Who uses TV antennas anymore?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Robert Grant

Jeff,
I'm curious as to what kind of antenna you are using where you are.

WKYC is one of the few large-market, network affiliate stations operating a digital transmitter on a VHF lowban channel (Channel 2). Many users have been complaining about lowband VHF DTV performance.
If you are using an indoor antenna, lowband DTV does present a "fatal" problem. Modern home electronics (in particular, with switching power supplies and/or unshielded microprocessors) produce severe interference with lowband VHF television (digtal or analog).
Some outdoor antennas are not designed for lowband VHF reception. UHF-only antennas have been made for decades, and some people bought UHF-only antennas when it was announced that all DTV would be UHF (a decision that was later reversed). Some newer antennas are designed only for channels 7-69 (since many areas have no lowband DTV)
If you are using an all-channel outdoor antenna only 33 miles from WKYC and not getting excellent reception, you have a big problem.
This should end when WKYC-DT changes channels from 2 to 17 (likely in June 2009).

FWIW, When I had satellite TV with local channels, it provided less than half of the local channels available. For the local channels they did carry, the antenna provided a useful backup, not only when my own dish was covered with ice, but also when I had a fine satellite signal, but the satellite company's uplink facility dish had ice!

As for radio, a ton of people have abandoned radio. With consolidation, many listeners gave up when their favorite radio station was changed (e.g., if the owner shut down an oldies station on the assumption that their captive audience would listen to their rap station instead - the oldies listeners actually bought personal CD players and tossed their radios).
This situation became obvious with the Northeast blackout of 2003, and people suddenly realized that there were no portable radios around.

Please reread my post, as I'm sure you missed something. I stated there that I do not have a television antenna (cannot erect an outside one because I live in an apartment); rabbit ears don't work well here at all. (OTA digital would probably be even worse.) I have Time-Warner expanded basic cable, which gets channel 3 and all the rest of the stations in my area very well.

I am not making it up when I say I cannot receive Cleveland's channel 3 on an antenna--no one can in the village in which I live, which is why practically everyone here has either cable or satellite. That channel simply will not reach here, for whatever reason. You have to remember that I live in an area that is just 50 feet lower in elevation above sea level than is the city of Cleveland (610 vs. 660 feet ASL, respectively). I really don't know why the OTA television reception is so poor here, but again, channel 3 in Cleveland simply does not reach this area. It is probably due to the geography of this part of northeastern Ohio. I used to live in an eastern suburb of Cleveland that had much, much better OTA television reception than I have here, although I never bothered much with antennas the last 17 years I was there; by then I had cable.

Your remarks concerning radio got me to thinking. Radio programming in most major cities is nothing like what it once was, with most stations now operated by large conglomerates such as CBS Radio, Clear Channel and so on; Cleveland's major AM and FM stations are operated by one or the other--some by CC and others by CBS, which explains why the programming on these stations, and other CC/CBS O&Os (owned and operated stations) across this country is so blah these days. Many stations today are automated as well, which has taken the "personality" out of most radio programming (the classic-hits station in Cleveland, for example, is automated all night five nights a week, and carries nothing but syndicated, automated, satellite delivered programming after seven p.m. on weekends; the only local voices heard during these syndicated shows are of local announcers doing the hourly station identification).

I see far more mp3 players on kids' belts these days, even in this small town (which, ironically, gets excellent FM radio reception with indoor and car antennas), than FM radios; mobile audio is going the same way--witness new car stereo systems now equipped with inputs for mp3 players such as the iPod.

I don't listen to standard radio much myself these days. I downloaded AOL's radio toolbar to my computer a few days ago and have several other links (in Winamp) to other Internet radio stations, including WLS-FM in Chicago and a small oldies AM station in Tucson, Arizona. My personal music collection is stored on my computer. I ripped many of my CDs into it some time ago, and am doing the same with some of my cassettes; can't rip them all into the system since my hard disk isn't that big--it is only 20GB.

As far as radio being useful for emergency info, as I mentioned in my post, all stations are required to have Emergency Alert System receivers and are required to conduct weekly tests of the system. The EAS (and its predecessor, EBS--the Emergency Broadcast System) has been used to alert TV viewers to such things as tornados, high winds, snowstorms, etc., but the warnings are only visible on television. I don't know if such warnings are carried over EAS on radio these days or not--probably, even likely or certainly, not.

However, since many people today are turning away from radio as a source of entertainment, you have a point. If today's young people listen mainly to mp3 players rather than FM radios, they would miss any emergency information broadcast over the EAS. I cannot help wondering what these people will do in the event of a local or national emergency such as, Heaven forbid, another terrorist attack. Without radio, these people will be left in the lurch--which we cannot afford, especially in these troubled times. Something must be done, quickly, to get emergency info infallibly on radio as well as TV, or else this nation will be in real trouble in case of another national (now global) emergency.

73,