[opendtv] Re: Aereo startup tries to thwart additional lawsuits
- From: dan.grimes@xxxxxxxx
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 20 May 2013 16:17:50 -0700
Bert wrote:
"In the neighbor's case, he had the antenna indoors, ground floor, and was
unable to pick up all the stations. Then he propped it up outside the
kitchen door, and boom, they all came in.
"When I hear these accounts of non-success, they're never specific enough
to explain much. In short, you cannot assume that rabbit ears mounted on
the TV set itself are going to work. As poor a solution as that always was
for analog TV, with digital it's sure to fail.
"Remember: My sister had a much harder time of it, with DVB-T, but I'm
sure most of the problem was low signal strength. Even though she lives a
lot closer to the towers (LOS) than I do here, she had to get someone out
to install an antenna on the top of her apartment building. Ditto with
mom. So don't everyone jump to modulation as the panacea."
I must have misunderstood you when you provided your anecdotal success. I
thought you were arguing that it was that simple. But I see that you do
agree that it isn't always simple or easy.
I've never been one to argue that it is the modulation scheme that is at
fault. Of course, others have.
I can be quite specific about the non-success in Las Vegas(I can provide
pictures from a spectrum analyzer--they are an ugly sight):
1. Our lowest channel is channel 2 (54MHZ, 1/4 wave=54.67"). There is no
indoor antenna that I know of (that can be reasonably placed) that can
receive a strong enough signal from this station. Though I have not tried
it, I heard of one person that was successful with a rhombus antenna
stabled to his living room ceiling. Took the whole living room to do it.
2. Multipath, mainly for those not line-of-site to the transmitter. There
are a lot of apartments in Las Vegas and I don't think one of them has a
true CATV system, i.e., an internal distribution system for an outdoor
mounted antenna. They do almost always have a system to distribute MVPD
services. DBS antennas are mounted to patio ledges or on tripods but the
management won't let you put up an OTA antenna (they don't fit on the
patio, anyway). And there are plenty of shadows and multi-path hot spots
from buildings on The Strip, for those that are directly Northwest.
3. On some rare occasions, angle between transmitters. For those living
to the south, one must put a rotator on their antenna because there is not
a good way to receive stations that are up to 90 deg. apart. I have
thought about experimenting with two antennas combined, but I haven't
taken the time yet.
I am sure that these challenges would be the same with DVB-T as they are
with 8VSB so I am not trying to pin the blame on the modulation scheme.
Actually, sometimes I am quite amazed that a picture makes it through. I
should also state that most of these cases were to get the government
subsidized boxes to work.
Dan
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