[opendtv] Re: From Ed Reitan

Adam Goldberg wrote:

> With a rooftop mounted UHF-only antenna pointed midway
> between two tower sites (I'm in Northern VA, pointed at
> the DC towers), the only time I have reception problems
> are when it's terribly windy out.  Otherwise, I get only
> an occasional glitch, which is about the same
> glitch-free-ness that I get with my Dish Network
> programming.

And, to chime in, with similarly aimed antenna also from Northern VA, I
also get the Baltimore and Annapolis stations glitch free, except in
unusual conditions where everything from Baltimore gets refracted into
outer space. A second UHF antenna gets more reliable (higher margin) for
DC Ch 4 and Ch 50. I'm 13.4 - 13.8 miles from most of the DC
transmitters and 40.8 - 46.6 miles of Baltimore transmitting towers.

The Annapolis signal loses signal margin in summer, I think the leaves
on all the trees are the cause. Supposedly, that's a 150 KW ERP
transmitter 32 miles as the crow flies.

An indoor Radio Shack double bowtie on the second floor set provides
similar service, but no Annapolis station received there, and only three
Baltimore stations (46.6 miles as crow flies).

I do have one consistently marginal Baltimore Channel: NBC11, WBAL-DT.
It's on Channel 59, supposedly at 513 KW (I never asked the Chief Eng).
Makes for a great test of reception margin. Some nights, it's quite
good. I suspect a suboptimal location for the transmitting antenna on
the tower. They want to go back to VHF Ch 11 after analog shutoff. Makes
me think they aren't going to waste time optimizing Ch 59.

Since I started this DTT exercise, I've seen stations improve their
coverage dramatically, with nary a change in the way they are described
in the FCC list. So I tend to disbelieve the power levels reported in
those tables. Perfect example being WETA-DT, previously marginal, now
solid.

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/video/tvq.html

Don't know what to make of reports of channels with constant glitches.
In my experience, that's caused by marginal signal levels. Unless one is
uniformly distant from all stations, which would be unusual in the US, I
don't understand how one can experience the same marginal behavior from
all available stations. You'd think at least a few of the stations would
come in solid.

Bert
 
 
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