Rural DTV - surprising

[George Allen]

I thought I'd add this to the current thread on DTV.

In Antrim NH, on US 202 about 65 miles NW of the Needham towers, 
we've never been able to get more than 2-3 ugly fuzzy ghosty analog 
pics over the years even with big outdoor antennas, since this 
location is on the east side of Gregg Lake, with a 300' hill directly 
behind me.  That blocks everything from 0 to 180 deg direction pretty 
completely, including all Boston TV signals.

This summer, I thought I'd see if DTV did any better.  Using a 
channel master cm-7000 converter box [~$80 before coupon] I was able 
to get great pics most of the time from Ch. 2-4-5 and even 68 with 
only modest fiddling of my $50 Terk HDTV antenna [which has a powered 
rf-amp as part of the package].  Ch 7 was there part of the time, but 
more not than there.

Here's the strange part.  Boston channels only came in when the 
antenna was pointed just about due west, across the lake [~1200 ft 
wide]; the other side of the lake also has a hill, and the only 
signals I got were presumably bouncing off the hill across the 
lake.  This is also what we found with analog TV over the years, but 
because it's digital, the pic is perfect [when it's there at all].

So -- for those who say rural DTV coverage is likely to be worse than 
analog, that is not always the case --- certainly not here.  We now 
get these Boston channels, and several others from NH and VT.  An 
amazing improvement over analog, and only using a small indoor 
[amplified] antenna looking out a first floor window.  Perahps we're 
just lucky we have a hill for the signals to bounce off of...
    -- George