FTA vs D*

[dashaund]

Prices

yea the tv stuff has always been pricy...I think because it is niche like amsat. The bottom has dropped out of vhf, uhf and multiband radios the last couple of years...I really would like to get a tri-bander for the car...I'm just too lazy to install it.

Yeah, prices have dropped on them, and ICOM wants $10,000 for the the IC-7800! You can buy three IC-756proIII for that! New rigs are nice, but I'm sticking with my Kenwood TS-520S. Solid as a rock, WARM sound...I can live without a digital display. And it's cheap...only paid $125 for it. And I can talk and sound like anyone who has a IC-7800...must make them mad, haha. Antennas are they key! Just like in FTA...if you can't pick it up, you can't watch it! ATV is a niche...I think a lot of guys are building their transmitters though. Yeah, a beam would be REAL nice but I can't afford to install the tower to put it on. Maybe someday.

As far as OTA, that really is the best value. Best PQ, and it's the cheapest Just can't see how some people dish out $50/month for cable for locals when they can take that $50 and put it in a rooftop antenna and come out better. It takes, what, an hour to install, if that? ESPNHD isn't really THAT bad on D*. It's worth it, really. For a crazy sports fan like me, anyway. Still can't see how NFL Sunday Ticket is worth the price tag, WOW! MLB Extra Innings is a good value though. So is Full Court.

 

[kymics]

In my city, they haven't even launched digital OTA and there's no plan that I know of to go HDTV. Just crappy old analog fuzz for now.

 

[dashaund]

Man that sucks. Any areas "near" you have digital OTA? One cool hobby that I know people do is digital OTA DXing, where they see how far they can get signals. I can easily get some of the Charlotte stations here (I'm in Greenville, SC), and have gotten Augusta, GA before. It's not too hard...definately no more work than setting up a FTA system.

 

[icstephen]

Man that sucks. Any areas "near" you have digital OTA? One cool hobby that I know people do is digital OTA DXing, where they see how far they can get signals. I can easily get some of the Charlotte stations here (I'm in Greenville, SC), and have gotten Augusta, GA before. It's not too hard...definately no more work than setting up a FTA system.

I am fortunate I live in North georgia and am fairly high...I am going to put up a large antenna on a rotor (I can get a very faint picture on the Chattanooga stations with a small wire antenna in the house) so I should have no problem picking up Atlanta and Chattanooga and the antenna guy says I may be able to get a few channels from South carolina.

As for the Ham stuff the new HF gear is disgustingly expensive, the ts520 is a great rig, I have an old ts450 that works pretty good. If you look around you can get some super deals on antennas & towers (especially if you are willing to take them down yourself). I once got a 30 foot tower, rotor & controller and a Hi-gain triband beam for $125.00 because the guy needed to make alimony and I used to have a friend that would drive around and offer to take down old tv towers and cart them away, he got allot of free towers that way.

 

[W_Tracy_Parnell]

We have 2 TVs. My wife has Dish Network Family back in the bedroom with locals ($25 a month) and I have FTA only on the living room set. When we move to our own property (probably next year) and get the money we will be getting motorized C Band/FTA and an OTA antenna with rotor but will keep the Family Pak. I may subscribe to a couple of channels through NPS but that will be it.

 

[kymics]

Man that sucks. Any areas "near" you have digital OTA?

Nah, we're pretty much a city in the middle of nowhere. I think Fox in Pembina, ND is going to be launching an OTA tower that will easily reach Winnipeg, but that's a pretty small market so I don't know if they have any plan for HDTV. The other US nets are out of Grand Forks/Devil's Lake/Fargo and that's too far from here. Canadian networks are up and running but only in the big cities.

What determines if a station chooses to broadcast HDTV over OTA? Is it just a matter of having the right equipment and enough power (I'm an idiot, but what I mean is do they have to have the right to transmit at a higher wattage)?

 

[Mr Tony]

Nah, we're pretty much a city in the middle of nowhere. I think Fox in Pembina, ND is going to be launching an OTA tower that will easily reach Winnipeg, but that's a pretty small market so I don't know if they have any plan for HDTV. The other US nets are out of Grand Forks/Devil's Lake/Fargo and that's too far from here.

Pembina should be up by now. Its the fox station...but then again the company that owns them (Red RIver) has been dwadling in most of their markets. They may be up but probably have a misicule power right now. Doesn't Winnipeg get CBS & NBC (WCCO & KARE) from Minneapolis on cable?

Canadian networks are up and running but only in the big cities.

everything I read the stations have the construction permits to build digital in Winnipeg. They just need to build the towers

What determines if a station chooses to broadcast HDTV over OTA? Is it just a matter of having the right equipment and enough power (I'm an idiot, but what I mean is do they have to have the right to transmit at a higher wattage)?

Digital max power is 1000KW. Converselly analog max is 5000KW. Now this is on UHF which most digital channels are. Most broadcasters when they start use very low power. The advantage of digital over analog is really two fold
-clear picture. No snow
-they can put more channels on the same channel by using "subchannels"

example is here in Minneapolis. We have digital channels for all our networks.
CBS digital is HD when its in HD and SD otherwise
ABC has 2 channels. 5-1 is the main and in HD. 5-2 is 24/7 news and weather (5 being the main channel on analog and the -1 & -2 are the subchannels)
FOX has 2 channels. 9-1 is HD when HD. 9-2 is 24/7 SD (but no snow)
NBC has 2 channels. 11-1 is HD and 11-2 is 24/7 weather
PBS has 5 channels. Here in Mpls we have 2 PBS stations (2 & 17) 2-1 is the National PBS HD channel 17 has 5 channels. 17-1 is channel 2, 17-2 is 17, 17-3 is a kids channel, 17-4 is the "create channel" that is on AMC3 and 17-5 is aeronitical weather
CW has 2 channels. 23-1 is CW and 23-2 is "the tube" (music videos)
My Network has 2. 29-1 is HD and 29-2 is SD

So the advantage of digital is more channels available. In alot of markets, CW & My are on subchannels (no OTA channel). They can shift bandwidth around between the channels just like FTA does. 2-1 & 4-1 are the best since they use the whole bandwidth.

Only thing needed is a ASTC converter (HD Converter). Box works fine even on non HD TV's. You aim the antenna for the best signal. Most of the stations are UHF but they "map" to their analog channels. So example, ABC is Channel 50 digital but it maps to 5 (analog channel)

Canada doesnt have the "analog end date" like the US does

 

[kymics]

Doesn't Winnipeg get CBS & NBC (WCCO & KARE) from Minneapolis on cable?

Yes that's right, but that's through cable and dsl. OTA analog is only CTV, Global, CBC, Omni and CityTV. Fox currently only comes in for some people but the analog tower is further away from the new digital tower.

Canada doesnt have the "analog end date" like the US does

That's interesting because on the Canadian boards I've seen people talking about it like it is. Canada will likely just follow suit anyway just to keep things consistent.

I wonder if they'll do any subchannels here when they finally get the OTA up and running. Minneapolis is a much larger market than here, so I wouldn't expect that much variety.

 

[Mr Tony]

I wonder if they'll do any subchannels here when they finally get the OTA up and running. Minneapolis is a much larger market than here, so I wouldn't expect that much variety.

I really don't know. Like I say, most smaller markets run CW or My Net. When I lived in Duluth, the only thing "extra" was (at the time) UPN on the NBC station. Now CW is on CBS too. I guess what would they add? Maybe they could add CBC Newsworld to CBC and CTV Newsnet to CTV.

I checked the ND stations and the only station that has anything on its digital station besides the station is WDAZ. They have CW on it.

 

[kymics]

There's a good Canadian board that I monitor from time to time that has good OTA information on it, so I can just keep checking back there from time to time for updates.

We won't ever get U.S. affliliates added in Canada, but like you said Bell Globemedia owns a lot of channels so I could see some subchannels on something like CTV.

Ultimately that is my hope to have an FTA only system with digital OTA for keeping up with local news and sports. Oh the money I'd save