digital television reception via antenna - NBC?

OK, this may be a dumb question, but here goes: after being television-free for practically all my adult life, I just bought a television so my kids can watch the Olympics on NBC. I’ve got an antenna hooked up and was able to get ABC and CBS, but I can’t find NBC, after flipping all the way up and down. The channels are categorized in what is, to me, a weird way — it doesn’t just say 9 or 2 on the screen, it says 5-9 or 9-2\. Am I missing something here? NBC’s signal should come through, right? And it should be number 4? It’s a Toshiba flat-screen TV if that makes any difference.

Kate

in Television 12 years and 9 months ago

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jacobsrph | 11 years and 3 months ago

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None of the previous responses are the answer to your question. Here it is: We live 20 miles from Madison Wisconsin and have a very expensive antenna pointed right at the tower. We receive NBC just fine all year, except during the Olympics and a few days before when Chicago NBC station (110 miles away) turns the amplifier way up on their signal so much that it interferes with our ability to get our local station 20 miles away. This is what we learned two years ago during the summer olympics. We never get to watch the Olympics. The FCC needs to better limit the amount of power stations can use! My solution was going to be to climb up on my roof and turn the antenna towards Chicago and reprogram my channels for the Olympics, but currently my roof is full of ice and snow, so we will not be able to watch Olympics again – Also missing Jay Leno’s final two shows! Shame on NBC or FCC for not regulating.

slopegirl | 12 years and 9 months ago

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We get NBC over the air too… We have HDTV and best version of NBC is on channel 504-4\. We also get tbs, ny1 , al jazzers and three PBS stations, as well as NBC-2 on channel 4-2 (talk stoop is on this one). Maybe you just need a better antenna? Ours is on the roof, inherited Fromm previous homeowners. I can’t believe anyone in ny would pay for basic cable when you can get all of that OTA for free…

megazoid | 12 years and 9 months ago

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Interesting topic! I’m in Bed-Stuy and get perfect NBC reception (channel 4-1) with a small rabbit-ears antenna on the parlour floor. My NBC was found through the auto-scan. If anyone is still having issues, a re-scan usually solves it. One problem I have is that I cannot get WLIW 21\. Are you guys getting it? It’s supposed to be on channel 22 as far as I know, but I just can’t seem to find it. THIRTEEN (13-1) works great, would be nice to get WLIW 21 too. Perhaps I should start a new thread instead of hijacking this one :). PS: Kate, if you haven’t tried it yet, check out channel THIRTEEN, it’s public TV, part of PBS, wonderful programming, no ads; one of the few reasons making it worth to give up your television-free life 🙂

JimmyLegs | 12 years and 9 months ago

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the TV tries to automatically find available channels and it has missed NBC, so you have to put it in manually. I can’t remember the menu system offhand but there should be a manual “channel add/delete” option in there somewhere. 4 alone won’t work, you gotta put in 4-1 (you could also just type that into the remote but it won’t stay in the remote’s memory). check the manual for instructions on manually adding channels.

Bklnite | 12 years and 9 months ago

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Yes, it should be 4.1 If you have an indoor antenna you may not be getting a strong enough signal. I tried using rabbit ears and got hardly any reception on my 1st floor tv. Built an antenna using links below and it works pretty well – gets all the local channels (with occasional glitches). http://www.tvantennaplans.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw

JimmyLegs | 12 years and 9 months ago

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Digital channels all have sub-numbers to differentiate them from analog channels (even though those don’t exist anymore!) NBC is 4-1, and it also has additional stations at 4-2, 4-3, and 4-4\. You should be able to manually add these channels to the list in the setup menu. If the channel doesn’t come in on its own, put the station on and move the antenna around. I’m in Bushwick and NBC usually comes in pretty well but who knows what kind of intereference is out there!