THE REAL REASON CONGRESS IS DEMANDING AMERICA CONVERT TELEVISONS FROM ANALOG TO DIGITAL???

08 March 2008 | Robert Drobot

[SkyPilot]

[DB]

There's only so much radio frequency spectrum below 1 GHz. Conventional TV used the fast majority of it. With digital video broadcast the quality is much better and the spectrum use is far more efficient. That frees up a large chunk of spectrum for new uses such as truly broad band wireless Internet and other related technologies. The current WiFi allocations are too narrow for wide spread broad band. They are also shared with other unlicensed transmitters such as microwave ovens and cordless phones etc...

So in other words, for the most part it is called progress.

[1rudeboy]

Obviously, the tin foil lobby is behind this so they can sell lots of tin foil hats.

But what about the tinfoil people use to fix their indoor analog antennae? Is the tinfoil lobby working at cross-purposes?

[John W]

Post 15 includes the stated reason for this. Anyone dispute that information?

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

There is a big discussion in the amateur radio circles about that very thing - I think you are right on target.

[John W]

Should have said 14 & 15.

[tet68]

Obviously, the tin foil lobby is behind this so they can sell lots of tin foil hats

Ya’ll just don’t make the connection, digital signals defeat aluminium foil....go through it like butter right
to the brain stem, say hello to your new alien overlords.

[Thermalseeker]

Because when they’ve moved everybody off the current analog broadcast frequencies, they can then auction those frequencies off to the highest bidder, and use the money to buy more votes.

DING, DING, DING, DING! We have a winner!

The FCC controls the "public airwaves". They are controlling, or attempting to control, the entire electromagnetic spectrum, they see dollar signs and there's nothing "free market" about it. Just a bunch of goobermint bureaucrats messin' things up (again). I spent the better part of 18 years dealing with those nitwits at the FCC in the wireless industry. I could tell you stories that would make your hair curl......

[TomGuy]

For similar reasons that are forcing the fluorescent light bulbs. Mandates create corporate profits, per McCain. His problem is, however, he doesn't apparently realize that the consumers ultimately pay the cost.

As McCain stated in a This Week interview:

This is McCain (from This Week, February 17, 2008) [emphasis added]:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about on the issue of climate change? Because you and Sen. [Joe] Lieberman [I-Conn.] have come out for a bill which would have mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases.

MCCAIN: Gradual reductions, yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they are mandatory.

MCCAIN: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you sticking by that?

MCCAIN: What I mean by that is that it's cap-and-trade, that there will be incentives for people to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's a free-market approach. The Europeans are using it now. We did it in the case of addressing acid rain -- look, if we do that, we stimulate green technologies. I have great faith in the American industry. General Electric, the world's largest corporation, has announced they're dedicated to green technologies. This will be profit-making business.

It won't cost the American taxpayer. It will make profits, because we'll move forward with the innovation and ability of American industry to address this issue.

No wonder McCain admits he doesn't know much about economics. Who does he think is going to pay for GE making all that profit, since he says it isn't the American taxpayer? Will President McCain just mandate that profits will henceforth grow on trees? Where is the profit from those mandated fluorescent bulbs coming from?

[Hint, JohnnyMc: Consumers. And a majority of consumers are also taxpayers. So, all that corporate profit will cost the taxpayers.]

[meyer]

The simple (if devious) explanation is that the media giants like digital because it gives them 2-way communications (they know what you're watching) and they think that all the recording permissiveness that courts granted in the analog VCR and cassette era will be erased in the digital era and they will be able to stop people from recording shows for free.

Oh, and with digital, they can squeeze many more channels in a given bandwidth as compared to analog.

[Robert Drobot]

"The 9/11 commission mandated better public safety radio the best system required reassigning the 24 MHZ for public safety radio frequencies."

This dictatorial hammer comes from Congress. The 9/11 commission's charter didn't provide it with the authority to mandate anything.

[meyer]

For similar reasons that are forcing the fluorescent light bulbs. Mandates create corporate profits, per McCain. His problem is, however, he doesn't apparently realize that the consumers ultimately pay the cost.

That is exactly true as well. Mandates create profits for the few, at the expense of the many.

Sounds like the democRAT mantra - Sacrifice the many to benefit us few.

[TomGuy]

I love conspiracies

Conspiracies?

Read the comments out of McCain's mouth in post 29

McCain basically says that the government is creating mandates so that businesses will profit.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Bandwidth. Plain and simple. Analogue TV is 1930's technology. (AM Radio is 19-ought's technology, FM also 1930's. that's another story.)

There is a straightforward trade off of bandwidth for receiver/transmitter complexity. It may have escaped the author, but there has been some slight progress in electronics since the 1939 New York World's Fair.

[DB]

Congress through the FCC has always controlled spectrum allocation. Much of that spectrum has been stuck in a time warp from days long since past. Only congress can reassign the use of that spectrum which there is only one of. You can't make more. It is a national resource. It is high time that it caught up with current technology so it can be used with much higher efficiency and benefit many more people.

TV channel allocations were done in the late 1940's with late 40's technology in mind... A lot has changed since then... It is about time it caught up with current technology...

It is as simple as that.

[Hot Tabasco]

It uses narrower frequencies than analog.

I noticed my latest HDTV's (that have the built in HD tuners)have the capacity for probably thousands of channels. Example, my channel 7 is standard digital and 7.1 is the HD counterpart.

And my newer Pioneer has channels not yet assigned signals such as "7.???" ......etc. I guess the number of channel possibilities are now infinite.....

[Mad Dawgg]

?

[InvisibleChurch]

because the screens are made of compact fluorescent lightbulbs

[Rb ver. 2.0]

“Just thinking...worst case scenario...easier to manipulate propaganda?)”

DING-DING-DING!

My thought too.

[purpleraine]

Just a wild guess, but the broadcast system has to be standardized. Government regulation is the way to ensure that.

In the 20s and early 30s there was a radio station, IIRC, in Cincinnati broadcasting with 500,000 watts. People were picking it up with their fillings, on barb wire in Wyoming, and it went all the way to Australia. If we had the free market prevail, two or three of those would have dominated radio. I don't think that was a good thing. In fact government intervention ensured more broadcasters could get into the market.

HD is a improvement of the standard. People have had a 6 year notice with 1 extension. I'm sorry, I don't see the problem.