Rural DTV - surprising

[George Allen]

Dan -- I agree.  Interestingly enough, the channel master converter 
box I used seems to be very smart.  There were many times when the 
signal was marginal, and I got crappy [useless] pic but ok sound, and 
the converter box put up "audio only" on the screen.  Amazing...
   -- George


At 02:34 PM 9/8/2008, Dan.Strassberg wrote:
>Haven't you noticed that the first part of the DTV program to
>disappear is almost always the audio? This is a symption of a flawed
>design--not in your set but in the basic design of the system. Losing
>the picture is almost never as serious as losing the sound because the
>sound contains more of the information that you need to follow the
>program. The sound needs to be more robust, even if making it so would
>somewhat degrade the reliability of the picture. I'm convinced that
>the geniuses who designed the system figured that over-the-air
>reception was unimportnat because everybody would have cable or
>satellite TV. Sorry, but I refuse to spend the $1000/year on cable.
>
>-----
>Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
>eFax 1-707-215-6367
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "George Allen" <gallen2@nescaum.org>
>To: <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
>Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 12:24 PM
>Subject: Rural DTV - surprising
>
>
>>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