[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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