[time-nuts] TV White Spaces and wasted spectrum
David J Taylor
david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk
Fri Jul 1 05:00:04 UTC 2011
From: "John Green" <wpxs472 at gmail.com>
[]
> I think the broadcasters are just waiting for the right price for their
> spectrum. Over the air broadcasting doesn't reach that many people any
> more.
> When the switch to digital occurred, all the stations around here
> reduced
> power. Most by 10 Db. Stations that used to have a good picture in
> analog
> mode now either aren't at all or reception is spotty. I changed to
> satellite. In my view, the switch to digital wasn't progress.
Not true in the UK, though. During the digital switch-over digital
stations /increased/ power, and there are still a lot of people relying on
over-the-air TV (which is free), although many do pay monthly for a
satellite or cable service (to my mind, paying rather a lot). We had a
period for several years where digital and analogue co-existed, with the
digital running at lower power to avoid interference. In my view, it was
all quite well handled. The switch-over has yet to complete throughout
the UK.
I recently tried looking at the spectrum using my FUNcube dongle, and you
could start to see the individual carriers of the ODFM signal, but I may
have lost my single carrier 600MHz frequency references! We use the DVB-T
and DVB-T2 standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-T
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-T2
Sorry to hear that you can't get as good a signal any more. Our
broadcasting transmitters are co-located even for competing channels, so
one antenna pointing in one direction is all that is needed.
Digital has done nothing to improve program quality, of course, 90% of the
new channels are just dross, and transmitted in too low a bit rate!
Cheers,
David
--
SatSignal software - quality software written to your requirements
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu
Email: david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk
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