TV problem

I'm spoiled, but I remember having just two stations, in Pennsylvania. I didn't watch much TV then, but if I missed a favorite show, it was a disaster.

Reply to
Ed Huntress
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Two stations. NBC and FOX. One digital, one analog. Both require a large directional antenna. They're at

214 and 94, so I'm with Wes. I keep paying for Dish.
Reply to
Steve Ackman

Before investing any additional time and money, consult the following web site:

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Plug in your address and elevation of your rig. The report generated will tell you which level of antenna gain will pull in which stations and their respective directions.

I currently use a DB8 with a pre-amp signal distributor. The antenna is directional but has a wide field for short to mid-range stations. Longest pull in without distortion is 70 miles with my current set up.

Another thing to keep in mind. The station your trying to pull in may be operating at a lower power output to perform signal testing, has not installed new equipment to complete conversion, or to prevent interference with another station operating in your region.

As for putting one antenna over another, you may run into a signal mixing problem. Old analog, the problem would manifest as a ghost in the video. In the digital realm, it screws up the audio and can pixelate(?) the video. General rule, 2 antennas 2 poles 2 feeds. Switch or multiplex inside the building.

Good luck sorting this out.

Jim Vrzal Holiday, Fl.

Reply to
mawdeeb

On Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:31:50 -0500, the infamous Wes scrawled the following:

I get one channel and dropped Dish.

Hey, why are you guys responding to the known stryped troll, anyway? You all (should) know better.

-- We rightly care about the environment. But our neurotic obsession with carbon betrays an inability to distinguish between pollution and the stuff of life itself. --Bret Stephens, WSJ 1/5/10

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Umm. I worked for the FCC in the early 1970s, in The Office of The Chief Engineer. The FCC was run by lawyers back then too. Nor could it be otherwise for any regulatory agency, as whatever the Agency does the loser always takes the agency to Federal Court. Plaintiffs are usually billion-dollar companies, so they can afford to take it to the Supreme Court, and always do.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

I thought they all came with the anti-rotation feature. Oh well. I do recall lots of discussion in the 1950s and 1960s abut who made good and bad rotators, and there was a wide variation in rotator quality. My father's solution was to figure out where the various stations were, and build a rhombic antenna point in at the most distant. The rhombic was in the attic and built of #14 bare wire, straight out of the Radio Amateurs' Handbook. Cheap, simple, and worked just fine with the black and white TVs of the day.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Be aware that such a well-balanced antenna still experience aerodynamic torque from the wind, the torque tending to align the antenna broadside to the wind.

The search term is Rayleigh Disk acoustic radiometer.

Deep theory:

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Earlier, the FCC was the domain of engineers. By the '70s the lawyers had completed the transition into 'The Vast Wasteland'. Decisions made for political reasons, instead of sound engineering.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

When did you work at the FCC?

Given the political and legal environment of a regulatory agency, I have a lot of trouble believing that any federal regulatory agency was *ever* really run by non-lawyers.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

The government by its nature doesn't create, it only redistributes. Otherwise it would be in unfair competition with the private enterprise it's supposed to regulate fairly and even-handedly. We don't stick to that completely, the Federal Reserve, NASA and the many FFRDCs are in a grey area that trades philosophy for efficiency and permanence. They inhabit the .ORG domain even if they act like .GOV.

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Because of that the government isn't necessarily a good place for really creative and ambitious engineers to work, unless they seek management positions.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Have you ever read the 'early' history of the FCC?

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

I learned it from my engineering colleagues the oldtimers who joined the FCC during the Depression.

But perhaps you have a URL or reference to offer.

But I bet that the official history differs from that recounted by those oldtimers in precisely the most telling areas.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

I had access to a private library in the '70s at what had been a Crosley plant. It held their archives, including FCC documents, in get this: REAL BOOKS where they described the work required to straighten out the AM broadcast mess, their early work on TV standards and the issues of Amateur radio. How many of your old timers were there in the first few years of the FCC

BTW, Joseph, tell us what you know about 'Courtesy' Radio & TV broadcast licenses. Specifically the power specifications and expiration dates, and how they differ from commercial broadcast licenses.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

All of them, I think. The FCC was founded in 1934.

Nothing. I was not in the Broadcast Bureau, I was in the Office of the Chief Engineer.

But I can guess - Courtesy licenses had far better terms than other kinds of license. The Broadcast Bureau was easily the most political part of the FCC, because Congress cared deeply what the broadcasters thought. Something about the power of the press and don't get into fights with people who buy ink (or by extension electrons) by the barrel. What Congress did *not* care abut was technical issues.

And you have proven my point that engineers have never and will never be running regulatory agencies.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Courtesy license were issued to military radio & TV stations. They were issued for place keeping only, and to prevent a commercial station being licensed on the same area and frequencies. It had nothing to do with politics. The differences in the two licenses were: Power level: The license stated the initial power at the time it was issued, with the disclaimer, "OR AS DEEMED NECESSARY". The expiration date was: "UNTIL NO LONGER NEEDED". There are a lot of old records in the online FCC database, but no record of the stations I engineered at, at Ft. Greely in the early '70s.

The FCC replaced the DOC as the ruling agency, and their first job was to cleaN up the mess of radio stations that interfered with each other. Once again this was an engineering problem, not political. Stations had been allowed on the air with little or no control.

Early TV has similar problems, requiring the realignment of channel and power assignments. This was an engineering problem, not politics.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

What a letdown. By your presentation, I suspected dark undercurrents.

Well, neither of us were at the FCC during this period, but having worked there I have a lot of difficulty believing that they were ever free of politics.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Most people have never even heard of a Courtesy license, let alone have any idea what they were. A lot of broadcast engineers have never heard of them, or seen one. :)

Joe, the FCC was created because the DOC was purely political, and screwed up everything. They were to created to fix the technical problems. Once that was taken care of, the FCC turned into a typical, lawyer driven government agency. After all, someone had to fine the stations that didn't comply to their new rules. :)

Do you know about the first TV channel realignment? When the '150 mile rule' went into effect, a lot of TV stations had to move to a different channel.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

I have a Polorad SA that I haven't been able to find a manual for. Some 'tech' unsoldered a wad of wires in one of the power supplies, so I can't trace the 20+ missing connections to troubleshoot it. I don't have the model number handy, and it isn't on my 'Projects list' on theis computer.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Well, as I said, I was not in the Broadcast Bureau.

I always guessed that after the FCC came into existence, there had to be adjustments, as there were lots of problems with cochannel intereference, and also with adjacent-channel interference (because TV receivers didn't have to be that good, for economic reasons). There was not going to be a no-impact solution. When I got there all this was managed using a stack of big paper maps with the theoretical coverage areas drawn on the maps for the co- and adajecent channels. I was involved in replacing these maps with computers, at least for land mobile radio services.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

That sounds like no fun, considering a lot of them had errors. Also, during that time some 'so called' frequency coordinators really screwed up and did things like allowing a fleet of school buses on frequencies reserved for ambulance service. Not only did they refuse to correct the mistake, the bus drivers intentionally interfered with the dispatch of ambulances.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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