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Tuesday, September 2, 2008

ARCS Television: Digital or Analog?

Everybody wants to know if ARCS will be going Digital in time for the Februrary deadline. There are lots of PSA's on TV telling of the deadline and how your TV will not work after the digital conversion. But, that will NOT BE THE CASE for ARCS viewers!

Nationwide, there are around 1,800 television stations that must turn off their analog transmitters and go digital. However, the ARCS transmitter in your community is one of some 7,000 low power television transmitters nationwide that are not subject to the digital conversion deadline in February.

Confidence is high that ARCS will eventually go digital, probably in three to five years. That is why you may want to participate in the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. That program is set to expire in March 2009.

You can find out more about all these issues and get all the links here.

Meanwhile, relax and enjoy your ARCS television service with your regular TV's, even after the February deadline.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Carrier Modifications Succesfully Completed

This morning the planned modifications to our multiplex satellite carrier were successfully completed without incident. The new carrier is up and operating at its new frequency of 4056.5 MHz with a symbol rate of 13.250 Ms. Thanks to all the folks from Scientific Atlanta, KUAC, AT&T and APBI for helping make such a smooth transition.

If your receiver needs to be manually tuned, check out the links on this page or at www.arcstv.org.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Details of Mux-Mod now available

Modification to the multiplex will take place on Wednesday, July 9, 2008, at 9:00 A.M., Alaska Daylight Time. Mods will result in a smaller, though no less effectual, carrier. The changes are being made to accommodate the departure of “360 North” (formerly Gavel to Gavel) from the bundle.

The changes to the carrier will cause a brief outage that will affect all satellite based audio and video services inside the AMC8, transponder 18, SIP Multiplex including Alaska One, UATV, and ARCS Television, and the audio feeds for KSKA, KUAC, KCAW and APRN. Please note that these actions will not affect and are not pertaining to the SCPC radio channels on transponder 24.

Scientific Atlanta PowerVu receivers that are operational at the time will receive new parameters automatically and should not need to be manually programmed.

Should a receiver need to be manually programmed, there are links to instructions for the SA PowerVu D9223 and the non-SA DMT 1050 on the right side of this page. We are developing end-user instruction set for the D9850 PowerVu receiver and will post a link here as well.

The new parameters for the carrier are as follows:

Center Frequency: 1093.50 MHz L-Band, or 4056.50 MHz C-Band.
Symbol Rate: 13.250 Ms.
The FEC rate will remain at ¾.

All Non-PowerVu receivers will need to be reprogrammed manually; if you are affected by this please refer to the parameters listed above and consult your owner’s manual for further instructions.

The duration of the outage is expected to be brief; on the order of a few minutes, especially for the majority of receivers which are PowerVu. For non-PowerVu receivers, there will be no obvious way of knowing exactly when the procedure has been completed, other than to enter the new parameters manually and wait until they lock on the signal.

If your receiver fails to absorb the changes and you are unable to tune it manually, contact ARCS Television Technical Support, toll free, at 888-840-0013 and leave a detailed message.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Satellite Multiplex set to change in July

We'll be changing the characteristics of our satellite multiplex in July to accommodate the departure of 360North (formerly Gavel to Gavel) from the bundle. When we have a firm date we'll distribute the details. For most SA D9223 and D9850 receivers, the switch will be uneventful; the rocket scientists will deliver the instruction set directly to the receiver's brains and end users will not notice any difference. (except those users who were watching 360North)

There will almost certainly be a small percentage of the SA receivers, plus all non-SA receivers, that will need to be reprogrammed manually. We'll be posting instructions at http://www.arcstv.org/, and here of course, as soon as we get those details worked out.

Beginning July 1, 2008, 360North will be distributed by GCI; for more information on how to acquire their signal, contact Bill Legere at KTOO FM & TV in Juneau at 907-486-1670.

ARCS, Digital Television, and The Future


You have probably heard a lot about Digital Television and the upcoming February deadline when “all TV must be digital”. Well, not exactly. Even after February 2009, ARCS will still be “Analog” and your current TV will work just the same way it does now. You won’t need to make any changes to keep watching because ARCS is a “low-power” television system that is not required by the FCC to convert to digital at this time.

The FCC has required some 1,700 full-power stations nationwide to meet this conversion deadline. However there are nearly 7,000 low-power transmitters across the USA, just like ARCS, which are not yet required to convert. Most of these transmitters serve viewers in rural communities.

ARCS probably will convert to digital in the next three to five years, so eventually you will need to do something. One thing you can do right now is check out the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. Created by Congress, this program allows households to get up to two coupons, each worth $40, for use in obtaining a box that will convert over-the-air digital television signals for viewing on an analog television set. Even though you won’t need a converter to watch ARCS in the near term, you can still get your coupons, use them to purchase converters at the reduced cost, and then keep them for future use. You can find out more at http://www.dtv2009.gov/ or by calling toll free, 888-388-2009.

Meanwhile we continue to work with volunteers across the state, in more than 230 communities, to repair and maintain the ARCS system.

Would you like to help keep ARCS going in your community? Send an email to arcstv@gmail.com.