"Antenna Man" rakes WGBH over the coals

[John Francini]

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
> 
> 
>