I’ve scanned and re-scanned and checked up and down the frequencies in case it’s not referring back to channel 2 for some reason. Channel 2 isn’t coming in at all any more. I haven’t changed anything, it just disappeared last Wednesday and hasn’t come back. Any suggestions?
Manually punch in channel 12.1 on your remote control and see if it comes in there.
WBBM broadcasts on physical channnel (RF channel) 12 but uses virtual channel 2. Since there is no virtual channel 12 in the Chicago market, most devices will try to tune in WBBM when you select 12.1. This trick will save you time since you won’t have to rescan completely each time you fiddle with something just to see if you got the signal.
Thank you for the suggestion. It didn’t work, though. I’ve had a good signal with the same equipment for about 6 years, so this isn’t making any sense. I wondered if they changed something on their end, tried an email address I found, but no reply. All other channels come in fine, a couple dozen.
Far south suburbs here. TV from an antenna. Ch.2 freakin blows. Always has. Once in a while I’d like to tune in to Letterman, or a sporting event, and forget it. Channel 2 simply blows for some reason, and has for a long time. I believe I’ve posted a similar question here in the past. You have 3 options: Get the dish; get cable; forget channel 2.
(That’s the local CBS for you outsiders.)
CBS comes from a different direction than practically all other broadcasts in Chicago.
If you are using a rabbit ears antenna, and displaced it even slightly, you may have lost the sweet spot where it picks up everything. Try adjusting its position.
For a bit more information on antenna positioning, try:
Antenna Web
or TV Fool
And you really mean it has FOR DECADES! Far west burrbs. I can see the Sears Tower from my roof and aim my antenna right at it and WBBM still blows. They have no sub channels, so what are they doing with the rest of their allotted bandwidth if they aren’t using it to improve their picture?
According to the websites above, all I need is the antenna I have and that I’ve been using with no problems for years. I’m about 8 miles from the TV towers and have gotten channel 2 just fine until a week ago. It’s really weird. I miss having my “morning” coffee and getting the day started while watching “The Talk” but have since discovered Anderson Cooper on 32 in the same time slot. That’ll do.
They are broadcasting in 1080i. Except for channel 32 (also 1080i), the rest are broadcasting in 720p on their primary channels. If you have a Tivo, check “more info” for a program recorded on channel 2.1 and compare it to the same length program recorded on channel 7.1. You’ll see that the file size is significantly bigger on channel 2.1. They chose to use their extra bandwidth to give you a higher definition picture.
Have you actually gone up on the roof and checked the antenna? Some of the storms we’ve had in the last couple of weeks might have damaged it. Be especially sure that the longer rods aren’t damaged. As of a couple of months ago when WLS shut down its RF7 broadcast, channel 2 (RF12) is the last full power station on VHF in Chicago. They have gotten a construction permit from the FCC to add a repeater on RF26, but they don’t seem to have done anything with it.
No need. I’m on the 4th floor and have an indoor rabbit-ear combo thingie that just sits on top of a tower speaker by a south facing window. The receiver is a stand-alone terrestrial HD Samsung that’s connected to a 37-inch HD monitor. The only problem/interference I get is when an El train is going by on a sunny day (reflections). Nothing’s changed at all, which is why this seems mystifying. Good advice though, if I had something outside to check, I would.
But isn’t 1080i supposed to have the same bandwidth requirements as 720p. I thought that was the point of using interlaced over progressive.
No.
There is also a third factor: the frame rate. DTV can broadcast in either 30fps or 60fps. Let’s assume 60fps:
720p -> 1280x720x60 pixels/sec or about 55 Mpixels/sec.
1080i -> 1920x1080x60/2 pixels/sec or about 62 Mpixels/sec.
You also need to broadcast 5.1 Dolby audio with each channel plus overhead.
That doesn’t seem like much difference, but there is another factor: DTV is broadcast in MPEG-2 compressed format. MPEG-2 uses a lossy compression algorithm, when you decompress you don’t get back the full original data. The progressive format compresses down far more than the interlaced format, since it has more redundant data.
Yet another factor to be considered is the type of programming you are compressing. A talking-heads news channel is going to require far fewer bits/sec than a sports program or an action movie. Since most channels have a mixture, the requirements can change dynamically.
Two different broadcasters that want to use a 1080i format still need to decide if they are going to use 30fps or 60fps and how much they want to compress. Also a broadcaster may choose a degree of compression that looks fine on a 32" TV but starts to get fuzzy on a 55" TV in order to use less bandwidth.
An OTA TV channel in the US basically has 19.4 Mbps to play with. Some broadcasters choose to try to squeeze in more subchannels at the expense of video quality. Others choose to maximize the quality but give up subchannel capacity.
I haven’t seen channel 2 since everything went digital. I don’t miss it either.
Aaaand, it’s back. I re-scanned (again) yesterday afternoon, and though there wasn’t a picture /sound my receiver at least recognized there was a channel, where it had started just skipping it like it didn’t exist. I played with the fine tuning dial (where I have ideal settings marked for some channels) and it came back perfectly four settings over from where I’ve had it for several years. It wasn’t coming in on any of those settings for the last couple of weeks. Forever a mystery I guess.
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Here is new information for the people of Chicago who have TV antennas (not cable or satellite).
If you are still having trouble receiving CBS 2 (WBBM-TV) in Chicago, WBBM has been secretly broadcasting on Channel 48.3. I have no idea why they don’t want to publicize this. If you are still having trouble with Channel 2.1, try 48.3. If 48.3 doesn’t come in, try 32.3.
Also, if you live south of Belmont Ave, try 2.11. If that doesn’t come in, try 26.11.
For those of you wondering why this is in General Questions, there used to be a Chicago forum. When that forum was closed, Ed Zotti decreed that these discussions should go in GQ.