On Jan 2, 10:06�am, "Pete C." wrote:
Robert wrote:

Drivel snipped

Quit your whining until a few months *after* the transition when most
stations will be transmitting their digital signals on their final
channel assignments and at their final power levels. Many are currently
transmitting digital on temporary channels, at low power from temporary
transmitters, from temporary antennas and in some cases from alternate
tower sites.

Well lets see

if you had perfect analog reception you will probably get good digital
reception

if you got ghosty, noisey or marginal analog reception you will likely
not get usable digital reception as reported by lots of friends and
internet postings

Most stations are on their final channel assignment, and final power
level. nearly all stations moved from VHF to UHF slots. VHF propagates
much better than UHF and UHF channels were traditionally muich higher
power than VHF. Trouble is the new digital UHF channels are lower
power than the VHF ones they replaced, done to cram more stations in a
smaller space.

The new digital channels arent going to expand number of channels for
free. They can have one flawless high def channel or up to 5 mixed
definition channels. perhaps 2 low def and one better def advertised
as high def. but not true high def.

performance of converter boxes isnt necessarily worse than a brand new
digital tv, but isnt necessarily better either.

where airplane flutter left a ghost on a analog channel on digital it
mght be a bunch of blocks, or a blank screen at intermittent times.

down in the carolinas they turned off analog early and found
viewership declined 20%. these people couldnt get service for one
reason nor another.

cable isnt everywhere and there are definetely places that cant get
satellite service, because of trees or other obstructions.

sadly people who have cable, or satellite dont appear very sympathetic
for those who are losing tv.

local stations have big plans for digital once the conversion is
complete

they are planning of getting together as a group, and offering pay
programming with the second generation of digital conversion boxes.

All thery must offer FREE is a single regular definition
channel.............

So they have perhaps 4 spare channels per station.

In a area with say 10 stations they could offer a pay cable like
service of 40 channels for profit.by subscription.

theres no requirement they offer high definition at all!

if your unhappy with any of this call your federal representives,
congress and senate since they are the ones who passed this #@!$%^%
idea.

I have satellite but sent for my coupons, if a satellite outage occurs
I still want to be able to watrch TV