Am I that Lucky?

[Mockingbird]

Not sure the right catagory for this thread so I chose here. I have been reading and reading what some of you are going through with the whole DTV transition and feel like for once I got a lucky break. I didn't have to do a thing, although local channels have alot of snow during prime time if I do not turn on the vcr. Not to rub in my good luck or anything, more of an observation. I just feel bad for you guys that have to do all this stuff with convertors and antennas. Not being to techinically able I feel blessed for once

[Piggie]

You live near enough towers it worked.

I know a guy in Orlando that lived 3 miles from the central tower farm. He has a 5 feet of 20 gauge wire that he stripped the end and pushed it in the center of the f connector. He receives dozens of channels.

RF, even line of sight follows the inverse squared law. If you double the distance from the tower, you only have 1/4 of the signal. That means at 2 miles from the tower compared to 1 mile you loose 6db of signal due to the fact RF is not a coherent beam. The only electromagnetic wave that doesn't due this is a LASER or MASER beam. Even if you use a directional antenna after it leaves the antenna it spreads in a spherical distribution. Since the surface area of a sphere is a function of the radius squared, a sphere with twice the radius has 4 times the surface area. So the signal is spread over more area why it fades as you leave the source.

Yes yes, of course, trees obstacles, etc. My premise was LOS signals.

[DTVuser2009]

I get all 15 of what's offered in the Evansville market (minus WAZE, currently a rimshot signal too far away to receive in Owensboro, KY), but there are more than 25 'services' available but i'd have to find out how to get something over 150 miles out, without tropo skip. so far i haven't found an economical solution for that that wouldn't force me to either buy and install a huge antenna pole (violates the terms of my rental agreement) or a huge C-Band dish in hopes of 3 or so channels more.


I was lucky to get anything aside from PBS when i bought my first converter. and those 'digital TV ready' antennas suck. i use the built-in roof aerial/pre-amp outlet on my mobile home and a separate VHF rabbit ears in a window hooked to a separator to get reliable reception from the 15 services i get, and if i have to re-aim, i can do it independently without screwing up the channels on the other antenna.

[jerseygirl]

Your are lucky. Have heard many complaints about bad signals.

While I am now living in Germany, I have to say I do not understand why this is such a problem in the US.
I use digital TV here. The tower is 50miles away from me and I have 42 programs without any trouble at all. This is Germany - I do not know how they do it - but I get the same program here with my antenna on the Winnebago not depending if i am in Bavaria or at the Northern Sea.

Why is this not working in US?

[1inxs]

Welcome to the DTVDEUTSCHLAND Forum. That has a certain ring to it

Originally Posted by jerseygirl

Your are lucky. Have heard many complaints about bad signals.

While I am now living in Germany, I have to say I do not understand why this is such a problem in the US.
I use digital TV here. The tower is 50miles away from me and I have 42 programs without any trouble at all. This is Germany - I do not know how they do it - but I get the same program here with my antenna on the Winnebago not depending if i am in Bavaria or at the Northern Sea.

Why is this not working in US?

[Eureka]

Originally Posted by jerseygirl

Your are lucky. Have heard many complaints about bad signals.

While I am now living in Germany, I have to say I do not understand why this is such a problem in the US.
I use digital TV here. The tower is 50miles away from me and I have 42 programs without any trouble at all.

All UHF and only one tower to aim at. Here, VHF & UHF with towers in multiple directions.

[Piggie]

Originally Posted by jerseygirl

Your are lucky. Have heard many complaints about bad signals.

While I am now living in Germany, I have to say I do not understand why this is such a problem in the US.
I use digital TV here. The tower is 50miles away from me and I have 42 programs without any trouble at all. This is Germany - I do not know how they do it - but I get the same program here with my antenna on the Winnebago not depending if i am in Bavaria or at the Northern Sea.

Why is this not working in US?

Plus here we have a lot more ground to cover. So there are a lot of fringe area's in the states. So there are people like me more than 50 miles from a tower. In areas like the NE Corridor in the US, it's just plain crowded and some stations can't run full power or they interfere with another in another town on the same channel.

In Deutschland werden viele der Übermittler von Deutsche Telekom besessen, also wurden sie in eine geplante Weise gelegt, um das Land zu bedecken.

Aber Ich spreche nicht so gut. Ich benutzte babblefish

[DTVuser2009]

is babblefish a real German word?

[Jay]

Originally Posted by DTVuser2009

is babblefish a real German word?

I was just thinking the same thing. lol

[Piggie]

Originally Posted by DTVuser2009

is babblefish a real German word?

Neither is Levis. Ich trage Levis. Was sagen Sie? Ich sage Levi...

Name brands normally not translated into other languages. Go to Moscow and say Levis, and they will pull out a hundred bucks or more and offer you to sell them right off you bottom, right then and now.