Any areas of the US that will LOSE OTA reception as a result of DTV?

[dhett]

June has certainly been a busy month for DTV power upgrades. There may be fewer communities on this list than first imagined (although Nogales AZ will still be a loser).

 

[compubit]

I was in the Chicago area last week, staying in a hotel in Oak Brook, 20 miles or so west of the Loop. With a Silver Sensor antenna deep inside the hotel room and a Magnavox DVD recorder with ATSC tuner, I had no trouble seeing any of the Sears/Hancock DTVs with the exception of WBBM-DT. (I tried WBBM-DT with rabbit ears, too, but still no decode.) I was also able to receive WYIN-DT with the Silver Sensor and careful aiming. I did not get any of the low-power DTs, but I didn't expect to. Lots to see in Chicago...wish I had MeTV and MeToo back home!

It's probably the buildings, you got to remember Chicago is one tall building after another. Oak Brook is a nice flat level suburb

That's one piece of it (though the 8VSB modulation scheme is actually supposed to thrive on the kind of multipath generated by deep urban canyons), but I think the more crucial point, as someone else was trying to make upthread, is that I was using an antenna (the Silver Sensor) designed for the UHF signals that make up most of Chicago's DTVs. I paid less than $20 for mine, including shipping, on the web. Try one.

I had no problem with Digital when staying at the Hyatt downtown - Analog was multipath #ell on all bands, but digital came through fine - even WBBM-DT (but I was close enough that my tuner picked up the signal with anything attached to the coax input).

On a side note - with the nice 42" HD widescreen the hotel had, nothing was in HD (not even locals) - just "stretch-o-vision". The hotels need to get their act together when they roll out these flat panel TVs - work with the content providers and you'd see a lot more interest in HD...

Jim

 

[fortmill]

[/quote]

on a side note - with the nice 42" HD widescreen the hotel had, nothing was in HD (not even locals) - just "stretch-o-vision". The hotels need to get their act together when they roll out these flat panel TVs - work with the content providers and you'd see a lot more interest in HD...

Jim
[/quote]

Yeah, my health club/community center has beautiful HD flat screens everywhere, but nere a one has HD service, only regular analog cable service. Well, of course they're not going to pay for digital/HD boxs, and service for all 20 or so sets. Meanwhile, the public sees the so-so pictures on these sets and wonder what all the excitment is about...

 

[BRNout]

You guys bring up an excellent points about the new widescreen TVs!

It seems that a high percentage of these are simply used for analog channels/broadcasts and much of the public doesn't even seem to know how to connect them for HD. They just plug 'em in and think it's HD! And, they just stretch those images. In fact, analog shows look BETTER on the old TVs.

Perhaps the new digital switchover will raise public awareness that these TVs do more than free up some space on the table.

 

[BRNout]

You guys bring up an excellent points about the new widescreen TVs!

It seems that a high percentage of these are simply used for analog channels/broadcasts and much of the public doesn't even seem to know how to connect them for HD. They just plug 'em in and think it's HD! And, they just stretch those images. In fact, analog shows look BETTER on the old TVs.

Perhaps the new digital switchover will raise public awareness that these TVs do more than free up some space on the table.

 

[vibe]

Going back to the original thread there appears to be vast areas of the U.S.(particularly the flat Midwest) that probably get decent to excellant OTA analog reception to 80-90 miles out with a high end antenna/amp setup. There are probably areas that get these signals from 3-4 different markets. But will these digital signals penetrate to 80-90 mi out? if digital is anything like HD radio, we pretty know what the answer is.
So the basic answer is "many."
I'm surprised neither of the candidates have made much of a political issue of this? It IS a change that will affect a lot of people, many of whom are not interested or not wishing to pay to watch TV.

 

[dhett]

Going back to the original thread there appears to be vast areas of the U.S.(particularly the flat Midwest) that probably get decent to excellant OTA analog reception to 80-90 miles out with a high end antenna/amp setup. There are probably areas that get these signals from 3-4 different markets. But will these digital signals penetrate to 80-90 mi out? if digital is anything like HD radio, we pretty know what the answer is.
So the basic answer is "many."

With so many stations looking to maximize facilities and modify their channel assignments to avoid short spacing, I think the jury's still out on this one.

 

[kenglish]

One of my favorite local restaurants has a huge plasma HDTV hooked up to Basic Cable, and shows virtually nothing but ESPN in "Stretch-O-Logue".

I was there one day during the NBC "Kentucky Derby" broadcast, and was tempted to grab the remote and re-program it for the QAM HDTV channels, but was afraid it would take too long to do it during the commercial break.

 

[XRQKFM]

KBAK DT (33) raised the power of their DT Transmitter from 39kw to 110kw, so now we have digital TV in the western Antelope Valley. KERO broadcast from the same mountain top (Breckenridge) on DT Ch10 with 4.6kw and a CP for 10kw, yet it has no signal here. The other DT from Bakersfield are at a lower elevation and no digital signals in the desert. KBAK (CBS) carries KBFX (FOX) on the sub channel, so after the change we will go from twenty five plus channels down to two.

Steve
www.xrqk.com