Lost a channel

[MikeB111 48]

I'm using a Hauppauge QuadHD tuner card with WinTV 8.5.  While I get dozens of channels in a scan, I've only got 7 channels that I keep selected (major networks only).  I've had this set up and working great with Emby for a long time (years).

Today I discovered that one of the channels no longer tunes.  Even when I open WinTV, it is still in my channel list but when I select this one channel it sits with a black screen for a while then reports no signal.  I've tried re-scanning in WinTV and it does not find this channel.  It's the local NBC affiliate, virtual channel 4.1, physical channel 26.  My tuner finds channels before and after this but for some reason doesn't find anything on physical channel 26 (there should be several).

My TV upstairs is connected directly to the same antenna, it finds the channel just fine.  So I know it's broadcasting, and is received by my antenna, just not by the QuadHD apparently.  Like I said, it was working for a couple of years and I have not changed anything in the setup as far as I know.

Is it possible that the tuner card is somehow damaged to no longer receive just this one channel?  Seems very odd as it receives higher and lower channels just fine.  I'm at a complete loss, any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Carlo 4330]

Hi, I would rescan all channels in WinTV to see if you can get the channels working there. If they don't work in WinTV they will not work in Emby.

[MikeB111 48]

Right, I've done that several times.  WinTV does not find this channel in a rescan.  It finds other channels above and below this one, in fact it seems to find all other channels.  But it does not find this one channel.  

Every other TV in my house finds this channel in a scan and has no problem tuning to it.  They all are connected to the same antenna so I know the problem is not with the antenna or the channel itself.

It seems clear that the problem is either WinTV or the tuner card, but it just seems very strange to me.  If it were a hardware problem I guess I'd expect it to not work for any channel, seems odd that it would just not find this one channel.  And there do not seem to be any options in the software that would affect this.

I'm tempted to buy a new card and see if that fixes the problem, but that's an expensive experiment if it doesn't fix the problem. I guess I was hoping to hear from someone who has had a similar issue.

Any suggestions?

[Carlo 4330]

The signal level is probably borderline. Some devices will use it some won't. 

This could change throughout the year as well.

[MikeB111 48]

Just thought I'd post the resolution in case anyone in the future has a similar problem and finds this post.  I have an antenna in my attic, with a preamplifier boosting the signal right at the antenna.  This signal is then split once and goes to my WinTV tuner card in my HTPC and to a separate TV in my bedroom.

Turns out that the preamplifier was dying.  I disconnected it and the missing channel was immediately found by the WinTV tuner card (along with many other channels that I don't watch, but that were not being previously found during a channel scan).  It was a high quality low-noise antenna preamplifier made specifically to mount outdoors at the antenna but it's probably 15 years old and has been installed in my hot attic.  I guess it was just reaching end of life.

I'm still not sure why my TV could tune the channel and my WinTV tuner card could not.  I assume the amplifier was adding noise or something that caused the tuner card to be unable to lock on the signal, and the tuner in the TV must have been better able to handle the degraded signal.  Probably just a matter of time before the TV lost the signal also.

As it turns out, I'm close enough to the broadcast source that I don't really need the amplifier anyways.  So I just left it disconnected and everything is working fine.

[ebr 14910]

Glad you found it and thanks for reporting the solution.