"nstead of one tower per station as it is now, they all plan on having their DTV antenna's on one tower. But, of course, and environmentalist group is preventing that from happening."
That means the some people will get all of the stations and other will get none of them. It also means one terroist strike or power outage will take out all of the stations. That is a very bad ideal. It should not be allowed.
The power outage won't affect it. Most stations run on backup power at the transmitter sites. But I agree, one "act of God" or terrorist strike would knock all of them off the air simultaneously. Just like what happend at the WTC.
With the higher gain ,and thus more directional , antenna needed to asure digital reception placing the broadcast antennas on one tower makes a great deal of sense. Having all the analog broadcast on the Twin Towers was done to improve coverage. If you have broadcast antennas in several location people will have to re-orient the receiving antenna as they change channels.horrors!Well,at least the people who live in the intermediate area.For distant viewers ,towers spaced a mile apart are no big deal.