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 had very bad reception and only 3 or 4 channels, often unwatchable.
With digital I now have 6 channels (without counting the -2 -3
simulcasts) and 3 or 4 more that are the same as other channels I get.
I have the antenna about 20' taller than the roof and a rotator. I want
to try going taller yet but I need a 2nd person and some guy line. BTW,
to go 20 feet up, I'm using black pipe, not antenna mast. My biggest
problem is a mountain blocking about 180 degrees of reception area. The
distance to the stations I receive is about 30 to 90 miles, probably
further yet are those channels that are all the same and I deleted them.
The mountain plays tricks here. All 6 of those channels come in
fairly good with the antenna pointed in what should be the WRONG
direction for all of them. About 90 degrees off. To get a 7th channel,
a very good PBS station, I have to rotate the antenna and it seems like
it's hit or miss with the rotator just where it's going to work tonight.