RVN'S 4 US
On the Road
Senior Member
Joined: 12/09/2004
View Profile
|
wa8yxm wrote:
What is a digital antenna?
It's a standard 20 dollar UHF bow tie array which is, quite frankly a piece of junk, sold for 100 dollars to gullible people at RV shows, that's what it is, at least one version.
Or, it's a standard analog antenna with "DIGITAL" label slapped on it's face and of course they charge at least 20 bucks (Additional) for that label.
To an antenna there is only RADIO, (Television does not exist to an antenna) What is on the RADIO wave is what determins if it's audio, digital, or video (Television) but to the antenna a radio is a radio is a radio, there is no difference save for frequency and digital TV uses existing TV frequencies Though neither of our digital labeled antennas are bowties or $100, I don't have any motivation to disagree with your technical points.
Ours (especially the outside one shaped a lot like an styled and enlarged external HDD on a stick) are better at pulling in the entire group of digital signals than the same price range ones I replaced because we were not getting signals I knew were there.
Quite possibly there is no difference in some/all labeled digital and I just got lucky with picking the right re-labelled unit. Could be the company picked the one they already had that worked best at aiming for the signals. Maybe they actually made a new design(I hadn't seen any shaped like it before) Matters little to me. It works better than what we had.
The digital one I mentioned over $100 is/was a powered unit that automatically adjusted itself to seek the strongest power reading for the channel selected.
Plan for tomorrow. Live for today. Learn from yesterday.
|
rwm2_2000
Reynolds Ga
Senior Member
Joined: 03/24/2007
View Profile
 Offline
|
I sure do hope tv will survive being digital but I still don't know why it was FORCED on us.If it is so much better than analog we would eventually go to it w/o being forced. Of course we are not forced-we can do w/o and let the advertisers do their thing w/o us. Personally I'd rather watch a fuzzy pic than have it checkerboard off on me. I remember growing up we only had 3 channels unless we turned off the lights and then we could see Sanford and Son on NBC. MAYBE just MAYBE digital will work out ok. If I can't see tv w/o cable then I'll just do without...At least I won't have to listen to all those advertisers.
|
bigdodgeram
southern Calif.
Senior Member
Joined: 07/16/2001
View Profile
|
click
http://ota.winegarddirect.com/
after checking out the above site, I notice that it lists the analog channel and a different channel for digital. Does this mean that come Feb 2009 we will have to learn new channels for the programs we watch?
* This post was
edited 09/01/08 06:51pm by bigdodgeram *
95,Dodge RAM 2500 Club Cab, Red, SLT Laramie 2WD, 5.9 V-8, 46RH Trany. 5th Wheel Hitch & Tailgate. Tekonsha Prodigy brake controller. 1998 Fleetwood 28' Wilderness 5th wheel, 2 legged hitch support.
lovely wife, & Molly & Cassie our black & yellow labs.
|
wny_pat
Western NYS
Senior Member
Joined: 08/11/2007
View Profile
Offline
|
bigdodgeram wrote:click
http://ota.winegarddirect.com/
after checking out the above site, I notice that it lists the analog channel and a different channel for digital. Does this mean that come Feb 2009 we will have to learn new channels for the programs we watch? Yes, and most of them are in the UHF sprectrum, not the VHF sprectrum. And UHF signals are what is called "line of sight", which means if your antenna can not visually see the transmitting antenna, it will not receive the signal. If a hill or large building is blocking your view of the transmitting antenna, forget it, no matter how much output power the station is putting out.
I know, I should have just said yes to your question. Oh well, got carried away. If you have cable or sat, you will be fine.
|
RVN'S 4 US
On the Road
Senior Member
Joined: 12/09/2004
View Profile
|
bigdodgeram wrote:click
http://ota.winegarddirect.com/
after checking out the above site, I notice that it lists the analog channel and a different channel for digital. Does this mean that come Feb 2009 we will have to learn new channels for the programs we watch? The digital broadcast channels here are mostly the same as the analogs. 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 21, etc all stay the same here. About the only changes are the analog 27 signal now comes in digitally on 7.
There are a lot more signals now than with the previous analog channels. We now get 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4. Second signals on a few and up to 5 on a religious channel.
We got lousy signals on the analog channels because of our distance from downtown, I guess. Every broadcast channel that puts out a digital signal except one comes in clearly. And, by clearly, I mean significantly sharper than standard sat reception.
Edit: I went to that wino site and punched in my address. I just found out that all of the channels I've watched are actually on some different number. My mind had been punching in 8 when my fingers must have automatically punched in the correct, according to them, 29. Not a clue where they came up with their numbers.
* This post was
edited 09/02/08 08:42pm by RVN'S 4 US *
|
|
|
talonguy
Schertz, TX
Full Member
Joined: 06/11/2008
View Profile
Offline
|
ThunderingQuiet wrote:Currently the major carriers of over-the-air analog (CBS, NBC, ABC etc.) are broadcasting High Power analog signals. The digital signals you are receiving are of a much lower transmitted power. At midnight Feb 17, 2009 these analog high power transmission will cease and the digital transmission signal will have their transmission power increased.
Today you are basically receiving low power 'test' digital signals. On Feb 18, 2009 your digital signal will improve greatly.
I willing to throwout analog today!
Not all digital transmissions are being broadcast at reduced power. You can't tell which are and which aren't unless you call the individual station according to www.dtv.gov.
The fact of the matter is that you will not recieve digital signals as far away from transmitters as the old analog. It's called the cliff effect or digital cliff. If you want to read more about it, you can go here.
|
SCVJeff
Santa Clarita, CA.
Senior Member
Joined: 07/28/2006
View Profile
 Online
|
thecampingman wrote:Thanks for all of the replies! I'm really optomistic if the signals are going to get even stronger.
I haven't had much problem with "no signal" or the glitching others have experienced. But it's really flat here. It's strange though, my strongest station is the farthest away. 55 miles.
Yes, we're hooked on HD. My DW now actually watches TV instead of just listening to it. She could for the first time actually see the actors on her favorite show "Desperate Housewives". She's been legally blind since childhood. She sat 3 to 4 feet from the screen and stared thru the whole show. Even though it was a re-run. You might actually be surprised how much of the programming that you are watching on your new TV that is NOT HD (especially the 5 stacked PBS channels), but that significant difference in picture is nothing more than the difference between analog and digital. And yes, there will be some adjustments in transmitter power and sporadic antenna repositioning on the towers once the analog antennas come off the towers.
After that the complainers better learn to point their OTA antennas as carefully as they have DSS antennas for the last 10+ years because the net effect is the same: Either you have the signal or you don't, and there ain't no in-between.
* This post was
edited 09/06/08 01:28am by SCVJeff *
Jeff - WA6EQU
'06 Itasca Meridian 34H, CAT C7/350
|
|
