Anolog vs. HD OTA distance.

[igator99]

I have one of Radio Shacks biggest antennas with an amp hooked up and I use to get some locals at night from 120 miles away. I also got with no problem any locals 70 miles away. With HD I can only get my true locals which are about 40 miles away.
Is it much easier to pull in distant stations in anolog? That is at least my experience.

 

[GeorgeLV]

I have one of Radio Shacks biggest antennas with an amp hooked up and I use to get some locals at night from 120 miles away. I also got with no problem any locals 70 miles away. With HD I can only get my true locals which are about 40 miles away.
Is it much easier to pull in distant stations in anolog? That is at least my experience.

Many digital transmitters aren't running at full power. For instance, a station licensed for 1000kW may operating under a special temporary authority at 1kW.

 

[NightHawk]

It's easier to receive VHF frequencies over long distance. Most analog stations are broadcasting on VHF and most digital stations are UHF (not all) hence it would appear analog is easier. It's really just the frequency band however. There are other factors like station power cited in the above post but UHF is generally limited to 70 miles by the earth's curvature.

 

[bubbers44]

I live 60 miles from the main antennas at Miami. Channels 7 and 10 use VHF for both their analog and digital HD transmitters. Analog puts out 320KW and the digital transmitters put out 16KW in the same frequency range. That is why everyone complains about the HD OTA coverage here. I don't have any problem with 2,4 and 6. They are UHF and much higher power around 100KW.

I use a high gain UHF antenna and preamp but don't think it is worth the trouble to see if a high gain VHF antenna and preamp would work.

 

[mdovell]

I find this to be somewhat true but when you consider the multicast channels I still get far more programming on hd than analog. And even then I actually do sometimes get the channel under good conditions...basically on analog I can get univision...hd usually at night maybe with rain... no biggie

 

[kulakovich]

And don't forget - with digital, you may get a strong signal, at horrible quality, just like with FTA - One second you are getting crystal clear television, the next artifacts everywhere, and then nothing. All because of anything from wet trees blowing around to someone stomping on a cable down the hall.

It's just more extreme. You poke it, you lose the whole thing. In analog, you get snow. The digital equivilent of snow is a black screen. With a message. "Insufficient Signal Strength"

kulakovich

 

[Jim5506]

Actually with the same power output, on the same frequency, digital TV carries slightly farther than analog. As has been alluded to before, since most digital broadcasting is in UHF and many digital stations are not at full power and UHF does not bend around the curvature of the earth as well as VHF does, digital gives the impression of being weaker.

At farther distances, multi-path is much less likely. the way the signal is encoded, digital allows for about a 40% error rate before pixelation occurrs, whereas analog with 40% signal is a very poor picture.

 

[johnml]

I live 60 miles from the main antennas at Miami. Channels 7 and 10 use VHF for both their analog and digital HD transmitters. Analog puts out 320KW and the digital transmitters put out 16KW in the same frequency range. That is why everyone complains about the HD OTA coverage here. I don't have any problem with 2,4 and 6. They are UHF and much higher power around 100KW.

I use a high gain UHF antenna and preamp but don't think it is worth the trouble to see if a high gain VHF antenna and preamp would work.

I live in Ft. Lauderdale. I replaced the Directv supplied UHF antenna with a $33.00 UHF/VHF channel master from Lowes. You might want to consider getting a bigger UHF/VHF antenna. I was having trouble getting Ch7 & Ch10 with the UHF antenna. If i adjusted it, i could receive them but i would loose the other networks ( Ch2,4,6) The new antenna works great, now I receive all the channels from the Miami farm. I'm actually thinking of getting another antenna to maybe get some West Palm channels & maybe more north of there ??? :