The official final DTV Table Of Allotments/channel change thread - Page 60

Ah, OK, it was that group of stations that was discussed earlier.

Still sucks that the FCC, as usual, can't get their crap together, when they need to. They approve that stupid system to use whitespace, yet can't get a legit station back on the air.

During the two minute DTV tests at 7:28 tonight here in San Francisco I recorded two SD stations off of Dish Network and one station OTA, and I turned on the old analog TV and ran through the channels while the test was on, plus I had a chance to check a few of the digital channels before it was over. Here's what I found.

Both SD channels via Dish showed that I was ready for DTV, so that means Dish is carrying the digital channels. I suspected that already, because KQED, our PBS station, has part of it's logo clipped off in the lower right corner on Dish. You can't tell with the other stations because they have their bugs within the 4:3 boundary. It appears that Dish Network is using the HD channel and clipping off the sides and showing everything 4:3.

Going through the analog channels, all of the major stations participated, except KQED, our main PBS station... (that was a surprise)... and two independent stations. In all cases I saw the red slate saying that I was not ready for DTV and listing the numbers to call for assistance. In San Francisco, they are offering assistance by just dialing 211 anytime. They also listed the 800 FCC number and one other, plus the web address dtv.org. I noticed that our main Asian language station had their slate in all Chinese characters. I got to see about five of the digital stations before the test ended... all showing green slates, of course. One just kept repeating "Your television is ready for digital. You have nothing further to do." Another said "This TV is ready for digital, but you should check the rest of the TVs in your home, too, to see if they're ready." A third said that the TV you're watching is ready for digital, but also check your other sets while the test is on. Then they went on about helping your friends and neighbors who might have trouble updating their TVs to digital. I thought that was a good idea.

Finally, after the test was over, I noticed that one of the analog stations ran a crawl across the top of the screen for about 10 minutes saying "The television you're watching is not ready for digital TV." Then it listed the phone numbers and dtv.org to contact for further information on fixing the problem.

I don't see how anyone who watches TV at least a little doesn't know about the analog stations shutting down. Besides these tests, there are dozens of PSAs and crawls every day. But how many will do something about it before February 17? They have reported that a high percentage of the Bay Area viewers who use an antenna and watch OTA TV are still not ready for digital. I suspect that Best Buy, Circuit City, Fryes and Radio Shack will be doing a big business on February 18th.

Larry
SF

I recall reading quotes from folks in Wilmington, NC saying that anyone who admits to not being ready for the switch after all this promotion ought to have their photos in the paper so they can be publicly humiliated.

As far as I know, they didn't do that, but there were thousands of people who either weren't ready or hadn't tried the box in advance and ran into trouble.

Dish still isn't ready in Raleigh...

How many actually have a digital ready TV but see the 'Not ready' message because they are obliviously watching a station's analog channel?

--- CHAS

I have been told they are up here in the Triad and so is DirecTV.

More than you can imagine.

After our test last night, and we have been doing these tests since September, I had one lady call who had NO CLUE what was going on.

How much cramming of the information does it take?

POST-TRANSITION DTV TABLE OF ALLOTMENTS, 47 C.F.R. § 73.622(I), OMAHA, NEBRASKA. Changed station KXVO-DT's DTV channel from 15 to 38. (Dkt No. RM-11445, 08-115). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 12/17/2008 by R&O. (DA No. 08-2721). MB DA-08-2721A1.doc DA-08-2721A1.pdf DA-08-2721A1.txt


POST-TRANSITION DTV TABLE OF ALLOTMENTS, 47 C.F.R. § 73.622(I), COLUMBUS, GEORGIA. Changed station WTVM-DT's DTV channel from 9 to 11. (Dkt No. RM-11437, 08-100). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 12/17/2008 by R&O. (DA No. 08-2722). MB DA-08-2722A1.doc DA-08-2722A1.pdf DA-08-2722A1.txt


POST-TRANSITION DTV TABLE OF ALLOTMENTS, 47 C.F.R. § 73.622(I), AUGUSTA, GEORGIA. Changed station WFXG-DT's DTV channel from 51 to 31. (Dkt No. 08-103, RM-11441). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 12/17/2008 by R&O. (DA No. 08-2723). MB DA-08-2723A1.doc DA-08-2723A1.pdf DA-08-2723A1.txt


POST-TRANSITION DTV TABLE OF ALLOTMENTS, 47 C.F.R. 73.622(I), SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA. Proposed change of station KTBN-DT's DTV channel from 23 to 33. (Dkt No. 08-250, RM-11508). Action by: Chief, Video Division, Media Bureau. Adopted: 12/17/2008 by NPRM. (DA No. 08-2728). MB DA-08-2728A1.doc DA-08-2728A1.pdf DA-08-2728A1.txt

More than anyone can imagine........"People" are dumb for the most part....us techno geeks know what's going on (we hope! )...but 90% of the population dont know/understand/even know the change that is coming....The folks in the rural areas are the ones I feel sorry for....they are going to get a big suprise on 2.17.09......but then they may surprise ME! (probably not)

We can hope , right ?

Errr, not really.

A station I once worked at had a magazine comic taped to the STL cabinet, of an old lady sitting in front of a television with smoke billowing out of it. She was on the phone yelling "Your station is on fire!"

It wasn't far off from some of the calls we got. Occasionally from people in our own sales department.

http://www.southsidemessenger.com/ar...tories/ts3.txt

I wrote this for one of the two local newspapers. =)

- Trip

Good article. Perhaps I should try the same for the local newspaper, but they have not been very receptive to my previous comments on DTV.

Trip,

Is that your antenna setup?

Yes.

The top antenna is the Antennacraft Y5-2-6 for WBRA-DT.

The middle antenna is the Winegard PR-8800.

The bottom antenna is a 900 MHz yagi for my high-speed (when it works) Internet connection.

The yagi runs inside to a "WaveRider" radio which feeds into my router.

The two TV antennas are combined outside, then fed inside and split two ways, each of those getting its own amp. The one split goes straight to my dad's sound room where he wanted the best possible signal. The other gets split three ways to the office, the kitchen, and to my room. In the kitchen, it splits to go into the TV and the DTT900. In the office, it goes straight to the TV (Dad said something about getting a new TV for in there, so no box yet). In my room, it goes into a 4-way splitter, one for the HDV420 (RF loop out to the TV), one to the XDR-S3HD (when hooked up), and one running over to my computer, where it's split again so it can feed the two receivers in the computer. That's subject to change, for example right now the S3HD isn't hooked up, but I'm doing side-by-side converter box testing, so the two open spots on the splitter are feeding CECBs.

- Trip

Remember a while back we were arguing about FCC coverage maps of STAs not taking HAAT into account? I e-mailed Dale Bickel (the contact for the FCC TV Query) and asked and got this response:


So those STA maps on the FCC site aren't very accurate at all it would seem.

- Trip

That was a great write-up. I think part of the problems too with antennas is a lot of people (most) in fringe areas are trying to use those huge combination antennas and are finding the UHF portion just isn't powerful enough. I don't like those combo's for DTV.

Told ya you were right!

I wrote my article specifically for my area. In driving around, I saw so many upper-VHF-only antennas on houses, and have visited two people who had just that problem already.

I hadn't thought about combo antennas being an issue, though you're certainly right, because I saw so few of them.

- Trip

COMMISSIONER ADELSTEIN TO VISIT PHOENIX FOR DTV OUTREACH. News Release. News Media Contact: Katie Yocum (202) 418-2300 CMMR DOC-287418A1.doc DOC-287418A1.pdf DOC-287418A1.txt

What made you decide to put your VHF antenna on top? Is that the way you got the best signal? Usually you hear and read that the UHF should go on top. I have found a few times myself that the way you have it works better, depending on the signal strengths of what you are shooting for.

I tried to pitch a similar article to a local rag, but the "ink-stained infidels" weren't at all interested in helping their "broadcast breath-eren." I think they're waiting for the 2/17 crash-and-burn story.

BTW, it is now 60 days until analog shutdown day! (Well, except for LPs, TXs, and which ever stations sign up for the Night Light extension). If the reported numbers are right, there will still be millions of OTA viewers unprepared for that day. Going to be interesting...

My local papers have no TV competition since I live in the middle of nowhere. =) TV is nice but if you want local news, you're reading the paper!

- Trip

The Antennacraft replaced a Winegard Ghostkiller that we had been using for VHF analog (the Y5-2-6 gained 4-5 dB over the Ghostkiller on WBRA-DT) and the antennas were put up when our goal was not digital TV, but rather W54BT in Roanoke, which was at the time the home of UPN and thus Star Trek. The position on the pole made no difference to how W54BT looked, but made a lot of difference in how WDBJ-7 analog looked.

- Trip

Looking at that antenna on your roof makes me wonder how I fit one into my attic!

Of course, it was all folded when I took it up there, so, I had never seen one from this angle or from outside. After I unfolded it, I decided to leave it where it was, since I can't "easily" move in around through the rafters like the upper VHF and UHF antennas.

I agree.

In the LA area, combos rule, but many of them heavily favor VHF over UHF. It is extremely rare to see full three band (L/H/U) separates (probably less than 1:200 installations) or even VHF (2-13)/UHF separates.

UHF only antennas (for DTV) are more common than separates, but those viewers are in for a surprise in a couple months, at least for channel 7. 9-13 may work for some.

In the San Diego area, separates are much more common. The 3 bands are in 3 different locations there (at least for analog), so it was a good way to avoid using a rotor.

Combo antennas end up with out of band reception on the other elements, especially for UHF, reducing performance. I also found that while the "loops" of rabbit ear/loop combos are supposed to be for UHF, the "ears" can also pull in quite a bit for UHF. If these combos came with internal diplexers, I'm sure it would help performance a great deal.

That's an interesting point about local news. Since Orange County is part of the LA DMA, we have no local network stations and almost no local news, for about 3M people.

The LA stations do a "good" job of glossing over OC news, weather and traffic reports and only seem to send reporters here when we have those big fires.

One of the PBS stations has a news sub-channel and an independent station (KDOC) tried to air local news, but the latter failed.

However, I'm more than happy to take the range of the Mt. Wilson towers as a trade for little to no local news. 50 miles is not "rural" here, not by a long-shot.

So, if we want local news in Orange County, by and large, we have to read the paper as well.