[SBE] We should all say something...

[Carl Sundberg]

As all of us engineers know, many of our viewers have been mired in deep snow on many channels for years. Included with the snow storms viewers put up with, they also are visited by ghosts and other viewable electronic goblins. Yahoo for analog. This window to the electronic world has at least brought millions the pleasure of drama, entertainment and news for decades. When the monsters from our electronic past become the fodder every scrap dealer dreams about... There will be many, many people wondering where we went. I have viewers calling from all over that put up with the snow and ghosts for years who now have the new coupon converter boxes and call up and ask, "When are you going digital?" We're on the air. We're there, but their poorly aimed and corroded  antenna lead ins can't win the multipath battle that is going to finally be the best thing that ever happened for Satellite, Cable and IP TV in the future. 

Being a kid from Florida who watched hurricane coverage again and again by a battery powered TV, I don't want to believe we are going to be turning off the most important storm warning mass communication system ever made. In the process, we're asking people to throw away millions of battery powered TV's that a converter box can't rescue. No. None of us are happy keeping double the gear going with no more money to keep it working, but all of this seems like a train wreck. I can't wait for the day when we cover the Senate Hearing in HD after the storm where Congress investigates how we made such a giant mistake. This change is going to cost some lives and make a ton of people mad as heck in the process. As engineers, we all should stand up and say something regarding this being too big of a change and too soon.  

Is our government going to have a digital portable exchange for the analog portables in time for the next power robbing storm? I think not. We should all say something...
  
Carl Sundberg
3318 Coraly Ave.
Eugene, OR 97402-6544

Cell: 541 520-2867
Landline: 541 461-2324

----- Original Message ----
From: Bob Reite <br at telcen.com>
To: sbe member discussion mail list <sbe at sbe.org>
Sent: Monday, April 7, 2008 8:24:56 PM
Subject: Re: [SBE] Ready to turn analog back on?

I just got my converter box coupon so I went to Circuit City and picked 
up a Zenith DTT-900 CECB.  Although in theory I'm line of sight to the 
  TV transmitting antennas, I'm in a notch with hills on either side, so 
there is a fair amount of multipath. Analog signals are watchable, but 
not good.  In our market (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre), all of the analog TV 
stations are on UHF, except for a low power Catholic station on channel 7.

The box worked well, except for the two digital stations (the NBC and 
CBS affiliates) that are on VHF channels 11 and 13 and the ABC affiliate 
on channel 49. I made a VHF dipole cut for channel 12, which worked well 
enough to get the converter to operate on these two stations. This may 
turn out to be a major issue in our market, since most people that are 
receiving their TV over the air only have UHF antennas.

I aimed the UHF antenna for the best results on the ABC affiliate 
(WNEP), and it's usable now, but still with some audio dropout.  Until 
the tower collapsed, WNEP had the best analog signal in the market, 
their digital signal seems to be the worst.


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