On Jan 23, 2009, at 5:32 PM, Roger (K8RI) wrote:
>> I read that huge areas of rural residents will find themselves
>> without any
>> TV after the transition. Currently they live with watchable snowy
>> pictures.
>> With DTV they are out of luck.
>>
> There is a small possibility that this may happen in some areas due to
> the channel switching, but in rural areas you rarely find people using
> rabbit ears for antennas. Generally you find some good, or not so
> good
> outdoor antennas.
> When going to digital and the temporary channels I find I get over
> double the number of channels I did on analog.
>
> IF the channel is snowy with a "watchable" picture it will be crystal
> clear in digital.
I can't agree with this. Here in the central Adirondacks of upstate
NY, during a sunspot minimum I get very useable analog pictures from
Syracuse, Utica, and Watertown on channels 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, and a few
UHF channels (16, 20, 24, 33, 68), too. The UHF channels tend to be
"snowy", as does Channel 2 from Utica, but the other VHF channels are
almost as clear as satellite, despite the mountainous area tending to
add multipath to everything. My antenna is a 10-year-old Radio Shack
"fringe" VHF/FM/UHF design with a mast-mounted preamp and coax into
the room directly below it. The antenna is about 30 feet over the
lake I'm on, but probably 60 feet below the tops of the pine trees all
around me. Utica is 60 miles away, Syracuse perhaps 90, and Watertown
30 -- all in different directions.
Using the same antenna, the same preamp and the same feedline, but
adding a top-rated DTV converter (the Zenith), I get only channel 7
out of Watertown. No amount of fiddling with the TV antenna heading
brings anything else in. My local satellite TV installer says he's
not surprised, and expects I won't see any additional channels until I
put the antenna and the preamp up above the nearby tree tops -- if then.
The people in the hamlets around here have cable, so they won't care
much. But those of us outside the hamlets that depend on local
weather maps (especially in this lake effect snow belt region I live
in) are going to be out of luck. Utica is our "local" metropolis but,
because of some arcane FCC or Congressional ruling, neither Utica nor
Watertown can be one of satellite TV's "local" options. And, to add
insult to injury, in our zip code another Congressional mandate makes
it illegal for the satellite TV suppliers to offer Syracuse as our
local option!
Love those politicians!
Bud, W2RU
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