"N8N" wrote in message
...
On Jan 15, 11:28 am, N8N wrote:
On Jan 15, 9:44 am, "Smarty" wrote:





Many if not most homeowners who are trying to now get over the air HDTV
reception are finding that indoor antennas are not adequate and often
need
to use expensive outdoor antennas.

Ironically, the entire problem could have been avoided if the FCC had
proper
engineering people who had chosen / demanded higher transmitter power
and
transmitting antenna type and site choices.

By increasing the effective radiated power by another 6 to 9 dB, they
would
have put a much smaller burden on the homeowner antenna, and lowered the
deployment cost and risk for the homeowner tremendously.

I gotta' believe that the choices they made were driven by sparing the
broadcasters the extra operating costs of consuming all the extra
kilowatt
hours.

The FCC would, if challenged, probably claim that they kept the ERP to a
small number to prevent co-channel interference between neighboring
cites.

But in the UHF spectrum, they have so vastly more spectrum to allocate
that
they could have very, very easily chosen clear channels for every
neighbor,
and allowed homeowners to use simple rabbit ears and bow ties rather
than
need outdoor directional antennas even in urban and suburban areas to
get
all the local programming.

Colin Powell's son, an attorney, headed the FCC during the HDTV planning
and
transition. Talk about technical qualifications for the job.............

Smarty

Oddly enough I find that I get the best reception with rabbit ears and
bow ties. I've tried several fancier antennas and they've all been
worthless junk. I think the only thing that would likely give an
improvement, from what I've read, is either a) a homemade bow tie
array (I may try this) b) either a "silver sensor" or Winegard SS-3000
type antenna or c) a proper roof or attic mounted antenna.

It seems that there is a LOT of junk on the market at the moment, and
if someone buys a new "amplified antenna" and then finds that they
only get one channel, they may bitch and moan about how crappy DTV is
but they may find that if they just try an old bowtie they get 20+
channels. I know that that's been my experience, I've returned
several medium-priced antennas because they didn't work any better
than a piece of wire jammed in the F-connector on the back of the box.

nate

Discovered something annoying last night... was watching the playoff
game (go stillers) and decided to watch it OTA rather than off cable
so I could see it in widescreen (well, letterboxed, but whatever) I am
using a Channel Master CM7000 tuner box with aforementioned wabbit
ears and bowtie. Every couple minutes the audio would drop out for a
second or so then come back in, sometimes with some pixellation
sometimes not. I thought it might be a problem with the station's sat
feed because I have not noticed this on any other channels that I
watch. But the same thing happened with the news this AM as I left it
on Channel 9 (WUSA) rather than one of the other channels. Now I
never watch Channel 9, so I have not noticed this before, but it
doesn't appear to be a problem with my setup as I can leave the "info"
menu on the screen and see that the signal strength remains pegged at
100% while it drops out. Also ran a long piece of coax up the stairs
just to see if it was antenna position but with the antenna upstairs
it still does this. Have not seen this with any other channels... if
this is going to be permanent this kinda puts a damper on my TV
watching experience, and I may just keep my cable and not install a
roof mounted antenna like I'd originally planned. Based on the
coverage maps I'm just outside the "red" zone for WUSA so this should
not be a problem at all.

nate


Nate,

"Multipath cancellation" can wreak havoc with digital signals, loosely
analogous to "ghosts" which can show up on analog signals. The problem
arises from the temporary or permanent bounce of the transmitted signal on
some reflector between you and the transmitter. This bounced signal arrives
slightly later, via a different path from the direct signal. The result at
your antenna is a cancellation or smearing of digital data.

Overhead aircraft can cause the problem. Fluttering tree limbs are also
often the culprit. One problem I ultimately found was a large nearby traffic
sign blowing in the wind which caused my relative to have drop-outs on windy
days. Signal strengths can be very high but this effect will still show up.

The modulation system used for over-the-air digital TV has some built-in
immunity, using redundant bits, forward error correction, and other methods,
but it is far from being perfect.

Cable companies will normally site their receiving antennas at very high
locations to ensure line of sight reception with little or no multipath
degradation. Highly directional antennas can also help, but introduce their
own new issues related to proper pointing.

A brief description of how multipath is measurable with a Sencore test
device is at:
http://www.sencore.com/uploads/files...veGoodHDTV.pdf

Smarty

On Jan 19, 2:35�pm, "Smarty" wrote:
"N8N" wrote in message

...
On Jan 15, 11:28 am, N8N wrote:





On Jan 15, 9:44 am, "Smarty" wrote:

Many if not most homeowners who are trying to now get over the air HDTV
reception are finding that indoor antennas are not adequate and often
need
to use expensive outdoor antennas.

Ironically, the entire problem could have been avoided if the FCC had
proper
engineering people who had chosen / demanded higher transmitter power
and
transmitting antenna type and site choices.

By increasing the effective radiated power by another 6 to 9 dB, they
would
have put a much smaller burden on the homeowner antenna, and lowered the
deployment cost and risk for the homeowner tremendously.

I gotta' believe that the choices they made were driven by sparing the
broadcasters the extra operating costs of consuming all the extra
kilowatt
hours.

The FCC would, if challenged, probably claim that they kept the ERP to a
small number to prevent co-channel interference between neighboring
cites.

But in the UHF spectrum, they have so vastly more spectrum to allocate
that
they could have very, very easily chosen clear channels for every
neighbor,
and allowed homeowners to use simple rabbit ears and bow ties rather
than
need outdoor directional antennas even in urban and suburban areas to
get
all the local programming.

Colin Powell's son, an attorney, headed the FCC during the HDTV planning
and
transition. Talk about technical qualifications for the job..............

Smarty

Oddly enough I find that I get the best reception with rabbit ears and
bow ties. I've tried several fancier antennas and they've all been
worthless junk. I think the only thing that would likely give an
improvement, from what I've read, is either a) a homemade bow tie
array (I may try this) b) either a "silver sensor" or Winegard SS-3000
type antenna or c) a proper roof or attic mounted antenna.

It seems that there is a LOT of junk on the market at the moment, and
if someone buys a new "amplified antenna" and then finds that they
only get one channel, they may bitch and moan about how crappy DTV is
but they may find that if they just try an old bowtie they get 20+
channels. I know that that's been my experience, I've returned
several medium-priced antennas because they didn't work any better
than a piece of wire jammed in the F-connector on the back of the box.

nate

Discovered something annoying last night... was watching the playoff
game (go stillers) and decided to watch it OTA rather than off cable
so I could see it in widescreen (well, letterboxed, but whatever) I am
using a Channel Master CM7000 tuner box with aforementioned wabbit
ears and bowtie. �Every couple minutes the audio would drop out for a
second or so then come back in, sometimes with some pixellation
sometimes not. �I thought it might be a problem with the station's sat
feed because I have not noticed this on any other channels that I
watch. �But the same thing happened with the news this AM as I left it
on Channel 9 (WUSA) rather than one of the other channels. �Now I
never watch Channel 9, so I have not noticed this before, but it
doesn't appear to be a problem with my setup as I can leave the "info"
menu on the screen and see that the signal strength remains pegged at
100% while it drops out. �Also ran a long piece of coax up the stairs
just to see if it was antenna position but with the antenna upstairs
it still does this. �Have not seen this with any other channels.... �if
this is going to be permanent this kinda puts a damper on my TV
watching experience, and I may just keep my cable and not install a
roof mounted antenna like I'd originally planned. �Based on the
coverage maps I'm just outside the "red" zone for WUSA so this should
not be a problem at all.

nate

Nate,

"Multipath cancellation" can wreak havoc with digital signals, loosely
analogous to "ghosts" which can show up on analog signals. The problem
arises from the temporary or permanent bounce of the transmitted signal on
some reflector between you and the transmitter. This bounced signal arrives
slightly later, via a different path from the direct signal. The result at
your antenna is a cancellation or smearing of digital data.

Overhead aircraft can cause the problem. Fluttering tree limbs are also
often the culprit. One problem I ultimately found was a large nearby traffic
sign blowing in the wind which caused my relative to have drop-outs on windy
days. Signal strengths can be very high but this effect will still show up.

The modulation system used for over-the-air digital TV has some built-in
immunity, using redundant bits, forward error correction, and other methods,
but it is far from being perfect.

Cable companies will normally site their receiving antennas at very high
locations to ensure line of sight reception with little or no multipath
degradation. Highly directional antennas can also help, but introduce their
own new issues related to proper pointing.

A brief description of how multipath is measurable with a Sencore test
device is at:http://www.sencore.com/uploads/files...veGoodHDTV.pdf

Smarty- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

gee I saw this last nite in pittsburgh but wasnt watching the game.
signal strength bounces a lot over time, apparently on all channels I
was watching RTN one of channel 11s feeds

Its the super bowl bottom of the 4 quarter its a long pass, its going
going

(blank screen) the fans are going wild here! it was the pass of a
century, the final score (blank screen)

my normal signal strength is excellent on the channel blanking out