On 1/13/2010 12:18 PM, Metspitzer wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:45:34 -0500, "Percival P. Cassidy"
wrote:

I can no longer find the message, but I'm sure that it was on one of
these two newsgroups within the past few days that I read an allegation
that the move from analog to digital for TV broadcasting was a plot to
push vast numbers of people to cable or satellite because the digital
signal is receivable only over a very small area.

I mentioned this allegation to a broadcast engineer yesterday. He told
me that in fact many people are not getting good reception of the OTA
digital signals and are moving to cable or satellite because many of the
expensive HD TVs on the market have appallingly insensitive antenna
inputs -- far inferior to the almost-free converter boxes that were
distributed over the last couple of years.

Perce

To the people that use OTA digital, how far do you live from the TV
stations?

I live in an area where we could never get good TV signals. I am
interesting in hearing from people that had poor TV and are using OTA
for digital. I live 45-60 miles from the stations.
I live only 10 miles from most of my transmitters and found that even a highly
amplified, directional indoor antenna did not give me satisfactory reception
even though the land is almost flat between here and there. I needed to spend
hundreds of $ to have a rooftop directional antenna installed (my roof is high,
peaked, and I'm no spring chicken). Reception is excellent except when there
are storms, high winds, or low altitude airplanes in the transmission path.
When those conditions pertain, I get a little pixelation and occasionally a
dropout for a second or two.

I do have a second element on the mast pointing in a different direction to
receive one UHF PBS station that is 22 miles away. Interesting enough, the
reception quality and problems is identical to the problems I have with the
transmitters that are only 10 miles away. No preamps or line amplifiers in use,
and the signal is being split 3 ways for 3 different rooms in the house.

I've always had OTA reception and figured that after only about 6 mos, if the
rooftop antenna doesn't cut it, I can always go to cable. The cable bill in 6
mos for just basic service would exceed the cost of the antenna installation.

45-60 miles? GOOD LUCK WITH OTA!!