Quote:
Originally Posted by MisterMe
Virtually all of your questions are answered in your TV Fool Radar Plot. Most digital broadcasts are on the UHF band which has shorter range than VHF. For US broadcasters, digital UHF is legally restricted to lower radiated power than analog UHF. Digital VHF is also legally restricted to lower radiated power than analog VHF.
As John Candle has urged about 15,257 times, you need to understand the difference between virtual channels and real channels. This is a much bigger issue with US broadcasters than Canadian broadcasters. But it is an isuse with Canadian broadcasters. In the case of WBBZ, it displays at Channel 67.1, but is actually broadcasts on Real Channel 7. CIII-DT 7 displays Virtual Channel 7.1 and broadcasts on Real Channel 7, the same as WBBZ. However, these are both distant stations from your location. However, you cannot receive receive CIII-DT 7 (RF 7) except under unusual atmospheric conditions. You should have no desire to because where you live, CIII-DT 6 (RF 6) has a strong signal in the green. CIII-DT 41 (RF 65) is not quite as strong, but is easier for you to receive than CIII DT 7.
The world of digital broadcast television is here. There is nothing to be gained by mourning the past and cursing the present. Members of this forum will help you get the most out of this new broadcast world. You know as well as I do that those 57 channels that you used to get were not 57 unique programming streams. In the USA, multicasting enabled by digital broadcasting provides more more programming streams than we ever dreamed of when I was a boy. In my home state, it was unusual for a town to have more than three TV stations back in the day. Today, many individual TV stations broadcast three or more subchannels. I don't want to go back. After you learn how to take advantage of what is available to you, you will not want to go back either.
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First, I don't want to go back. I am not mourning the past. I much (much, much, much) prefer the digital broadcasts to the analogue. However, on any one given station, especially considering it takes about one tenth the signal strength to cover the same area in digital as analogue, if we could pick up the analogue signal, the laws of the FCC, CRTC, IC etc. shouldn't preclude the digital signal from covering the same area.
That is cause for lamenting.
Second, I completely understand the difference between real and virtual channels. I have never referred to WBBZ as channel 67. It is channel 7, broadcasting on hi-VHF, the same frequency that WKBW broadcast on before the digital switchover.
I also know the difference between UHF & VHF. I always received stations from the Buffalo area on RF 23, 29 & 49 (among others). 29 is now on 14. 49 hasn't changed. I am not sure that what is currently on 23 is what was then on 23. I have already stated that I used to get WKBW on 7, and now WBBZ is on 7.
And third... How the heck do you know what was on those 57 channels? Back in the day, almost every one of the Candian stations among them was independent. Even the US network affiliates had enough local programming to warrant tuning into a different ABC (for instance) at a different time for a different show. I know that channel 35 from Erie didn't always carry the same shows as channel 4 from Buffalo (both CBS affiliates). And
still doesn't!!!
As a matter of fact, we had many many more unique programming streams than the 36 that I can pick up now (that's 36 subchannels in total on 27 real frequencies, of which three are identical signals to another three, and one is identical to another at all times except the local news hour twice per day). At that time, CKVR in Barrie and CFPL in London (two stations which I can no longer pick up, at least on my current setup) were both independent. Now they are both CTV Two. If we wanted to see the 'local' news, we could choose between Buffalo, Hamilton, Toronto, Youngstown (Ohio), Erie PA, Kitchener, and sometimes, even Detroit. We probably could have gotten a lot more if there were not so many co-channels. The only channel on which we could reliably get two stations was 12, either from Erie PA or from Peterborough (the latter I am still picking up on analogue with my UHF antenna pointed toward Buffalo), and less than three miles from the transmitter for channel 11 (CHCH) -- so, as I said, we knew all about adjacent channel interference.
So, if I am lamenting, it is only that the signals have been pulled back sufficiently enough that distant stations are no longer available for the asking.
As I said in an earlier post, I cannot watch my favourite show in HD because, although it is broadcast on 4 different stations (plus three other analogue repeaters of CBC), I can no longer get either of the two that broadcast it that way.
</rant>
Brian