WHDH-DT Now Simulcasting

[Dan.Strassberg]

Latest reception report from Arlington Heights, near Lexington. I am
using unamplified indoor antennas:

Apparently, WHDH never cut the Channel 42 carrier, although there was
no picture or audio from Saturday at 12:01AM until sometime yesterday,
Tuesday, 6/16/09. My Insignia DTV converter rescanned with no problem.
It must have been smart enough to detect the lack of program content
on 42 and exclude those "channel 7s" from the scan results. Not so, my
year-old Panasonic LCD TV, which brought up the VHF 7-Ds when I
entered 7-1 or 7-2 on the remote's keypad but brought up two 7-1s and
two 7-2s (of which one of each displayed no picture or audio) when I
used the remote's up- and down-arrow controls. I have not yet
re-re-scanned the converter box, but now that 42 again carries
modulation, the TV gets me picture and audio on both 7-1s and both
7-2s. It is fairly straightforward to determine which of the 7-1s and
which of the 7-2s I am watching on the TV. All I need to do is invoke
the signal-strength meter. The VHF 7s typically read 68 to 70. The UHF
signal reads in the mid-to-high 90s. Any UHF DTV signal that read
68-70 would be unusable on the LCD TV--it would be just a mess of
dropped audio and pixellation. The 7-D signals, though relatively
weak, seem steadier in strength than the UHF signals. I attribute the
good reception of the relatively weak 7-Ds to this (relatively)
unvarying signal strength.

BTW, the TV remote's up and down arrows (but not those on the
converter box's remote) also stop at two 66-1s, but even now, only one
of these carries picture and audio. So I gather that 66 still has a
live, though unmodulated--except for ID info, carrier on whichever
channel carried its iterim DTV signal.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org>
To: "Jim Hall" <aerie.ma@comcast.net>
Cc: "'Boston-Radio'" <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 6:06 PM
Subject: RE: WHDH-DT Now Simulcasting


> <<On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:30:54 -0400, "Jim Hall"
> <aerie.ma@comcast.net> said:
>
>> Well that's certainly good news.  But I wonder what's going to
>> happen to
>> people who could receive DT on RF Channel 7 after the switch.  Will
>> their
>> sets/converters understand why there are *two* channels 7.1 and 7.2
>> broadcasting?
>
> I believe what's supposed to happen is the same as when you can hear
> both a translator and the primary station at the same time: they
> both
> have the same "program ID" code, and the tuner is supposed to pick
> whichever signal is best.  Not that I trust $40 coupon tuners to do
> the right thing.
>
> -GAWollman
>