and some are not fine.
The digital television transition has been such a coordinated screw-up that you would think it was arranged by the same folks that gave us military intelligence – wait! it was those same people.
Yes, our government has pulled off another coup – once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The long road to digital television has been on steps of sinking sand.
I believe the word is quagmire. The thing is, it’s only starting, and in only a few areas.
In Cincinnati
Barbara Craig loves the sharpness of her digital TV picture – until it freezes up when a Metro bus goes by her Walnut Hills apartment.
Or a firetruck goes by.
“In the afternoon, the buses run 15 minutes apart. It’s a real headache,” says Craig, 53, who lives in a second-floor apartment on busy William Howard Taft Road.
Craig is one of many Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky viewers frustrated trying to receive finicky digital TV over the air.
While many get good pictures from analog signals – which will be turned off at 11:59 p.m. today by WSTR-TV (Channel 64) and 367 other stations nationwide – viewers say the hassles of receiving modern digital TV make them feel they’ve regressed 50 years, to the early days of television.
Congress in 1996 ordered the switch to digital TV, which provides better pictures and sound, more channels and data such as on-screen program guides.
The missing operative word here is ostensibly.
Despite a yearlong public information campaign, over-the-air viewers complain that the government and TV stations have not told viewers about the difficulty receiving digital channels with an antenna.
Why would they? The idiots at the FCC are only one page ahead of the people on the street. Their notions of physics are that it is something only eggheads study. Why would they need to know about fanciful things like signal propagation or multipath distortion?
About 12 percent of viewers here – or 109,868 TV households – receive TV programming over the air, which mirrors the national average, says Centris, a national research firm tracking DTV trends. And 59,045 of those homes (54 percent) are in “reception-challenged” areas that receive fewer than five over-the-air stations, says David Klein, Centris executive vice president.
“It’s a mess for some people who get their TV over the air,” says Elvin Stepp, a University of Cincinnati electrical and computer engineering technology professor.
Those with cable or satellite service aren’t impacted by the switch to digital, which has been delayed by all other area stations until spring.
A digital TV test in Wilmington, N.C., in September revealed that an inadequate antenna was the No. 1 problem, according to published reports.
TV station engineers admit that over-the-air digital TV reception is tricky here – particularly with rabbit ears – because of the hills and valleys and the complex nature of digital signals carrying video, audio and text. They recommend an outdoor VHF-UHF antenna (about $100) for best digital reception.
Some good news here, those who live in Florida already have it knocked!
we all should get one of these to assure good DTV reception – and get a court decree banning airplanes in the space
“You get high performance and a great picture (with digital), but you have a better chance of it getting knocked out by signal weakness or interference,” says Stepp, of Fairfield Township.
Viewers here have learned that the hard way. They say trucks, trains, planes, rain, low-hanging clouds or people disrupt digital TV pictures.
“My wife walking around the kitchen causes the picture to go out,” says Jim Rettig, 64, of Madeira. Their kitchen, he says, is between the family room rabbit ears and the downtown TV towers.
Yes sir, those guys at the FCC really thought this one through.
Lori Pieper, 47, of Delhi Township switched back to analog because of frequent DTV interruptions from jets.
After hours of trial and error, Joe Gorman of Finneytown says reception improves if he elevates his leg, toward the antenna, while sitting in his favorite chair.
Okay, now everyone lift on 3, right?
“You have to do all these contortions, like it’s 1955,” says Gorman, 54. “This is ridiculous.”
Outside the Interstate 275 loop, some people can’t get all Cincinnati stations.
The Feist family in Burlington tried three indoor antennae before buying an outdoor antenna. They still can’t get Channel 9 without going outside and moving the antenna, says Mary Beth Feist, 52.
Kerry Gray, 49, of Hamilton receives the best DTV picture with his rabbit ears on the living-room floor. But he doesn’t consistently get digital Channels 12 and 19.
Debbie Goslin in rural Adams County, 80 miles east of Downtown, lost all four of her Cincinnati channels (5, 9, 12, 48) when she tested her digital reception last month.
The North Carolina test six months ago also showed that digital signals do not travel as far as analog, Klein says.
Engineers say digital TV is more difficult to receive than analog because digital doesn’t tolerate reflections from metal or moisture.
Analog TV pictures can have “ghosts” caused by reflected signals. Digital viewers get a perfect digital picture or nothing, because the multiple digital signals “cancel each other out,” explains Joe Martinelli, WCPO-TV (Channel 9) engineering director.
Martinelli says interference also can come from signals bouncing off aluminum siding, cell phone or water towers, and even leaves. So for some, digital reception could get worse later this year.
With all other area stations delaying the analog cast-off until May or June, TV station managers hope over-the-air viewers use the reprieve to solve digital TV problems. “These issues won’t go away whenever we switch,” says Les Vann, WKRC-TV (Channel 12) general manager.
Stepp predicts many people will get fed up “fiddling with their antenna and get cable TV.” But not everyone can afford to pay for TV, says Sue Scott, 55, of Fort Mitchell.
“I’m all for progress, but in these tough economic times, it’s a shame some people with a perfectly good analog TV will be forced to pay a cable company to watch TV without all these issues,” Scott says.
Perhaps this should have been investigated by some members of Congress – wait – they were too busy taking bribes from the idiots who pushed this abomination through. After all, they all have satellite! It’s necessary to be able to watch C-SPAN when they are not in Washington – which for many is more than 50% of the time.
Yes, this is government taking care of its citizens at its finest. (Thunderous applause now)
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