[BC] TV Standards

[Robert Orban]

At 05:49 PM 10/18/2005, you wrote:
>From: Robert Meuser <Robertm at broadcast.net>
>Subject: Re: ReRe: [BC] TV Standards
>To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
>Message-ID: <435576A2.90801 at broadcast.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>Is this a pure RF blockage problem (no analog UHF reception either) or is it
>that you have an old DTV tuner?
>
>R
>
>Robert Orban wrote:
>
> > Since I am on the wrong side of a hill and cannot receive a single one
> > of the San Francisco UHF DTV stations with a large, amplified outdoor
> > antenna (even though the Sutro TX site is only about 25 miles from my
> > house),

I have an HDTiVo, which doesn't use 5th-generation tuner chips, but is not 
the oldest design in the world either. I can get recognizable analog UHF 
from Sutro, but the picture is VERY snowy, to the point where it is really 
impossible to enjoy watching. So I'm guessing that this is an RF signal 
strength problem. I don't have an RF spectrum analyzer readily available; 
this is really the only way I could say for sure.

I _can_ get KNTV's DT signal, but that TX is on Mt. San Bruno (a bit closer 
to me than Sutro), and, most importantly, it's on channel 12.

My antenna is a "deep fringe" VHF/UHF combo antenna (a Channel Master, I 
believe) on a rotator with an amplifier mounted on the mast immediately 
below the antenna.

There are a lot of east/west-going canyons on the SF peninsula, and people 
in the valleys get major shadowing of the SF TX sites. Cable is a must in 
those locations. Comcast in my area has an HD tier but doesn't carry UPN or 
The WB, just ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. So, at the moment, I am waiting for 
DirecTV to finally get its act together with HD locals, and hope that they 
carry all of the networks, and also that their MPEG4 re-encoding doesn't 
compromise picture quality too much. (No one at DirecTV seems to be willing 
to talk about which flavor of MPEG4 they will be using; hopefully it will 
be AVC.)



Bob Orban