Any Sites For HDTV Station Footprints

Unlike satellite, terrestrial television does not really have a footprint receive area. Terrestrial television reception is highly dependent on location where you get best reception at high locations where there are the least amount of obstructions between transmitter and receiver.


An excellent web site is http://www.ardman.net/ where you can use the Free TV Coverage Map. You need to specify your receiver's Zip Code or Latitude/Longitude and the tool will give you a list of TV stations, their signal levels at your location, and compass heading for your receiving antenna. This is a nifty tool but it appears it may not be available for long as a free service.


DonP

I think that free service is already gone. I've tried for a couple of days to go to that Free Coverage map but I just get a repeat of the home page in a frame.

Our local stations have not measured their digital signal on the ground. They get what they call a fly around which I assume means an airplane flys around the signal area and takes rough measurements. This method does not take into account signal shape, ground terrain, reflections...etc.


Perhaps you could offer to help the engineering department of your local station to take measurements.

Just tried the site and it worked fine for WCBS.


However, the data is quite different than the maps WCBS posted about a year ago showing (I think) the measured effective area.

Ah...I got it to work by clicking in the scrolling ticker.