OMG, DTV sucks.

[b344077]

Here I am in Union Pier, Michigan. I should have access to BOTH Chicago and South Bend TV stations (I did before we were treated to DTV!).

Chicago is 50 miles directly across Lake Michigan. On clear days one can see Sears tower and John Hancock. South Bend is 30 miles away.

I once received 2,5,7,9,11,16,20,22,25,26,28,32,34,38,44,46,50,60,66 (two antennas)

Now I receive 2,7,11 and 16 nearly 100%. The rest are totally unpredictable.

I have been monitoring the signal with a field strength meter. I can have a great signal but then it dives to nothing for no reason. It doesn't matter if it is a clear day or windy, non-windy, etc. I have checked the TV connections and they are great.

I can have a great signal on, as an example, 11 and nothing on 22. Five minutes later 11 is gone but 22 is going gang busters.

When 7 increased their power on a temporary basis, it became the station it once was but that is the only station.

This is a joke.

 

[landtuna]

This is a joke.

Yes, it certainly is.

 

[4dude]

To all the people who think digital is better: NOW YOU KNOW: ITS UTTER CRAP!!

Analog was and always will be: THE BEST!!

 

[b344077]

The joke in all of this is that I now recieve one NBC station (16), one CBS station (2), one ABC station (7) and one public TV station (11)!!!!!!!! This is 1965 all over again!

 

[Markxxx]

I think when it works it rocks!!!!!!

Think yourself lucky. I live only 3 miles NW of Sears Tower and I can't get ANY DTV stations. Something about the signals not being able to penetrate deep into building. And you know in some areas Chicago is very builidng dense. I had to get cable.

They should've transitioned market by market. Starting with NYC and then not moving to LA till they solved all the problems. Each market has different issues etc.

They really need to just start over from scratch. The channel allocations are a mess, allowing stations to choose and then requiring directional transmitters etc. They need to start over and assign TV stations a frequency and move the channel numbers. None of this PSIP stuff. If everyone had to rebrand no one would have an advantage.

But too late now. Oh well.

 

[bg02445]

I for one like it. It works great here in Southern New England. Before, I got very low quality signals from about 15 stations. Now, I'm getting clear, stable HD from all of them (plus an extra few), plus the subchannels too. But, I can understand your frustration.

 

[fybush]

As Mark correctly points out, "when it works, it rocks" - and in a thread like this, you're not going to hear much from the viewers for whom it's not only working, but rocking.

I travel a lot. I watch TV when I travel, a lot. It used to be that I was picking hotels in part because of their cable lineups, to make sure that when I was airchecking local newscasts, I was getting a usable picture...because analog OTA reception on an indoor antenna was so very iffy. Chicago's a great example, actually. I have VHS tapes as far back as the mid-80s that were recorded at my aunt's lakeshore apartment, and some of them are almost unwatchable smears of UHF multipath on channels such as 20 and 44. On my last trip to Chicago, I set up the antenna in my hotel room on Erie Street, scanned for channels, and pulled in everything in town (except WYIN, as I recall). No multipath, no ghosting - just pictures that looked as good as they did in the control rooms of some of the stations I was visiting. When DTV's working, it's that good. (And that's just SDTV - OTA HDTV, when it's done right, far outclasses any picture analog TV ever delivered, The Dude's Luddite tendencies notwithstanding.)

Yes, I live 4300 feet (!) from my local stations here in Rochester. Those used to be smears of multipath here, too, because of so much signal bouncing off everything in sight. Now I can use a paper clip as an antenna and get reception that, again, looks as good as it does in the control room at work. But it's not just my locals - I've replaced noisy, sparkly-filled pictures on channels 2 and 4 from Buffalo, 70 miles away, with pictures that look just as good as the locals - and that aren't ripped up by E-skip every day in the summer.

Or you could live in Lima, Ohio, where DTV multicasting and the advent of low-power DTVs have combined to take the market from only one full-coverage local Big 4 network affiliate to all 4, plus CW. (And in HD, no less.)

Believe me, I know it's not that good for everyone. I was in Los Angeles a month ago, and from the hotel where I stayed in Koreatown, indoor DTV reception was awful - no KTTV or KCOP at all, very intermittent KABC and KCAL, and even some of the UHFs were missing or unwatchable. That same trip took me to Neenah, Wisconsin, where WLUK has all but dropped off the dial, and to Solana Beach, California, where the San Diego analogs were lousy before and the DTVs are still pretty questionable. But in each of the other markets I visited - Yuma, Palm Springs, Beloit WI (where I was getting crystal-clear pictures from both Madison, 50 miles north, and Rockford, 25 miles south), Minneapolis/St. Paul, Indianapolis, South Bend and Fort Wayne - DTV just...plain...worked.

The industry's still working through the problems that are keeping some people from getting good reception. Receiver chips continue to improve. We're learning about which transmitting antennas do, and don't, work well with digital. Replacement translators are coming on the air to fill in known gaps in signal coverage. This is still very much a work in progress...but let's at least recognize the progress along with the shortcomings.

 

[KeithE4]

To all the people who think digital is better: NOW YOU KNOW: ITS UTTER CRAP!!

Not where I live in Phoenix, 4 miles from the South Mountain tower farm. Digital TV is quite good here.

The only issues I have are with Channels 7 (RF 27, an LPTV), 10, 51, and 61 (RF 49), and that's only on one converter. On the other one, not only can I get all Phoenix stations perfectly, but I can also get the Tucson UHF channels as well, almost 100 miles away. The Tucson analogs never came in here.

Both tuners are $40-coupon boxes from Target, and are connected to cheap UHF loops, although three of our stations on VHF (8, 10, & 12). I'm guessing that the one with the best reception (the second one I mentioned) has better front-end selectivity and is less prone to overload than the other. Its only problem is a molasses-slow remote control. It takes 2-3 seconds to change the channel. :-(

Analog was and always will be: THE BEST!!

That statement is a factual error. As has been said by others, both have their good points and bad, depending on the location. Each area has a different situation.

The worst cases apparently are those, like WPVI Philadelphia, that made the mistake of remaining on low VHF. Some people are complaining about high-VHF stations as well, although I only have the one problem with KSAZ-TV 10, on one converter. I hear and read about less complaints about the UHFs.

 

[WPPCProductions]

I have to agree ,its a joke, all the manpower,all the years of work the engineers put in to it ,it's not perfected. This reminds me of the crappy webstreams from radio stations using real media back in the late 90's,it plays and it drops out,it plays and it drops out.it plays and it drops out. Thank goodness they ironed the bugs out of radio streaming.not I hope they will ironed the bugs out of DTV.As I see DTV is in the same boat is Iboc.An another mistake.When are the Emergency response channels are going on the air? or more of those dam cellphone will be on the air instead.

 

[alg2468]

DTV reception seems to work best where there are few or no obstructions. Here in the Providence, RI area, reception overall is very good because of the lack of high mountains and big obstructions, allowing us to receive all stations from the Providence, Worcester, and Boston areas without much problem.

 

[dhett]

Not where I live in Phoenix, 4 miles from the South Mountain tower farm. Digital TV is quite good here.

Usually. I'm 5 miles to the east of the towers and suddenly, for the past week, I'm having problems with KPHO RF17/VC5 and KSAZ RF10/VC10. Serious problems - completely unwatchable signal. Some may say that it is to be expected with just indoor rabbit ears, but not this close to the transmitters and not with a full power station. I expect a digital signal to be at least as reliable as analog from this close. Oh yeah, DTV absolutely rocks 95% of the time. It's just those other 5% that frustrate you beyond belief.

 

[firepoint525]

I seem to be having the opposite problems with my DTV from what some of you are having with yours. My VHF channels generally come in well, even the low VHF channels, although I had some problems with channel 2 this morning. My UHF channels come in okay, but 30 is sometimes unwatchable due to breaking up so much, and channel 58 (the CW affiliate) has not come in at all since the transition in June! Before the switchover, I was able to receive 58 on my DTV, although channel 5 was at the time the most intermittent of the VHF channels, and channel 8 (PBS) apparently had not started broadcasting on DTV yet. I received miscellaneous other mostly religious channels on UHF that I do not receive now, but their signal even then was iffy at best. (I have a roof antenna on my house.)

I'm told that nothing on 58 has changed since before the June changeover, so I am puzzled as to why I could receive them before the transition, but not since! But I seriously doubt that I would watch 58 much, even if I could!

 

[KeithE4]

I seem to be having the opposite problems with my DTV from what some of you are having with yours. My VHF channels generally come in well, even the low VHF channels, although I had some problems with channel 2 this morning. My UHF channels come in okay, but 30 is sometimes unwatchable due to breaking up so much, and channel 58 (the CW affiliate) has not come in at all since the transition in June! Before the switchover, I was able to receive 58 on my DTV, although channel 5 was at the time the most intermittent of the VHF channels, and channel 8 (PBS) apparently had not started broadcasting on DTV yet. I received miscellaneous other mostly religious channels on UHF that I do not receive now, but their signal even then was iffy at best. (I have a roof antenna on my house.)

I'm told that nothing on 58 has changed since before the June changeover, so I am puzzled as to why I could receive them before the transition, but not since! But I seriously doubt that I would watch 58 much, even if I could!

Where are you located? If you're in hilly country and/or in a wooded area, then you might have more of a problem with the UHF stations. Digital or analog, UHF doesn't like trees or hills. The laws of radio propagation and attenuation don't change.

I'm very close to South Mountain, but my townhouse windows face away from it (all on one side, to the southeast). That probably cuts down the incoming signals a bit, along with the chicken-wire & stucco "attenuator" surrounding my building. Facing southeast does give me a better path to Tucson, however.

 

[TheRob]

I agree, when DTV is on, it's on, especially when watching sports or Nature or Nova on PBS. Nature in high definition is a thing of beauty.

Unfortunately I'm stuck with an indoor antenna, next to the woods, in a depression. So there are some stations I haven't received in months. I suspect our NBC affiliate boosted power on the night of the Super Bowl, because that's the only night I've been able to receive them since I converted to DTV last November.

 

[firepoint525]

Where are you located? If you're in hilly country and/or in a wooded area, then you might have more of a problem with the UHF stations. Digital or analog, UHF doesn't like trees or hills. The laws of radio propagation and attenuation don't change.

I'm just west of Nashville, with a large ridge directly to the south of me. I'm just north of interstate 40, and I can hear the traffic on 40, but I can't see the interstate because of that large ridge between me and the interstate.

I don't understand how that would change my reception of 58, unless they changed something.

 

[Bob E. Nelson]

On my last trip to Chicago, I set up the antenna in my hotel room on Erie Street, scanned for channels, and pulled in everything in town (except WYIN, as I recall). No multipath, no ghosting - just pictures that looked as good as they did in the control rooms of some of the stations I was visiting. When DTV's working, it's that good.

Scott --

What type of equipment do you use when traveling, in particular the antenna and ATSC tuner type?

 

[fybush]

On my last trip to Chicago, I set up the antenna in my hotel room on Erie Street, scanned for channels, and pulled in everything in town (except WYIN, as I recall). No multipath, no ghosting - just pictures that looked as good as they did in the control rooms of some of the stations I was visiting. When DTV's working, it's that good.

Scott --

What type of equipment do you use when traveling, in particular the antenna and ATSC tuner type?

The antenna is the Terk/Audiovox HDTVi - the "Silver Sensor" with VHF rabbit ears, unamplified. I usually travel with a couple of Magnavox (Funai) HDD DVRs with built-in ATSC tuners, and sometimes with a Zenith DTT900 box as well.

 

[in3media_be1]

Some posts from this thread have been moved to Take It Outside


http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=152657.msg1291375#msg1291375

 

[Whale]

DTV certainly does suck. My viewing options were far better with analogue. Gone is my second PBS affiliate, the ABC network, Ion and My Network TV. They vanished. But wait, now I get two weather channels and Universal Sports! Whoopie.

 

[Chad-Stevens]

I mostly satisfied with OTA DTV, having lost nothing and gained RTV and This, along with the usual weather maps and PBS flavors.

ABC is very tricky to get a lock on as Birmingham has no full powered affiliate, just an LPTV and two rimshots, but once I get the sweet spot on the rabbit ears, I can usually keep the signal fairly reliably unless someone walks in front of the antenna or turns a light switch. (One of the rimshots, WCFT, will switch from RF 5 to RF 33 in October which might improve matters somewhat.)

A few LPTVs that aren't currently doing much of note will get sizable coverage increases - in theory - if and when they transition - in theory - so we might get even more programming options - in theory. :

Still, I know plenty of people who lost most of what signal they had. I just feel that in an era of 85% subscription-TV penetration and counting, OTA signals are becoming a minor concern.