Be sure to check the professional installers work.
Try not to piss them off but make sure everything is weatherproofed.
Get a decent tower like rohn 25. Make sure it is safely installed.
You may get more TV stations than you think from a hill.
"Everyone Should be aware that you're just a screen grab away from infamy."
My DTV will allow direct entry of channels like 3.2.
I do not know if the set-top boxes will do that.
The new set all seem to do a "scan and learn"
load of channels for the memory, so it could be
hard to watch channels from differing directions
using that type of memory.
"Everyone Should be aware that you're just a screen grab away from infamy."
The new sets seem to be designed by folks who have never watched television.
My Viewsonic has two RF inputs, one for cable, one for off-air. It has a good picture, but it only stores digital channels it finds on the off-air input. A nuisance when I was in Athens because Time Warner had the Columbus DTV feeds up on the higher cable channels (like 87, 90, 110). When I turned the set off I had to re-scan, since it could not find what it had not scanned first.
Also, for off-air viewing, I suspect a preamp will be needed, since most modern sets are "blind"--no front end since they are designed to be used on cable systems.
I had a 15 year hiatus from radio during the '80's and designed and installed many rather large antenna systems.
These were mainly for a group of people so they could have their own antenna system.
I still have a field strength meter, and used it at a friend's house recently to check for the digital channels in Pittsburgh.
I had such a low signal reading that I was certain it was a 'bust' but to my pleasant surprise, it doesn't take much of anything to get a good 'lock' and
with digital, it's pretty much either on or off.
Seriously though-----the signal levels that I experienced were so low they would've been considered 'non-usable' during the analog days.
I was surprised that he was able to get a good digital lock on everything we tried.
The levels were SO low that my meter is nearly worthless now.
(I do miss the physical part of it though------I used to climb at least one major hill daily to do 'signal-tests' and so forth so I could write an estimate and guarantee what channels they would receieve for X amount of dollars. AND------they had to bury their own cable. (I wasn't into that) I used 1/2" aluminum co-ax, and multi-plexed the power up the same cable to run the equipment on top of the hill. HERE'S ONE FOR LOUDIN--or TAGGERT------
Whenever I used the method of multi-plexing the power up the same cable as the TV signal used to come back down-----it was virtually lightning proof. I must've put in 100 of these mini-cable systems, and lightning was NEVER an issue.
However------some of the systems were 'upgraded' and already had separate power on a dedicated power line to run the power. Whenever I used THAT for my power-source, it could lightning 100 miles away and blow up everything.
I never could understand why.
I miss that piddling around with antennas and amps and mixers and so on, but nowadays--- I don't know who is broadcasting on what frequency from where.
As I said-----my last signal survey was done on top a hill at Nestorville, and I was certain it wasn';t worth-while to pursue, but it takes VERY, VERY, VERY little signal to get a good digital lock.
Again, THANK YOU to everyone that has helped out with this! And Dr. Whiplash, I've done business with Shadix. They're good people. Blattler's in Clarington, Ohio as well. Seems like a phone call to Shadix is in order!
Last edited by Greg Goodfellow on Mon Feb 16, 2009 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Television is a medium because anything well done is rare."
~ Fred Allen ~
“Radio is the theater of the mind; television is the theater of the mindless”-Steve Allen
Eric..in order to feed the power to the amplifier through the cable there needed to be some sort of circuit to isolate the DC from the RF circuits. This undoubtedly provided enough isolation to keep lightning out of the amplifier.
What I can't understand is that the reason for going digital was to free up the vhf band for other services. Then the FCC just turned around and reassigned the digitals to the same frequencies they were from. channel 3 analog to channel 3 digital and channel 13 analog to 13 digital. It looks like someone has money in either the manufacturing of dtvs or the converter boxes or maybe transmitters. channel 13 was on channel 47 and was told they would not be able to return to 13. they built a heavy duty tower and put up a uhf antenna to operate on 47. Then they had to buy a new dtv transmitter on 13 . they could have used their old antenna and feed lines. I don't know what channel 3 had to do. perhaps they bought a frequency agile transmitter?
WSAZ will turn off the channel 3 transmitter tonight.
They will remain on channel 23 with digital service.
Their psip may or may not remain as 3.1.
I suppose the branding thing is hard to break.
Otherwise they would be 23.1...
As for the other frequencies freed up, FCC regained all of the freq above channel 51, I think.
These will be assigned to eligible users after June. Low band VHF is not much in demand.
High UHF is in demand as the freqs can be re-used every hundred miles or so.
There is also far less co-channel problem with digital tv than with analog.
We will wait and see it WOWK channel 47 transmitter is put to some use.
"Everyone Should be aware that you're just a screen grab away from infamy."
The smart thing would have been to move all digital television licensees to Channels 14-51, even if you don't have an immediate plan to refarm Channels 2-13. For now, the analog low power stations and the nightlights could stay on 2-13. As many have mentioned, Channels 5 and 6 would be a great place for an expanded FM broadcast band. Channels 7-13 would make an excellent home for the public safety and business two way VHF bands that end at 174 MHz (the low end of Channel 7). The VHF 150-174 MHz band has proven to be a real workhorse, combining great propogation characteristics for suburban and rural areas with inexpensive equipment and reasonable antenna sizes. Perhaps a place to plan new nationwide or regional digital trunking networks, alleviating the congestion (and technical unworkability, in some cases) of 700, 800, and 900 MHz bands.
Gray applied to keep the Feb. 17 date for most of its stations, but the push-back from the FCC left it with 14 that could. As a final twist, Gray over the weekend decided to turn those off on the 16th, some in the afternoon and the rest at midnight, because its lawyers interpreted the rules as saying analog should be "off the air by the 17th" rather "go off the air on the 17th."
So much for a mandate.
"Everyone Should be aware that you're just a screen grab away from infamy."
Hoosier Daddy wrote:The smart thing would have been to move all digital television licensees to Channels 14-51, even if you don't have an immediate plan to refarm Channels 2-13.
Now that WSAZ has made the switch to digital when are they going to fix their audio sync problem
with the HD feed? When the network HD feed switches to the local feed there is digital chirp as if the audio
is ahead of the video...also the network audio sounds like its cutting out at the higher levels...All in all it's sounds
like crap...no excuse for it...don't heard it on 8,11, or 13...
The station reports that a 70-year-old Joplin man was arrested and charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm after shooting his TV set. Responding to a report of shots being fired, the station reported, the police found the man angry that he had both lost his cable and had been unable to get his new DTV converter box to work.
According to the man's wife, he had been drinking.
"Everyone Should be aware that you're just a screen grab away from infamy."
genlock wrote:The station reports that a 70-year-old Joplin man was arrested and charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm after shooting his TV set. Responding to a report of shots being fired, the station reported, the police found the man angry that he had both lost his cable and had been unable to get his new DTV converter box to work.
According to the man's wife, he had been drinking.
genlock wrote:The station reports that a 70-year-old Joplin man was arrested and charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm after shooting his TV set. Responding to a report of shots being fired, the station reported, the police found the man angry that he had both lost his cable and had been unable to get his new DTV converter box to work.
According to the man's wife, he had been drinking.
Must be a Windjammer subscriber.
I feel his pain. I've been told by others that have complained about very poor quality (yes, we're getting some stations, but it depends upon the day, temperature, wind velocity, tarot cards and horoscope, etc.) that all the techs went to the Midwest because of the ice storms.
BTW, my in-laws set up their tower, with the help of a son-cost them about $400.00 all told, but are very happy with the results. They're up against a hill, yet are getting quite a few stations. I called to be put on a waiting list-I should hear from Blattler's in Clarington tomorrow. If it's much more than $400, I may be brave enough (or stupid enough) to do it myself.
"Television is a medium because anything well done is rare."
~ Fred Allen ~
“Radio is the theater of the mind; television is the theater of the mindless”-Steve Allen
It is doubtful that one person could stack Rohn-25 by himself.
Be safe, get help. Do it right the first time.
Don't take any short cuts. Use gin pole.
Report back on your results.
Channels, signal strength, other quantitative numbers.
"Everyone Should be aware that you're just a screen grab away from infamy."
I misstated my in-law's use of tower. Instead, they used one ten-foot pipe, then had to cut down another piece for the three foot section attached to the antenna. It's no more than 13 or so feet off the ground.
You're right, Gen. Nobody's gonna do tower by himself/herself, gin pole or no. I'll probably just have Blattler's do everything, unless Shadix has a shorter waiting list and/or is less expensive. Whomever does it should surely do a field test; I'd much rather let the professionals do it and be done with it. We should know a lot more tomorrow.
"Television is a medium because anything well done is rare."
~ Fred Allen ~
“Radio is the theater of the mind; television is the theater of the mindless”-Steve Allen
