end of the road

June 12, 2009 is the date that our govennment took away the free over the air TV system. Before then, we had a TV system that had been working successfuly for decades. In my case, our alternate home is midway between Phila and Baltimore, and admittedly in the fringe area of both cities. But we reliabily recieved nine stations and access to all six major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, and CW). After the transition we lost virtually all TV stations, at least we lost all reliable TV signals. The only reliable station now available to us is WPVI - Ch6 from Philadelphia; and we get CH 6 only because the FCC gave them a temporary authorization to increase their power by a factor of four, from 7.5kW to 30.2kW.

I certianly appreciate the many helpful suggestion on the Forum to get better performance from our antenna systems, but I think that this misses the point. The government (FCC) created this problem in the first place and we should be pressing them to fix it. After all, the air waves are to serve all of the public, not just radio hobbyest who have the know how to work with antenna systems. Consider the retired couple who has been watching TV for decades. Does the government expect them to erect a 30 or 40 foot pole and a anntenna in their back yard just to watch the nightly news? Come on!