HDTV Forum

Folks-
I just bought an antenae so I can get Fox in HD for football games in Madison Wisconsin. I have Charter as my cable provider, and they don't pick up FOX
So, I got it home and have installed it into my sony KV30HS510 and I found that fox is broadcast in HD on channel 47.1 My question is, how am I suppose to get channel 47.1 My remote doesn't have a point.. thanks in advance for the help.

Rich- Different receivers do it differently. But most receivers will let you enter the physical channel number, which for FOX in Madison (WMSN) would be channel 11.

It is possible that you bought the wrong type of antenna. To pick up WMSN-DT you will need a VHF antenna. If you are within 25 miles of the transmitter you might get rabbit ears to work. I recommend that you try that first and see what happens.

WMSN has requested that 11 be their permanent channel number after 2009, so they will be abandoning channel 47. -Ken

Well, I tried channel 11 and I get white fuzz..
Channel 103 is fox, and it comes in, but it's not HD.

My antenae is a RCA ANT301.. it's UHF, VHF and says it picks up HD signals..
The guy at Best Buy reccomended it, and he seemed quite knowledgable.
I'm stumped.. I guess it's possible that the signal's not strong enough where I am, but I'm on the near east side of the city..
My buddy gets it on 47.1 with his antenae.. but I guess he has a point button on his remote..

Rich- It sounds like you are close enough for the ANT301 to work. I am not sure what is wrong. It might help if I knew your zip code and your receiver model. (The KV30HS510 is an HDTV ready TV. This means it will draw an HD image, but it requires an external tuner for OTA DTV stations.) -Ken

Yeah.. so I have a motorala HD digital tuner that runs my cable..
Should I plug the antenae into that?
My zip code is 53704.. what's OTA DTV?

How would I trigger it?
Thanks for the help Ken..

Looking at the specs for your TV, it doesn't appear to have an ATSC tuner. If that's the case, your antenna will do you no good unless you also have a separate HD set top box. You can't plug the antenna into your Motorola cable box, it not only doesn't have an ATSC tuner, there is no place to add an outside antenna source.

You said you have Fox on channel 103, does that signal come from your antenna? That's an unusual channel number for a non-cable source.

Rich- Over The Air (terrestrial) Digital TV station. It is very unlikely that your cable box can receive any local stations using an antenna. (Cable companies tend to view that as the competition.) OTA HD receivers go for about $250, but you might find a new one on the web for under $150. -Ken

Yes, channel 103 is fox from the antenna..
Ok, so this antenna is useless for me unless I buy a tuner?
I guess I'll just do without FoxHD..
I thought this would work..

Used tuners can run $100-200 on ebay...

Whoa! No TV station has ever transmitted on channel 103! That is strictly a cable or satellite channel.

WMSN is the Madison Fox station. They broadcast in analog on UHF channel 47 and 2 digital channels on VHF channel 11. Digital receivers translate the digital channels to 47.1 and 47.2 just to make things simpler for the viewer, since people are used to finding WMSN on 47. 47.2 is a free music channel.
Different remotes do the "dot" differently. One type uses a button marked "ALPHA" while another uses a button marked with a dash. Another type just uses the right arrow key. Youl'd press 47>1 in that case.

I have seen good digital set-top-boxes on eBay for around $125. Radio Shack did have the Accurian boxes on sale for $100 but sold out quickly.

Directv's HD set-top-box is excellent, as is their HD Tivo. I think it is worh it just to ge the Discovery channel. The pictures are Awosme!!! They'll deal to get you
to switch to them from cable.

Some theatres are running Feature Movies digitally, with 2000 lines resoloution per picture height, onto 60 foot screens. HDTV transmits half that, so on a 50 inch plasma set it looks as good as it would in a theatre!

Do GET HDTV. It is truely georgous!

Tony