I have heard from sources, (perhaps not reliable ones) that there has been talk of phasing out OTA broadcasts in the United States. Switching just about everything to UHF and making all our tuners useless was bad enough but this would be the ultimate slap. Has anyone heard anything to this effect? Lenny
No, but like everything else, it's a conspiracy:
TV really is a "vast wasteland".
-- 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
Actually it is. that is almost a joke, but ALMOST.
Many years ago "JS" was the ringleader of an outfit called Radio Solidartit y in Poland right around the time all that was going on. He wound up doing seven months in the can over it, but was never actually convicted.
We worked together years ago and had mutual respect. He is a smart cookie b ut his enamouration (enamouredness ?) with Britney Spears made me choke. We ll, he was still young enough I guess.......
He built the transitter and he and his buddies would go up on a hill and er ect an antenna made from vacuum cleaner wand sections. A portable cassette player was all that was needed then, along with the batteries of course.
They didn't have much cable there at the time and most people used antennas to get TV on just like we used to for the most part. JS and crew picked th e sound carrier (of the intercarrier) frequency of the station at the maxim um primetime of viewership. In the evening, the most popular shows. They ov errode the audio carrier.
He was on the svelte side and said he was the fastest runner in the group. He also had built the transmitter and told me if they ever caught him with it he would be in jail for a LOOOOOONG time, but only did seven months inte rmittently under suspicion. His partners would usually bring cars and escap e with the antenna and batteries. None of them got busted because vacuum cl eaner wands and batteries were not illegal in Poland at the time.
When I worked with him he showed me a Polish magazine with his brother stan ding there with the transmitter, after the regime had changed and he was no longer likely to get busted for it. I could see the family resemblance.
Because of the suspicions against him he had trouble starting a company the re, which impelled him and his olady to move to the US. Too much red tape. I think he came to the wrong place if he doesn't like red tape.
His brother was also in the electronics field and started a company for car lots. Alot of people were scamming the car lots by swapping cars with some one across town. the repossesors could not find the cars. The company would put a GPS tracking unit into the cars so they could be found.
I'm not sure why, but his brother also emigrated here, even though he said the US was not quite what it was cracked up to be.
If you find references to this whole affair online you will find them to di ffer slightly from my account of it, it is up to you what you believe.
Oh the relevance ? With digital TV you can't do that. THEY have control. you might be able to scramble their transmission but you are not going to get the recievers to pick up your audio or anything else because it is digital.
OK maybe some of you can, but less can now than in the analog days.
That was the goal of the "conspiracy" commmonly referred to as "government"
You can see it happening...all the interesting and entertaining programming is being sequestered to the cable=only stations. Then, they'll plead that nobody watches OTA.
I've seen some articles on it. There are several pieces of information that explain the rumors.
PlainBill
I don';t think you understand how broadcast -- or cable -- television works.
Nope. CATV has the "Must Carry" rule: The result of requiring CATV to carry local OTA broadcast TV signals is causing an odd problem in demographics. Many OTA stations find that the bulk of their viewing audience is watching via CATV and not via OTA. In some cases, the stations are so isolated, that the OTA viewers could be counted on both hands. Other stations merely recycle the same syndicated programming that can be watched on other channels, resulting in massive duplication. So, why are they doing this? Because the Must Carry rule has dramatically increased the number of viewers, which keeps the stations afloat with advertising revenue. The FCC could easily mandate that all OTA broadcast station should get a fiber feed to the local CATV or DBS feed point, turn off the transmitter, and only those few watching OTA TV will notice. It's been discussed, but the FCC wants to hold onto the OTA broadcast license revenue, making such a transition unlikely.
Acronym decoder: OTA = Over the air CATV = Cable Television DBS = Direct Broadcast Satellite (Sirius-XM). FCC = Federal Communications Commish. TV = Television
-- 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
Per snipped-for-privacy@yawhoo.com:
...
Sounds like there is a significant cost diff between OTA and cable.
The electric bill for running the antenna farm?
-- Pete Cresswell
Hundreds of kilowatts, up to megawatts of power output. I'm sure it adds up. And, since it's public spectrum, they're paying a significant license fee every year to the Feds for the right to use the frequency exclusively within their broadcast area.
--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
You are ignoring the antenna gain. One station I worked at fed 130 KW to the antenna for a 5 MW EIRP. The backup generator was a 500 KW Kohler diesel that was able to power the entire transmitter site, including the cooling system & A/C.
"Dave Platt" >
** Megawatt TV stations must be very rare.A ( digital ) TV transmitter with a few thousand watts and a well sited high gain antenna covers a city of 5 to 10 million people and beyond. The electricity bill is trivial.
OTOH - the cost of installing and maintaining a cable TV network serving 5 million people is enormous.
Broadcasting is unique and cannot be economically replaced by cable or satellite.
... Phil
You're overlooking the fact that a cable system can provide 100 channels.
Only 10 of which are watched by any particular household
Nope. They rarely crank out more than about 50kW output.
For example, a high end UHF Harris TV transitter belches 75kW (analog power): Analog power levels up to 75 kW, digital power levels up to 44.6 kW ATSC, 28.1 kW COFDM
VHF is less: Digital power levels up to 33.6 kW ATSC, 28.8 kW DAB and 19.2 kW DVB-T/DVB-T2/ISDB-Tb Analog power levels up to 48 kW
The bad news is that efficiency sucks. 30% is about the best that can be done. For example, here's a "Green Power" UHF transmitter with "up to 29% efficiency". Some data sheets fail to mention efficiency or power drain. So, a
40kW TV xmitter might draw 120kW from the power company, which is hardly a megawatt. At $0.20/kw-hr, that's: 120KW * 0.20 * 24 = $576/day or $210,000/year which is only a small fraction of the operating costs of a radio station.The EIRP ratings are tx power times antenna gain, which produce the astronomically large power outputs.
Cable operators also pay about $1/subscriber to the FCC:
Incidentally, you can look up what various AM/FM stations paid to the FCC at: but I couldn't find anything for TV. This is dead, but rather intersting:
I did find a 2012 NPR (notice of proposed rule making) list of fees at: which shows fees at about $35,000 for major market TV stations.
(U.S. $'s) TV (47 CFR part 73) UHF Commercial Markets 1-10 34,650 Markets 11-25 31,950 Markets 26-50 21,875 Markets 51-100 12,625 Remaining Markets 3,425 Construction Permits 3,425 Satellite Television Stations (All Markets) 1,350 Construction Permits ? Satellite Television Stations 890 Low Power TV, Class A TV, TV/FM Translators & Boosters (47 CFR part 74) 385 Broadcast Auxiliaries (47 CFR part 74) 10 CARS (47 CFR part 78) 475 Cable Television Systems (per subscriber) (47 CFR part 76) .95 Interstate Telecommunication Service Providers (per revenue dollar) .00375 Earth Stations (47 CFR part 25) 275 Space Stations (per operational station in geostationary orbit) (47 CFR part 25) also includes DBS Service (per operational station) (47 CFR part 100) 132,350 Space Stations (per operational system in non-geostationary orbit) (47 CFR part 25) 142,600 International Bearer Circuits - Terrestrial/Satellites (per 64KB circuit) .35
-- 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
Per Phil Allison:
Seems like we are back to the question "What is the industry's motive for wanting to get rid of OTA?".
-- Pete Cresswell
Erp. You're quite right - I failed to notice that the quoted figures are EIRP rather than transmitter output power (or similar). This would bring the per-hour operating cost down by quite a lot.
So, if the whole power budget for a station such as yours is in the range of 400 kW (output power, transmitter losses and necessary inefficiency, cooling and airco, and lower-power auxiliary stuff) then it might be in the range of low tens of dollars per hour in electricity costs? Not too terrible.
What I suspect that the stations would like to do would be to be able to sell/auction off the spectrum rights. VHF and UHF spectrum is limited and expensive, and there are probably commercial applications (e.g. cellphone and Internet access) which would pay quite a lot for access to a 6 MHz slice of spectrum. If the local stations could shift over to non-broadcast signal distribution without losing more than a small fraction of their viewership they'd probably find it very attractive to do so (assuming that they can get regulatory approval).
If this trend plays out, it would tend to throw "free access to at least basic TV news and entertainment" into the waste-can of history, as the signals would not be available via any non-pay distribution system. In the past I believe that there were public-safety and social-benefit arguments made in terms of ensuring free access to the broadcast media; whether this philosophy will hold true in the future is anyone's guess.
--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
It was around $45,000/month, or about $62.50 an hour when you subtract the few hours they were off the air, after midnight Sundays.
They don't own the spectrum they use. If they stop using it, the FCC voids their license.
Those frequencies are rather useless for cell or broadband. VHF has too much noise and skip. All of the UHF band wouldn't gain much, compared to microwave bands where smaller antennas would be useful.
Actually, they could move free TV broadcast to the KU band, and offer dumbed down sat receivers cheap or for free. US OTA stations are carried by Dish & Direct TV. A featureless sat receiver could be built to only allow reception to stations currently available. A complete GPS receiver & antenna module is now under $20. No need for an account, just plug & play on existing TVs.
"(PeteCresswell)"
** That is a false assertion.... Phil
Per Phoena:
Charlie Rose interviewed a guy named Shane Smith who is owner of a YouTube-based media company called "Vice" which seems tb headed for a dominant position in news coverage.
His assertion was that something like 60% of people under a certain age (30 comes to mind, but I'm not positive) do not even own a TV.
-- Pete Cresswell
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