[78-L] end of 525-line television ^

[Mwcpc2 at aol.com]

Everything will change when they convert. From discussions  with engineers at 
a local SMPTE meeting, most digital channels are in the  UHF bands now, 
operating on relatively low power. After the VHF analog channels  are vacated, many 
digital channels will switch to higher power on VHF channels.  Others will 
increase their power but on different frequencies, as "commercial"  
communications take over the part of the UHF spectrum to be auctioned  off.
 
30 miles south of Rochester NY I get more than 24 analog channels from  three 
cities. However most are of marginal signal strength and there is severe  
multipath on VHF from Rochester. I can foresee completely redoing the  $300 
antenna, rotor, amplifier and tower setup I installed 30 years ago to get  even 
those signals at levels needed for reliable digital reception. Or paying  
$100/month for the cable feed from 60 miles away that didn't really work the  three 
times I tried it. Or just forget about TV altogether!
 
In any case, I intend to wait until the dust settles before spending any  
money on TV for now.
 
Mike Csontos
 
 
In a message dated 1/8/2009 11:23:07 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
mbiel at mbiel.com writes:

Down  here in Birmingham I got 16 analogue but only 6 digital.
In Brooklyn I was  able to get one digital that I didn't get on analog. 
The manual search on  my set only searches for analog signals.  I don't
know what will  happen when there are no analog signals for the set to
work with.  ANd  even if you could do a digital search, nobody knows what
the channel the  digital signals are on.  I assume there is an allocation
chart but I  haven't found it yet.  In Lexington, KY one of the stations
is  petitioning to get their digital signal moved off of VHF into UHF.  
Lexington was the only sizable market that was ONLY UHF.   Therefore,
nobody had VHF antennas in that market unless they were far  enough away
to try for Cincinnati or Louisville V's  I think they put  36's digital
on 13, and nobody in the city is getting it on their old  antennas.  


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