Scary news about the analog TV phaseout!

[Cohasset / Hippisley]

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Fybush
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: Scary news about the analog TV phaseout!

...as I go driving in rural areas at some distance from the 
transmitter sites in western and central New York, it seems as though 
almost every home now has a dish in front of it or on the roof. I 
suspect that these days, penetration of direct-to-home satellite service 
is running just about in inverse proportion to OTA signal strength.
********************

I live 60 miles NNE of Utica, NY, and subscribe to Dish Network, including
the "local" channel option (which in this area means the Syracuse stations).
But I prefer to get my local news from Channel 2 in Utica (they have a
*very* cute morning anchor), but Utica is not part of *any* satellite TV
"local" channel lineups.  Since I don't have CATV here, I have erected a
"deep-fringe" TV antenna in order to do the best job I can of getting a
decent OTA signal out of the WKTV.

Even now, during a sunspot minimum, the old-fashioned analog signal is
marginal at best (always snowy, even when not experiencing multipath
ghosting from the mountains between them and me).  During sunspot maxima or
periods of sporadic E-skip, Utica gets totally obliterated by other Channel
2 stations from New England to Ottawa to Missouri.

How will I get WKTV a year from now?  Since there's already one NBC
affiliate in the Syracuse "local" channels on Dish, what's the odds of Utica
being added?  And, more generally, there are zip codes adjacent to mine that
aren't *allowed* (by FCC, according to Dish) to have Syracuse "locals" at
all!  In one direction, they must take Albany; in another direction, they
can't take anything at all in upstate NY, and must settle for NYC or Chicago
or....

Scott mentioned single-channel DTV booster systems for rough and outlying
terrain.  Can anyone here comment on their cost and what, if any, regulatory
hurdles will need to be overcome by a station such as Utica Channel 2 in
order to get them installed?

Bud Hippisley