DTV on standard NTSC TVs

[ChrisW6ATV]

Jeff, I am using a TV antenna on my roof. I am also a ham (the W6ATV in my nickname here) and I own this house, so the TV antenna is just one more in the collection. It is a Channel Master Stealthtenna, that I installed to replace a bigger log-periodic-type one because I wanted multi-direction reception without using a rotator. I live in a flat area about midway between San Francisco and Oakland, California, so I pick up good signals from both cities here (about 25 miles from either city). In fact, this is a good location in general, because I can pick up all of those signals indoor with rabbit ears on a good DTV receiver (Zenith or Channel Master) as well. It is fun to use a 1950s pair of rabbit ears and a 1965 RCA CTC-16 and watch flawless color TV with the Zenith tuner.

I would definitely recommend that you give an antenna or two a try with your DTV converter (and your flat-panel TV in antenna mode as well) again. Reception here is much better than it was in the early days of digital TV, so the stations really have been improving their signals recently. As I am sure you probably know, if/when you move your antenna to different angles or positions while testing it, you need to wait a few seconds or more in each position to let the digital tuner catch up before judging the signal and moving the antenna again. Good luck.

[Jeffhs]

Chris, I just now looked at the "antenna" listings at TVGuide.com for the San Francisco/Oakland area, and am astounded at how many channels one can get just with an antenna in that area. I didn't count them, but my best guess right now is perhaps 30 channels, from both SF and Oakland -- some of those channels being duplicates (I noticed two DTV channels on the LiveWell Network in the SF/Oakland area, and several PBS stations).

I think I just might try my Insignia flat-panel TV on an antenna, just to see what I can receive here OTA. As I mentioned, the NBC station in Cleveland did not reach here at all in NTSC analog, and the digital signal is likely even weaker, so I don't have much hope that I'll get that channel here with an indoor antenna. ABC and CBS, on channels 5 and 19 here, respectively, just increased their transmitter power (at least 19 did; channel 5 just installed new transmitting antennas and is, to the best of my knowledge, still operating at the same power output it had when it was operating in analog), so I may have a good chance of seeing those two channels in ATSC digital. I don't have DTV converter boxes for my two analog CRT TVs yet, and don't know if I can even get them anywhere anymore, as most stores that did stock them prior to the DTV transition no longer do so, although I read somewhere on this or another forum that Radio Shack still stocks Digitalstream-branded DTV converters; for how much longer, however, is anyone's guess. Flat-panel TVs are becoming dirt-cheap these days (I bought my 19" Insignia FP at Best Buy this past August for $130, less shipping), and I just saw an ad in my Sunday paper for a 19-inch off-brand FP selling for under $100. Because FPs, except the monster 40-, 50-, 60+-inch ones, are becoming so cheap, there may not be much need for converter boxes (people more often than not trash their old CRT TVs, replacing them with FPs these days when the old sets develop any kind of repair problems), so I guess now is the time to get a box if you can find them.


BTW, I have noticed your ham radio callsign as part of your member name here at VK, and I remember reading in one of your posts to another thread a long time ago that you operate amateur TV on 440 MHz. That's one mode I never explored when I had my HF ham station in a Cleveland suburb, before moving here in 1999. Now, I operate basically just 2-meter FM and, for HF, since I cannot erect antennas (lease restrictions), I am on Echolink, node number 331660. My callsign is WB8NHV (first licensed June 1972) and appears after my name in my profile signature.