OTA TV Channels

[H22]

quote:

---

Originally posted by kalakoa

Digital television was never about improving service, it's all about freeing up spectrum (which was supposed to be held in the public trust) so that it can be sold to cell carriers (who then charge you to use it -- if and when it's convenient for them to offer service).

---

tl;dr: an analog UHF station blocks out 13 frequencies, digital only takes up one.

There is merit to kalakoa's comment in that, for example, when you had an analog station operating on Channel 38, you were not allowed to have another station anywhere near you on channels 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 52 and 53. With digital you can have stations on adjacent channels, like 30, 31, 32 and 33 on the same tower.

When I was doing engineering studies to try and figure out how to get a new station licensed to Puna in 2009, there were multiple "phantom" analog stations that didn't exist, and in some cases were only on paper (which wasn't legal). I had to figure out how to co-exist with nonexistent channels 16, 32 and 38, as well as recently shuttered 5, 7 and 34. Between the fake stations, shuttered stations, and actual operating stations, there was very little opportunity.

So an analog UHF station blocks out 13 frequencies, digital only takes up one.

And, as kalakoa points out, channels 70-83 were sold to cell carriers in the 1980's; channels 52-69 were sold to cell carriers in the 2000's; and, channels 38-51 were sold to cell carriers in the last 2 years.

For the consumer, the plus: more subchannels with higher quality. The minus: you must have 100% signal or nothing (you could watch analog with 75% signal and not notice the snowy picture)

</geek>