alternative to antennaweb, Curious channel redirection.

Writing this paragraph made me come up with search terms "tv stations in range" and that gave TVfool.

Thanks for thinking about it.

>

This one?

That wasn't the one I meant, but it looks good. Looking at the results right now. Nice. Thanks.

Careful when using these charts. The signal levels are for an antenna mounted 30ft above ground level using a "traditional" antenna model, which means a rather large yagi antenna with a substantial amount of gain as described in: If you have a small, low, or indoor antenna, your reception will be worse.

Most of the online maps are based upon the FCC coverage maps, which do not include the effects of hills, mountains, antenna downtilt, and differences in elevation: ...this data is based on the horizontal plane azimuth pattern with the elevation pattern otherwise ignored in favor of a default pattern. In areas with mountaintop transmitter sites where mechanical beam tilt is used, such as Los Angeles, these patterns will not match reality. The results will be more accurate in "flat land" areas like Florida or areas with low mountains where stations are unlikely to use mechanical beam tilt on their antennas.

You can get local coverage maps at: and customized maps at TVFool, AntennaWeb, FCC, etc. However, all of them are based on the same FCC data, with the same limitations. The maps also tend to be a bit more optimistic than reality because these maps also are used by marketing to calculate the number of possible viewers and listeners for advertising proposes.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Fooltv.com is one of the other webpages that shows tv stations near a user-chosen location (in the USA, iirc)

But it shows stations quite a bit farther away even when there is, according to the webpage, no chance of getting the station where I am. It even has a special color for stations the user can't get, red.

But I never believe what people tell me, and I figure the signal might be carried on the wings of doves, farther than the webpage anticipates.

So I noted all the stations and tried them.

It turns out the effect is duplicated at other stations.

If I tune to channel 27, a picture blinks on the screen, with channel 27 still noted in the upper right corner of the screen, then t he screen goes blank for part of a second and reappears with the same picture, except that now channel 26.1 is displayed in the uppper right corner..

The same thing happens for 5 pairs of stations, starting with the one above:

Thanks Rev. and Jeff for the information on what TV signals reach what locations. It turns out TVfool.com shows a lot more channels for my location in NW Baltimore than do antennaweb.org or the one you suggested Rev. but at the same time, tvfool points out I probbably can't get many of them. They even have a special color for all the stations I can't get, red!

But it's my nature that I tried them all anyhow and I found an interesting phenomenon.

Of the 40 or so virtual n.1 channels** I entered with my remote control, 5 or 6 of them (depending on how one looks at it) seem to get redirected to another virtual channel that seemed to be showing the same program! **That is, only main channels, like 11.1. I didn't try this with subchannels 11.2 or 11.3.

Here is a list. I entered the number in the left column (without ".1") and after the screen blinked once or twice, it displayed the virtual channel in the right column, including displaying the number, such as

67.1, in the upper right corner of the screen, as my DVDR does when I tune to a new station.

Entered Destination VC VC

27 ===> 27.1 29 ====> 67.1 34 ====> 66.1 41 ===> 24.1 48 ===> 4.1 plus 36 ====> 5.1 (the one from the previous post)

VC stands for virtual channel, RF for radio frequency (the actual frequency, not the channel number now assigned to it.)

Like this pair, 36 and 5, VC27 is RF27.1 VC67 is RF29.1 VC66 is RF34.1 VC24 is RF41.1 VC47 is RF22 .1 VC4 is RF48.1

And the opposite is true too: RF27 has VC 27.1 29 has VC 67.1 34 66.1 41 24.1 48 4.1 and 27 27.1

(When no virtual channel is listed, it's the same as the RF channel.)

Since there are 6 of them (or is it only 5?), it must not be a coincidence not only does m point to n, but in each case, n points to m.

But what is the point of it all? Certainly not all VCs point to an RF which, if the RF is found in a VC table, it points to the RF which was the original VC, right?

Or said another way Where m and n are integers 67 or less: Certainly not every VCm points to an RFn which, if the RFn number is found in a the VC column and called, say, VCn, not always does it point to RFm where VCm and RFm are the same absolute number. right?

Do I need to ask this more clearly?

Of if you understand me already, is there a name for what I've pointed out? So I can go read about it.