 Vchat20Landing is the REAL challengePremium
join:2003-09-16
Columbus, OH
1 edit | Why not allow full power digital alongside analog? I think the biggest gripe that has been had so far is the requirement of the broadcasters to use such low transmitting power on the digital carriers while keeping up analog service and the majority of the public have seen the lack of range on these channels as a carved-in-stone expectation of what's to come in february. This is certainly not the case, but many people seem to think it is.
My question is why the FCC has not allowed these broadcasters to use full power for the digital transmission alongside analog? Aside from some possible long range interference to distant channels on the same frequency, I haven't seen much of a REAL explanation why this can't happen.
Perfect example: Analog here I can pull in about 6 stations that are watchable. Digital I can only pick up 2 (not counting sub-channels). But I have done my homework and know that 3 of those stations I can't receive are barely pushing 50kW now but will be increasing that ten-fold come the transition date to where I CAN pick them up no problem. I'm not complaining to the broadcasters for this oversight. It's not their problem and I'm certain their engineers would love to push more power NOW to attain better range. But it's not their call, it's the FCC's.
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I swear, some people should have pace-makers installed to free up the resources. Breathing and heart beat taxes their whole system, all of their brain cells wasted on life support.-two bit brains, and the second bit is wasted on parity! ~head_spaz |
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| Channel 2 digital in Chicago needs to boost it's power as a lot of people have a hard time getting it. |
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 tschmidtPremium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
kudos:5
 ·Fairpoint Commun..
 ·Hollis Hosting
| reply to Vchat20
Have you checked for post transition changes? Having stations simulcast doubled the number to channels exacerbating cochannel and adjacent channel interference. Some reception problems will likely get better after the transition.
As engineers and FCC gain more experience transmit power levels may change. The reason DTV transmit power "looks" so much lower it that it make much better use of available 6 MHz channel spectrum whereas analog has much higher ratio of peak to average power.
/tom |
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 quetwoThat VoIP GuyPremium
join:2004-09-04
East Lansing, MI | reply to Vchat20
The stations are allowed to request a temporary license to broadcast their digital at full power. They usually have to give up full power of their analog when they run full at digital. Many of the stations in the Lansing, MI market switched to full digital power, half analog power around July of this year.
It is fully up to the stations. |
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| reply to Vchat20
said by Vchat20:I think the biggest gripe that has been had so far is the requirement of the broadcasters to use such low transmitting power on the digital carriers while keeping up analog service and the majority of the public have seen the lack of range on these channels as a carved-in-stone expectation of what's to come in february. This is certainly not the case, but many people seem to think it is. My question is why the FCC has not allowed these broadcasters to use full power for the digital transmission alongside analog? Most full power stations ARE putting out a digital signal that effectively matches, if not exceeds, the analog coverage area. The analog ERP (effective Radiated Power) and digital ERP are calculated differently - average vs peal power for starters. For UHF, approx 350-400 kW ERP digital is equivalent to 5000 kW analog. The FCC established 1000 kW as the maximum ERP for UHF to help the low VHF analog stations come closer to replicate their coverage area with a UHF signal. The typical digital ERP for the 316 kW analog stations will be around 20 kW for digital on the same channel.
Over 1000 full power stations are on their final digital channel and power level. They will simply turn off the analog broadcast next February. Over 600 stations will be changing their digital channel by next February, many of which will get improved digital coverage. The process of assigning interim digital channel allotments and the post-transition allotments has been a very complicated one. The had to balance off interference concerns and costs for over 1800 full power stations with 2 broadcast channels each and for 1000s of translators and low power stations. |
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| reply to Joe12345678
> Channel 2 digital in Chicago needs to boost it's power as a lot of people have a hard time getting it.
"hard" is an understatement. I'm about 20 miles out and get nothing on their digital channel (RF3). A few others I've talked to get the same results. I'm hoping when they bump power up and move to RF12 that things improve. |
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