Craig Birkmaier wrote: >> The FCC correctly said, in 2001, that the reception problems >> were going to be resolved before too long. We saw proof of >> that in March 2002. > > They said no such thing. They said that a change would be > disruptive to the transition. In case you're obsessing about the mention of 2001, that view of the FCC was stated in FCC/OET TRB-00-2, dated 9 April 2001: "The Commission was petitioned to allow COFDM as an alternative to 8-VSB, with proponents of this position offering field demonstrations purporting to show the relative superiority of COFDM in difficult reception conditions and emphasizing anecdotal failures of early 8-VSB consumer receivers.1 This controversy has, however, spurred the continued development of the 8-VSB receivers, particularly the channel equalizers, and also focused the attention of the Commission on the need for an objective and scientific analysis of the state of 8-VSB receiver performance." And: "To the extent that newly improved prototype or consumer-model receivers can be provided by manufacturers for testing and can be accommodated in the test bed, such additional receivers will be added to the test sample to allow a continuing assessment of progress in receiver performance." It was at about this time that the FCC decided to stay with 8-VSB. Although they might possibly have agreed to switch to COFDM had the NAB pressured them to do so, I do believe. By March and then April of 2002, the 4th gen Linx equalizer had been demoed at NAB and had been tested by the CRC, showing the ability of the equalizer to make use of reflections to increase signal power (in situations where the limiting C/(N+I) was less than 15 dB). Linx field-tested their 4th gen now-miniaturized demod in March 2003 and the CRC tested the Zenith 5th gen in September 2003. So in fact, what the FCC said came to pass. Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.