article in local newspaper

Don't change that channel: DTV woes still abound
By PETER SVENSSON
- AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK — Think the digital TV transition is over? Not quite.

Many viewers have found that they can't pick up certain stations after the switch, even with the right TVs or converter boxes. The stations are still trying to figure out ways to help them tune in.

The main problem is that when the last major stations turned off their analog TV on June 12 to broadcast entirely in digital, some of them moved their digital signals from the UHF frequency band (channels 14 to 69) to VHF (channels 2 to 13). To most viewers, these channels are just different numbers on the remote. But as signals in the airwaves, they have very different characteristics.

VHF hadn't been used much for digital signals, and there were indications that there would be problems with the switch, partly because viewers had inadequate indoor antennas. Still, the switch went ahead.

Since then, at least 20 VHF stations have asked the Federal Communications Commission to move their digital signals back to UHF, and more would like to do so. However, the government has sold off some of the UHF band to cell phone carriers, leaving less space for TV channels. Another portion is planned to be used for emergency services, which was another reason for the digital TV transition.

Philadelphia's ABC affiliate, WPVI, switched its digital signal to channel 6 on June 12, and got thousands of calls per day from viewers who couldn't find the station on their sets any more.

Within a week, WPVI got emergency permission from the FCC to quadruple its transmission power. It could do that because the closest station that also uses channel 6, in Binghamton, N.Y., also wanted to increase its power, which meant it wouldn't be overwhelmed by the stronger signal from Philly. But in other cases, increasing power is a complicated proposition involving several stations. More than 50 VHF stations have applied to increase their signal power.

The power increase helped WPVI punch through to a lot of viewers, but the station still gets calls every day. Hank Volpe, director of engineering at WPVI, says he understands the loss of the station's UHF slot, "but I would have loved to have a UHF channel to play with."

Mark Colombo, a TV enthusiast and electrical engineering student who maintains an online database of the country's TV stations, said "everyone who had any sense" knew that broadcasting digitally on channel 6 or lower would yield terrible reception. Those channels are susceptible to interference from household electronics, spark plugs in passing cars and distant thunderstorms.

What was more surprising was that channels 7 to 13 also had problems, though there had been clues it would happen there, too. WVUE in New Orleans, a Fox station, turned off its analog signal last December, before most other stations, and moved its digital signal to channel 8. The reaction was immediate.

"We fielded thousands of phone calls," said Al Domescik, WVUE's director of engineering. "We did everything we could. We talked to people on the phone. We sent technicians out to people's houses. We brought antennas to people's houses. We just kept beating our heads against the wall for months."

In June, the station started simulcasting on UHF, which mollified most viewers.

WVUE's experience was repeated more than six months later, when Chicago's ABC station, WLS, tried to move its digital signal to channel 7. It says it got nearly 7,000 calls from viewers about reception problems in the week after the transition. Nearly half of the homes visited by the FCC in WLS's service area in late June had inadequate indoor reception.

WLS tried doubling its output power, but it wasn't enough. Now the FCC is letting it move to UHF channel 44.

TV consultant Peter Putman said a lot of reception problems for digital VHF channels can be attributed to the fact that VHF antennas need to be large. The long rods on an outdoor antenna are for VHF reception, and it's difficult to make a compact indoor antenna with good VHF performance.

TV watchers with indoor antennas had the same problem with VHF stations when they were analog, but often suffered through it. They would get a poor, snowy picture and decent sound, and considered that good enough. But because digital is an "all-or-nothing" technology, the weak signal they get on digital isn't enough to produce a picture at all.

Some TV viewers simply have the wrong antennas. For years, "HDTV" antennas were sold that brought in only UHF. Andy Couch, a Web developer in Austin, Texas, installed one in his attic and was happy with it until this summer, when the local Fox station, KTBC, disappeared from his set. It had moved its digital signal from UHF to VHF.

"Now I have to get a VHF antenna for just one channel? No thanks," he said.

Another problem is that FM radio stations can interfere with VHF TV channels.

Volpe at WPVI in Philadelphia said FM interference is easily dealt with by installing an "FM filter" or "FM trap" on antennas. Analog TV manufacturers incorporated such filters in their sets. However, digital TVs and converter boxes lack these filters, since they do nothing to improve digital reception in UHF, where digital signals mainly had been until this year's transition.

FCC spokeswoman Janice Wise noted that relatively few stations out of the more than 1,800 in the country have reported reception problems after the transition, and said the agency is working closely with them to resolve their issues.

"People are figuring there's someone out there to blame for this," Volpe said. "Well, there's nobody to blame."

But the nature of the DTV transition - with nearly all major-city stations turning off on the same day as mandated by Congress - didn't make it easier to identify and deal with reception issues. Colombo, the TV enthusiast, points out that in Wilmington, N.C., where the FCC encouraged TV stations to shut down last September as a test for the big day, all the digital TV stations used UHF. The area also lacks large hills that can block signals.

"It was basically the ideal market," he said. "You could not ask for an easier market to deal with than Wilmington."

http://www.centredaily.com/news/state/story/1514866.html#ixzz0RbW4aP6R

I have to somewhat disagree with JBAnattenaman here, because face the facts, because for most people, the digital transition has been an overall benefit to the American people.

And we can cherry pick the negative or the positive, but I for one would not go back to the system we had before.

But still, we all have to realize, the change has been made, and there is a 0.00 % chance this nation will go back to the system we had. The Train done left that station many months ago, the smart take advantage of the changes and the dumb ineffectually moan and groan.

Since then, at least 20 VHF stations have asked the Federal Communications Commission to move their digital signals back to UHF, and more would like to do so. However, the government has sold off some of the UHF band to cell phone carriers, leaving less space for TV channels.

Less space? Only to the mathematically challenged. The RF spectrum used for TV broadcasting is actually less crowded now than it was before the so-called transition.

Before the transition the vast majority of the 1800+ full powered stations in the US were using two channels each: one for analogue and one for digital. The number of stations that were not broadcasting digital signals was a very small percentage of the total, less than10 %. For illustratiive purposes let's say that there are 1800 full-power stations and that the percentage was 10%. That means the 1800 stations were using 3420 channels overall, spread over the range channels 2 to 69, or 67 channels (channel 37 is unusable, so it's not 68). 3420/67 = 51.04 So, on the average each channel was in use by slightly over 50 stations. The actual average value is higher because channels 60-69 were less used than the lower channel numbers.

After the so-called transition, 1800 stations are now using only 1800 channels, spread over the range 2 to 51, or 49 channels (channel 37 is unusable, so it's not 50). 1800/49 = 36.7, so each channel is being used by less than 40 stations on the average. Even if we exclude VHF-Lo (channels 2 to 6) the average comes out to only 40.9 stations per channel which is still significantly less than before the transition.

As for the comments about emergency services, the article ignores the fact that 4 of the channels in the range 52 to 69 were reserved explicitly for that purpose and were not auctioned off. Note also that one of the requirements for the certification of the coupon eligible converter boxes was that they must be able to receive all channels from 2 to 69 because of that fact. Furthermore, in areas where the VHF-Lo band is not being used (most of the USA), emergency services can use that band as well. So, there is plenty of RF spectrum available for emergency services outside the range used by broadcast TV in all areas of the country.

More crowded than before? I think not.

I DIDN'T write the article, I just cut and paste what someone else wrote.

I live in a fringe area, and I can tell you that none of the stations in the Pittsburgh / Johnstown PA markets broadcast with full power digital UHF before the transition.

Unfortunately, some people living in a city setting had digital reception and thought that their reception was full power, only to find out that it was either on a temporary transmitter or on low power.

It's hard for a person living in a fringe area to try to teach something to a city slicker that thinks that they know it all. The advantages of living in a city is that the entertainment is all handed to you and you do not have to travel far to enjoy it.

Things like the opera or going to see the ballet is unheard of in Du Bois PA, but might be common place in somewhere like Pittsburgh or New York city. The same was true for digital television, I maybe had 3 stations before the transition, WPSU = Penn State Educational, WJAC - which was weak and almost unwatchable, and WTAJ - which was almost unwatchable and three times as weak as WJAC.

There was no reception of any Pittsburgh, Morgantown WV, Wheeling OH, Youngstown OH, Steubenville or Cleveland OH signals before the transition.

So how anyone figures that all markets had a high power digital transmitter for all their stations is beyond reasoning for me to understand. If they were already transmitting on full power digital, they wouldn't have had any transition at all to shut off the analog, they could have just flipped the switch and that would have been it.

Instead, it took almost one month for most of the stations to move their transmitters and their antenna's and go to full power - after the transition deadline date was over.

Some stations shared tower space with other stations, some stations put up new towers and some stations built new towers and then sold them after they put up their permanent antenna's and some stations put up new towers and sold their old towers to someone else.

VHF likes lot's of height while UHF is mostly broadcast closer to the ground - because when you raise the height of the antenna, it skipps over the most local viewers and transmits further than intended and the FCC penalizes a higher tower with a reduction in power to compensate and when you are broadcasting on low power, it does not transmit as far and so you do not want a reduction in power, so you put your stick closer to the ground to keep the power allotment the FCC gave you as long as you can afford the power bill.

WPSU started out with 1000 Kw., only they were licensed for less power and the FCC made them turn down their power to something like 875 Kw., and when Federal and State funding cut them out of their budget, they reduced the power of their transmitter even further down to 810 kw.

It's all a matter of dollars and cents.

I DIDN'T write the article, I just cut and paste what someone else wrote.

I live in a fringe area, and I can tell you that none of the stations in the Pittsburgh / Johnstown PA markets broadcast with full power digital UHF before the transition.

Unfortunately, some people living in a city setting had digital reception and thought that their reception was full power, only to find out that it was either on a temporary transmitter or on low power.

It's hard for a person living in a fringe area to try to teach something to a city slicker that thinks that they know it all. The advantages of living in a city is that the entertainment is all handed to you and you do not have to travel far to enjoy it.

Things like the opera or going to see the ballet is unheard of in Du Bois PA, but might be common place in somewhere like Pittsburgh or New York city. The same was true for digital television, I maybe had 3 stations before the transition, WPSU = Penn State Educational, WJAC - which was weak and almost unwatchable, and WTAJ - which was almost unwatchable and three times as weak as WJAC.

There was no reception of any Pittsburgh, Morgantown WV, Wheeling OH, Youngstown OH, Steubenville or Cleveland OH signals before the transition.

So how anyone figures that all markets had a high power digital transmitter for all their stations is beyond reasoning for me to understand. If they were already transmitting on full power digital, they wouldn't have had any transition at all to shut off the analog, they could have just flipped the switch and that would have been it.

Instead, it took almost one month for most of the stations to move their transmitters and their antenna's and go to full power - after the transition deadline date was over.

Some stations shared tower space with other stations, some stations put up new towers and some stations built new towers and then sold them after they put up their permanent antenna's and some stations put up new towers and sold their old towers to someone else.

VHF likes lot's of height while UHF is mostly broadcast closer to the ground - because when you raise the height of the antenna, it skipps over the most local viewers and transmits further than intended and the FCC penalizes a higher tower with a reduction in power to compensate and when you are broadcasting on low power, it does not transmit as far and so you do not want a reduction in power, so you put your stick closer to the ground to keep the power allotment the FCC gave you as long as you can afford the power bill.

WPSU started out with 1000 Kw., only they were licensed for less power and the FCC made them turn down their power to something like 875 Kw., and when Federal and State funding cut them out of their budget, they reduced the power of their transmitter even further down to 810 kw.

It's all a matter of dollars and cents.

It might be prudent to simply paste a link and not copy and paste the entire article. You can run into copyright violations by cutting and pasting material from another website without obtaining permission from the author or the copyright holder.

I look at it this way. We're stuck with HDTV whether we like it or not. We'll just have to make the best of it. It will take years for the antennas to be perfected to receive these signals and also it is likely some tinkering at the engineering level with the transmitters and towers will be needed to maximize the efficiency of these signals. I am just thankful that HDTV is not nearly as much of a mess as Digital FM and especially Digital AM radio (aka IBOC). The AM band has become a mess in many areas of the country rendering many weaker stations as useless in their markets because of the noise being generated by the IBOC signals.

I am not a copyright lawyer, but my first cousin in Cleveland Ohio is, as is one lawyer that hunted whitetail deer at our camp for many years.

I do not believe that I would be infringing upon anyone's rights when it comes to something that was wrote for the Associated Press and published in most every paper in the United States. All I was doing was passing along information written by the author and not trying to pass it off as my own article - as I have been accused of doing many times on this forum by muckrakers that are only here to pick a fight.

I merely tried to pass along some information that I thought might shed some light on the subject of reception issues and local problems that some of the forum members have been having.

They have a law against everything these days. You can't even breathe a certain way without violating some kind of regulation or law.

Note Point number five in the following statement from the AP website. Virtually every publisher of a periodical has similar rules.

http://www.ap.org/pages/about/terms.html



I am not a copyright lawyer, but my first cousin in Cleveland Ohio is, as is one lawyer that hunted whitetail deer at our camp for many years.

I do not believe that I would be infringing upon anyone's rights when it comes to something that was wrote for the Associated Press and published in most every paper in the United States. All I was doing was passing along information written by the author and not trying to pass it off as my own article - as I have been accused of doing many times on this forum by muckrakers that are only here to pick a fight.

I merely tried to pass along some information that I thought might shed some light on the subject of reception issues and local problems that some of the forum members have been having.

A ok

A ok

Just trying to keep you from getting into trouble. Think of it this way. The people that write and publish articles such as this consider it intellectual property much in the same way a musician thinks of his or her music. And then you have the BMI, ASCAP etc. and now the internet bunch that wants fees for playing this intellectual property both over the air and via a live internet stream. Essentially then, printed material is considered to be the same kind of property as music and has to be treated as such if it is to be displayed to the public.

Here in Florida, when there is lightning, I can't even watch the local stations broadcasting on VHF because there is so many dropouts. When I turn on the blender, I need to make sure it stays on no longer than ten seconds or it will remove my VHF station (that I'm watching) from the pre-sets, and I will need to rescan.

The ION network is broke. Any word that they will sell their UHF frequencies to wealthier networks broadcasting on VHF?

My antenna in the attic worked great for UHF stations up to 65 miles away. I had to put up an outside antenna 27 feet in the air to pick up the two VHF stations in our market. This is something that most condo owners (and there are a lot in Florida) can't do.

Digital Station | Antenna in Attic | Antenna Outside
12 | 4-12% | 72-86%
13 | 4-12% | 76-82%
27 | 78% | 65-90%
28 | 82% | 89%
36 | 80% | 88%

No change on 31, 34, 38

One of the reasons this has been a major issue is the lack of education and level of false advertising done by some antenna importers during the past year. The FCC is well aware of this and has been investigating for some time.

Many UHF only antennas from one importer were falsely advertised as able to receive all digital channels, optimized for the entire digital spectrum, etc. Obviously many consumers who purchased these imports soon learned that they would be unable to receive at least one of the major channels in their market.