Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

Woody wrote:

Yes but....

Actually I should have made something much clearer: if I were God I
wouldn't use the internet for broadcast; I'd use satellite for
broadcast and use the Internet for on-demand services.

I really should have said that I understand the argument for freeing up
the RF terrestrial spectrum, which you can do by providing broadcast
services over the Internet or over satellite. And although the former
will work, the latter makes much more sense.

Without broadcast material the Internet will have lots more bandwidth
for doing the stuff it is good at (delivery of user-specific services).

I'm sorry for the last sentence in my previous post - in retrospect it
doesn't properly reflect my views.

Point for pedants: apparently we should always capitalise "Internet"
because there's only one and it is a proper noun. And, of course,
"Interweb" isn't a proper term (I know Woody knows that). I first
heard it when Jools Holland kept saying it on his programme. Why does
he think it "clever" or "cool" to deliberately flaunt his ignorance?

On this topic, I'm amazed at how many people conflate "the web" (or
"the World Wide Web) with "the Internet". Indeed, many people I've
explained it to insist I'm wrong, and that "the web" is just another
name for "the Internet".

I've even heard people say that Tim Berners-Lee invented the Internet!

--
SteveT

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:54:35 -0500, "Steve Thackery"
wrote:

Actually I should have made something much clearer: if I were God I
wouldn't use the internet for broadcast; I'd use satellite for
broadcast and use the Internet for on-demand services.

If you were God you wouldn't need either. You'd just say "Let there be
broadcast", and there would be broadcast, and you would see that it
was good.

And on the seventh day you'd rest, and watch some of the programmes,
and realise it wasn't so good after all.

Rod.

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

Dickie mint wrote:

Be gentle with her! Her blogs are very interesting and amusing. The
problem is that the page was written pre Freesat, around 2003 I think,
and she hasn't updated it.
With a suggestion of how it should read, she probably will!

Richard
Tell her if she re-writes it I'll check it for her.

Bill

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

wrote in message
...
For those who haven't yet seen the Ofcom consultation on future mobile
broadband spectrum.

"The 694-790 MHz band is expected to become a key band for mobile
broadband"

and references to studies at 470 - 694 MHz.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...-mobile-bb.pdf


If they sold off the whole of UHF, we could go back using VHF for TV if we
just forgot about the regional news. Freeview only needs 6 channels for
single frequency networks and these 6 should be available on VHF Bands I and
III.

Only the regional TV variations need to be relegated to satellite, cable &
internet.

The VHF bands are much less attractive to mobile phone operators because of
the much longer aerials required (particularly for Band I) but they are
perfectly good for terrestrial TV, and a new VHF TV aerial would be cheaper
than a dish, and much easier to align. We might return to the days of H
aerials, X aerials and Band III Yagis, but with digital TV on VHF instead of
405 lines.

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

Roderick Stewart wrote:

If you were God you wouldn't need either. You'd just say "Let there be
broadcast", and there would be broadcast, and you would see that it
was good.

And on the seventh day you'd rest, and watch some of the programmes,
and realise it wasn't so good after all.

Hah! Nice one.

--
SteveT

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

In message , Stephen
writes

wrote in message
.. .
For those who haven't yet seen the Ofcom consultation on future mobile
broadband spectrum.

"The 694-790 MHz band is expected to become a key band for mobile
broadband"

and references to studies at 470 - 694 MHz.


http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...fi-mobile-bb/s
ummary/cfi-mobile-bb.pdf


If they sold off the whole of UHF, we could go back using VHF for TV if we
just forgot about the regional news. Freeview only needs 6 channels for
single frequency networks and these 6 should be available on VHF Bands I and
III.

Only the regional TV variations need to be relegated to satellite, cable &
internet.

The VHF bands are much less attractive to mobile phone operators because of
the much longer aerials required (particularly for Band I) but they are
perfectly good for terrestrial TV, and a new VHF TV aerial would be cheaper
than a dish, and much easier to align. We might return to the days of H
aerials, X aerials and Band III Yagis, but with digital TV on VHF instead of
405 lines.

VHF (especially Band 1) is not best suited to off-air multi-channel TV.

For a start, Band 1 is very prone to long-range sporadic-E interference
in the late spring and early summer. Even well before the advent of
digital transmissions, many European countries had ceased TV on Band 1
because of such problems.

Then there's the problem of designing aerials with sufficient bandwidth
vs gain. OK, the Americans have such things, but they are generally used
for the reception of relatively strong downtown transmissions. I'm not
sure how good those used in Europe are (or used to be). I can't remember
if (for example) Band 3 aerials, covering the whole of 175 to 230MHz,
were very common.

There are only eight or nine 8MHz VHF TV channels available (3 in Band 1
and 6 or 7 in Band 3) - and it would be extremely difficult
comprehensively to provide the whole of UK with 6 digital MUXes in the
same way as the two analogue channels were provided. At best, the full 6
MUXes could probably only be provided in well-separated centres of large
populations. Elsewhere, the number of channels would have to be reduced.
Although this is not dissimilar to what happens at present, I feel that
the situation would be much more marked than we have at UHF.
--
Ian

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

Stephen wrote:

The VHF bands are much less attractive to mobile phone operators because of
the much longer aerials required (particularly for Band I) but they are
perfectly good for terrestrial TV, and a new VHF TV aerial would be cheaper
than a dish, and much easier to align. We might return to the days of H
aerials, X aerials and Band III Yagis, but with digital TV on VHF instead of
405 lines.


I doubt if the aerials would be that elaborate. With no ghosting to
worry about and the ability of DTT to work with a low s/n ratio I should
think the aerials would mostly be in the loft, and would be simple
dual-band omni types. An SFN would probably be VP.

Bill

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

Ian Jackson wrote:


Then there's the problem of designing aerials with sufficient bandwidth
vs gain. OK, the Americans have such things, but they are generally used
for the reception of relatively strong downtown transmissions. I'm not
sure how good those used in Europe are (or used to be). I can't remember
if (for example) Band 3 aerials, covering the whole of 175 to 230MHz,
were very common.
Log periodics.

http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/aerialp...ngus/005.shtml

Half a log is better than no log at all:
http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/aerialp...ngus/007.shtml

Bill

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:46:01 -0000, "Stephen"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .
For those who haven't yet seen the Ofcom consultation on future mobile
broadband spectrum.

"The 694-790 MHz band is expected to become a key band for mobile
broadband"

and references to studies at 470 - 694 MHz.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...-mobile-bb.pdf


If they sold off the whole of UHF, we could go back using VHF for TV if we
just forgot about the regional news. Freeview only needs 6 channels for
single frequency networks and these 6 should be available on VHF Bands I and
III.

Only the regional TV variations need to be relegated to satellite, cable &
internet.

The VHF bands are much less attractive to mobile phone operators because of
the much longer aerials required (particularly for Band I) but they are
perfectly good for terrestrial TV, and a new VHF TV aerial would be cheaper
than a dish, and much easier to align. We might return to the days of H
aerials, X aerials and Band III Yagis, but with digital TV on VHF instead of
405 lines.


Hmm...

"Yes Sir/Madam. I know you have an old VHF aerial on your chimney, but
it's pointing in the wrong direction. Anyway, you need a High Definition
Digital VHF aerial."

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:49:37 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote:

In message , Stephen
writes

wrote in message
. ..
For those who haven't yet seen the Ofcom consultation on future mobile
broadband spectrum.

"The 694-790 MHz band is expected to become a key band for mobile
broadband"

and references to studies at 470 - 694 MHz.


http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...fi-mobile-bb/s
ummary/cfi-mobile-bb.pdf


If they sold off the whole of UHF, we could go back using VHF for TV if we
just forgot about the regional news. Freeview only needs 6 channels for
single frequency networks and these 6 should be available on VHF Bands I and
III.

Only the regional TV variations need to be relegated to satellite, cable &
internet.

The VHF bands are much less attractive to mobile phone operators because of
the much longer aerials required (particularly for Band I) but they are
perfectly good for terrestrial TV, and a new VHF TV aerial would be cheaper
than a dish, and much easier to align. We might return to the days of H
aerials, X aerials and Band III Yagis, but with digital TV on VHF instead of
405 lines.

VHF (especially Band 1) is not best suited to off-air multi-channel TV.

For a start, Band 1 is very prone to long-range sporadic-E interference
in the late spring and early summer. Even well before the advent of
digital transmissions, many European countries had ceased TV on Band 1
because of such problems.

I don't think anyone would want to go back to TV in Band I for that
very reason, however Band III would be suitable if the DAB channels
could be recovered. Now *there's* an idea!