DTV & Bad Weather

[AUdubon5425]

Well, I've been experiencing some very severe weather for a couple of hours now. This is the first time I've been able to witness what a DTV OTA signal would look like during high winds and severe thunderstorms.

I am using rabbit ears, which have pulled in strong signals with no problems. Well, as soon as the thunderstorms hit the DTV signal went to absolute crap. I'm very disappointed, and thankful I still have analog to fall back on during this flooding and tornadic activity.

It really surprised me how bad the signal deteriorated, considering I'm less than two miles from the transmitter tower of the station.

Thank God we still have power - I've had a fever for 3 days and am having to stay up to monitor the flooding.

[compucat]

DTV signals are very fragile and can deteriorate at the slightest change in weather. I too use OTA DTV with amplified rabbit ears and the signal breaks up if it is just raining bad enough. In emergencies, turn to AM radio.

[batterymaker]

Originally Posted by AUdubon5425

I am using rabbit ears, which have pulled in strong signals with no problems. Well, as soon as the thunderstorms hit the DTV signal went to absolute crap. I'm very disappointed, and thankful I still have analog to fall back on during this flooding and tornadic activity.

And the industry says DTV's an improvement. <<snort>>

[zenith2134]

Still hoping they increase transmitter power after June 12...I mean, people are going to need OTA television, right?!

[AUdubon5425]

I have acquired an outdoor antenna and mast - it should be around 12-15 feet off the ground. I'm hoping that once I install that it will help, but I am now having my doubts.

I do have WeatherRadios and plenty of transistor sets. What's nice about seeing the radar for yourself is that many of the local meteorologists are not entirely familiar with the area and rely on the Super Duper Doppler 99000, which sometimes has place names in the wrong neighborhood or seem to invent their own.

[andy]

000

[Sandy G]

Just another reason-as if we needed more-to DESPISE the trainwreck that our TV system has, or will, become.

[Ohighway]

I posted somewhere else on the forum about my experiences with OTA DTV. My experience with the signal was that it was very susceptible to weather and particularly in my case....susceptible to aircraft flying overhead. It would just wreck the signal.

Rabbit ears were next to useless with my DTV converter box. However, I did pick up a cheap amplified antenna from solidsignal.com It was a DX brand "Active 5" antenna and was (and still is) priced under $18, and in my case took $11 to ship. For just under $30 it made a huge difference.... and I only had it mounted in the room where my TV was. Mounted outside or even in my attic would have made even more improvements. The unit comes with a control box and remote so you can electronically "point" the antenna in 12 different directions (every 45 degrees) to optimize the signal. It works for analog and digital. (not sure about FM)

Oh ... no affiliation with Solid Signal BTW. I just happened to purchase from them.

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by compucat

DTV signals are very fragile and can deteriorate at the slightest change in weather.

I have to take issue with this, as when I got my DTV card, I did all kinds of signal strength tests. I even have a thread about it on here somewhere.

With a decent rooftop antenna, I can receive DTV well enough for emergencies in rain, snow, and fairly high winds. Winds I can't really test because my antenna isn't anchored well enough.

Still, I agree that analog is better for emergency usage.

At least we still have AM and FM radio.

[merrylander]

Every 'expert' has gone totally nuts over anything digital. We converted from analog to digital in the telephone network simply to improve the signal to noise ratio. That is because a digital repeater (fancy amplifier) only needs to be able to distinguish ones and zeros and the re-create the bit stream out the other side at higher levels. With an analog amplifier everything gets amplified, both the voice signal and the noise. The difference is that we mostly transmitted over wires or optical fiber. Signals were also sent by radio waves but with very directive antennae and even then they did suffer weather effects.

"Don't you love farce"

[gearhead]

Originally Posted by Ohighway

I posted somewhere else on the forum about my experiences with OTA DTV. My experience with the signal was that it was very susceptible to weather and particularly in my case....susceptible to aircraft flying overhead. It would just wreck the signal.

Rabbit ears were next to useless with my DTV converter box. However, I did pick up a cheap amplified antenna from solidsignal.com It was a DX brand "Active 5" antenna and was (and still is) priced under $18, and in my case took $11 to ship. For just under $30 it made a huge difference.... and I only had it mounted in the room where my TV was. Mounted outside or even in my attic would have made even more improvements. The unit comes with a control box and remote so you can electronically "point" the antenna in 12 different directions (every 45 degrees) to optimize the signal. It works for analog and digital. (not sure about FM)

Oh ... no affiliation with Solid Signal BTW. I just happened to purchase from them.

Just out of curiosity, how far away from the broadcasting are are you?

[wajobu]

This was a HUGE oversight in the development of this new and improved service--big problem...having broadcast dropouts when they are needed most.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by AUdubon5425

Well, I've been experiencing some very severe weather for a couple of hours now. This is the first time I've been able to witness what a DTV OTA signal would look like during high winds and severe thunderstorms.

I am using rabbit ears, which have pulled in strong signals with no problems. Well, as soon as the thunderstorms hit the DTV signal went to absolute crap. I'm very disappointed, and thankful I still have analog to fall back on during this flooding and tornadic activity.

It really surprised me how bad the signal deteriorated, considering I'm less than two miles from the transmitter tower of the station.

Thank God we still have power - I've had a fever for 3 days and am having to stay up to monitor the flooding.

I didn't realize you were having problems with floods and tornadoes at the same time North Dakota is in the middle of a major flood.

As far as DTV signals being unusable in inclement weather goes, I'm not surprised, as many stations are not yet transmitting at full power on their DTV channels. However, if you are that close to the New Orleans TV transmitters, you should have much more signal than you need for excellent reception, even with rabbit ears.

Since I (and most other folks here) have cable, I'm not concerned about loss of signal in bad weather. (The cable company, however, does pick up the digital signal [they no longer pick up the stations' OTA signals via antennas], which is in turn fed to the cable system via fiber optic lines; the digital ATSC signals are converted to 4:3 NTSC on an as-needed basis.) However, for those folks in my town who are still using rabbit ears or outdoor antennas (there are still a few here, though most of us have either cable or satellite), I don't know. I do know that in my case, I get only one channel on an antenna well enough to watch (CBS channel 19), and the NBC affiliate on channel 3 doesn't reach here at all; the other five channels are fair to poor at best. I know of at least one other situation where channel 3 isn't watchable here; that is the grocery store three blocks from me, which has a Magnavox TV they used to use during football season. That set didn't get channel 3 on an antenna, either, so they got cable for a short time; however, the cable service has long since been disconnected.

But I digress. My point is that the village in which I live is some 40 miles from the Cleveland TV stations, which transmit from a southwestern suburb of the city, and analog reception is awful, as I mentioned above. Heaven help those few folks here who are still using antennas come 06.12, as digital reception here is probably iffy at best, except as I said for CBS channel 19. Without cable or satellite, these folks will be up the creek during inclement weather conditions as far as reception of digital TV (or, more accurately, the lack of it) is concerned. I suspect Time-Warner Cable, not to mention Dish Network, will have a few more installations to do in this town before June 12. I can envision this village being almost 100 percent wired for cable in the near future; it's close to that point already.

As has also been mentioned in other posts, radio is not the best medium for emergency information (the Emergency Alert System notwithstanding), as weather radar cannot be seen in radio weather reports. All we can hope is that the TV stations get their full-power DTV signals on the air by June 12, but even then there will be some dead spots where, given DTV's all-or-nothing nature, OTA reception may be iffy or downright nonexistent.

[Ohighway]

Originally Posted by gearhead

Just out of curiosity, how far away from the broadcasting are are you?

I'm 20 miles West of Baltimore, and I'm North of Washington DC by about..... 30 miles I'd guess. There were only a handful of analog stations that I got really well. DTV was even worse as it seems an "all or nothing" proposition .... and using rabbit ears, -mostly- nothing. The amplified antenna helped a lot. Still didn't protect me from the effects of planes flying overhead though.

Just as luck would have it.... a couple months after I geared up for OTA DTV, Verizon ----finally---- came through our neighborhood to install FIOS. As we really wanted the internet access we got that, and getting the TV wasn't that much more. So for now the OTA DTV hardware sits unused.

[gearhead]

Originally Posted by Ohighway

I'm 20 miles West of Baltimore, and I'm North of Washington DC by about..... 30 miles I'd guess. There were only a handful of analog stations that I got really well. DTV was even worse as it seems an "all or nothing" proposition .... and using rabbit ears, -mostly- nothing. The amplified antenna helped a lot. Still didn't protect me from the effects of planes flying overhead though.

Just as luck would have it.... a couple months after I geared up for OTA DTV, Verizon ----finally---- came through our neighborhood to install FIOS. As we really wanted the internet access we got that, and getting the TV wasn't that much more. So for now the OTA DTV hardware sits unused.

My gf is looking for something that would work indoors 15-20 miles away.
That sounds like it could be worth a try.
At least the price is easy to take.