OTA sucks by design

All of my attempts at doing efn' HDTV OTA has turned to crap.
The concept of putting HDTV over the area just like they are doing reg TV
is lame at best and driven by government requirements that all stations
must be broadcasting HDTV in the next few years.
The frequency ranges for HDTV OTA are far different than regular TV.
Translated: they don't carry as far and the signal strength wanders.

For the very luck few inside a city with all of the HDTV OTA broadcasting
from the same location/direction, at higher power, it's free and nice.
For all the rest of us we can't get a reliable signal for all the
stations even with a good antenna, adjusted just so, with a $300 OTV
decoder.

I talked with an engineer at one of the local TV stations. They know the
OTA HDTV idea sucks. They don't have the funding to do it right with
enough power and there are so very few people that can even get it, they
don't have any $ backing to be able to make it any better.

HDTV cable or sat for the majority of us is the only way we are going to
get reliable HD signals. Now only if Skinamax would jump on the HDTV
bandwagon, we could at least watch our softcore porn in HDTV.
Tell your cable or sat rep you want more HDTV channels and to dump the
CSPAN and other crud that 99% of us don't care about if they need more
bandwidth.

end rant

Corey wrote:

"Bulk Daddy" wrote in message
.6...

All of my attempts at doing efn' HDTV OTA has turned to crap.
The concept of putting HDTV over the area just like they are doing reg TV
is lame at best and driven by government requirements that all stations
must be broadcasting HDTV in the next few years.
The frequency ranges for HDTV OTA are far different than regular TV.
Translated: they don't carry as far and the signal strength wanders.

For the very luck few inside a city with all of the HDTV OTA broadcasting
from the same location/direction, at higher power, it's free and nice.
For all the rest of us we can't get a reliable signal for all the
stations even with a good antenna, adjusted just so, with a $300 OTV
decoder.

I talked with an engineer at one of the local TV stations. They know the
OTA HDTV idea sucks. They don't have the funding to do it right with
enough power and there are so very few people that can even get it, they
don't have any $ backing to be able to make it any better.

HDTV cable or sat for the majority of us is the only way we are going to
get reliable HD signals. Now only if Skinamax would jump on the HDTV
bandwagon, we could at least watch our softcore porn in HDTV.
Tell your cable or sat rep you want more HDTV channels and to dump the
CSPAN and other crud that 99% of us don't care about if they need more
bandwidth.

end rant


Corey Says-

The Broadcasters in your area suck. I get HD just fine. If you are able to
get your fuzzy ghost plagued analogue you should be able to get a flawless
digital signal. Unless broadcasters in your area aren't interested in
progress, or don't know their heads from a hole in the ground. They have 2
or so more years to get their act together, or someone else will. end.

If what you say were true it would not be so bad but it is simple and
emphatically
not true. Getting a good NTSC signal is no guarantee that you will get
any DTV signal
at all.

Here in NYC Mark Schubin has a standing invitation to all to come to his
apartment where he gets good NTSC signals from 7 or 9 stations using a
bow tie antenna on top of his TV set. He gets two DTV stations one with
the antenna laying on the floor in a particular position and another
station with the antenna on a bookcase near the ceiling. This was before
9/11.

This is true across the country. Good NTSC does not mean good DTV. And
bad NTSC does not mean you can't get DTV. I now can get CBS, Fox and a
Spanish station (with numerous dropouts) with a directional antenna
aimed at the Empire State Building two miles away direct line of sight.
I can get no reasonable rreception of analog on any channel.

Neither predicts the other.

With COFDM I can get the reception from downtown Manhattan from a
transmitter at 400 ft. at 100 Watts of power NON line of sight. And I
can get it with a three inch antenna while driving at 70 miles an hour
on the FDR.

Quite a difference.

Bulk Daddy wrote:

All of my attempts at doing efn' HDTV OTA has turned to crap.
The concept of putting HDTV over the area just like they are doing reg TV
is lame at best and driven by government requirements that all stations
must be broadcasting HDTV in the next few years.
The frequency ranges for HDTV OTA are far different than regular TV.
Translated: they don't carry as far and the signal strength wanders.

For the very luck few inside a city with all of the HDTV OTA broadcasting
from the same location/direction, at higher power, it's free and nice.
For all the rest of us we can't get a reliable signal for all the
stations even with a good antenna, adjusted just so, with a $300 OTV
decoder.

I talked with an engineer at one of the local TV stations. They know the
OTA HDTV idea sucks. They don't have the funding to do it right with
enough power and there are so very few people that can even get it, they
don't have any $ backing to be able to make it any better.

HDTV cable or sat for the majority of us is the only way we are going to
get reliable HD signals. Now only if Skinamax would jump on the HDTV
bandwagon, we could at least watch our softcore porn in HDTV.
Tell your cable or sat rep you want more HDTV channels and to dump the
CSPAN and other crud that 99% of us don't care about if they need more
bandwidth.

end rant


I agree that OTA DTV in the US does "suck by design". That is a most
accurate statement made on the subject. Wish I had said it.

With COFDM I can get the reception from downtown Manhattan from a
transmitter at 400 ft. at 100 Watts of power NON line of sight. And I
can get it with a three inch antenna while driving at 70 miles an hour
on the FDR.

Quite a difference.

Well with shortwave I can pick up a signal from across the world... but like
your COFDM it doesnt do me any good because it isn't HDTV.

I wouldn't give up too easily on OTA. 5 days ago,
I couldn't get so much as a meter reading on any
DTV station. Now, I get CBS, NBC, FOX locked in
solid. All I did was change antennas and experiment with
different orientations. I'm about 50 mile from
the xmitters, and they are low power.

Jeff

"Bulk Daddy" wrote in message:
All of my attempts at doing efn' HDTV OTA has turned to crap.

Hmm, I'm 30 miles from NYC, behind two mountain ranges. I can't get analog
OTA worth anything, way too much ghosting.

With a RCA DTC-100 and a $15 Radio Shack indoor antenna, I get _perfect_ OTA
HDTV reception.Tell us what kind of equipment you're using? Lotsa people
here can help you.

I'm glad we have 8VSB. The British COFDM system that Miller was touting
years ago seems to be just terrible.

Read the hundreds of interference complaints on the newsgroup
uk.tech.digital-tv and see for yourself.

Bulk Daddy wrote in message . 6...
"Corey" wrote in
m:



Corey Says-

The Broadcasters in your area suck. I get HD just fine. If you are
able to get your fuzzy ghost plagued analogue you should be able to
get a flawless digital signal. Unless broadcasters in your area aren't
interested in progress, or don't know their heads from a hole in the
ground. They have 2 or so more years to get their act together, or
someone else will. end.



I agree. Someone has done do. The sat and cable providers. Keep in mind
that local providers make most of their mula from ads. A chunk of them
would drop their analog OTA except they are required to do it. When
(hmmm) more stations go HDTV, you and others will buy in because you get
more choice/service. Will you stick to OTA for your nice HDTV set as your
only choice when you can get 20+ channels in HDTV via sat or cable? OTA
is a stop gap for a few until this happens. Local broadcasters know this.
Only in the center of major cities does it pay for them to do good OTA. I
really am glad your one of the few that gets good OTA from all of your
local broadcasters.
BTW: In no way does reception of the analogue signal mean that a person
can get a flawless digital signal.



I agree that for many people the preferred solution is cable. I don't
agree that sat without OTA is a solution at all. The sats simply do
not have the bandwidth to carry all, or even most of the HDTV locals.
For the indefinite future, sat will provide the traditional cable
channels, with OTA used for the locals. The only thing that can
change that is either newer technology or more sats, neither of which
is on the horizon.

lame at best and driven by government requirements that all stations
must be broadcasting HDTV in the next few years.

Why don't you people become educated? The government requirements are
for DIGITAL TV, not HDTV. Get your facts straight.

For the very luck few inside a city with all of the HDTV OTA broadcasting
from the same location/direction, at higher power, it's free and nice.
For all the rest of us we can't get a reliable signal for all the
stations even with a good antenna, adjusted just so, with a $300 OTV
decoder.

Then I guess you're just **** out of luck. How about moving out of
the boonies and into civilization?

David ) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
I'm glad we have 8VSB. The British COFDM system that Miller was touting
years ago seems to be just terrible.

Read the hundreds of interference complaints on the newsgroup
uk.tech.digital-tv and see for yourself.

Before I put up my antenna for HD, I kept hearing about how bad multipath
could be, and living in a typical suburb with lots of flat surfaces (houses)
and moving ones (trees) nearby, I expected no decent reception.

Like almost everyone else that tries it, though, once I get a signal of
more than about 50 on the meter, I get no dropouts at all, ever.

The best examples here locally are WB, PAX and one of the local PBS
stations:
Network Ch Call Distance Azimuth ERP kW
WB 50 WBDC 18.6 142 2450
WB 51 WBDC-DT 18.6 142 125
PAX 66 WPXW 27.1 190 3400
PAX 43 WPXW-DT 27.1 190 90
PBS 26 WETA 16.3 151 2290
PBS 27 WETA-DT 20.4 163 50

All are upper UHF (WB and PBS have side-by-side channels), and in the cases
of WB and PAX, the analog is a snowy mess, while the digital is clean and
clear at 2.5% to 5% of the power of the analog. PBS is OK on analog, but
perfect with their miniscule 50kW on digital.

The other thing to note is that my antenna points at 151 because that's
where most of the towers are grouped. Thus, the PBS digital is off-axis
and still fine. PAX shows just how good digital transmission can be even
with a very directional antenna at 39° off axis.

--
Jeff Rife | "You may find this strange, but I think body
301-916-8131 | piercing is a good thing. It gives us a
| quick way to tell that people ain't right,
| just by lookin' at 'em."
| -- Hank Hill, "King of the Hill"

Read this about the antenna:

I 've seen many posts recently about the best OTA tuner (Sam 151 versus
Zenith 420). Hopefully my evaluation will answer some questions. I think
it's important to say that my criteria was a receiver that could pull in
stations over 60 miles away. I also have a Wineguard 8200P (deep
fringe...also when you compare this antenna with the best CM has to offer
you'll see on the specs that the WG has higher gain on all channels) with
pre-amp and rotor. First, I hooked up the Zenith and was only able to
receive one HD station which is 40 miles away. That's it! Next I hooked up
the Sammy and was able to pull in and lock on two additional channels both
with a distance of over 60 miles. The day was partly overcast and about 80
degrees and dry. The rotor was tuned to the exact azimuth needed to receive
each channel for both receivers. Also interesting is the signal meter on the
zenith didn't even move when trying to tune in the 60 mile plus stations. I
live in Jackson Michigan and was able to pick up Flint, Michigan, Lansing,
Michigan and Toledo Ohio. I couldn't hit Detroit with either receiver
because of huge trees in front of my antenna to the East. The one thing I
did like about the Zenith is the fact that it allowed another antenna
connector for anolog.....

A couple other points the WG is to large to ship UPS so you're better off
finding a dealer nearby to purchase. I paid $204.00 dollars. Also, I found
the Winegard pre-amp AP-8275 the highest gain pre-amp available (compare
against Channel Master). I have no affiliation with Winegard or Samsung just
reporting my experience. Needless to say I took the Zenith back to Circuit
City. Hope this helps someone out their in the deep fringe. By the way HD
reception is unbelieveable on my 65 Inch Hitachi.



"Bulk Daddy" wrote in message
.6...
All of my attempts at doing efn' HDTV OTA has turned to crap.
The concept of putting HDTV over the area just like they are doing reg TV
is lame at best and driven by government requirements that all stations
must be broadcasting HDTV in the next few years.
The frequency ranges for HDTV OTA are far different than regular TV.
Translated: they don't carry as far and the signal strength wanders.

For the very luck few inside a city with all of the HDTV OTA broadcasting
from the same location/direction, at higher power, it's free and nice.
For all the rest of us we can't get a reliable signal for all the
stations even with a good antenna, adjusted just so, with a $300 OTV
decoder.

I talked with an engineer at one of the local TV stations. They know the
OTA HDTV idea sucks. They don't have the funding to do it right with
enough power and there are so very few people that can even get it, they
don't have any $ backing to be able to make it any better.

HDTV cable or sat for the majority of us is the only way we are going to
get reliable HD signals. Now only if Skinamax would jump on the HDTV
bandwagon, we could at least watch our softcore porn in HDTV.
Tell your cable or sat rep you want more HDTV channels and to dump the
CSPAN and other crud that 99% of us don't care about if they need more
bandwidth.

end rant