My DTV experience has been quite poor. First of all I subscribe to a
"wireless cable" service (no worries there), but my father lives in a rural
part of Kansas. With an antenna at 45 feet and a mast mounted pre-amp he
gets very serviceable pictures on the big 5 (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS). The
same arrangement yields only PBS and CBS on digital reliably.
In the last couple of months I have traveled to Kansas twice in preparation
for DTV. We added 3 dB to the antenna, and have taken it 10 feet higher,
which now will make ABC visible about half the time, FOX and NBC are still
never in on digital except sometimes in the wee hours of the morning. The
analog signals were noticeably improved by the higher gain antenna and
height improvement. He will miss FOX the most due to the sporting events
they carry.
I am kind of out of ideas, tired of climbing his tower, and not impressed by
DTV.
73,
Joe kk0sd
-----Original Message-----
From: rfi-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:rfi-bounces@contesting.com] On
Behalf Of Roger (K8RI)
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 4:33 PM
Cc: RFI List
Subject: Re: [RFI] RFI Susceptibility of DTV?
Andy wrote:
>> Given the reduced power of ATSC, ...
>>
>
> Is the reduced power permanent? Or is this just during the interim period
> when both ATSC and NTSC are in use? (I thought the temporary DTV
> assignments were at lower power.)
>
> The lower VHF channels are MOSTLY going away / being reassigned to other
> services, except in some areas.
There's a lot of channel switching around, but I think you'll find the
low VHF including channel 2 will still be widely used and are not going
away. They certainly are not being reassigned to other services. The
only reassignments to other services are channels 56 and up.
> There's a
>
> 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've found that currently I get perfect reception from
stations in the Lansing and Northern Detroit area that were basically
unwatchable in analog. Although my two antennas are high, they are
fixed in position. Again that is something I couldn't do with analog.
I'm also using only UHF antennas instead of the VHF/UHF combo as the
stations on VHF (high and low) are strong enough that this works.
The problem is the analog and digital are currently on different
frequencies. Some stations will switch to digital on their original
channel assignment and some will keep the current digital channel
instead. In the state of MI I only found a couple that will remain on
the original channel. It looks like a game of "musical channels" with
all the switching around. At least it appears we still will have only
one channel 2 which will be moving from the SE side of the state to the SW.
> I don't think people won't be able to pin the blame on hams. If their
> reception goes out every evening when you fire up your rig, and at the
same
> time your voice or CW comes through on their stereo, then they will
connect
> the dots.
>
There is no doubt there will be some problems, but in the long run I
think interference problems will be considerably less. More than likely
they will come from those in densely populated areas still trying to use
rabbit ears. One thing digital TV doesn't do is ghost. Instead of
ghosting, multipathing does cause the same symptoms as weak signals
which under certain conditions can cause any thing from mild pixelation
to complete loss of the desired station. In the case of a marginal
signal, just strong enough to give a lock which gives picture perfect
reception, a slight case of interference might be enough to push it over
the edge.
I have one big UHF antenna that is pointed due South which picks up
stations (Low VHF through UHF) from SE through SW reliably to a 100
miles plus a tad. I have one big UHF TV antenna pointed NW which does a
good job in that direction , but all stations in that direction are
within 20 degrees
73
Roger (K8RI)
> Andy
>
>
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>
>
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