No Service after rapack-rescan and several clean starts

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howiez69

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No Service after rapack-rescan and several clean starts

#1

Post by howiez69 » Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:03 pm

I'm at a loss and could use a kickstart of ideas.

A little background:
I'm in the Green Bay, Wisconsin area. We had a local channel move towers and it turned my WMC world upside down. So the channel in question is WLUK Fox 11 (RF channel 12). They are the only VHF channel in my area to the best of my knowledge. I certainly had a struggle when I started using EPG123 in January 2020 but it has been working flawlessly for 6 months after going through the guides step by step.

Somewhere in the last few months we've had serious signal quality issues with WLUK, and in the last few weeks, they've finally acknowledged they were running off a backup tower in a lower location but at the same power output. Now, as of July 1, 2020 they claim to be back on the full height tower and say we need to rescan. (Not sure how i didn't have to rescan for the first antenna move, and why they couldn't do that moving back... but that is another gripe for another day.)

On to my issue(s).
So all ATSC tuners in my house, built in to TV's have re scanned fine and work. I could not get my WMC to do the same. SO in frustration, I've installed the latest EPG123 (v1.3.8 IIRC), and deleted all channels from WMC etc, starting fresh. I've got about 3 hours into going through the guide step by step, and still can't get 11 to come in. It is in my EPG window, the guide data is coming over, and I've manually added the channel using 11.1 through 11.3 with RF channel 12, that appears on their FCC info. When I check signal strength in WMC, it is 100% or all green bar graph/squares. When I pick it in the guide, it says "No Service...". Now it works on 2 other TV's in the house just fine, so I know it's up and broadcasting. I just can't figure out if I have configured EPG wrong, or used the wrong RF setup or what.

On a side note, my local WGBA-DT, 26.1 through 26.4 on RF 14, did not show up in WMC scans, even though it should be a UHF channel. After manual add, it works fine 100%, guide data and all. Also, WACY, a subsidiary of WGBA did not scan, so that is manually added via 32.1 through 32.3 on RF 36. Strangely enough, that channel works, albeit poorly, never getting 100% signal an all 3. Some scans show 100% on 32.1 but all red on 32.2 and 32.3. Other scans will yield red on first but green on second two, or red/yellow/green. They all seem to work, but it's guide data is missing. Both WGBA and WACY are in EPG123 so i'm at a loss again on that one.

MY only thought now is to wait 24 hours for an EPG123 update / scheduled task and see what happens.

Any pointers would be appreciated!

Thanks, howiez

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garyan2

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#2

Post by garyan2 » Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:42 pm

howiez69 wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:03 pmWhen I check signal strength in WMC, it is 100% or all green bar graph/squares. When I pick it in the guide, it says "No Service...". Now it works on 2 other TV's in the house just fine, so I know it's up and broadcasting. I just can't figure out if I have configured EPG wrong, or used the wrong RF setup or what.
Signal strength is not necessarily equivalent to quality. WMC can be more demanding of the incoming signal than a TV. What tuner are you using and does its' software provide a means of determining what the signal and symbol quality are? You could have a multipath issue at the antenna or there are too many connections between your antenna and the tuner that degrades the signal due to reflections and/or imbalances.
howiez69 wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 4:03 pmThey all seem to work, but it's guide data is missing. Both WGBA and WACY are in EPG123 so i'm at a loss again on that one.
Not sure exactly what you are describing, but if you open the client and WGBA and WACY are on the right side, then just click the Match by: [# Number] button to map them to the tuner channels. If they are not on the right side, then the last MXF file that was imported into WMC with that lineup didn't include them.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

howiez69

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#3

Post by howiez69 » Mon Jul 06, 2020 7:01 pm

garyan2 wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:42 pm Signal strength is not necessarily equivalent to quality. WMC can be more demanding of the incoming signal than a TV. What tuner are you using and does its' software provide a means of determining what the signal and symbol quality are? You could have a multipath issue at the antenna or there are too many connections between your antenna and the tuner that degrades the signal due to reflections and/or imbalances.
It is a "HAUPPAUGE WinTV-quadHD PCI Express TV Tuner Card 1609". I didn't install any WinTV software, so i'll have to dig into that.
garyan2 wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:42 pm Not sure exactly what you are describing, but if you open the client and WGBA and WACY are on the right side, then just click the Match by: [# Number] button to map them to the tuner channels. If they are not on the right side, then the last MXF file that was imported into WMC with that lineup didn't include them.
I have matched by number, and every channel i'm expecting to get (same ones on our regular ATSC tv's) are there.

Thanks for the help so far!

howiez69

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#4

Post by howiez69 » Mon Jul 06, 2020 7:12 pm

Guide data is now coming through for my 32.1/2/3 so i'm halfway there!

Now we have a massive rainstorm, so no point in my trying to tune channels for a while, Rain usualy makes the VHF ones toast.

howiez69

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#5

Post by howiez69 » Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:03 pm

UPDATE:
i'm not much further along. I've discovered If i delete and re-add the channel with the previous RF it get 'No Signal', vs 'No Service' so At least I think I have the correct RF channel. I can't get the Hauppage tuner software to work because it's so old, and i never installed it I have no idea what the key would be to even test it.

If i remove and re-add things, I seem to have several tuner choices, so perhaps i'm using the wrong pair of tuners. Even though my Hauppage is a quad tuner, if I understand correctly two are analog and two are ATSC. So that's what i'm testing now, re-setting up and testing different configs.

stuartm

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#6

Post by stuartm » Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:20 pm

You are incorrect. The Hauppauge 1609 quad tuner is 4 tuners that can do Digital OTA (ATSC) or clear QAM (unencrypted digital Cable) It has no analog capability. It will show in device manager as 2 dual tuners IIRC but the tuners are all digital tuners.

dmagerl

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#7

Post by dmagerl » Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:15 pm

Have you checked to see if you have any erroneous sources for that channel? In all your efforts you may have added it on the wrong channel.

Go into the guide and right click the channel and select Edit Channel, then Edit Sources.

Check that you have only 4 sources, one for each tuner, and that the channel number is correct. WMC reports non-standard channel numbers, in your case it should be 12.1. THe list only shows the first 4 channels. You have to scroll it to see them all. You cant believe the channel quality value. It always says 100%.

If you have any sources thant dont say channel 12.1, uncheck them to disable them and that should fix your problems.

howiez69

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#8

Post by howiez69 » Sun Jul 12, 2020 11:51 pm

stuartm wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:20 pm You are incorrect. The Hauppauge 1609 quad tuner is 4 tuners that can do Digital OTA (ATSC) or clear QAM (unencrypted digital Cable) It has no analog capability. It will show in device manager as 2 dual tuners IIRC but the tuners are all digital tuners.
I sure hope you are correct, but I've had this tuner since about 2017 IIRC, and I've never been able to record or watch more than 2 things at once. Usually my sources say ..tuner Demod 2 #1 and #2.
I've manually added tuners after skipping the tuner found by WMC and I have 4 sources at the moment. Funny that's never worked before.
dmagerl wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:15 pm Have you checked to see if you have any erroneous sources for that channel? In all your efforts you may have added it on the wrong channel.

Go into the guide and right click the channel and select Edit Channel, then Edit Sources.

Check that you have only 4 sources, one for each tuner, and that the channel number is correct. WMC reports non-standard channel numbers, in your case it should be 12.1. THe list only shows the first 4 channels. You have to scroll it to see them all. You cant believe the channel quality value. It always says 100%.

If you have any sources thant dont say channel 12.1, uncheck them to disable them and that should fix your problems.
I've done this twice, right now i'm showing 4 sources all channel 12.1 after digging into what stuartm said above.
My sources are:
Hauppage WinTv 885 ATSC Tuner/Demod #1
Hauppage WinTv 885 ATSC Tuner/Demod #2
Hauppage WinTv 885 ATSC Tuner/Demod 2 #1
Hauppage WinTv 885 ATSC Tuner/Demod 2 #1

howiez69

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#9

Post by howiez69 » Tue Jul 14, 2020 2:06 am

Well, I dunno what I did, but it works today. After all my remove/readd and change tuners picked by WMC, nothing worked.

I checked it again just now and it's working, all three 11.1 11.2 and 11.3 all come in loud and clear, all guide data is there.

I'll just call it the ID10T factor and I pushed a button somehwere.

Thanks for all the help everyone, and keep up the great work Mr. Ryan!

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