[Tig] Cringely: accurate on digital vs. analog?

[Michael Bittle]

... speaking of multi-path, anyone getting ATSC OTA in Manhattan?

-Mike

On Mar 2, 2007, at 3:18 PM, Tom Tcimpidis wrote:

> Thanks to Bob Kertesz and Ted Langdell
> for 2007.  http://www.colorist.org/wiki3
> ====
>
>
> With DTV, signal strength alone (as long as you have enough to  
> break through
> the noise floor) is a poor predictor of reception as there are many  
> other
> elements that are of equal or greater importance.  It also depends  
> on how
> old your receiver is - the current 5th generation Zenith/LG chipset is
> amazing in its ability to handle extreme multipath signal  
> distortion (the
> main killer of DTV reception) and a low S/N. The best way to  
> determine DTV
> reception, orient DTV antennas, and the like is with a spectrum  
> analyzer.
> In DTV, the most important antenna characteristics are not gain but  
> front to
> back ratio and side lobe suppression.  Thus, I am not at all  
> surprised that
> your analogue reception is inferior to your DTV reception.  Even  
> though I
> have a great line of sight to Mt. Wilson here in Los Angeles, my  
> OTA NTSC
> reception was always degraded due to hills behind and to the sides  
> of me,
> producing ghosts.  However, my DTV HD reception is perfect on all  
> channels
> and significantly better than what my next door neighbors get from  
> Time
> Warner Digital Cable. Also, of course, you don't get the secondary  
> channels
> (.2, .3, etc.) on cable or satellite, and I enjoy a number of them  
> such as
> the raw news feeds.
>
> As a side note, the PBS station here (KCET) inexplicably broadcasts a
> different program on their DTV side than on their NTSC side. The  
> DTV side is
> often just filler...
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>> I believe it's the error correction, mainly, but perhaps there are  
>> some
>> antenna or propagation experts out there who know specifically?
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