• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

The second digital TV delay

V

vchimpanzee

The first one was for people without converter boxes who needed more time to get them. It also allowed more people to have time to get antennas, because that was the bigger concern.

The second one is for stations that moved back to their analog frequency. Is this happening to all those stations? One station I watch (ed) at home, and one in the mountains where I was alst week, were running crawls telling people that after June 12 the station would be operating at reduced power until the permanent DTV equipment was installed. People in areas on the edge of the signal range would have trouble.

This, of course, means almost no one will receive the signal. VHF signals don't do as well as UHF ones, AND they're at reduced power? Why is this necessary? Why can't they keep the other digital frequency until the new one is ready? And, of course, we don't get to have an anlog station to watch in the meantime.
 
Why can't they keep the other digital frequency until the new one is ready?
Click to expand...
Someone else is probably allocated to use it.

Practically every DTV station in the country was ready to broadcast at or near full power in time for the deadline. Yours was not. You'd have to ask them to find out why.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Why can't they keep the other digital frequency until the new one is ready?
Click to expand...
Someone else is probably allocated to use it.

Practically every DTV station in the country was ready to broadcast at or near full power in time for the deadline. Yours was not. You'd have to ask them to find out why.
Click to expand...
They told us they wouldn't be ready by Feb. 17, but I figured the extra time would be enough.

Updates will go here.

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=147036.0

As for the other station, I don't need to worry about it, but it is in the mountains and people are going to be mad. VHF, reduced signal, mountains to provide signal problems ...
 
I was updating Wikipedia's article on the digital TV transition, and I read that WJZ in Baltimore knew they weren't going to be at full power in time.

WIS in Columbia, SC needed just a week to get a full-power signal, but I haven't seen whether this is working for people.
 
If they are at reduced power, spend the hundred of dollars of big antennas so you can get stations 50 miles away from the translators! That will work.

-crainbebo
 
Many stations that are operating at "reduced power" are just doing it while they remove their old transmitting antennas from the top of their towers and move the new antennas (for their DTV signals) up to the top.

But, if you can't receive them at "reduced power", then you probably don't have enough "margin" at the receive end. You should have enough antenna to allow for several dB of variation in the signal....so, unless they are more than 10 or 12 dB down from normal, you should see something. 6 dB or so is considered "marginal".
 
crainbebo said:
If they are at reduced power, spend the hundred of dollars of big antennas so you can get stations 50 miles away from the translators! That will work.

-crainbebo
Click to expand...

I'm 8 miles line-of-sight from the towers and with a BIG VHF/UHF outdoor antenna and cannot reliably receive two of the three VHF digital stations in my market.
 
vchimpanzee,

The thread you reference up atop refers to WGHP. WGHP *was* ready. They were (and are) broadcasting on VHF 8 at their full allotted power. They even have extra tx capacity at hand right as we speak. The FCC licensed for so much, and it has turned out that it is simply not sufficient for WGHP. If the FCC gives the permit to increase the power, they have the capability to increase it a fair whack within a couple of hours. You got to remember this was an ex-Fox owned/operated station, and they really made sure this station had good transmission facilities - such as main transmitter, with backup, plus an auxiliary facility with backup for that.
 
I'm 8 miles line-of-sight from the towers and with a BIG VHF/UHF outdoor antenna and cannot reliably receive two of the three VHF digital stations in my market.
[/quote]

You might want to try a good 88-108 MHz FM Trap, and maybe an attenuator, too.
I think that overload, caused by too-strong FM transmitters, is a lot of the problem. Channel 6 is immediately below the FM band, and the upper VHF channels (7-13) are exactly twice the FM frequencies.
 
Mark Wooldridge said:
vchimpanzee,

The thread you reference up atop refers to WGHP. WGHP *was* ready. They were (and are) broadcasting on VHF 8 at their full allotted power. They even have extra tx capacity at hand right as we speak. The FCC licensed for so much, and it has turned out that it is simply not sufficient for WGHP. If the FCC gives the permit to increase the power, they have the capability to increase it a fair whack within a couple of hours. You got to remember this was an ex-Fox owned/operated station, and they really made sure this station had good transmission facilities - such as main transmitter, with backup, plus an auxiliary facility with backup for that.
Click to expand...
Before the switch, they announced that they would be at reduced power temporarily. Whatever they still had to do would not be taking place until later in the year. They said this ON THE AIR. This is not some rumor I heard here. WLOS made a similar announcement.

I think they should stay on channel 35 since they can. Because if they can't, I doubt their solution will work for me. I've spent enough money on antennas.
 
vchimpanzee said:
Before the switch, they announced that they would be at reduced power temporarily. Whatever they still had to do would not be taking place until later in the year. They said this ON THE AIR. This is not some rumor I heard here. WLOS made a similar announcement.
Click to expand...

WGHP was operating from their aux tower, which is at the about the same height and almost the same power level (11 kW vs 11.5 kW). There should have been no observable difference in the two, and I imagine that had WGHP not been required by the FCC to announce the "reduced power" they wouldn't have said anything at all because the difference is so small.

- Trip
 
tripinva said:
vchimpanzee said:
Before the switch, they announced that they would be at reduced power temporarily. Whatever they still had to do would not be taking place until later in the year. They said this ON THE AIR. This is not some rumor I heard here. WLOS made a similar announcement.
Click to expand...

WGHP was operating from their aux tower, which is at the about the same height and almost the same power level (11 kW vs 11.5 kW). There should have been no observable difference in the two, and I imagine that had WGHP not been required by the FCC to announce the "reduced power" they wouldn't have said anything at all because the difference is so small.

- Trip
Click to expand...
Well, they're obviously at 'reduced power" now.

If they don't stay on channel 35, I probably won't even try to fix things if their new signal doesn't work. Roy is online, after all.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom