"Antenna Man" rakes WGBH over the coals

[George Allen]

John - Someone suggested that VHF, esp. low VHF, 
has more general [artificial -- eg interference] 
noise from a wide range of things.  Noise seems 
to trump [sorry, poor word choice] better 
propagation at low VHF.  It's a good Q, and this 
isn't necessarily the right answer.  Why 5 and 
not 2? I have no idea...  2 would have made sense in an odd sort of way.
    George


At 07:24 PM 7/15/2020, John Francini wrote:
George, Scott,

As a spectator (software engineer, not radio 
engineer) to all of this, I have a question.

Why would having RF channel 32 (in the UHF band) 
be a 'better' signal than low VHF (channel 
5)?  And if they have to have a low VHF signal, 
why not their original RF channel 2? I always 
thought that lower frequency signals have better propagation for a given ERP?

John


—
John Francini <francini@mac.com>
“I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace;
that two are called a law firm; and that three or more become a Congress.
And by God I have had *this Congress!” — John Adams
 > On 15 Jul 2020, at 19:09 , George Allen <geo.allen@comcast.net> wrote:
 >
 > Those are very good points; the animosity 
comes from losing a HD Ch2/44 OTA signal.  Even 
with the [coming soon I hope] bumpup to 36kW, I 
don't think it will equal what RF32 has 
[?].  With the chess moves below, where would 
NBC-10 find a new high-power Boston spectrum 
home?  Not that I worry, but when below comes to pass, should NBC be worrying?
 >
 >
 > At 04:10 PM 7/15/2020, Scott Fybush wrote:
 > I don't get the animosity toward WGBH.
 >
 > They resisted selling off their WGBX license 
for years, while almost every other public TV 
entity took the fast cash and ran.Â
 >
 > They could have gotten tens of millions for it 
when stations like WNED in Buffalo and WMHT in Albany were unloading theirs.Â
 >
 > Instead, they've played a very long game. They 
deliberately didn't sell WGBX's spectrum, which 
means they still have a UHF ATSC 1 signal that's 
as good as any in the market. The WGBH 2 
programming is available that way for anyone who can't get the RF 5 signal.
 >
 > And guess what? Once the ATSC 3 transition 
gets moving in earnest, it's a good bet the WGBH 
license will be used for ATSC 3. Which means 
while other broadcasters with only one license 
have to scramble to find channel-sharing partners 
to maintain dual ATSC 1/3 operations, WGBH will be all set internally. Â
 >
 > And once ATSC 1 sunsets, which could be years 
from now yet, WGBH can move the ATSC 3 signal to 
UHF and *still* have another 6 MHz of VHF spectrum for more ATSC 3 data.Â
 >
 > They're thinking several moves ahead on the 
chessboard compared to most of the industry. I 
don't hate them for that. I admire them for it.Â
 >
 > On Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 3:12 PM George Allen <geo.allen@comcast.net> wrote:
 > Yeah, they really took the $ and ran.  And...
 > they get ongoing $$ from NBC10 by renting out
 > RF32 (wgbx) to NBC10 for 15-1 and 15-2.  So they
 > cashed out twice at OTA viewer's
 > expense.  Somehow that seems not right, even if
 > legal.  Cord-cutting is rampant [I'm one of
 > them], so tho maybe at one time OTA wasn't a big
 > deal, it's a bigger deal now.  Why don't they
 > just stream HDTV over the web?  Doesn't solve it
 > for everyone but would make me happy.
 >
 > I have mixed emotions about all this.  It was a
 > good deal for them and raised a lot of cash.  The
 > Q is: what are they going to do with all that moola?
 > Â  Â  George
 >
 >
 > From: Richard Chonak <richard@chonak.com>
 > Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:22:41 -0400
 > Subject: "Antenna Man" rakes WGBH over the coals
 >
 > The "Antenna Man" of Bethlehem, PA usually
 > devotes his YouTube videos to testing TV
 > antennas, and rating their performance at his location in the Poconos.
 >
 > Viewers all over the country ask him for advice,
 > so in a video released July 14, he devoted an
 > episode to explaining the FCC spectrum auction
 > that led to many changes in reception.
 >
 > In particular, he zeroed in on PBS stations that
 > took big payouts to move to low-VHF
 > frequencies.  The prime example, of course, is
 > WGBH's move to RF channel 5, and the $218M
 > jackpot the auction yielded for it. Lamenting the
 > poorer service which the public got, he shows a
 > list of a dozen or so station employees with
 > salaries running up to $400,000 and beyond it.
 >
 > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrFib1jaBP0
 >
 > --RC
 >
 >
 >