A year and a half after the DTV transition, and it still sucks

[joesixpack]

I'm having so much fun barely getting any channels at all, and when I do get some channels the signal goes in and out, or it turns into a bunch of pixels. I remember the good old days when all I had to do was move the rabbit ears a little bit and the signal would come in, sometimes not perfect but still good enough to watch. Nowadays, with the new and improved Digital TV, if you move your antenna even a millimeter away from where it's supposed to be, your screen goes black. Wasn't this DTV transition supposed to improve our TV viewing experience? I've lost at least four or five affiliates here. Very annoying.

I'm starting to think this was all just some big conspiracy to force us all to buy cable (which I have no plans on doing, by the way).

The DTV transition also requires some transition on the part of viewers. Channels will come in differently than before.

You didn't mention how far away you were from broadcast centers/towers. That is definitely a factor.

Prior to DTV, I got hardly anything, and I live about 10 miles from most of the towers in town. With DTV, I get every channel in the market crystal clear. Sometimes I do get a little tiling and blocking, but it just requires a little adjustment of the antenna.

This site might prove helpful. Shows how far away stations are, and recommends the best types of antennas to use:

http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

I for one prefer digital. I get all the channels (plus the subchannels!) and no more static and ghosting.

When the transition happened, I went out and bought a flat RCA antenna. I've gone through other antennas already, none of them have given me better results. My TV doesn't need a converter box.

I live about 30 miles away from Houston. Before the transition, I got every channel. Now, I barely get any. In fact, instead of Houston's CBS affiliate (KHOU), I get the one from College Station (KBTX)! I have no idea why that happens.

I agree, when DTV actually works for me, I love it. The picture is better and so is the sound. But it hardly ever works for me.

 

[joesixpack]

A proper UHF/Hi-VHF antenna (not rabbit ears) will give excellent reception 20 miles or so indoors, and 50-70 outdoors

Not always. I am 8 miles line-of-sight from my local transmitter tower farm and consistently have problems with several stations. I am using a combo FM-UHF-VHF rooftop antenna. The worst problems on on RF VHF stations (8, 10 and 12) but some of the following issues plague UHF signals too.

Multiple TV's, each with their own outdoor or indoor antennas, have problems on DTV that never happened on analog. Wind (no dust), the sun setting behind the towers, rain (not necessarily heavy) and even people walking in back or to the side of an indoor antenna cause picture loss.

It is clear to me the FCC made a purely political decision and intentionally overlooked the many deficiencies of digital TV before mandating the DTV switch.

Oh, and the BIG advertised benefit of DTV, the sub-channels? Virtually a waste of time. Worthless.

That's the same thing I've experienced. If I even turn on the fan in the room the signal goes out.

 

[Madmansam]

Now if you're 25-30 miles from the city you're out of luck. No more signals 75 miles
away........you gotta go back to the radio or newspapers.

Interesting, I'm 79 miles away and I get more programming from digital than I ever did with analog.

It turns out that having the proper tool for the job (an outdoor antenna) makes all the difference.

- Trip

But Trip, Like flashback, there are many of us who lives in apartments who can't install a outdoor antenna for better reception. In fact, my apartment doesn't allow ANY external antennas at all, even satellite dishes, I am stuck with Cable TV. (My apartment complex must be in cahoots with Comcast)

 

[tripinva]

I went out and bought one of those flat antennas made by RCA when the transition happened, and I've been through numerous antennas since. My TV doesn't need a converter box. I live about 30 miles or so from Houston, and I hardly get any channels. When it was still analog, I got every channel.

Problem is, when the signal actually comes in and works for a while, I love it. But that is a very rare occurrence. Most of the time, I get a black screen or if I'm lucky a bunch of pixels.

Wait, one of these?

http://amzn.com/B0027FGW3K

That RCA called that an antenna is a scam. You need at least some type of decent indoor antenna to have any hope of reception.

- Trip

 

[gregg75]

I'm 16 miles from downtown. A ceiling fan, light winds or a light sprinkle
will take out most of the low power stations. WSB 2 will work, but their sub
Retro TV channel will not under those conditions.......and I'm on the second
floor with the antenna about 2 feet from the ceiling (which should be about
equal to having one on the roof).

 

[tripinva]

But Trip, Like flashback, there are many of us who lives in apartments who can't install a outdoor antenna for better reception. In fact, my apartment doesn't allow ANY external antennas at all, even satellite dishes, I am stuck with Cable TV. (My apartment complex must be in cahoots with Comcast)

Do you have an exclusive-use balcony of some type? If so: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html

If not, I appreciate that some people are on the wrong sides of buildings and that sometimes creates an issue, but I doubt those people who were in that situation out 75 miles ever had analog reception, either. I have made an indoor antenna work at home at 79 miles, but the stations are also 3000 feet higher in elevation than I am, giving me line of sight, and I still use the roof antenna because the signals at that distance looked terrible otherwise in analog, and drop out a lot in digital. It's the nature of being that far away.

When I lived in my first-year dorm, 4 miles from the local transmitters, I was on the wrong side of the cinderblock building, so direct line of sight didn't work for me. Instead, I aimed the antenna out the window at the hill behind me and caught a very strong reflection. Almost perfect digital reception, even though the analogs I did manage to receive were full of ghosts which moved as people and objects moved around in the building.

I know there are people who cannot get anything and are unable to put up a roof antenna due to their living conditions, and I feel bad for them. However, I run into a significant number of people who live pretty far away and could put up a roof antenna, but choose to instead try to use some garbage indoor antenna from Best Buy and then complain that digital doesn't work. Those are the people I was targeting with my comments.

- Trip

 

[dave73]

I know there are people who cannot get anything and are unable to put up a roof antenna due to their living conditions, and I feel bad for them. However, I run into a significant number of people who live pretty far away and could put up a roof antenna, but choose to instead try to use some garbage indoor antenna from Best Buy and then complain that digital doesn't work. Those are the people I was targeting with my comments.

- Trip

My Aunt Dawn is one of those who can have an outdoor antenna (she owns her home), but chooses to have rabbit ears. She refuses to have hers on the roof. So she barely gets a decent signal from WLS-TV on both channel 7 & 44, & also WBBM-TV on channel 12. UHF isn't that much better either. WMAQ, WCIU, WCPX, & WTTW give her problems too. I have an excuse as I'm using an outdoor antenna, & my current antenna isn't the greatest at select DTV stations (mainly UHF).

 

[flashback]

my biggest thing is if yoiu live in the city limits and you have an antenna attached to your tv and it either is digital or an analog tv with a connverter box you should be able to get the signals on all of the local channels.if you don`t it is obvious that digital tv is not a good plan as it is.

 

[ansky212]

I know there are people who cannot get anything and are unable to put up a roof antenna due to their living conditions, and I feel bad for them. However, I run into a significant number of people who live pretty far away and could put up a roof antenna, but choose to instead try to use some garbage indoor antenna from Best Buy and then complain that digital doesn't work. Those are the people I was targeting with my comments.

- Trip

The problem with many locations is that the tv signals come from different directions. So even if you put up a roof antenna, you would be limited to what you can receive in one position. Sure you can install a rotor but that can get pricey and installation complicated. Plus roof antennas are very susceptible to damage in adverse weather conditions. Then you get into the VHF vs UHF debacle. It seems most antennas are made for one or the other. I think the "pefect" antenna would be omnidirectional and made for VHF and UHF. Does one like that exist? And it would have to be fairly small in size. Most people don't want a huge metal object on top of their house.

 

[w9wi]

I think the "pefect" antenna would be omnidirectional and made for VHF and UHF. Does one like that exist?

Yes but it isn't particularly effective.

The purpose of a directional antenna is, mostly, to reject interference from stations other than the one you're trying to watch. And interference from things other than TV stations. (noise radiated by computers etc...)

I suppose the perfect antenna would be a highly-directional unit that would automatically find the best direction for the station selected and automatically move to that direction when that station is chosen. To my knowledge it doesn't exist.

And it would have to be fairly small in size. Most people don't want a huge metal object on top of their house.

Then, I'm afraid you need cable.

People's expectations for small or no outside antennas have been driven by cable. It's possible to get some television without an "ugly" rooftop antenna, so why should I deal with an antenna? Back in the 1960s, before cable, you wouldn't have been able to sell a house if outdoor antennas were prohibited. If you live in a place where an outdoor antenna is necessary for reliable reception, you need an outdoor antenna. .

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my biggest thing is if yoiu live in the city limits and you have an antenna attached to your tv and it either is digital or an analog tv with a connverter box you should be able to get the signals on all of the local channels.if you don`t it is obvious that digital tv is not a good plan as it is.

It would have been nice to get all the local channels at that first apartment I rented when I moved to Nashville in 1990... Well within the city limits, but ABC and PBS suffered from severe ghosting. You could get the stations but they were usually unviewable.

It was worse when I lived in Madison, Wis.. (a city that's a lot smaller, or at least it was in the 1980s!) I don't recall anyplace I ever lived there where all the stations came in with a viewable signal. Again, you could get all the channels but on at least one channel, the multipath was so bad you couldn't read text on the screen & the audio was badly distorted. Except for the place on Mifflin St. where the problem was a very strong cable leak.....

All of that was in analog -- was long before anybody started talking about digital TV.

That Nashville apartment is two city blocks from where I work today. I've got a DTV with rabbit ears in my office. Because of the rackful of satellite gear 20 feet south and the phone switch in the next room to the east, I don't get channel 30 -- but I get the rest, including ABC and PBS, just fine.

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Trip, I have a problem with your post about the RCA flat antenna.

You should have posted it in bold, underlined, and flashing orange text.

A paper clip would probably be a better antenna than one of these flat things. They are indeed crap.

 

[flashback]

back in the analog days i recieved good reception of all the local channels with the antena on the tv set alone.i didn`t have cable yet .there was no roof antena involved.

one of the channels that was always the strogest in analog days was wish tv channel 8.now i cant get any signal for that channel in my bedroom tv and it is a digital tv.

there should not be so much details to getting broadcast tv.

 

[KeithE4]

back in the analog days i recieved good reception of all the local channels with the antena on the tv set alone.i didn`t have cable yet .there was no roof antena involved.

one of the channels that was always the strogest in analog days was wish tv channel 8.now i cant get any signal for that channel in my bedroom tv and it is a digital tv.

Where in the Indy market are you located, and what kind of antenna do you have? IIRC, WISH is the lone VHF in the area, and the others are UHF. Do you get the stations that transmit from Trafalgar (WTTV, WCLJ, WIPX) as well as the ones that are located on the NW side of the city?

there should not be so much details to getting broadcast tv.

Why not? I'm from your area (actually, Bloomington) originally, and I can tell you it was he-double-hocky-sticks to get any OTA TV other than WTTV and WTIU without a big outside antenna and rotator from 50 miles away. And even WTTV was usually ghosty on rabbit ears. If you're in an area that had problems with even one channel in analog, especially with ghosting, you'll probably have issues with digital as well.

We have some areas in metro Phoenix that have issues as well, even those close to our towers on South Mountain. Except for PBS, Fox, and NBC, all stations are UHF. I personally don't have much of a problem, but some folks do. One thing I noticed, being in an apartment that faces SE (the towers are NW from me) and close to the towers (I'm 5 miles away), that multipath is an issue, since any phasing problems between the individual carriers in the channel or receiver overload can cause the signal to disappear even though the signal strength is still good.

Pointing the antenna out the window seems to help reception overall, despite the fact that the antenna is pointed away from the towers. It also allows me to watch three Tucson channels - none of which were viewable in analog.

 

[flashback]

^ i live on the east side of indianapolis.

my point to all i have been saying is they changed to digital tv before it was ready.if it was totally ready people would not have these problems.

 

[KeithE4]

^ i live on the east side of indianapolis.

Depending on how far east you are, I don't think plain-vanilla rabbit ears with a cheap UHF loop will do the job (they were all but useless for analog as well). If you're forced to use an indoor antenna, try one of those Terk antennas with the UHF log-periodic antenna and preamp. I have one and it works great. But an outside antenna with a rotator would be much better, given the fact that you have transmitters in two directions from you. Directivity is important, especially at UHF.

my point to all i have been saying is they changed to digital tv before it was ready.if it was totally ready people would not have these problems.

They didn't do a good enough job studying receiving problems, especially since DTV has been on the air for years, and the existing analog stations would have caused additional problems such as images and intermod in the receiver.

Also, low cloud cover can make local signals go away (multipath from the clouds?). I've found that to be the case, although in Phoenix severe cloud cover is uncommon. Rain will screw up UHF either on digital or analog. With analog, the picture gets snowy; with digital it goes away. When the leaves come out in the spring, that can also cause problems with UHF.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I'm 20 miles out from the Cleveland antenna farm in the southern suburbs, and have absolutely no problems with the full power UHF signals in the main farm.

I also get UHF signals from Akron (including two stations licensed to Canton, but in the Akron area), though I am unable to get Youngstown market stations some 40 miles to the east.

My problem children are the two VHF stragglers in the Cleveland market, Fox affiliate WJW/8 (RF 8 ) and CBS affiliate WOIO/19 (RF 10). Depending on atmospherics, I can get them sometimes.

I am using indoor antennas in a pretty favorable location.

WJW just filed to go back to RF 31, which came in here like gangbusters pre-transition. Both stations have filed for fill-in UHF translators - WOIO for one out of the Akron antenna farm that should solve reception problems here, WJW for two on the eastern fringe of the market.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the digital TV situation here.

 

[dave73]

Where in the Indy market are you located, and what kind of antenna do you have? IIRC, WISH is the lone VHF in the area, and the others are UHF. Do you get the stations that transmit from Trafalgar (WTTV, WCLJ, WIPX) as well as the ones that are located on the NW side of the city?

You forgot about WTHR, which went back to 13 on June 12th, 2009. So there are 2 full power VHF's in the Indianapolis market, with WISH-TV having a translator on channel 17 for those in the immediate Indianapolis area who have a problem getting them on channel 9. Some people have a hard time getting WTHR as well (especially those who live closest to WLFI's tower in & near Rossville, which broadcasts on channel 11). For some reason, WTHR chose not to stay on channel 46.

 

[KeithE4]

Where in the Indy market are you located, and what kind of antenna do you have? IIRC, WISH is the lone VHF in the area, and the others are UHF. Do you get the stations that transmit from Trafalgar (WTTV, WCLJ, WIPX) as well as the ones that are located on the NW side of the city?

You forgot about WTHR, which went back to 13 on June 12th, 2009. So there are 2 full power VHF's in the Indianapolis market, with WISH-TV having a translator on channel 17 for those in the immediate Indianapolis area who have a problem getting them on channel 9. Some people have a hard time getting WTHR as well (especially those who live closest to WLFI's tower in & near Rossville, which broadcasts on channel 11). For some reason, WTHR chose not to stay on channel 46.

I forgot about WTHR going back to VHF. Silly decision if you ask me. But a crappy signal on 13 is a time-honored Indianapolis tradition going back to 1957. ;D

Here in Phoenix, KSAZ/10 is using a subchannel of sister-station KUTP/45 (RF 26) as a full-powered standard-def "translator," as channel 10.2 for those who can't get the main signal on Channel 10. The other VHFs, KAET/8 and KPNX/12 apparently haven't had a need to establish UHF translators (yet).

 

[PTBoardOp94]

A lot of people in Indianapolis seem to have problems getting either WISH-TV or WTHR, but few who are unable to receive both. I'm no expert on signal propagation, but I was told that the two stations were polarized differently. I think WTHR is circular polarized and WISH-TV is vertical. I also know that certain antennas are optimized for circular or for linear polarization. If the two stations had both gone circular, I suspect there would have been fewer complaints in Indy.

 

[dave73]

A lot of people in Indianapolis seem to have problems getting either WISH-TV or WTHR, but few who are unable to receive both. I'm no expert on signal propagation, but I was told that the two stations were polarized differently. I think WTHR is circular polarized and WISH-TV is vertical. I also know that certain antennas are optimized for circular or for linear polarization. If the two stations had both gone circular, I suspect there would have been fewer complaints in Indy.

WTHR's signal is most difficult to get for those who live near WLFI's tower. Theirs is either vertical or circular (from the fcc site). WISH-TV is horizontal (from the fcc site). With WTHR's signal being either circular or vertical (not sure how this works for both), I heard that for those near WLFI's tower must have the antenna vertical to receive WTHR. That however might make it difficult to receive WISH-TV since their signal is horizontal. Other than those in the immediate downtown area, not sure the reason why some can't get the VHF stations if they have the correct antenna.

 

[landtuna]

Here in Phoenix, KSAZ/10 is using a subchannel of sister-station KUTP/45 (RF 26) as a full-powered standard-def "translator," as channel 10.2 for those who can't get the main signal on Channel 10. The other VHFs, KAET/8 and KPNX/12 apparently haven't had a need to establish UHF translators (yet).

The problem with using a UHF translator is the signal is no longer HD nor is the audio anything of beauty - two of the main selling points of going DTV. It does tell me that KSAZ is too cheap to fix the primary problem - whatever it may be.

BTW - 8 and 12 both have their problems from time to time as well but neither are as pronounced as 10.