A couple of questions about Digital

[Kalalau]

Did Hawai'i indeed do the transition and how did it go? A few sort of technical questions. It looks like TV stations will be giving up the old VHF band and moving onto what we have called UHF. Knowing UHF's inability to penetrate, to carry very far, its propensity for ghosts, etc--how do the digital coverage areas line up with the VHF? And...given UHF's propensity for ghosts, how could that possibly not screw up digital? Tonight's the night here in San Diego, of course I won't be awake for it. I guess if a station choses to call itself "channel 5" thats just branding from now on.

[helen]

Re: A couple of questions about Digital

All I remember was an item on the newscast during the day of the switchover about some people who got helped by someone on that station's tech staff on what to do or get.

Once in a while a commerical will air about the conversion is done but if you know someone who still can't get a TV signal to contact a certain phone number for help.

For myself I got a replacement digital box from Oceanic since the old one died a few months ago but I was able to get an analog signal from the cable using the VCR as a tuner. And a new LCD TV to replace a set that I was using since 1997.

[Ninja]

Re: A couple of questions about Digital

Digital is either a "get it" or "you don't"....things common to analog like ghosting doesn't affect the digital picture, most modern digital tuners also are very good at rejecting multi-path. The basic problem digital suffers from is what is know as the "digital cliff" the point at which the tuner can't fully lock in the digital signal, so being blocked by a building or mountain will interfere with reception. Also in the DTV world, UHF works as well as VHF in propogating the signal.

San Diego like Hawaii has a very high cable penetration rate so it's pretty much a non-issue overall. I wonder though about those in Tijuana-Tecate-Rosarito that use OTA for American Programming how it's affecting them.

[Random]

Re: A couple of questions about Digital

Did Hawai'i indeed do the transition and how did it go? A few sort of technical questions. It looks like TV stations will be giving up the old VHF band and moving onto what we have called UHF. Knowing UHF's inability to penetrate, to carry very far, its propensity for ghosts, etc--how do the digital coverage areas line up with the VHF? And...given UHF's propensity for ghosts, how could that possibly not screw up digital? Tonight's the night here in San Diego, of course I won't be awake for it. I guess if a station choses to call itself "channel 5" thats just branding from now on.

Can't really tell if any of the digital channels (and sub-channels) I'm catching are in the proper VHF (2-15) or UHF (16-69) frequency ranges. I can catch most local TV stations with major network affiliation, including one I couldn't under analog (KHON broadcast both FOX -- primarily -- and CW -- secondary).

In addition, because I installed a new Near-Fringe Range rooftop antenna, I caught a religion TV station (on UHF channel 21) that I never could under analog.

As for channel branding, meh. We have one TV station that prefer to use cable channel instead of OTA channel. Don't know if it has to do with the number itself (OTA Channel 13 on Oahu) or something else.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: A couple of questions about Digital

Did Hawai'i indeed do the transition and how did it go?

While I'm sure it affected a few people, at the higher levels I'd say it was a non-event.

A few sort of technical questions. It looks like TV stations will be giving up the old VHF band and moving onto what we have called UHF.

Some are. Some aren't. In our case some transmitters were relocated, so it's a bit difficult to know if UHF came out that much worse. But overall, I would expect UHF to not carry as well.

[Kalalau]

Re: A couple of questions about Digital

Oddly enough I did see the transition. Waking early as usual, I happened to catch channel 10's recorded news which covered the event. An engineer pushed a button and 60 years of analog transmitting ended. Interesting.

Channel 6 from Tijuana also quit, which is a little surprising because Mexican stations were under no legal requirement to switch. However not channel 12 which has always been Spanish language and primarily serves the Tijuana market.

None of this applied to low power stations; I could see LA being peppered with dozens of new channel 2's.

Its weird, thinking how much those broadcasting licenses to use for example channel 2 in New York were worth, how much the equipment was worth and now...nothing. I guess there's probably a market for used transmitters somewhere.