DTV report

[altivo]

So I dusted the cobwebs out from behind (and the front) of the television, and hooked up the "Apex" digital converter box. Since the antenna rotator lies, I ran in and out several times to check before I got the antenna pointed at Chicago. Then I let the box scan for digital signals. As I had expected, nothing usable was found.

Next I tried pointing the antenna at Rockford. An errant tree branch gets in the way of fully pointing the antenna west, and I had to settle for south west, more or less. I guess we'll have to climb up on the roof and prune that branch.

Anyway, let the box scan and this time it found two stations from Rockford. WQRF (formerly ch. 39) is a FOX affiliate (ewwww, not gonna watch their news much) but their signal is pretty clear when the antenna points in the right direction. WTVO (formerly ch. 17, ABC affiliate) also has a readable signal, and has a subchannel so that's a total of three stations (or two, if you're honest) with admittedly good signals but worthless content. We used to get about 10, including a PBS affiliate and Chicago's award-winning WGN independent, with some snow but mostly watchable if you really wanted to.

According to the FCC engineers, we are supposed to be able to receive 9 stations at this location, taking power levels, antenna patterns, and even landforms and elevation into account. I guess they used the same data measurement equipment that they used to prove that BPL worked and caused no interference to other services. Of course, there's no way to manually tell the box to add any given station to its menu. It has to scan and find them itself. Consequently, even if we could receive all 9 stations, we couldn't get them all on the menu at once, because 5 are from Chicago (ESE) and 4 are from Rockford (W). Switching from a Chicago station to a Rockford station would require reorienting the antenna, then rescanning the channels, then selecting the desired channel. Poorly designed equipment for a poorly planned protocol, I'd say.

In any case, we can now receive news and weather from two mediocre stations, so we're not totally cut off. On the other paw, the chances of either of us wasting time watching "The Bachelorette" or "The Newlyweds" is nil. (This is prime time on ABC? I knew that things had deteriorated into so-called reality shows and NASCAR but this is utter, brain-killing mush.) The second subchannel of 17 was running Dr. Phil, which is even worse than reality TV in my opinion.

Comments

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

I like the silicon tuner we have (zinwell). It has manual add/remove, but is sometimes quirky at holding time and timer settings... We get good reception from 20-40 miles away on most channels. Only lost one really, and we hardly watched it. Not a fan of CW.

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

DTV maps are about as useless as cell coverage maps. I'm now cut off from any Boston stations.

I do get a good PBS affiliate with 3 sub-channesl, the local ABC affiliate, and one religous station (with 4 sub-channels). The latter carries ION TV and Qubo, which makes it not quite useless, but mostly.

I haven't tried jockeying the antenna, but honestly, I just don't care enough. Maybe I'll get around to it eventually.

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

My only suggestion: Screw TV, get Netflix (aside from weather warnings and the news, and use accuweather.com for the former and news sources you trust, like LiveJournal for the latter.

*looks innocent*

[nekura-ca.livejournal.com]

A friend sent me these instructions for making an HDTV antenna:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw

He made one and says he gets lots of channels clearly, but he lives in the D.C. area, so I don't know how well it would work with weak signals. Might be something to try, since it doesn't look to complicated.

Nekura

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Apex was the only brand being offered here. It seems to want what they are calling a "smart antenna" which would be steerable by electronic manipulation as some radio astronomy dishes are. Finding such an antenna, however, is not easy, or at least not yet. I'd be glad to get rid of the ancient rotator arrangement though.

We don't watch actual "content" on any network other than PBS, and I really am irritated at losing that. Like so much of what has come out of the FCC in recent years, the claims that even areas like ours would gain coverage rather than lose it turn out to be utter lies. The independent news and weather coverage from WGN was excellent and is now also lost.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, PBS is the big loss here, though I notice that even WTTW in Chicago is no longer listed as PBS on the frequency charts. I guess the midwest just doesn't care about such things and would rather watch reruns of crap reality tv.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Netflix is no help. We only use television for news, not entertainment. Neither of the two stations we can now get is going to measure up for that. Accuweather is unusable over dialup due to their heavy graphic loading. You'd be washed away by a flood before the warning would even appear on your screen, since the advertising and hype are coded to display BEFORE the content. Even the government weather service noaa.gov is tuned with the assumption that "everyone has broadband" and has no low graphics alternative, but at least theirs is only information without hype, advertising, or "entertainment."

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

*snorts* I happen to like Nascar so point your TV hatred elsewhere. :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but I can see that's not going to cut it for the 40 to 50 mile range we need here. Chicago stations are 65 miles away and would need a high gain antenna plus an amplifier. Rockford is 35 to 40, which still needs at least the high gain antenna. What we have on the roof now is a high gain VHF/UHF yagi design, probably rated at 14 db gain or so, but it's very old and undoubtedly deteriorated. Replacing the antenna and aiming it properly will most likely get us a couple more stations, but judging by the list of prospects out of Rockford, I don't know if it's worth the bother.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I know that, you've made it obvious before, though why someone of your intelligence would go for that... errr.... "stuff" is beyond my comprehension.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

Not every Nascar fan is an inbred, banjo picking, cousin dating redneck you know.

And while I know this will fall on deaf ears...if you get ABC you should check out Wipeout. It is a stupidly funny new show that is in it's second season.

http://abc.go.com/primetime/wipeout/index?pn=index

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm not sure what we get. As of this morning, the two stations that did come in last night are gone. XD

[saythename.livejournal.com]

I commiserate.

If it wernt fur da kits I'd have used the television as
a computer monitor a long time ago.

I /do/ use the digital recorder (tivo knockoff) to get
the usual geek shows but thats about it.

As you said, whats the use of watching things like
"Rock Of Love" except to kill braincells, and I'd
rather use chemicals if I'm going to do that. @.@

Besides, really, the radio has most of the news I
need.

Now maybe I should upgrade to HD radio...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You mean satellite radio? It seems that they are about to go bust, and no surprise. I looked at the programming options a couple of years ago and it was just like cable tv: 40 stations, all the same old dreck. No imagination, nothing interesting, nothing creative.

Amusingly, I turned the set back on this morning and found it had "no signal". The three Rockford channels were all gone. Went outside to look, and the rotor was moved to point toward Chicago again. Ghosts? I dunno. Forced it to point farther east, right up against that tree branch, rescanned, and got a barely usable signal from Chicago WGN. Now if I could have only one station of those that supposedly reach our area, WGN would probably be it. They have their own independent news team, and a crack meteorologist who does his own modeling and predictions and EXPLAINS them. Evening news starts at 9 pm instead of 10, and runs an hour (except I skip the sports, so 40 minutes.)

My second choice would be a PBS station, but there seems to be no hope of that. We'll have to climb up there and trim away the tree branch, then see if we can lock the antenna into a good aim. The old Alliance rotor is probably pretty much shot.

I'll buy a new antenna, once there are enough reviews so I can be sure of getting a decent long range one.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Not sat radio, HD. Its not really different radio, its
just digital signals, the radios themselves cost more
though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio

As for your rotor having been moved, it was probably
the vixen, or her progeny.

They where upset you didn't want to watch Neil Cavuto.

^_^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, you mean IBOC. Talk to aerofox about that, he'll tell you everything that's wrong with it, in far more precise terms than I can.

It will give you the same problems that DTV has done. With FM frequencies, the change will be similar to what the DTV transition did, with more distant receivers unable to get the signal.

With AM it's a total loss. It just doesn't work well in that frequency range unless you are almost on top of the transmitter.

This appears to be another case of the FCC selling out to the highest bidder. The IBOC scheme is a patented commercial product. There are several other methods of achieving a digital audio signal over the airwaves, and some are in use in Europe, but the FCC has mandated IBOC only for the US and proposed a similar "transition" to what was done with television. In other words. All those old radios would quit working entirely, including the ones in cars, summer cottages, etc. where they are most often needed. Big profits for the companies that get to sell all the replacements, just as with the television fiasco. Big loss for everyone who doesn't live in a city, because choices will be reduced to half or less of what they get now.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I had to look up Neil Cavuto to even know who he is. I do recognize the face. ;p

I want Walter Cronkite back, to tell the truth.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, that while NBC has not gotten
on my goodside, I rather like Brian Williams, IF
I watch a standard old style six o'clock newscast.

Who does that anymore though? Its a 24 hour
newscycle now, in whatever format you want,
with whomever you like.

I do news buffet style. Drudge Report, Reason Mag,
Frontpagemag.com, and all the others in long slow
ladels of information.

Then again, there are weeks, months, when I
just don't wan't the constant drama and turn
it all off, get a good book and sit outside in
the sun or under the stars.

Those are the best times really. *bites his lip*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Cronkite retired in 1981, gods that's 28 years ago so I don't know how well you might remember him.

He talked me and my friends and family through some really frightening, earth-shaking events, like JFK being assassinated, the whole Vietnam fiasco, a couple of big recessions, and more. I really wish he had been on the air to cover the collapse of the iron curtain in the 90s and the 9/11 attacks after 2000.

Some will label him a "liberal" and dismiss him for that now. I would say he was pretty impartial, at least as he covered the news, and injected a lot of sensible philosophy when either extreme came up. He was certainly not as definitively left of center as, say, Peter Jennings, and he was much more conscious of history and related or similar events of the past, which he would at least mention. I still miss hearing him say "And that's the way it is..." followed by the date.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

*scribbles on the pad by the keyboard and keeps this
all in mind!*

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Cronkite would not be my first choice, but he'd
be way WAY ahead of Dan Rather.

If your going to read the news, you should have
some apperance of solid authority. Cronkite had
that, Rather /tried/ but...c'mon.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I never liked Dan Rather, though I couldn't pinpoint the reason. He just didn't make me feel as confident as Cronkite did. I tolerated Jennings on ABC, but didn't always trust him (and that sometimes proved to be a good thing, as we eventually learned that he wasn't trustworthy.)

I have actually preferred the BBC as a news source in recent years, but no longer have any way to receive them regularly.

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

Ow. This is making my head hurt...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Sorry, didn't mean to cause pain.

Obviously it's our problem, not yours. The fault lies with the FCC, the greedy electronics and broadcasting industry, and a Congress that is so technically illiterate that they bumble around like blind pigs.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually, my trouble with NASCAR is not with the fan stereotype, but with the entire concept of infernal combustion engines as "sport". I'm repelled, not attracted, by the noise, the stink, and the speed stuff. Speed doesn't excite me, never has. Doesn't matter whether you're talking about dirt bikes, motorcycles, snowmobiles, automobiles, or even aircraft. (Or, for that matter, horses.) I just don't get it.

I don't even like sailboat racing, though I do enjoy sailing just for the ride.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

*nods* To each his own. :)

Personally I love the feel of a motorcycle between my legs and some of my most enjoyable times in college were when I was out with some friends on our dirtbikes.

I can relate in a small way though, the Nascar experience at the track is unique due to the noise and the smell. However, if given the chance I would jump behind the wheel of most any racing vehicle.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

I think a local NPR station should have the Beeb on
overnights, at least thats the pattern here.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not here alas. I can get three NPR affiliates on FM, none of them run BBC or the folk music shows I liked. Anyway, BBC in the middle of the night is worthless to me. On short wave they used to come in at dawn or dusk when I could listen to them. ;p

[saythename.livejournal.com]

BBC on shortwave is pretty good /if/ you spend
money on a decent SW radio. I can't justify that
expense because its an occasional hobby for me.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, as a ham radio op I do have good short wave receivers and antennas. The problem though is that where the BBC used to deliberately make daily broadcasts to the North American continent (on frequencies and at times when reception in the US and Canada would be fairly easy) they stopped doing that.

In these times of no sunspots, getting the BBC here in the middle of the continent is not a sure thing any more. Sometimes you can, often you can't.

Back when I was a teen, I could listen to the Beeb and Radio Moscow both on a shortwave crystal set I built. No tubes, no batteries, but they came in loud and clear.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Now I'm imagining you a the original Danny Dunn!

Altivo And The Adventure Of The Sunspots (2009,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*snicker-whicker*

I'm about the right age for Danny Dunn. But it should be Altivo and the Adventure of the Missing Sunspots, I think.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Very well!

Actually Ben Bova had this novel about sunspots
called " As On a Darkling Plane" where we find this
strange city like object on a planet in the solar
system and its job is to /generate/ sunspots so
life wouldn't begin on Earth, of course it did. I
won't tell you the rest in case you read it, but
its not a great novel really. I'd recommend his
"Escape!" or "The Dueling Machine" that second
one is still classic, its SF in the old school mode
with the galatic empires, but it hints at virtual
reality. Hell it INVENTED virtual reality. Bova
just didn't know it. Worth a checkout at the library
at least if you...oh, your the librarian, you can
get that. XD

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Bova usually isn't my cup of tea, but that sounds interesting. I just requested it from Woodstock. ;p