The BDU's are stooping to a new low by using these fear marketing media tactics to make people think that OTA is dead or soon will be dead. They haven't said it outright [because they know it will never happen], but the innuendo is there to scare people like you into thinking that OTA will end soon. For the past 40 years they've done a great job of convincing people that you must pay for cable or satelite to get good quality TV reception. The public has been brainwashed for all those years and suddenly the public has awakened to the reality that superior OTA digital quality reception is free and that scares the hell out of the BDU's.

The BDU's are stooping to a new low by using these fear marketing media tactics to make people think that OTA is dead or soon will be dead. They haven't said it outright [because they know it will never happen], but the innuendo is there to scare people like you into thinking that OTA will end soon. For the past 40 years they've done a great job of convincing people that you must pay for cable or satelite to get good quality TV reception. The public has been brainwashed for all those years and suddenly the public has awakened to the reality that superior OTA digital quality reception is free and that scares the hell out of the BDU's.

Agree with everything ya said there, except for the last part...
Maybe so in Canada...
In the US, I think the public is still snoozin though...

e.g. - I can drive around locally here for miles around, and be hard pressed to find anything but old broken UHF/VHF combos on rooftops, tripods rustin away, ready to be torn down the next time someone re-roofs the home...
Not seein too many new ones goin up in their place. Not around here at least.

March 30, 2010

Thank you so very much for the coverage of those storms and tornadoes that marched through the Triad last Sunday night. It is very important to have that sort of coverage. I truly appreciate your public minded efforts to keep your local viewing audience informed on a minute by minute basis. It might have made some of your viewers mad that their favorite shows were interrupted by your coverage but certainly not my wife or me. As these very strong storm cells howled through the Triad, one right after another, your coverage let folks know exactly where the most dangerous spots were and to take cover when a tornado was most likely to appear in those locations. You provided an excellent warning service and I am sure you saved lives. Thank you again… Bravo!!!

My wife and I retired a few years ago. We live on a modest fixed income. We do not subscribe to any satellite or cable television services. We need to keep expenses down, so we rely on local television broadcasts for news, weather reports and a large part of our personal entertainment.

About two years ago, I became interested in learning how to build a small footprint indoor UHF antenna which could pull in all the local stations serving the Triad area. I now have a pretty good design inspired from an old WW2 Navy movie, “Run Silent, Run Deep”. It works very well. We live a few miles south of Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem, NC. From our location, we can reliably pull in signals from most of the transmitters within a 40 mile radius with our home-made amplified indoor UHF antenna. These stations include WFMY (CBS), WGHP (FOX), WXII (NBC), WCWG (CW), WUNL (PBS), WXLV (ABC), WMYV (MYTV) and WLXI (TCT). Most of the prime time shows are in High Definition and the picture quality is absolutely stunning!

Thank you for supporting free over the air digital television broadcasts and covering events of great local importance!

Thank you again,
DTV Student

DTV Student, is that an email that you sent to those stations?

Off topic for a moment:

I certainly hope that CRTC is paying attention. That letter is a great testimony as to how really important local OTA broadcasting is. But like everything these days, in the end it's going to be all about the money and very little consideration will be given to local OTA.

Just my 2 cents !

From: Stampeder
DTV Student, is that an email that you sent to those stations?

Yes... I sent it to those stations and posted it on WGHP's blog . I am thinking about sending it to the FCC too. I think the FCC has forgotten about the importance of emergency communication to the masses with their new thinking about broadband and selling off more Radio Frequency spectrum.

I have heard that "OTA Only TV" viewers like me make up about 15% of the TV viewing population in the USA. That is definitely a small minority. It would be very interesting to see that number grow.

The average cable/satelite bill is about $60 per month. I am sure $60 per month is no big deal to most folks, but for some, every buck counts, especially the elderly. My guess is there are lots of elderly folks and retirees like me who watch mostly networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and PBS. In many areas, these networks are broadcast "Over The Air" on the UHF band (470 MHz through 700 MHz). Depending on their location and with a small investment in a good indoor amplified UHF antenna, many elderly and retirees could still get excellent High Definition programs and reduce their monthly entertainment cost.

Your comments are always appreciated,
DTV Student

My wife and I retired a few years ago. We live on a modest fixed income. We do not subscribe to any satellite or cable television services. We need to keep expenses down, so we rely on local television broadcasts for news, weather reports and a large part of our personal entertainment.There will be more and more people like you, DTV STUDENT, and we will have less money to spend to TV , so more free dtv stations we will have, keeping us inform of local news that matters to us, better it will be.

i predict that more people will quit cable and sat companies, and there monthly fees, and buy outdoor antennas ...and may be, free OTA stations will give us a better programming choice..

sorry for my english, i usually speak and write in french....:rolleyes:

I am thinking about sending it to the FCC too.

Send it to ur congressman, and senators too. Ya probably saw my earlier post..

I'll get around to another attempt at posting my thoughts on their websites as well, but when I have a little more patience for their lame websites and webforms.

I have not seen anyone post this yet, so here it is....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc1598

I think the wave is starting to spread and hopefully this will support OTA in the future. I think there has been some hesitation by broadcasters to facilitate OTA. This news might trigger a move forward !

:):):)

Thanks for the link.

Just a few points of clarification:

800,000 is a small drop in the bucket in the US. We also do not know what percentage of those were due to the economic downturn. Some of those may return to cable/sat service when an economic recovery is underway.
It does not mean that they all turned to OTA, as implied in the thread title.turning instead to Web-based videos (like Hulu), downloadable shows (iTunes), by-mail subscription services (Netflix), or even good ol' over-the-air antennas
Several of those alternatives require a monthly expenditure or subscription, even if it as a portion of an existing internet fee.


Interesting article all the same. I wonder how accurate it is.

cheers.

A combination of live sports, lack of OTA in my area (Zero HD), delayed gratification with torrents, access to children's programming and the number of peso spents on DVRs will keep me tethered to Cable for the long term.

How about a poll on Canadian side?

800,000 out of over 100,000,000 is pretty small and as noted earlier could be economic.

In Canada, the numbers are around here as to how many households have cable/satellite. By extension the rest are OTA or other.

If that number includes web-based alternatives, than I believe it's probably inaccurate...seems too small. Especially with US unemployment hovering around 10%.

I know this is a drop in the bucket, and it includes web based alternatives, but I think there is an awareness that most people don't have of this issue. I have talked to several people about getting free HD networks OTA and they are totally unaware. I am hoping that headlines like this continue to open eyes on the subject. The fat cable companies need to wake up.

:):)

Tempers are flaring regarding the FCC's plans for the future of the broadcast spectrum. NAB President Gordon Smith has compared the FCC chief to Don Corleone of The Godfather:

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/451640-FCC_Makes_NAB_an_Offer_It_Can_t_Refuse.php


The U.S. House of Congress is a potential battleground for the spectrum grab, and politicians are already staking their high ground:The FCC should not force broadcasters off their spectrum now, or ever, according to House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-Va.).http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/449566-Boucher_FCC_Should_Not_Force_Broadcasters_to_Give_Up_Spectru m.php?rssid=20065

The administration should just give the current FCC chief the boot. Much more important things to deal with than this crazy nonsense about taking back broadcasters spectrum.

Computer and wireless companies both want more spectrum to increase data services. The US administration wants more high speed access in rural areas. The broadcast band is the biggest chunk of suitable spectrum for this purpose. There is going to be a multi-year battle over this one.

This multi-year battle has begun, for sure, but the broadcasters make the point that the computer and wireless companies make poor use of their allotted spectrum and should be forced to go back to their drawing boards.

I sympathize with the broadcasters, who have a well documented, vetted, "bought into" standard (ATSC) by which they are trying to get on with their businesses, but the implications of "used white space" effects upon TV signal propagation are giving broadcast engineers nightmares.

On the computer and wireless side we have had interminable industry bickering, squabbling, fruitless competition, and consumer confusion over standards like 3G, 802.11n, DECT, and such. They need to sharpen their pencils and prove that space cannot be found in their own bands.

I know a few years back the guys at the CRC were working on IEEE 802.22 and there was a big fight over how to go about the licensing - some of them were pushing for automatic smart sensing technology (unlicensed) in the customer devices themselves while others were talking about light licensing using base stations (coordinates stored in a database) that would send out information about the true state of the airwaves to all the listening devices around it.

I never thought customer device smart sensing would ever take off because the theory is just flawed. If I have a 600 MHz wifi device on a side of the building, 1st or basement floor in total shadow of a near-local broadcaster, my device wont see it and just start transmitting on the channel. The guy who lives in the building opposite from me, 2 floors up, would have had good reception of the broadcast but would now get interference from my device, which was oblivious to the broadcast.