Sic Transit VII

[Mark Laurence]

mrschuyler@aol.com wrote:
> Turned on the tube at about 3:30 Friday afternoon to find RF 7 completely gone, not just in black with the carrier on.  I'm the rare viewer for whom the "real" Channel 7 had a better signal for OTA DTV reception than did 42.  From my hilltop location in Lunenburg, MA, using amplified rabbit ears, the "real" Channels 9 and 11 come in very well.
>
> RF 7 always registered higher on the Zenith/Insignia converter's signal strength meter than Virtual 7 (42).  After months of experimentation, I had found the "perfect" position and settings on the antenna to receive 25 channels without jumping up every few minutes to make adjustments, but that ended when 42 immediately began breaking up a couple days ago.  Bringing it back meant temporarily losing "25" and "56."
>
> A couple years back I read somewhere that stations with coverage problems like WHDH's would be setting up booster XMTRs in those shadows, such as in urban "concrete canyons."  What happened with that idea?  Is that another concept that on works on paper but not in reality, like much of digital broadcasting?
They should try booster transmitters maybe, or low power relay 
stations.  Fill the Worcester hills with these.  As an alternative, why 
not allow rebroadcasts of major stations on a local station that could 
fill those gaps, such as 27-2, 27-3, and 27-4?  There's no reason why 
that has to be a fringe Spanish broadcast, just because 27-1 is in 
Spanish. 

I keep thinking they have to come up with a solution for the many areas 
that have worse reception than before, or in some cases none at all.   
But increasingly I think it's not going to happen.  Probably the 90% 
penetration of cable has something to do with it.  Maybe most of the 
left-overs don't care about TV at all anymore.