Recent content by TalkingRat

I get signals from 30 miles away, line of sight, with a Terk HDTVa (amplified). They are mostly duplicates of the stuff from the main towers in the opposite direction, so I don't pay much attention to them. But they can be tuned, and occasionally even come in off the back end of my antenna in...

I will have a dozen analog stations remaining, mostly boosters. But analog isn't dead in the NW. And with those newly vacated frequencies, there may be a few more analog stations in the works.

:D

There is a menu item for updates, and the idea was that the firmware would be carried in the PSIP data from CBS (we thought). But it would be a service provided to a manufacturer, and it would of course cost them money to arrange it. I don't expect we will ever see such an update for the...

I saw Adelstein's tv interview in New Mexico online about a week ago. He said he was there because "it turns out" that NM has the highest population unready. To begin with, the estimates are based on households, not people, and I'm pretty sure he meant to say the highest percent, not the...

Actually, the data show the opposite, and have for months. People who write the articles simply don't bother to look at the facts before they pull up "old" and "poor" as the worst groups. The general population is 3.1% totally unready, the over 55 age population is 1.7% unready. And that's...

If PBS is any indication, they can't. I hope they match their reputation for being late.

If you don't count the premature late 2007 announcement, late last year ION announced they'd be starting with ~20 DMAS on Feb 16, 2009, but with the transition delay they pushed it out a month, and it actually ahowed up a bit later than that. I think the plan was to expand to other DMAS by year...

The AVS forum thread on the DVPal DVR had a status update recently, that firmware would be out mid April to resolve the recording sequencing issues and the freezes and a few unnamed other things, and that Dish would resume selling the DVR in May. Since you have an HD capable TV, that would seem...

Back when I cared about Comcast, I'd heard that in the East, Comcast was interpreting clear channel requirements as applying only to analog signals, and had started encrypting local HD. People speculated that it was their test case to see if they got away with it. In the NW, they are putting...

So why is it so hard for people to learn about HDTV? I agree, the biggest sale killer is what you see in the store. They have a string of TVs priced from $400 to $8000, and they all look alike with settings tweaked to the maximum and tuned to SD programming. Plasma sets are placed sideways...

Lo-VHF isn't entirely going away, it will still be in use by 40 full power stations. Knowing the real frequency can be useful for those with indoor antennas. You don't want to be fussing with rabbit ears if 6.1 is transmitting on UHF. If you're buying a new antenna, it doesn't hurt to...

On the digital interference with analog, just an added point: when I'm in analog mode and stop at a digital channel, the screen flickers as it tries to interpret the signal, presumably the analog content transmitted at that frequency. I can tell it's a digital because the screen flickers in a...

Thanks for the explanations. I wasn't being scientific in terms of researching the science, just basing it on my two least stable digital stations. They are from the same antenna farm as my other stations, comparable power and all strong 1 edge signals. But the digital versions often have...

If it interferes with analog signals still broadcasting, they won't be able to go to full power. I have four stations changing frequency, three involve shutting down their own analog. It surprised me that the only station I've heard about so far is not one of the four. KOIN (CBS) is on the...