A couple of days ago, my power failed right in the middle of a
football game. I just happen to have a 12v deep discharge battery
and a 12v B&W TV. I plugged it in, extended the two-foot telescoping
antenna and, wonders of wonders, I was receiving a very good vhf
TV signal from about 40 miles away. The game went on and after
awhile the power came back on. That good TV picture simultaneously
disappeared along with the sound. There may be a lesson there somewhere.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 23:14:22 GMT, Cecil Moore wrote:

A couple of days ago, my power failed right in the middle of a
football game. I just happen to have a 12v deep discharge battery
and a 12v B&W TV. I plugged it in, extended the two-foot telescoping
antenna and, wonders of wonders, I was receiving a very good vhf
TV signal from about 40 miles away. The game went on and after
awhile the power came back on. That good TV picture simultaneously
disappeared along with the sound. There may be a lesson there somewhere.

I don't think you were telling us that the battery went flat at that
moment, so...

Don't you have digital television? Best thing since sliced bread.

I don't know if you can receive analog television beyond the digital
coverage ranges, but you probably wouldn't want to watch it.

Digital TV makes weak signals most watchable, DVD quality at weak
signals.

I use it and I am only 4km from the transmitter, but that is another
situation where it works a treat, ghost free pictures close to the
tranmitter in the presence of local reflections (hills, water towers
etc).

Owen
--

On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 23:28:15 GMT, Owen Duffy wrote:

On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 23:14:22 GMT, Cecil Moore wrote:

A couple of days ago, my power failed right in the middle of a
football game. I just happen to have a 12v deep discharge battery
and a 12v B&W TV. I plugged it in, extended the two-foot telescoping
antenna and, wonders of wonders, I was receiving a very good vhf
TV signal from about 40 miles away. The game went on and after
awhile the power came back on. That good TV picture simultaneously
disappeared along with the sound. There may be a lesson there somewhere.

I don't think you were telling us that the battery went flat at that
moment, so...

Don't you have digital television? Best thing since sliced bread.

I don't know if you can receive analog television beyond the digital
coverage ranges, but you probably wouldn't want to watch it.

Digital TV makes weak signals most watchable, DVD quality at weak
signals.

I use it and I am only 4km from the transmitter, but that is another
situation where it works a treat, ghost free pictures close to the
tranmitter in the presence of local reflections (hills, water towers
etc).

I suppose you have the Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (COFDM) standard there.

(Editorial mode on)

Our idiot government is forcing 8-VSB (8-level vestigial sideband) on
us and multipath will be the death of my off-the-air TV watching.

Furthermore, my wife and rarely watch anything live (except for local
news), but use two DVRs for time shifting and commercial elimination.
So with my system, if I can get a picture at all, I would need three
STBs (set top boxes) that are programmable or a couple of new digital
recorders and a new TV set. (If I was poor enough, my idiot
government would buy this stuff for me, but instead, I believe I will
be taxed to buy it for someone else.)

And then they are changing the aspect ratio so my 35" screen is
obsolete and any replacement would have a smaller screen if I want to
keep it in my $7,000 piece of furniture.

One of my U.S. Senators (McCain) is actually leading this effort, "In
the interest of public safety" because he says the analog TV frequency
spectrum will be used for emergency communications. Ha ha. The
government wants to auction this spectrum off to the highest bidder(s)
and it won't be the local police department.

Another example of what you get when you have politicans making
technical decisions.

(Editorial mode off)

Wes Stewart wrote:

Furthermore, my wife and rarely watch anything live (except for local
news), but use two DVRs for time shifting and commercial elimination.
So with my system, if I can get a picture at all, I would need three
STBs (set top boxes) that are programmable or a couple of new digital
recorders and a new TV set.

Odds are you'll need the STB for each PVR, not TV. PVR's are basically a
VCR with a computer instead of a video slot, same limitations apply with
the signal you feed it. The video coming out of the PVR isn't going to
change magically overnight, though.

(If I was poor enough, my idiot government would buy this stuff for me,
but instead, I believe I will be taxed to buy it for someone else.)

Show me where I can sign up for a free TV from the government...

And then they are changing the aspect ratio so my 35" screen is
obsolete and any replacement would have a smaller screen if I want to
keep it in my $7,000 piece of furniture.

Actually, they're fixing the aspect ratio. 16:9 would allow most movies to
run without having to be butchered by some trained monkey that thinks
they're a pan and scan editor to fit the screen, or black bars to bring the
aspect ratio back to the original film ratio as it was intended to be
shown.

4:3 aspect was a technical limitation that really should have died long
before my birth, much less now. Good riddance.

--
Paul Johnson
Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber):
Got jabber? http://ursine.ca/Ursine:Jabber

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:02:17 +0000, Paul Johnson
wrote:

(If I was poor enough, my idiot government would buy this stuff for me,
but instead, I believe I will be taxed to buy it for someone else.)

Show me where I can sign up for a free TV from the government...

Newsflash (it took less than a week to come true):
"Under a deal negotiated by Republicans in the House and Senate,
up to $1.5 billion would be available to help some people buy
converter boxes to keep their old, analog-signal televisions
working when the transition [to digital TV] is finished."

Welcome to the GOP welfare state.

Richard Clark wrote:

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:02:17 +0000, Paul Johnson
wrote:

(If I was poor enough, my idiot government would buy this stuff for me,
but instead, I believe I will be taxed to buy it for someone else.)

Show me where I can sign up for a free TV from the government...

Newsflash (it took less than a week to come true):
"Under a deal negotiated by Republicans in the House and Senate,
up to $1.5 billion would be available to help some people buy
converter boxes to keep their old, analog-signal televisions
working when the transition [to digital TV] is finished."

Welcome to the GOP welfare state.

There's a big difference between a cheap part from Radio Shack and a
television...

--
Paul Johnson
Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber):
Got jabber? http://ursine.ca/Ursine:Jabber

Richard Clark wrote:

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:02:17 +0000, Paul Johnson
wrote:

(If I was poor enough, my idiot government would buy this stuff for me,
but instead, I believe I will be taxed to buy it for someone else.)

Show me where I can sign up for a free TV from the government...

Newsflash (it took less than a week to come true):
"Under a deal negotiated by Republicans in the House and Senate,
up to $1.5 billion would be available to help some people buy
converter boxes to keep their old, analog-signal televisions
working when the transition [to digital TV] is finished."

Welcome to the GOP welfare state.

There's a big difference between a cheap part from Radio Shack and a
television...

--
Paul Johnson
Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber):
Got jabber? http://ursine.ca/Ursine:Jabber

Richard Clark wrote:

Show me where I can sign up for a free TV from the government...

Hm... wouldn't that be a 'newscreen'?

Welcome to the GOP welfare state.

Welcome to single party plutocratic corporo-fascism.

The Eternal Squire

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:02:17 +0000, Paul Johnson
wrote:

Wes Stewart wrote:

Furthermore, my wife and rarely watch anything live (except for local
news), but use two DVRs for time shifting and commercial elimination.
So with my system, if I can get a picture at all, I would need three
STBs (set top boxes) that are programmable or a couple of new digital
recorders and a new TV set.

Odds are you'll need the STB for each PVR, not TV. PVR's are basically a
VCR with a computer instead of a video slot, same limitations apply with
the signal you feed it. The video coming out of the PVR isn't going to
change magically overnight, though.

(If I was poor enough, my idiot government would buy this stuff for me,
but instead, I believe I will be taxed to buy it for someone else.)

Show me where I can sign up for a free TV from the government...

Actually, I think that you already know that the gummit is talking
about furnishing STBs to poor folk and you're just being
argumentative.

From this source:

http://www.todaysengineer.org/2005/Dec/spectrum.asp

"The Senate DTV bill, passed on 3 November, calls for a 7 April 2009
analog shutoff, and would use up to $3 billion of the $10 billion
expected from the analog spectrum auction to subsidize most of the
cost for converter boxes"

After the governmental "handling charge" the $3B will eat up $6B of
the "windfall."

And after a natural disaster cable TV systems will be working about as
well as cell phones have. While the old analog TV and radio will keep
chugging along.

http://www.nab.org/Newsroom/PressRel.../WSJ101504.asp

4:3 aspect was a technical limitation that really should have died long
before my birth, much less now. Good riddance.

What "technical limitation"? Aspect ratios are arbitrary. Most were
set based on film sizes, not some CCD. Some of the finest images ever
produced are on 4 x 5 or 8 x 10 film negatives, often displayed with
vertical orientation, as are many of the masters' paintings; so much
for 16:9 horizonatal.

Wes,

You got that right. Perhaps you are even too kind to cable service.

After Hurricane Charley hit us head on last year we saw the following
outages.

Ordinary phone: 4 days (mostly underground)

Electric power: 7 days (extensive pole replacement and rewiring)

Cell phones: about 2 weeks (temporary towers brought in)

Cable service: one month (cable runs on same poles as electric service)

There was no flooding from Charley, but the winds were quite a bit
stronger than Katrina and Rita.

As soon as we got a temporary generator running we were able to watch
regular over-the-air analog TV.

73,
Gene
W4SZ

Wes Stewart wrote:

[big snip]

And after a natural disaster cable TV systems will be working about as
well as cell phones have. While the old analog TV and radio will keep
chugging along.