It's June 12th, why does the countdown show midnight, June 13th as the cutoff date?

Why does the site countdown to the transition clock show the end as 16 hours, etc away? that would be 12:00 AM, June 13th, and the transition was/is Midnight, June 12th, meaning it's final. we're there already?



I'm at work so i haven't tried my TVs or rescanned yet to see what has changed so i don't know what's happened yet nor do i expect anything to this soon into it, i do hope i get more channels though.

The absolute deadline is 11:59:59PM on June 12, 2009. I think. Most stations will be transitioning throughout the day, but I think Piggie explained best here http://www.dtvusaforum.com/everythin...html#post17252

Stations have all day to make the switch. We had several flip over at 9am this morning, but some others are doing it later in the day. We're there, yes, but the deadline isn't until 11:59pm tonight.

Originally Posted by Orrymain

Stations have all day to make the switch. We had several flip over at 9am this morning, but some others are doing it later in the day. We're there, yes, but the deadline isn't until 11:59pm tonight.

Not exactly. They can't just shut off when they want.

I looked it up, I said March 15th in the post above, but it was March 17th 2009, all stations had to file with the FCC when they would shut off. The FCC allowed four 6 hour windows during the day.

There were 4 category choices.

Midnight to 6 am

6am to noon

noon to 6pm

and 6pm till midnight.

They could then decide within the 4 hours slot they choose when to cut off.

But if they choose say 6 am to noon, and cut off before 6am or after noon, they could be fined by the FCC..

Just rescanned and nothing has changed for me, at least as far as available channels go, WAZE-TV (CW) is still MIA, and i have the other 15 channels and the signal is the same.

You may get a stronger signal after the analog waves are gone. That's what happened on a few channels for me. Don't know if it's true though.

My first night of no analog.

VHF is a massive waste land. So much skip nothing will lock.

Just wonderful.

VHF should never ever never been this close spaced along the Gulf Coast.

Proof the FCC got engineering degrees off a cereal box..

Yeah I am bitter.

Originally Posted by Piggie

My first night of no analog.

VHF is a massive waste land. So much skip nothing will lock.

Just wonderful.

VHF should never ever never been this close spaced along the Gulf Coast.

Proof the FCC got engineering degrees off a cereal box..

Yeah I am bitter.

Ouch. I don't really understand the "advantage" anyway of VHF over UHF. Most people have UHF antennas anyway and it's much easier to receive UHF 80 miles away than VHF.

Originally Posted by O-O

Ouch. I don't really understand the "advantage" anyway of VHF over UHF. Most people have UHF antennas anyway and it's much easier to receive UHF 80 miles away than VHF.

That is backwards. VHF for the same power level travels much farther than UHF. That is my problem.

There is no absolute advantage to UHF vs VHF. They both have plus and minus points.

There are more UHF channels in the US so there will be more UHF stations, hence more UHF antennas. Also due to the fact that pre-transition digital was mostly on UHF, many early converters only put up a UHF antenna. Post-transition, many stations moved back to their old VHF channel. I am sure many people are fighting this right now, wondering where that station went since their UHF antenna won't pick up VHF well enough to work.

As far as plus and minuses, some of them, one in particular is the root of my problem and can be seen as a plus or a minus.

VHF travels farther period and on less power, going over hills and working past line of sight.

UHF is almost all strictly line of sight and needs more power.

For example. Going back to analog, as then the power limits were simplier.
To cover about the same distance.
Low band VHF was 100KW
High Band VHF was 316KW
UHF was 5000KW.

Since it takes real electricity to transmit and TV stations get a power bill, you can quickly see why VHF is cheaper to transmit.

Low band is too noisy for digital, and few used it,

But High Band VHF was attractive because digitally you would do with 50 KW (and more range) what a UHF would require 1000KW, or 20 times the power.

Thus from an electric bill standpoint VHF is preferred. Not to mention the range is better.

However this deal of the range being better is what is killing me

In the analog days, two TV stations on the same high band channel (7-13) would typically be 250 miles or more apart on the Gulf coast.

Now they are 150 to 160 miles apart because so many stations wanted VHF the FCC allowed the closer spacing, thinking the lower power of digital would make it work.

WRONG ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two facts.

1) It's not unusual on a typical night on the Gulf coast for tropo skip to pull in VHF from 100 miles away. Happens several times a week all year long.
This means with the closer spacing you have to be within 50 miles or less of a VHF station not to get interference even though their are licensed for a range of 60 miles or more.

2) It's not a matter of lower power. When tropo skip rolls it doesn't take much power to skip longer distances. Power is only needed when there is no skip. So the lower powers of digitals is moot.

===

My particular complaint is the FCC allowed Tampa and Jacksonville to use 3 of the same VHF channels.

Both cities have licensed ranges of 60 miels or so. I am right at 60 miles from Jacksonville but that puts me about 100 from Tampa FL.

So it takes very little skip (conditions that exist several night a week, all year long), for Tampa to get strong enough my Jacksonville stations break up the freeze, then no signal.

Data on all this has been known and well documented for nearly 50 years. So for them to say, oops... means they were a bunch of political hacks driven by corporations and not the interest of the people nor the rules of physics.