Reception Range?

[retiredTech]

Does anyone have any info (or webpage) about the real distance (miles) that SD Digital broadcast stations can reach?
There are many viewers who now get analog who will lose all reception when broadcast goes digital.
No where have I seen reception distances addressed for the uncounted number of rural (and small town) viewers that will no longer be served by the TV public air waves.
Some of the money from the sale of the public airwaves should go for digital repeater towers to cover the areas now served by analog.

 

[boomer_106]

Antenna web will give an idea of the stations you can receive after you input your zip code.

AntennaWeb

 

[retiredTech]

according antennaweb, there are no stations predicted to serve this area.
The question I am trying find out is how far digital CAN be picked up.
Analog can and does work up to 100 miles (with a good antenna).
So what's the best that digital can do?
I suspect isn't going to come close at reaching fringe reception.
What's longest distance anyone here is getting digital reception?

 

[voomvoom]

It should be the same, I think?

Al

 

[Tower Guy]

Does anyone have any info (or webpage) about the real distance (miles) that SD Digital broadcast stations can reach?

TV Fool - Home will give you more reception information for your location than antennaweb.

You can try different antenna heights to see if a tower will make a significant difference.

 

[vegassatellite]

Digital stations tend to have a lower output level than their analog counterparts. How much output power they have is dependent on the license that each station gets from the FCC. Stations that may pose an interference risk to an already established service will not get licensed for as high an output. Digital doesn't need as strong a signal but a clean signal will provide the best results. You can get it quite a ways out if you use a very directional antenna and have a good enough carrier to noise ratio. Then you just need a good pre-amp.

 

[branchbouncer]

according antennaweb, there are no stations predicted to serve this area.
The question I am trying find out is how far digital CAN be picked up.
Analog can and does work up to 100 miles (with a good antenna).
So what's the best that digital can do?
I suspect isn't going to come close at reaching fringe reception.
What's longest distance anyone here is getting digital reception?

I have played with antennas for some time, tried different types with varied results. The signal that you will receive depends on many factors, distance is the first of course, the terrain that you have to deal with, the towers transmission power, etc. I live in Massanutten Va (22840), antennaweb.org shows only one digital station, in Harrisonburg Va--10 miles from me although the tower is only a couple of miles, anyway my house is located on the upper rim of a mountain 1700,' with a Channel Master 4228 and CH 7777 amp I can pull all the Washington DC stations except for WUSA which comes in but the signal varies so the station will break up. These station are located 85-90 miles away as the crow flies. You never really know what you will get unless you try different setups

 

[Peter Parker]

Sometimes we do everything but answer the original question. I wonder if there really is reliable info on the realtive reception ranges of analog and digital channels. It si certainly an interesting question jus not sure we have any real answers.

 

[Tower Guy]

Sometimes we do everything but answer the original question. I wonder if there really is reliable info on the realtive reception ranges of analog and digital channels. It is certainly an interesting question jus not sure we have any real answers.

Theoretically, the grade B coverage of most DTV stations are very close to their analog counterparts. Practically, VHF goes further than UHF; yet most DTV stations are on UHF. The ones that are on VHF are packed so closely together that extended reception of DTV is not very likely right now.

In February 2009 the interference from analog stations will go away and some facilities will revert to their VHF channels. The combination of the two should make long distance reception of DTV more likely than it is today, but each market will be unique.

In February 2009 Albany, NY will have DTV stations on VHF channels 6, 7, 12, and 13. VT PBS on channel 9 is also readily available here. The tight packing of stations in the Northeast will inhibit the reception of distant high band VHF channels. Channel 7 will be particularly crowded with WXXA in Albany, WWNY in Watertown, WABC in New York, WBNG in Binghamton, and WHDH in Boston sharing the channel.

 

[jtn]

Does anyone have any info (or webpage) about the real distance (miles) that SD Digital broadcast stations can reach?
There are many viewers who now get analog who will lose all reception when broadcast goes digital.
No where have I seen reception distances addressed for the uncounted number of rural (and small town) viewers that will no longer be served by the TV public air waves.
Some of the money from the sale of the public airwaves should go for digital repeater towers to cover the areas now served by analog.

Digital signals do not need the same wattage or power transmission as the analog signals do. You either get the digital signal or not at all, no in between, no snow, maybe some pixelation on weak signals but that's all. Digital is far better than analog. Analog will wind up being auctioned off by the FCC possibly for WiMAX technology for Internet.

Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is a good site for answering many questions you may have on digital television, and how it works. You just have to do a search, you can also try Google, if you cannot find the info on this site.

 

[JKElect]

The reliable reception range depends on your surroundings. I live on the side of a hill with two story apartments behind me, Tall trees behind them. This is to the north. So I do not pick up very many distant stations from the north. I am able to reliably pick up stations 50 miles away. I can pick up stations 65 - 70 miles in the evenings with good weather conditions. I am using a CM4228 w/amp and rotor.

 

[texasbrit]

You're starting from the wrong end of the issue. When agreeing to frequencies, power etc for digital stations, the general objective was to give a station approvals that would allow it to have the same coverage for its full-power digital station as it does today for its analog station. The FCC has worked hard to try to achieve this. The only issues have been with some stations in areas where the frequency spectrum is crowded, where stations have requested frequencies for which they have then been asked to run at lower power levels, or to install directional antennas to reduce the power they transmit in a particular direction.
Of course many stations are not yet transmitting at their fully-licensed power, or on their final frequency, so it is difficult to see what the final results will be. For people with fringe area reception, their reception of digital signals may actually be better than analog, or they may not be able to get a stable signal at all.

 

[NightHawk]

Digital signals do not need the same wattage or power transmission as the analog signals do. You either get the digital signal or not at all, no in between, no snow, maybe some pixelation on weak signals but that's all. Digital is far better than analog.

I don't believe this to be true. For planning purposes, the FCC calculated field strengths for each frequency band fall to within 1 dB of the minimum values published for NTSC grade B contours at those same frequencies. As Texas said the FCC worked hard to achieve this. There is certainly no technical reason the modulation scheme makes any difference to the propagation effects. As Tower guy alluded to the line-of-sight nature of UHF is what most people are learning to deal with right now.

 

[roashru]

When wind, rain or other RF signal changing weather is happening ATSC will blank out (not on) and needs more power. From what I have read ATSC has superior HDTV video quality compared to OFDM broadcast TV (DVB) that other countries have. The main drawback to ATSC modulation is the line of sight needed.