"Antenna Man" rakes WGBH over the coals

[Scott Fybush]

UHF (now limited to RF channels 14-36) became the desirable place to be in
the ATSC 1 digital world for a few reasons, biggest among them the ability
to use a compact indoor antenna in most areas.

VHF for digital TV worked well, even in the ATSC 1 universe, but only with
a good outdoor antenna, which must of necessity be fairly large, especially
for low-band VHF signals that are ~6 meters in wavelength.

Power levels for VHF digital were set by the FCC with outdoor antennas as
the standard, and turned out to be lower than they needed to be.

UHF is still desirable for ATSC 3, because it includes new mobile reception
modes, and you're still not going to have a phone or tablet with an antenna
big enough to work well on VHF wavelengths.

But... the more robust ATSC 3 signals should work better on stationary VHF
antennas indoors, too.

And why didn't WGBH go back to RF 2? Because that channel went to WSBE in
Providence.

The repack process didn't care much about original analog channels, and had
no reason to. It's not like WGBH still had a channel 2 RF chain in place -
that stuff was all removed quickly after 2009. The new WGBH signal isn't
even at the same place channel 2 came from. That came from Cedar Street,
and RF 5 comes from Cabot Street, the old candelabra tower.

On Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:25 PM John Francini <francini@mac.com> 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
> >
> >
> >
>
>