[BC] Insignia Digital Portable

[Scott Fybush]

cld at admin.umass.edu wrote:

> Yep- like Rich, it's not consistant.  

I disagree. I find Rich to be *very* consistent :-)

Earlier today, Rich mentioned Rochester, so it's only fair to chime in 
with some very initial observations from here in upstate NY. I haven't 
gotten one of the Insignias yet - will probably do so tomorrow or over 
the weekend. I played with one very briefly at our WXXI studios 
yesterday, and with another very briefly in Syracuse today.

Rochester is not, as Rich alleged, "class C" territory. This is still 
very much B country, and most of ours are textbook Bs, 50 kW ERP/150 m. 
Rich will be pleased - or maybe at least surprised - to know that within 
the bowels of our concrete-block studio building, the Insignia couldn't 
hear any of the local HDs. (But neither can anything else, even the 
Sony, and analog reception in interior offices stinks, too.)

It is true that we're in relatively flat terrain and that most of our 
FMs are down low and very close to the population center, and by a 
window the Insignia had no problems keeping a lock on the HDs.

Syracuse is a little funkier - a mix of As, B1s, Bs and some 
grandfathered superpower Bs, most of them up in the hills a fair 
distance south of the city and with commensurate lower signal levels in 
town. From inside a typical one-story steel-framed office building near 
downtown, the Insignia seemed to get and lock most of the local HDs 
during a very brief test.

We traveled from the studios near downtown up to the transmitter site of 
one of the superpower Bs - 97 kW from nine bays very close to the 
ground, and the Insignia wasn't happy with the high RF level there. I 
will be interested to see how it does for me at home, about 8/10 of a 
mile from one of our main tower farms, 3 Bs and 2 As only 600 feet or so 
above me.

s