[mythtv-users] OT: Indoor VHF gain antenna

[Brian Wood]

On Tuesday 26 January 2010 07:48:07 pm Ben Kamen wrote:
> On 1/26/2010 8:31 PM, Brian Wood wrote:
> > Good point, a lot of stations still call themselves "Channel X", X being
> > a VHF channel, even though they have moved to UHF. "Channel 5" here is
> > actually on channel 30.
> 
> You can check www.antennaweb.org with your zip to see what stations are in
>  the area and what "real" channel they're on. From there, you can look at
>  the ATSC frequency map here:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_broadcast_television_frequencie
> s
> 
> to get an idea if they're VHF or UHF (which now dictates which part of the
>  antenna they might use)
> 
> Sometimes I wonder if they should just dump the VHF band altogether and
>  stick 'em all in UHF.

Many people would like to do that, the VHF spectrum space would be extremely 
valuable. I believe that most if not all of Europe is all UHF.

One problem is UHF transmitters are MUCH more expensive to operate than VHF 
rigs, though I don't think that was a factor, since a TV license is usually 
very profitable, though there are exceptions.

I'm not sure of the reasons some stations stayed on VHF after the digital 
switchover, you're right that it would have made things a lot simpler if they 
had all moved.

UHF has always had a bad reputation in the US, for many reasons. One is that a 
lot of the analog UHF stations were low budget, since the "Big Boys" had 
grabbed all the VHF licenses in the early days. Coupled with the higher 
operating costs that made for some poor quality. I know of one station in NY 
state that asked for (and got) the FCC's permission to run at half power just 
to be able to afford the electrical bill to stay on the air.