Pat wrote: "You may fail to grasp it, too. When you hear about TV stations
(especially UHF stations) using millions of watts of power, they are
referring to ERP - Effective Radiated Power. That means the actual
power going into the antenna is much lower but the antenna has very
high gain. Rarely do stations use more than a few thousand watts of
actual power. The transmitter's actual power usage is a drop in the
bucket compared to all the other energy a TV station uses for lights,
cameras, HVAC, etc. "

________
Alright, say a typical medium market
station has historically transmitted
2,000W as a NTSC. 2009 they go
fully ATSC, still at 2,000W. Hundreds
of letters from viewers flood their
mailbox, and thousands of callers
jam their phone boards about not
being able to pick them up over the
air with their new TVs. Most are from
viewers in the outer one-third of the
station's transmission radius.


Station board deliberates, and
after a couple months decides to
increase transmitter wattage to 2,500W.
Viewer complaints plummet, while
greenhouse gas emmissions steadily
rise to generate additional electricity as
this scenario is mulitiplied across dozens
of medium markets and many major
markets.

Grasp that!


Yeah, I get that actual wattage is but
a fraction of ERP, but it still adds up
as many TV stations must increase their
signal strength to cover the same
audience area in digital as they did
via analog.