On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:54:58 -0600, Gary \"Joe\" Mayfield wrote:
> www.antennaweb.org is very useful indeed.
Depends on what you call useful. antennaweb got my address right
on a map, and told me there were NO signals at my QTH. My local
TV comes from two sites, one 42 miles away and the other 45
miles, only 20 degrees apart.
>Your mileage may vary.
It certainly will. Yesterday, I stuck a 4x2 bowtie (with a
reflector) on a 20 ft mast with its base on the ground and fed
it into both an old analog TV and my new Sony XBR6. The analog
TV made fairly good pictures on three channels. Some noise, but
very watchable.There were several other channels that synced but
didn't produce a watchable pix. The XBR6, fed with 100 ft of
low loss RG6 (about 5 dB loss), found only two of the analog
stations but made perfect pictures on three DTV stations (a
total of 8 digital programs).
My 4x2 bowtie is a pretty simple antenna that probably has about
10 dBd and about 60 degrees at the -3dB points. Now that I see I
have some signal, I'll work on getting that antenna permanently
installed and a bit higher and add a preamp ordered., I suspect
that will pull out a few more signals and add some fade margin.
I think it is safe to say the DTV signals WILL get better as the
transition proceeds. Most stations with DTV transmitters on
channels adjacent to their analog channels are purposely running
less than their licensed power so that they don't QRM their own
analog signal (we don't want ratings to suffer -- that's bread
and butter). The stations that will switch to a new channel are
using temporary antennas and transmitters now, and they may also
be at temporary sites.
Once the transition is complete (and that may take some time),
we're going to see everyone getting up to whatever their full
licensed power is and running from their best TX sites. So
before you do too much weeping and knashing of teeth, give the
broadcasters some time to work through it.
73,
Jim K9YC
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