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Weak Signals: Problems Linger With Digital TV Switch

npr.org — Think the digital TV transition is over? Not quite. Many viewers have found that they can't pick up certain stations after the switch, even with the right TVs or converter boxes. The stations are still trying to figure out ways to help them tune in.

Who dugg this? Made popular Sep 20, 2009

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  • rocknog, on 09/19/2009, -3/+30Why pay for cable or satellite when there's the Internet?
  • AmusedToDeath, on 09/20/2009, -1/+23@FoxtrotYankee: A lot of the people negatively affected by the DTV switch are elderly rural citizens, many of whom are on fixed incomes and really can't afford satellite tv when they have to pay for things like food and absurdly expensive prescription medicines.

    But hey, ***** them, right? Grandma should just put down her walker and get a job, right?

    *****.
  • iheartbakon, on 09/20/2009, -5/+27I stopped watching TV about 6 years ago. I just recently cancelled my cable (I held on to it only for the occasional visitor who happened to drop in - nobody drops in :(
    The few shows that I did watch weren't available on my cable tier so I downloaded them - and now all of those are even finished (Stargate, BSG, etc)
    I'm just not up to paying 60+ bucks a month for a continuous stream of scripted reality TV and propaganda. Bring back The Jeffersons and I might consider coming back to cable.
  • rsound, on 09/20/2009, -0/+18But in Europe they use a different Digital TV standard. It is far more tolerant to weak signal conditions, because it was tested in real-world conditions. The American Standard as (1) Chosen specifically to be incompatable with the rest of the world (2) Tested ONLY in the lab, under SIMULTATED conditions (3) has no tolerence to weak signals (4) was chosen because the company who holds the patents on it was politically connected. It was actually in the plan: people in rural areas were expected to get satellite dishes. Of course EVERYBODY can afford to pay $100.00 a month for dish. Or at least those people who contribute to politicians. Those who are poor should just hurry up and die, and decrease the surplus population
  • inactive, on 09/19/2009, -4/+21Bye Bye tv I don't need you no more.
  • bunner, on 09/20/2009, -0/+16Some---(blip) times---(blip) happens to---(blip) CBS around----(long pause of psychedelic rainbow patterns melting square pixels) here.
  • marksven, on 09/20/2009, -0/+14We ditched our $80 per month Comcast service for free over-the-air HDTV over a year ago, and with Tivo, we always have tons of TV to watch. However, after the digital transition we can no longer always get Fox 13 (Seattle) when they moved from UHF to VHF. I even have a VHF antenna in the attic pointed right at the tower with direct line of sight along with a signal booster. It sounds like we're not alone.
  • divinediva, on 09/19/2009, -9/+23I do not care to have TV cable.
  • mapnet, on 09/20/2009, -5/+18Pathetic and embarrassing. After years of industry preparation, informing consumers and numerous delays, the US still couldn't manage a smooth transition... Here in Finland all of our television operators switched to broadcasting exclusively in digital during one week in 2007. Despite our extremely rural population (16 people per square kilometre), we've had no issues at all. Frequency reallocation was thought out by authorities ahead of time and everyone who used a TV bought a converter box in the months prior to the transition... I guess everything is really disorganized in the US, with broadcasters panicking over would could have been easily calculated and foreseen...
  • bratterscain, on 09/20/2009, -1/+13hulu, netflix, and youtube, ftw. Not to mention you guys online keeping us all entertained.
  • dman24752, on 09/20/2009, -1/+13After this whole digital transition thing, I can't help but feel that somehow we got hosed.
  • mapnet, on 09/20/2009, -2/+14Sounds like American capitalism at its best!
  • antdude, on 09/20/2009, -0/+11And you pay for it. TV OTA = free. :)
  • bmad965, on 09/20/2009, -1/+11God forbid someone might want to watch the local news.
  • Myztry, on 09/20/2009, -0/+8Digital. The difference between poor reception and no reception. If the signal can threshold than you can't get it. No ghosting/etc - it just fails.
    No that CB radios are obsolete few people realise that different frequencies have different properties. The higher frequencies like UHF are better for long distance line of sight, except they tend to burrow into obstacles and get lost.
    When we went camping in mountain ranges, we always used AM (lower) frequencies CB radios. They had less line of sight distance but they also tended to bounce meaning they were better in confined areas like mountains. The 'ghosting' actually becomes an asset with voice. Our brains ***** all over technology when it comes to signal processing.
  • rocknog, on 09/19/2009, -2/+10Just thinking, as for myself, I would never pay for cable, and heck, most of what I watch on the Internet is through services like Hulu, so it's completely legit and doesn't require knowledge of bittorrent or anything anyway. I do have a converter box, though - I won't pay for cable but I do enjoy being able to watch TV for the occasional rerun, and I've actually been happy with the switch because I get a strong signal and so the result is a much clearer picture.
  • travistubbs, on 09/20/2009, -0/+8Here in Houston, the DTV signal issue really affects us badly. Our local PBS, CBS, and ABC stations all decided to stick to the VHF range (8, 11, and 13 respectively) and are operating at very low power. Our NBC affiliate use to be on Analog 2 but moved to Digital 35 and stayed there after the transition.

    Since 8, 11, and 13 are sticking to the VHF range and running at low power, it's making it next to impossible to find an affordable outdoor antenna that can do both UHF and VHF and be able to pick up the weak VHF signal. We've already tried indoor powered antennas on the TVs, but it's useless.

    What I find funny in all of this is that Analog 2 was next to impossible to pick up and Analog 8, 11, 13 came in crystal clear before the transition. Post DTV Transition, it's the other way around.
  • bratterscain, on 09/20/2009, -2/+9You can find The Jeffersons torrents. Get a piece of that pie.
  • caudron, on 09/20/2009, -2/+8And Americans are the ones with a rep for arrogance?

    Finland is under 4% of the size of the US and has only 2% of the US's population. You think it might be a slightly more complex project to roll out signal coverage here?

    Giving the world Linus Torvalds does not give you license to be cocky. Maybe, just maybe, after the Year of the Linux Desktop finally arrives, you guys can spend a month or two acting important.
  • wtfbatman, on 09/20/2009, -0/+6WOW thank the lord someone has finally said something about it in an article.

    Does anyone else know what it's like to constantly adjust your antenna every day because the signals get weak, even though the previous day every channel came in 100%?

    Whats the point of making something better if the signal can be blocked by a popcorn kernel?

    ***** ***** weak.
  • superkendall, on 09/20/2009, -0/+6My problem is, after the switch all of the HD stations I used to get via ClearQAM over Comcast are gone. I used to get all the network stations, plus a handful of other stuff like Bravo and Discovery (in SD, though digital). So that has made my digital tuner not very useful at all... Very annoying, and now I'm considering dropping Comcast altogether (though sadly I still need them for internet, but the TV portion could go away and it wouldn't matter now).

    I can get most network stations in HD OTA (using the same receiver), which is nice.
  • mapnet, on 09/20/2009, -3/+9How does free healthcare, free higher education and the world's least corrupt government sound to you? And how about the world's cheapest broadband and mobile service prices? There is PLENTY to brag about.
  • tgc1, on 09/20/2009, -0/+5Funny how the media industry colluded together to try and gain more control for themselves and our tv's (digital technology will allow them to do this) -- and that will ultimately be their undoing as a mass exodus of people shy away from cable and satellite and use their PVR's, DVD/BluRay Shows and the Internet to fill in the gap.

    ***** YOU cable. Try and take over my TV will you. Try and come up with ways to FORCE me to watch commercials. How about you take your antiquated business model and go out back and shoot yourself, like the recording industry is and the movie industry has been doing for some time. Eventually you will all die.

    Eventually the Internet will be all there is. Many, including me, get all our entertainment from it. Soon phone services and the like will be integrated as they already are beginning to be. Soon my pretty. Soon.
  • yacks, on 09/20/2009, -0/+5I liked analog better.. even if you had a bad signal you can still watch it through the snow... now, it's either, you have it or you don't..
  • FoxtrotYankee, on 09/19/2009, -4/+9That's a very good point.

    But, I expect that the people affected negatively by the digital TV transition are either too cheap/poor to afford a high speed connection or they are not clueful enough to learn how to use bittorrent or usenet.
  • EnTaroTassadar, on 09/20/2009, -0/+5@weister42

    The only girls that like to see big TVs are gold diggers. Enjoy your shallow relationships and Les Stroud's stubble in HD.
  • fragMasterFlash, on 09/20/2009, -2/+7So you CAN stop the signal?
  • EnTaroTassadar, on 09/20/2009, -0/+5One part of the conversion that I hate is that there are still people of "authority" that are completely clueless.

    I was in Radioshack the other day looking for a coax splitter (and of course they're out of stock on the normal, but have the magical gold-plated version for $20 more!) and overheard the cashier talking to a customer. The customer was asking if the rabbit ears he was buying was all he needed to pick up digital signal. Cashier said "Yep". Customer says "You sure I don't need a converter box or something? I though I needed-"

    And the cashier's response made me want to projectile vomit. "The converter box is nothing but a hoax spread by the Walmart's of the world".

    Ugh. Either the cashier was retarded, or smarter than he lets off, as I guarantee you the guy came back into the store to buy more parts when his ***** doesn't work!
  • iamdan1, on 09/20/2009, -2/+7It felt like we stepped back 30 years in technology.
  • jman583, on 09/20/2009, -0/+4Monoprice to the rescue!
    http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.as ...
  • muckraker62, on 09/20/2009, -0/+4You can't stop the signal, Mal.
  • Ghostalker, on 09/20/2009, -0/+4DTV static is like trying to watch TV while someone's hitting you over the head with a cookie sheet over and over. At least with analog signals you could see through it to understand what was going on.
  • mapnet, on 09/20/2009, -1/+5Your wrong. Every square kilometre of Finland is served by TV reception (as well as GSM reception for mobile phones). We have had laws for decades that mandate the coverage of the entire country in TV and GSM reception. There is no such thing as a dead spot for TV or mobile in Finland. Refer to this is official TV coverage map: http://www.digitv.fi/karttapalvelu/
  • zeppo, on 09/20/2009, -1/+4Shut the ***** up Donnie!
  • xexx, on 09/20/2009, -1/+4You can barely even see low profile antennas.
  • diemunkiesdie, on 09/20/2009, -0/+3Do a rescan. Every few months Comcast likes to change the frequencies for their ClearQAM channels. I sued to receive other channels as well, but now I only receive broadcast channels over ClearQAM. Everything else has been scrambled away.

    Go here and put in your zip code to see what channels you should be able to pick up over ClearQAM: http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels There is a dropdown box on the top left to switch the channel list from OTA to cable (this is after you have entered your zip code) .
  • lordmike, on 09/20/2009, -0/+3When they first started talking about digital TV in the early 90's, I thought they were mad! With digital, if you don't have a nearly perfect signal, you get nothing. Considering that even old analog TV signals were incredibly flaky even in places with decent reception, this was a disaster in making. Then, they made it worse by developing a horrible protocol that aggravated, instead of compensated, for the problems of signal weakness. Had they waited a few more years for the technology to improve, they could have at least managed to improve the weak signal problem as they have in Europe.

    Of course, the whole decision to make HDTV digital was completely political. The Japanese dominated analog technology at the time, and Americans dominated digital technology. The politicos wanted to have HDTV's manufactured using U.S. parts. Understandable, but in the intervening years, all the digital domestic manufacturing has been outsourced to Asia.

    So, in the end very little was gained. They should have found a way to do what HD radio does... allow for an analog signal as a "backup" for TV's in weak reception areas.
  • BossKey, on 09/20/2009, -0/+3I have the HDTV Indoor / Outdoor Antenna mounted inside my apartment and it works marvelously, and costs less than other antennas.
  • DarkSpoon, on 09/20/2009, -0/+3exactly the problem i have at my parents house in the Houston area. pretty ridiculous.
  • BREZZZ, on 09/20/2009, -2/+5UHF is the way to go. I can't pick up any VHF at my house. I believe that digital allows you to broadcast on one channel and have it display as another, so you would not even have to change station numbers. You will notice this if you tune out your antenna, station 3, for example will display as 26 in my area when there is a weak signal. I can't complain, I get around the same number of channels, and some of them have interesting sub channels that aren't even on cable.
  • mrsteveman1, on 09/20/2009, -0/+3God never forbid me from watching the local news, he just said he was very disappointed :)
  • Kronos6948, on 09/20/2009, -0/+3If it ain't broke...
  • mousky, on 09/20/2009, -0/+3mapnet: Free as in paying higher taxes? I always find it amusing when people talk about free this and free that.
  • Pimptastic, on 09/20/2009, -1/+4try pointing your antenna away from the signal. I have a local fox station in view of my apartment and the only way to get the signal is to turn my antenna away from it. Almost remminds me of married with children and the scene where they get into fox viewing positions.

  • jman583, on 09/20/2009, -0/+2From Monoprice's knowledge base:
    Question: I already have an antenna that I was using with my older TV''s. Do I have to replace it with a new HD Antenna?
    Answer: No. Antennas haven''t changed, only the tuner that tune in the new digital channels. Some retailer may try to imply that you need a new antenna to go with your new HDTV, but they are just relabelling the old antennas as HD ready like they use to relabel headphones as digital ready when CD''s first came out. Fact is, the new ATSC broadcasts are sent of the same frequency spectrum as the old NTSC''s VHF and UHF bands.

    So, if you already have a reliable antenna, it should continue to serve your new tuner or TV.
  • tgc1, on 09/20/2009, -0/+2Don't worry, when they have no more customers we'll still get the last laugh.
  • bratterscain, on 09/20/2009, -1/+3High speed broadband is only $20 more than dialup for me. Better than $50 more for a select few cable channels that I rarely watched. Poorness is not much of an excuse.
  • palehorse864, on 09/20/2009, -0/+2Monoprice offers such great values and their cables are so cheap that you can string a line all the way from the broadcast TV station, back to you! Want to watch NHK? We've got cables cheap enough for that too! Boat and giant cable spool not included though, sorry.
  • enozten, on 09/20/2009, -0/+2fox and cbs are weak as ***** here in LA. i live near wilshire and normandie (the heart of the city) w/ a good HD Antenna and I STILL don't get good reception
  • tacojohn48, on 09/20/2009, -1/+3It is almost the same price for just internet as it is for an internet/cable bundle.
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