Before I went into the Cable TV business, I installed about a thousand TV antennas. I always used topo maps, a signal strength meter and then a TV to check for ghosts. Additional info: About 25% of TV stations must make a last minute channel change on Feb 17, 2009. Generally they had to buy a temporary transmitter and antenna for the interim. In the case of all my upstate NY stations that did this, they bought a small, cheap, lower power transmitter and located the temporary antenna lower on the tower, sometimes in a totally different location. These stations are not filling their coverage area very well. Also, when some of these stations move again, some will change from VHF to UHF (possibly UHF to VHF, but I have not seen this). UHF antennas generally need mast top amplifiers to make up for wire and splitter loss, which is extreme. The amplifiers usually have a better noise figure than the TV sets, another improvement. The Digital TV stations in this area, except for the ones at temporary lower power, are ALL much improved over their analog station in coverage area. I have not researched the effects of multipath problems, but I am told that latest chipsets in newest TV sets are better than earlier. Also was told by local TV station that they are having varied results with the subsidized converter boxes and they are recommending either Zenith or Best Buy's Insignia brands. We fixed ALL our analog reception problems by receiving the problem station in digital, with a converter box located at the cable head end, then sending them to cable subscribers in analog. Lee Haefele WWW.htva.net ----- Original Message ----- From: Al Thomason To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 10:53 AM Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] hd tv or antenna?
Might be OK. The frequencies used by Digital TV and 'old' analog TV are the same, so the basic antennas are the same (I am still using rabbit ears and a bow-tie UHF with my converter boxes). However, Digital tends to be more susceptible to poorer signal strength. Where as the old Analog TV would still show a picture, just a poorer and poorer one until it was all but snow, with Digital once the signal gets below a certain strength, it just stops working. All or None. So, try your existing antenna. It might be OK. But ifyou do have low signal strength you might have a few channels that will not be receivable. Then you need to look at perhaps an amplifier or other solution. Note also: When the old Analog channels get allocated next Feb, some of the current 'digital TV stations' will move to a different frequency. So, what is working (or not working) today might change next Feb as some of the stations make their final shift. -al- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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