried as a sub-channel of physical channel 28).

In the end I solved the problem through a re-scan of digital channels (i.e. "TV Signal") in WMC. Sure enough the new locations of both 50.1 and 58.1 were now correctly discovered and I once again had signal on both channels. The problem had nothing to do with SD or EPG123. It had to do with the now obsolete old digital channel scan information in WMC, which simply needed to be updated because of the relocation of these OTA/ATSC channels in the LA area due to spectrum reallocation.

JediDwight

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#15

Post by JediDwight » Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:05 am

In St. Louis we had some OTA channels change frequencies. I didn't pick up on any warning except for seeing an FCC ad banner this week pointing me here: https://www.fcc.gov/TVrescan

That page had a handy link here, https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps
allowing me to allowing me to enter my zip code and then click on the station that I was missing. It showed
RF Channel: 43
Repacked Channel: 33
Repacking Dates: 1/18/2020 to 3/13/2020

Then, I had to go into EPG123 and delete the old channel on the left. Hit the green plus icon and add the channel with the new physical channel.
Then, I checked its checkbox and selected the matching channel on the right and clicked Subscribe. Now it's fixed.

I hope this helps someone with a similar OTA channel that has gone missing. I searched for FCC Rescan and didn't find any good results. Then this thread seemed most relevant to help me figure it out.

A good reminder for me to donate to Garyan2 :)

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