Coupon program begins to help low-tech TV owners convert to digital broadcasting(weird spam image)

AP ^ | 01/01/08 | John Dunbar

[Erasmus]

I guess I should jump in here where angels fear to tread...

The FCC and the industry have done some pretty extensive propagation studies of DTV on all channels. The FCC’s intention all along has been to let a station get the same coverage with their digital signal that they had with their analog one. It is true that some extreme fringe viewers of analog signals may be out of luck with digital; but if the signal on analog produced a picture that was acceptable to you or me, then the digital signal will be receivable also.

Broadcasters are finding that the mathematical propagation models are being borne out in practice.

And the amazing thing is that the DTV transmitters are running with only about a tenth of the power of the old analog transmitters, for equivalent coverage. Broadcasters like this—once they turn off their analog transmitters, their power bills will be noticeably less than in the analog era.

By the way, for over-the-air viewers that had reasonably strong signals but were tormented by ghosting (especially prevalent with the old rabbit ears or dinky UHF loop), DTV is exceptionally good at resisting that kind of signal degradation.

[LongTimeMILurker]

Still looking for volunteers to fix my $300.00 converter box. With some experimentation with that, I might be more inclined to agree. But I still think that the models are flawed, and that’s based on my experience NOT BEING ABLE TO RECEIVE STATIONS WELL WITHIN THE PREDICTED HDTV CONTOUR. This is based on predictions from the FCC website. Also, even all local stations within 15 miles were not received on a bowtie placed several feet from the TV and rotated and moved to different locations, and on a 4 Bay Bowtie with a screen reflector with a preamplifier and a rotator in the attic. I don’t believe a lot of these industry tests were done under real world conditions. Also, FCC predictions are based on a 30 foot antenna height, whereas many subdivisions have restrictions on antenna height and size. As for cable companies, many already receive signals from the stations by alternative means. A boon for cable as the only way to see most stations is all I can see. TV has become quite irrelevant to me anyway, so I guess I shouldn’t care. I certainly haven’t suffered one minute from the writer’s strike.

[BJungNan]

Thanks. Much appreciated explanation. FR is great.