[opendtv] Re: Freeview business model

Is there any power savings when modulating 2 similar channels on a single antenna as opposed to two antennas? 

- Tom


Dale Kelly wrote:

Dale Kelly wrote:


Nothing akin to this system exists in the U.S. and
suggesting that broadcasters construct one from scratch
at this late date, though a noble idea, seems is a bit
Quixotic.



  Bert answered:


Although even with the US approach to OTA broadcasting, there are plenty
of examples of broadcasters sharing a tower. And I still think that it's
not completely unreasonable to expect OTA broadcasters to pay attention
to each other's program offerings, and try to create an attractive OTA
network.



Yes, the sharing of towers in the U.S. is not uncommon but it is clearly not
the norm. However, the sharing of an antenna by individual broadcasters is
unusual and the sharing of a single antenna by an entire market* is
extremely rare, if done at all.
You will note that in the UK system, all stations share a single antenna and
therefore have virtually the same pattern. That is doable when a system has
only five or so channels, all are in the same band (UHF in this instance)
and are selected for single antenna compatibility (frequency and power
output).

There are many impediments to implementing such a scheme in most U.S.
markets, i.e., split V/U channel assignments, many channels that can not be
collocated and/or require different patterns to protect other channel
assignments. For a Freeview type service to be viable, participating
stations must be generally collocated and must provide similar coverage.
Under current conditions this might be done in some markets but would be
difficult (and very costly) or impossible in others.

That being said, I agree with your suggestion that it is a worthy effort now
that an adequate receiver design seems to be available and assuming that the
service could actually obtain an attractive programming package. Which has
so far not been available to USDTV and will which be guarded carefully by
current multi channel service providers

* - The LA market now has a seven station common UHF DTV antenna on Mt.
Wilson which and was cleverly designed by Merrill Weiss to accommodate
stations requiring different ERPs and/or different antenna patterns. It
shares a new tower with our LA station and is currently operational, however
I don't know how well it performs relative to design but knowing Merrill, I
assume all is well. It is clearly a very expensive design but is a relative
bargain when shared by seven stations.

The LA market has about 20 stations, with ~16 located on MT. Wilson and
seems a potential for a Freeview type of service, if it includes sufficient
Spanish programming content or, perhaps even mostly Spanish content...

Dale

 The Dale who will no longer chide Craig for his verbosity!
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--
Tom Barry                       trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx     
Find my resume and video filters at www.trbarry.com


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