Joel Schectman

Piggie

Why not open a dialogue right here in this thread? And I saw you posted at the end of several threads packed full of information.

In a nutshell what is going on.

2.5 were said not to be ready. A few of the were technically savy and logged into forums like this to find out what to do. If they had a computer and were able to log in here, it means basically it wasn't economic or a lack of technical gizmo skills.

Then I found people in my neighborhood that is middle to lower middle class, and many of them plain procrastinated. Not an economic or social problem.

I then read a lot of stories like yours that no doubt are true stories repeated over and over. But honestly how could that one couple watch TV every Thursday night and know analog was over but never heard of the coupons or converter box?

Anyway, the remaining households left behind don't have computers, and we don't hear from them here.

The big story if you haven't been reading about it on other sites and publications, isn't the immigrants, elderly and the poor left behind.

It's the tens of millions of house holds that lost channels. Mainly because many stations that were VHF on analog, where then on UHF channels for their temporary digital channel allocation. Post transition when they turned off analog, then gave up their UHF channel and moved their digital back to their old VHF channel. Some just moved to VHF seeing advantages of saving electricity and increased range, neither which turned out to be true when the practical evidence came back after several days of them being back on VHF.

Why?

1) There was an assumption that on VHF they could run very low power and it would cover their old viewers. This turned out not to be true.

2) Many many households that thought they were digitally ready were not post transition, because they only had a UHF antenna, not a VHF. Many even threw away their old VHF/UHF antenna, buying into the hype they needed a "Digital Antenna" that was only UHF. (Antenna don't care if they pick up analog or digital, HD Ready or DTV Antennas were a marketing guise.).

3) The converter boxes didn't rescan as expected. Many following the proper instructions found their converter boxes held the old channel assignments and didn't pick up many stations changed their actual channel. This was over come by a procedure published here and many sites and publications already.

4) The FCC allowed VHF stations to be spaced to close together in many areas because there are fewer channels. The hype about digital being more efficient did not justify auctioning off channels 52-69. Stations that moved to VHF (see 1 above) found they needed more power. Some could do it, some in the Los Angeles and NE corridor could not, as there were stations on the same channel too close. Now they are stuck with the decisions, because in many highly urban areas there are no longer any free channels.

5) We went from 68 TV channels to 45. The FCC auctioned off 51-69 and 2-6 are virtually worthless for DTV. Many stations in the NE were forced onto the 2-6 range finding households not but miles away unable to receive a signal.

6) Many fringe viewers that always lived with a little snow in the analog picture find they can't receive half the channels they did as it takes more signal to lock a digital stations than it did to put up with some snow on analog. Again showing DTV isn't in practice as efficient as it was claimed.

7) In the Gulf coast states, VHF channels were spaced entirely too close together. I was common before for two stations on the same channel to be 250 to 300 miles apart. Since 2-6 where known not to work, many stations that were on 2-6, plus those that were on 7-13 all moved to 7-13 and even a few other's moved there. The result is spacing in the order 160 miles or so between stations on the same VHF channel. There is a condition on the Gulf coast called "Tropo Skip" that happens 4 to 5 nights a week causing distant stations from 100 miles away come in. This means that if you space them at 160 miles and skip carries 100 miles you need to live about 30 to 40 miles from a VHF station or the signals from the other town wipe out the channel, regardless which way you point your antenna. For example I can pick up 3 Jacksonville stations on VHF in the day time with no skip. I am deep fringe right at the edge of their FCC licensed contour or service area. But once the sun goes down Tampa has the same 3 channels and I am lucky to see shows I watch but about every other week since so many nights VHF is blocked by the confusion of signals.

7) Combined with the VHF stations applying to the FCC for more power because they don't cover the area the situation gets worse as adjacent towns get into power wars to gain coverage (they still have to apply to the FCC to change power).

I am sure other's can add more to this but that is what we have been answering questions to people for the last week now.

__________________
The more I understand, the less I know.

ZachT

..Email address is not valid. Mail bounces back.

Orrymain

There are two different addresses. One is commentsTO and the other is commentsFOR ... I emailed the latter and it hasn't bounced back, at least not yet.

Trip

Yeah, my mail didn't bounce.

- Trip

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KJ4IEA

Comments are my own and not that of my employer or anyone else.

Piggie

Orry, I don't see a commentsto email he listed.

Because I guess I need to email him, as this was a drive by posting he probably did to a number of sites.

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The more I understand, the less I know.

bicker

Several folks on some other forums have noted how this inquiry shows very clearly the bias that this professed journalist has already adopted: He hasn't inquired about folks who have gained channels (I gained 4) nor about folks who have neither lost nor gained anything. From what he's written, it seems that he's just trying to feed the sensationalistic trend in so-called "news" sources, seeking out foundation for whatever will sell the most magazines.

Piggie

The reference article he posted was exactly that, but it's growing "stale" in news terms, those without CECBs. Actually the new negative story that is more real and less sensational are the people that thought they were DTV Ready and found out post transition due to channel and power changes, they were not longer. And there are a lot more than 2.5 million of them I suppose but don't have exact data. It was the snafu the industry choose to ignore.

__________________
The more I understand, the less I know.