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#1
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OTA television just may eventually disappear on its own, without the need to mandate its extinction.
Up here in the pacific northwest, a very historic television pioneer, KVOS is just such case. This was the first station that served the Vancouver BC market. It was a CBS affiliate (and at one time Dumont in 1953), that once it lost CBS (it was considered a Seattle market station, which had a CBS affiliate) it was all downhill from there. It just sold for 2.2 million to an investment firm owned by Michael Dell. The previous sale a number of years back was 28 million, so someone got a bargain. In Vancouver BC, the market penetration of cable is so complete that most stations did not bother to go with transmit ERP's to equate their analog signals, and the "public" broadcaster (CBC) even discontinued a number of translators and fill transmitters across Canada. Those who run the big 3 networks in Seattle made getting locals on satellite so difficult that when Directv first offered them, we had to file waivers to each affiliate to get ABC, CBS, and NBC. The ABC affiliate insisted to Directv that we should be able to get their signal (CH4) off air, even though where I live in Blaine, WA is well outside their grade B contour (we're >100 miles from Seattle, through typical northwest mountains and forest). Come ATSC, and even off my 50' amateur radio tower and with a "super deep fringe" UHF amplified antenna, I can't even begin to see their signals on a spectrum analyzer. |
#2
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If you cannot receive the Seattle stations where you are with an antenna, and satellite doesn't carry Seattle's locals for any reason (what about Spokane stations?), your only other option would be cable if your area has it.
I would think, in an area over 100 miles from Seattle, you would have at least one cable system -- unless you are way out in the boondocks. If you are located in eastern Washington state (I don't know where in the state your town is), you should be getting stations from Spokane and also across the border in British Columbia; since the latter, and for that matter all TV stations in Canada, now have converted all their TV stations to DTV, one converter box on your TV should do the trick if you still want to use an antenna.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
#3
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If you cannot receive the Seattle stations where you are with an antenna, and satellite doesn't carry Seattle's locals for any reason (what about Spokane stations?), your only other option would be cable if your area has it.
I would think, in an area over 100 miles from Seattle, you would have at least one cable system -- unless you are way out in the boondocks. If you are located in eastern Washington state (I don't know where in the state your town is), you should be getting stations from Spokane and also across the border in British Columbia; since the latter, and for that matter all TV stations in Canada, now have converted all their TV stations to DTV, one converter box on your TV should do the trick if you still want to use an antenna.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
#4
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Now local channels are mandatory on Dish and DirecTV. I had to battle Dish go take the local channels OFF of my service as I receive over 70 OTA channels which Dish certainly can't duplicate, and they are not effected by rain outages. Dish made Locals mandatory shortly after I signed up for their service, and the first change I made to the service updated my account to include locals and added the fee to my bill. I argued with them and won, saving me a whopping $5 a mo off my Dish bill. Hey why pay for it if you already have better.
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#5
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Seventy over the air channels? Wow! You must be at a very high point in your area, or else you have a 225-mile deep-fringe antenna with a preamp, rotor, the works. I've never known or even heard of anyone (until now) who can get seventy channels of TV without cable. You must be getting stations from everywhere in the Southwest US, and then some.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
Audiokarma |
#6
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My not so deep fringe antenna, in the attic of the garage, an old Antennacraft-made sold at RadioShack back in the '80s-90s. A neighbor was throwing it away so I salvaged it, cut the back end off about a foot with the longest elements (damaged) no longer needed since there's nothing on the old channels 2 through 6 low VHF. Last edited by Ed in Tx; 12-13-2011 at 06:47 PM. |
#7
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You said that many of the stations you can receive have as many as five (!) digital HD and/or SD subchannels; that's amazing. How many standard TV stations did you receive in your area before DTV? The PBS station in Cleveland has three subchannels (PBS World, PBS Ohio, and PBS Create);the NBC station has one (weather radar), the ABC station has one (the LiveWell Network), the CBS station has one (MeTV), the Fox station has one (Antenna TV) and the CW Network affiliate has an HD subchannel, but no other alternate programming. There is a PBS station about sixty miles southwest of here that has three DTV subchannels as well. All told, on the cable system here I can get twelve channels, counting the broadcast channels' DTV subchannels, in addition to the standard "must carry" cable channels; the complete total number of channels I can get on Time Warner Cable -- broadcast, DTV subchannels, and must-carry channels -- comes close to the number of OTA stations you are receiving with your converted antenna. You are also saving a bundle by receiving your TV over the air, as cable systems raise their already high rates every year. I'd like to put up an OTA antenna here, but there are at least two problems: one, I live in an apartment building, so cannot erect an outside TV antenna, and two, I am in a semi-fringe area for Cleveland television, the transmitters being located just under 40 miles southwest of here. One VHF network station did not reach here in analog, and the others, except for channel 19, were fair to poor, using rabbit ears. I doubt I'd have much better luck with DTV -- in fact, I think my reception of all Cleveland stations would be the same or perhaps worse than it was in NTSC analog.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. Last edited by Jeffhs; 12-13-2011 at 07:29 PM. |
#8
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I have tried a couple of other antennas including a new Winegard thinking the old one wasn't doing as well as it could and maybe I could improve reception of LP stations. However, nothing performed as well as this old RS-Antennacraft antenna on UHF! I think it has to do with the folded or loop dipole UHF driven element used. That's the main visible difference between this and a similar sized Winegard that simply didn't have the signal strength. Antennacraft still sells antennas. Saw one at a Home Depot a year or so ago by the "GE" name, GE TV24767 was the number. I recall someone who went looking for one found out Home Depot discontinued it. As I found it, before my modification... Antenna as advertised by RS in 1995 Last edited by Ed in Tx; 12-13-2011 at 09:52 PM. |
#9
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I have a vintage Channel Master yagi (4257) that uses the same element. House array 2009.jpg This gets us 45 DT channels without moving the rotor. 30 from Philadelphia, which the antenna is aimed at. 15 more locals come in due to high signal strength. The amplifiers are located in the attic - in case they crap out in bad weather. needless to say I have no use for cable. RS used to have a simple dipole for UHF on all its antennas, and it barely worked, all that changed when RS offered the folded dipole. Maybe CM's 1977 patent expired and Antennacraft started using it. BTW Antennacraft is made by Winegard. Last edited by DavGoodlin; 04-13-2012 at 07:44 AM. |
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