WEDH-DT Channel 45 Hartford on the air :)

[KML0224]

Fantastic news! I live in the south end of New Britain. The signal meter on my Insignia digital converter box is no less than 90% with this new service. Until now, only WVIT-DT channel 35 would give me 90% on the signal meter. WTIC-DT and WTXX-DT are just under that for me. Just out of curiosity, I manually tuned to WEDN-DT, which is now on channel 9. My box detected a slight signal, but doesn't start showing anything on the screen until I get at least a 33% signal. By the way, what is the visual ERP of WEDH-DT? Also, is WEDH-TV analog channel 24 going to remain on the air until February 17, 2009?

 

[tripinva]

WEDH-DT has a CP for 465 kW DA.

- Trip

 

[fybush]

By the way, what is the visual ERP of WEDH-DT?

Time to shed the concepts of both "visual" and "ERP."

Unlike an analog TV signal, which has separate visual and aural components, a DTV signal is one big fat 19.39 mbps datastream. The audio rides right along on the same stream of bits that's carrying the video, the PSIP data, the PAT data and everything else that makes up the complex signal. This is why the "TV sound radio" is about to be a thing of the past - such a device for DTV, if it existed, would simply be a standard DTV tuner chip with no video display connected.

And power levels are measured differently for DTV, too - instead of the peak visual ERP that defines an analog station's licensed power level, an ATSC digital signal is licensed at an average power level. The rough equivalency is 1 MW digital power = 5 MW analog visual ERP, but real-life reception experience suggests that may be somewhat overly hopeful.

 

[KML0224]

Thank you for the info? (LOL) Seriously, I didn't even realize thais was the case!

Now then, does anybody know if this new signal will reach into New Haven? Yes, there's WEDY-DT on channel 6, but is that station only intended for the city of New Haven proper? 30 miles to the north-northeast and I've never received even a sliver of signal on that Insignia box I mentioned earlier.

TripinVA? Why is their CP listed as directional?

 

[tripinva]

TripinVA? Why is their CP listed as directional?

They have to protect WABC-DT 45.

- Trip

 

[DJKraze]

But isn't that only until 2/17/09 when WABC moves it's DT to 7 ?

 

[tripinva]

Yeah, but replacing antennas isn't trivial, and they have WEDW-DT to fill the gap. I imagine the pattern will remain as is. 19.9 kW to the southwest, about 400 kW in most other directions.

- Trip