[opendtv] Re: Fewer than 2 Million have OTA DTV in US
- From: "Dale Kelly" <dalekelly@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 16:51:49 -0800
Bert wrote:
> Thanks, Dale. But the simpler answer, IMO, is that large area SFNs are a
> singularly bad idea for OTA TV distribution, where you want to cover the
> widest area possible at the lowest possible cost. Even along the
> California coast, I don't see why broadcasters would deliberately want to
> disenfranchise anyone living just slightly to the East of the coast line,
> just to obsessively go after this large area SFN idea.
I don't disagree at all. My original post suggested that, from either a
practical or FCC regulatory perspective, the SB market (and many others)
could not be effectively covered by SFNs. It is clear to me that a mix of
translators, placed to extend a stations coverage where needed, and
augmented by repeaters to fill in coverage gaps in the main stations or
their translators, where practical.
> I'm not sure what all the issues are on this, but there are
> examples here in the US where towers are shared among broadcasters.
Many companies do share tower sites in the U.S. and it is the best solution.
The option is there but often it isn't viable for a number of reasons, both
technical and business. Many markets (the majority seem to be west of the
Mississippi) have widely scattered transmitter sites based upon channel
allocation and city of license. This does not accommodate tower sharing
since the licensed location must be covered with a City Grade signal (or 40
dbu DTV) and/or they must protect another channel allocation. These stations
are often separated by many miles, ala Santa Barbara, which is not the
nearly worst case.
My understanding is that Craig's position is that ALL stations should be
multiplexed on common antenna or RF carrier in every market, which simply
isn't often practical. To do that we would be required to go back to the
drawing board as far as allocation and coverage are concerned - that is a
very complicated issue.
>
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