In February 2009, all analog TV broadcasts are set to stop. so what happens to 87.7 on the FM dial? Will the FCC lincense a station on this frequency? Will it be public broadcasting because it's low on the dial?

87.7 will go dark(or digital, depending on the location) along with the rest of the TV signals on VHF-Low, from what I've heard.

I like what a couple of LPTV stations on channel 6 have done(Anchorage and Long Island City, Queens) by marketing themselves as FM stations, and transmitting only still video images. The future of these stations is in doubt.

I've heard of a station in Hawaii doing the 87.7 radio thing as well (found the thread in the archives where Hawaii radio was discussed - if you go to the Hawaii Radio/TV site and click Kauai, there's a listing for it). It is too bad that the sound is mono since it was pointed out a while ago here that MTS stereo is incompatible with the FM stereo standard; and I later found out that Ch. 6 audio is actually at 87.75 mHz (or 87.74 or 87.76 if the TV channel is offset), also that crummy screeching sound on TV audio that FM doesn't have. But hey, if it's another choice to listen to or give a try, why not?

Anywho, my personal opinion and hope is that the FM band is expanded - move some of the AM stations that can no longer compete to FM and/or set it up for true community-based radio (not most of the licenses going to churches and other religious groups that air time-shifted programming from a Christian network). Maybe even offer licenses to people that want to broadcast to their neighbors, or their block or their neighborhood in a little more capacity than Part 15 allows. However, since none of these options is going to make billions of dollars for huge corporations, I doubt any of this will happen.

Many FM radios with PLL synthesized tuning do not go down to 87.7 MHz. For this reason, I don't think that it would be feasible to reallocate this to FM broadcasting. A better question, in my opinion, is whether stations will start to get assigned to 87.9 MHz, aka. "channel 200."

There are some stations on 87.9!

This would be KSFH, Mountain View, CA. http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/info?call=KSFH&service=FM

The FCC lists KSFH as well as K200AA and WA2XNX:

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/fmq?state=&call=&city=&arn=&serv=&vac=&freq=87.9&fre2 =87.9&facid=&class=&dkt=&list=1&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&NS=N&dlon2=&mlon2=&sl on2=&EW=W&size=9

Along with the following note:

"*** Use of Channel 200 87.9 MHz is restricted to existing
displaced full service Class D noncommercial educational
stations. See 47 CFR 73.501. Channel 200 is not available for
use by other station classes and services.***"

Perhaps a good spot for KRRC if it gets bumped by another move-in? (after Ch 6 leaves the air)

The good thing about it will be that my Sirius receiver will again be able to use 87.7 to transmit to my FM in the Land Cruiser!

87.9 would be too close to KBVM for use by KRRC.

Isn't second adjacent ok for a class D ? In the Portland area we have, for example:

KOPB 91.5
K220IN 91.9
KGON 92.3

How would :

KRRC 87.9
KBVM 88.3

Be any different. What am I missing here ?

yes...CSN International is alive and well at 91.9 over the west hills....all at 20 watts or so.

They'd have to co-locate to avoid interference to 88.3, which wouldn't reach Reed and I think the rules may be different for grandfathered Class Ds.

Broadway--

I can occasionally hear Calvary Chapel on 91.9 here in the Coove as well. I have been able to copy it as far away as 162nd and 18th a couple of times. And even in stereo, on the Grundig. It's really scratchy stereo (there's less static when listening to the mono baseband, and the station doesn't even place on the signal-metre on the Grundig) but hey, it's there.......

Not bad for 20 watts, I think!!

(EDIT: removed some stuff that appears to have already been addressed in this thread.)

Actually only 5 watts according to radio-locator.com

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=K220IN&service=FX&status=L&hours=U

I see they are now running "PSA's" about Analog TV going bye bye in 1.5 years. Put out by NAB, they are now running, touting that everything is going digital which is better so TV is going digital TV so it will be better and give you better options.

Yeah, I just saw it. The end, as we know it, is near.

digital is not always better with digital it is either all or nothing analog will get through with a significant reduction in quality when a digital signal would not. I think that the FCC certainly will allow 87.7 and 87.9 to be used in areas that do not have either a current analog ch 6 or a future digital ch 6 and it appears as though Portland will be one of those areas in Feb 2009

Whats disturbing is that if you Google "digital set-top converter box" hardly anything comes up to purchase now...theres gonna be a mad rush the beginning of 2009 for those who choose to pick up signals over air which I know lots of viewers have cable/satellite and won't be effected much...buy stock now in converter boxes...but as soon as is starts...it will all be over...but there be an opportunity to make some $.$$

If you search on Amazon for "DTV converter" several come up, including a (soon to be released) RCA unit that can interface to a "smart antenna", and a fairly inexpensive unit from Coby.
I suspect that many will get their ATSC tuners in other devices, such as DVD recorders or new 4:3 TV sets. 16:9 TV's should be a hot item Christmas 2008!
I also suspect that some will be frustrated with the all or nothing aspect of off the air DTV reception, and cable/sat systems will see a profitable "bump".
See the Digitial TV DX thread on the other side of the board.

Yeah Broadway, Best Buy and Circuit City have a Samsung DTBH260F convertor box, or you can go to Video Only and buy a Panasonic (or even Toshiba) DVD recorder with a built-in ATSC tuner, like I did.

Caveat emptor: if you end up getting a Samsung, make absolutely certain your TV has a component video (YCrCb) input or an HDMI, because most of the box's functions (Menus, EPG, captioning etc.) aren't actually accessible via the Yellow cable!

I tried a Samsung for a few days this Spring, it had good performance but had to take it back because my TV set (at that time) didn't have YCrCb. But now i have a set that does, and I am thinking of getting one again, primarily for the EPG which the Panasonic doesn't have. (But at the time, who knew I'd be getting my folks' old 36' JVC TV three months later when they got their crappy new 16*9 LCD? Hindsight, I guess, is 20/20.)

If you plan/intend to keep using your regular analogue TV past the kill date (as I do) and haven't done so yet, BUY A CONVERTOR BOX OF SOME SORT NOW while the prices are still somewhat reasonable. I can only imagine post-2/19/09, the prices will skyrocket as people start buying boxes to receive digital TV as they discover all their channels have suddenly gone off-air.............

Newflyer sez--
"...........it was pointed out a while ago here that MTS stereo is incompatible with the FM stereo standard; and I later found out that Ch. 6 audio is actually at 87.75 mHz..........."

Well, *mostly* incompatible. Some FM radios (like the one in my Panasonic RX-5030 boombox) have a trim-pot in their FM Stereo demodulator which you can adjust to set the detector to receive the stereo pilot at different subcarrier frequencies; in this case ~15 kHz (BTSC standard) instead of the typical 19 kHz that FM stereo uses. This usually requires partially disassembling the radio to gain access to the circuit board and the trimpot. Doing this, you can actually hear channel 6 in stereo on your FM radio, but the stereo sound itself is a bit weird especially listening through headphones!

Be warned--doing this will cause you to hear regular FM stations in mono instead, but you can always set it back to where it was (or reasonably so.) Hint: if you do this and your particular radio has an "FM Stereo" switch, turn it on and let your ears help you. It's easier that way, I think.

Motozak2 recommends:

"BUY A CONVERTOR BOX OF SOME SORT NOW while the prices are still somewhat reasonable."

On the other hand, as production numbers increase, prices drop. Also, after Jan 1 2008, each household may qualify for up to two $40 coupons to offset the cost of set top boxes.

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.html

"On the other hand, as production numbers increase, prices drop."

That is very true. I kinda' wonder, tho, if companies will still be producing converters post-kill date, or if they will simply try to sell off their existing/surplus stock and try to talk people into buying a whole new TV set altogether, regardless of whether people actually want a new TV or not?

Had to laugh: "ALL-DIGITAL TELEVISION IS COMING (AND SOONER THAN YOU THINK!)"
Yeah, and that's contingent on IF (and that's a really big IF) the FCC doesn't push the analogue-kill date further into the future than they have already. I mean, weren't they singing something to the same tune back in 2006?? *laughs*

Oh yes, they have streched the 'kill date' twice since 1994 when they originally came up with all this conversion to HD concept. I was reading in the newspaper recently about how something like 10 billion dollars has been allocated by congress for credits to buy the converter boxes, but the complaint is that only 5 million of that was allocated for 'education' of the public on how to hook up thier converters properly.

Well that is kind of scary. what will you have to do wire it in to the second RF input stage of your analog TV?

Also, last night I was watching our local CBS affiliate in HD on channel 19.1. I lost the audio, just the dialog however. The musical and sound effects background was JUST FINE, no dialog. I flipped down to their analog transmitter on 19.0 and all the audio was present. So what the heck is this all about?? I noticed that the other locals\ HD tranmissions from the NBC and ABC affiliates were OK, just our CBS station here. Weird !I thought maybe it was signal strength issues or my reciever was going wacko. The dialog did cut in and out from time to time and I noticed it never happened in a commercial break ! Of course that is when the picture goes to partial screen to conserve bandwidth I presume...only when it was in full screen HD did this phenonmenon occur???

Motozak2, No, the 2006 date was dependent on 85% receiver penetration, which was not reached. Steps were taken to make sure sets would be sold and anyone left out would have access to a converter box. An official date has been set as February 17, 2009. If you go to the FCC site, you will find the remaining months, days, hours, minutes and seconds ticking down. There is no reason to believe this will change.

"Of course that is when the picture goes to partial screen to conserve bandwidth I presume...only when it was in full screen HD did this phenonmenon occur???"
Come on Kennewickman. You know better than that. It has nothing to do with conserving bandwidth. Most commercials are not in widescreen format. Therefore, they go to 4:3 format for that commercial. And, if it is a local spot (meaning inserted by your local station) they probably don't have any local equipment for playing 16X9 stuff anyway. Probably, when they are playing network HD, they have a hard switch that just passes the network source to their HD out line. The network does not reformat commercials to fill the screen to 16X9 if they are in 4X3. They run them in original format, even on HD. Local stations do not "stretch" them or overscan them to fill, either.
I can't speak for the sound problem. There could be some phasing issue or some other problem in the processing. There will be problems with 5.1 sound distribution in the current systems, particularly when delivered digitally. These issues are known and probably are not being addressed as vigorously as they should be. The problems may become more apparent as we move to all digital distribution, particularly if they aren't properly addressed. We shall see.

Most stations aren't ready for the conversion yet. Their HD chain is primitive at best. The conversion to all digital is not cheap and most stations were holding off on the expenditures until prices came down and/or the equipment has improved. Most have the transmitters and signals in place now. However, their studio wiring and setup is still far from being there. Most studio setups, particularly in smaller markets, are primitive at best. And probably look like it on air.

Converter boxes will probably be just like a cable converter box. Disconnect lead from tv, connect to box, connect box to antenna in or video/audio in to your tv. It will probably have a standard CH3/CH4 RF modulator in it. You don't have to do anything to your tv set. The question is, are you going to have to pay a disposal fee to get rid of all those small tv sets that won't work anymore without the converter box? Talk about filling the landfills..........

The last I heard was that converter box coupons won't be available until Fall of 2008. The coupons will be for $40 and the converter boxes are estimated to be at about $80.

What will happen to Kauai's "87.7 Coast FM" K06NC?

www.coastfmkauai.com

According to the FCC, K06NC is listed as a translater (TX) tv station so they might be OK for a while.

http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?state=&call=k06nc&arn=&city=&chan=&cha2=69&serv=& type=0&facid=&list=2&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9

"While the February 17, 2009 deadline for ending analog broadcasts does not apply to low-power, Class A, and TV translator stations, the FCC will require these stations to convert to digital broadcasting sometime thereafter. Nearly 2,000 of these stations have been authorized to construct digital facilities and some are broadcasting in digital already. The FCC is currently considering the remaining issues involved with the low-power digital transition and will make decisions regarding these stations in the future."

from:

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/DTVandLPTV.html

K-Man ran across a L vs. R phase reversal that was reduced to mono somewhere in the chain, nulling the centered content (dialog). Stereo stuff shot on location was (for I don't know how long) still recorded in mono, with post-prod (music and foley) added in stereo.

"87.7 Coast FM" has the only stereo signal I've ever heard at 87.7.

RCA's Web site for their simple coupon-converter is http://www.keepmytv.com

The digital tuner/DVR combos are appealing and cheap enough, but have too many buttons for oldsters. Street price of a DTA800 is now under $60.

NTIA's DTV into site: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon

From their "fact sheet", I presume one should apply as early as possible (i.e., six weeks from now), as a finite pool of funds is put up (almost $1 billion), and I'd guess at a 3-6 month wait for the $40 check to show up.

(It appears the number of coupons funded--22 million?--is roughly equal to the estimated number of OTA TV receivers: 219M TV sets minus 70M cable subscribers and 16M TVRO subs; cable reportedly in 85% of TV homes.)

"August 2007

"The Coupon Program will receive coupon requests beginning January 1, 2008.

"Consumers will be able to apply for their coupons through a Web site, via a toll-free number, or by mail.

"Households will be able to apply for a maximum of two (2) coupons, each worth $40. Coupons will be mailed to eligible households and will expire after 90 days of issuance.

"Coupons will be available on a first-come-first-serve basis to all U.S. households until $890 million has been expended.

"If these initial funds are exhausted, an additional $450 million will be made available to households that receive only over-the-air television service.

"Consumers may call toll free 1-888-DTV-2009 (1-888-388-2009) in English and Spanish for updates."
___________

Gizmodo review ("keep on trucking with your grandma TV"): http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/digital-switchover/rca-dta800-digital-converter-for-a nalog-tvs-updated-delayed-322419.php
Ah, it has a remote.

LG's competing unit: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/ces-preview-2008/lgs-zenith-dtt900-converter-competes -with-rca-for-grandmas-40-coupon-322560.php
doesn't seem to be available yet

I notice Bi-Mart offering a 20" Phillips CRT set with digital tuner for $120 (displays 480i), but I think I'd rather put a converter on Mom's Trinitron, as they're (well, Trins are) virtually immortal. For myself, I'll just stick an ATSC card into my computer, and go dual-VGA.

Great...now another remote to train Granny on...

Ahead of you there... I'm hoping it'll use an existing control code set so a familiar universal remote can be configured for it.

New York also has a station at 87.7 (WNYZ TV 6) which will soon be known as "The Pulse."

If "spectrum repurposing" of VHF-low and UHF channels 51-69 ends up being a big money maker for the FCC, is it possible that in a few years, there will be talk of an analog kill date on FM broadcast, with some part of the dial--say 87.9-93.9 MHz being auctioned off to other types of services?

On this topic, a related story from another market with a channel 6:

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=654635

Thanks for the article Craig. It pretty much sums up the problem first posed in this string !

> Thanks for the article Craig. It pretty much sums
> up the problem first posed in this string !

i.e., don't count on 87.7 becoming available. Now, are these channel 6 guys in the Times-Union story just spitting into the wind by petitioning the FCC to allow them to stay on channel 6? Or, will VHF-low stay exclusively assigned to television broadcasting, at least temporarily? Or, will it be shared between television and other uses?

> ...touting that everything is going digital which
> is better so TV is going digital TV so it will be
> better and give you better options.

I have seen these PSAs. You've gotta love marketing guy spin. They make the "you have to buy new equipment" message sound like good news by presenting it as: "we (broadcasters, electronics industry, and the government) care about you."

There was an interview on Dateline Washington a few weeks ago on the subject of the DTV switch that made me want to barf. The "expert" was a chipper-sounding rep from the Consumer Electronics Industry Association. Her whole spiel was that the new digital TVs are so great ("they can be categorized as good, better, and best") that you should buy one anyway.

"it is located near where radio signals and television signals meet. For that reason, few television stations use Channel 6."
and
"Channel 6 is uniquely capable of knife-edge refraction over the top of the hills that are prevalent in the Albany area."

Truth or bullshit?

> "Channel 6 is uniquely capable of knife-edge
> refraction over the top of the hills that are
> prevalent in the Albany area."
>
> Truth or bullshit?

Hype. The channel 6 wavelengths, which are approximately 3.5 meters (11' 7"), will diffract over hilltops better than UHF.

The hype is in using the word "uniquely." It implies that the channel 6 wavelength is somehow tuned to the hilltops in the Albany area. In reality, any low VHF channel is going to diffract better over topographic features than UHF. In fact, channel 2, with its even longer wavelength of 5.3 meters (17' 3") would probably work better than channel 6!

""it is located near where radio signals and television signals meet. For that reason, few television stations use Channel 6."
and
"Channel 6 is uniquely capable of knife-edge refraction over the top of the hills that are prevalent in the Albany area."

Truth or bullshit?"

Let me be a little more succinct than Alfredo ...


Bullshit. Nothing about the statement is of value. It's not even worth picking it apart.

This notion that 82-88 M is going to become magically available in the short term is foolish. The FCC has already indicated that the first thing that has to happen is a large majority of the RF energy in this band must first cease to be present before any evaluation can be made for any repurposing proposals. And remember, there are quite a few translators that are on this channel that are not bound to the first deadline, assuming said deadline is met. It may also be a destination for digital TV beyond the half dozen existing DTV assignments on that channel, should the new UHF landscape not perform to expectations when the dust settles.

Also, the idea that the FM band should be expanded down
has potentially less value to the FCC in terms of auctioning it off and making big dollars.

It's about politics way more than it is about any slight performance differences in the Ch2 - Ch6 region. Long distance
coverage is not the end all be all it was once. Back in the day when Ma Bell had the only addressable network, long distance coverage was coveted. Nowadays, clearly that is back seat to cellular technology.

If you want to know what is going to happen, pay close attention to the proposals brought forth from the players in the UHF TV band auctions. Let's see what they bring to the podium after they lay out billions for the first channels being auctioned.

It would be, IMO, a more intelligent position to assume any and all bandwidth freed up from the cessation of legacy analog services will be filled with emerging technologies, not the expansion of other legacy technologies.

Besides, radio and television are losing listeners/viewers to other media distribution systems. Eventually, when auto manufacturers start putting WI FI or it's successor technology into their dashboards, the final nail in the radio biz coffin will be driven. Broadband antenna's will distribute everybody's programming terrestrially and the metamorphosis of radio and TV to IP will be complete. Probably by about 2050.

Thank you for clarifying this, Andy. The Times-Union reporters should have done their homework on this one.

I'm still undecided on whether I should apply for the converter box coupons or just become a former viewer of the local TV affiliates. There is so little aired that I actually want to watch that it may be satisfying to give the TV broadcast industry a symbolic FU.

Well you have to take that "hype" you are refering to into context. The article was written for lay people, those having nothing to do with broadcast. There may be no Channel 2 in Albany or Channel 3 or 4 or whatever. And even if there is, it doesnt really matter. . And for them to say 'uniquely' capable of knife edge refraction is true, but compared to what??? UHF certainly. Compared to Ch 2 , no.

And newspaper articles dont get into the physics of terestrially transmitted wavelenghts and the propagation characteristics etc. Unless you are in the biz, you dont give a rip, particularly.

True ! The way things are going now Satellite delivered media is a 200 foot tidal right off the coast headed our way, so terrestrial TV and radio are doing what they can just to stay afloat.

Knowledge and Intelligence are two different things. There are plenty of intelligent people who read that article, and the person who wrote it was also reasonabley intelligent, but most of the readers have no knowledge of the physics behind EMR relative to wavelenghts or frequency allocations.

All the Ch 6 ownership was saying is that on Ch 6 the characteristics of that wavelength will allow a decent 'bend' in the signal propogation for HD. A bend that allows better coverage around the hills in the vacinity of Albany. This is unique relative to what? Anything above Ch 6 basically. Which is probably the majority of what TV Channels that are allocated for Albany and the surrounding areas. And they dont want to give up the Ch 6 allocation, and I dont blame them because thier only alternative is UHF more than likely.

...but for whatever reason, digital TV doesn't work very well on low VHF!

Some discussion here:

http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0001/t.1169.html

Noise on low band, indoor antennas that are too small and concerns about BPL are mentioned.

Good article. I've often found my searches coming up on one of Doug's articles. Doug and I both graduated EE at Lehigh Univ (he was a year ahead of me) and both worked at WSAN Allentown. He knows his stuff. You can't get through two semesters of EMR with Dr. Nicholas Eberhardt without something rubbing off. But not to digress from the topic, the article clearly shows that proper DT power at the transmitting end and noise at the receiving end are still significant variables. This is what I alluded to in my earlier post when I said that until all the analog energy goes away, the performance evaluation of digital is incomplete.

Thanks for the link, Jr_tech! One thing that is going to be very frustrating about trying to solve DTV reception problems is that there will be no visual indication about what is wrong with the signal. With analog TV systems, weak signals, motor impulse noise, rectifier-produced interference, RF beat notes, co-channel skip signals, adjacent channel bleedover, and multipath all produced different, easily recognizable artifacts on the screen.

Low-VHF analog reception using indoor antennas was often marred by various types of electrical noise, so the conclusion that the TV Technology article reached makes a lot of sense. I only wish that they had gone into more detail about why television stations would benefit from transmitting circularly polarized signals.

The BPL concerns are going to be moot for TV for the reasons Andy cited above. However, I hope that BPL suffers infant mortality for the good of everything else that uses 1.7-80 MHz.

"I only wish that they had gone into more detail about why television stations would benefit from transmitting circularly polarized signals."

My guess is that CP can be used to reduce multipath signals... Rotation sense reverses on reflection, and the receiving antenna will have little response to the reversed rotation signal.

Thanks for that article jr. Tech. A few things I wasnt aware of here, very interesting. How things change when you go from Analog to Digital ! We have only one VHF station here, A FOX affiliate on 11, and its HD signal is marginal, in and out, at my place with an amplified indoor antenna. We are out about 40 "line o'site" from that transmitter.

Circular Polarity is actually a misnomer with respect to FM ( VHF ) broadcast. The proper term for our purposes would be ' mixed polarity transmission" of FM radio signals. And the only reason I can think of as to why the so called C.P. would be of an advantage on the lower VHF spectrum would be for the same reasons it is with respect to FM broadcast; structural penetration and it affords a certain degree of noise cancellation.

Check out some of the FM transmitting antennas on the Shively site such as the 6814:

http://www.shively.com/ds-6814-fw.php

These right-hand CP antennas are in wide use in the US.

Some discussion about transmitting with H+V vs CP here:

http://www.rwonline.com/reference-room/better-fm-cov/bfc-03-27-02.shtml

I have some engineering friends who might know exactly *why* it is that low band VHF TV is a problem for DTV transmission. Below is one opinion from a guy who is a microwave engineer, did some broadcast engineering @ KFLY and another station in Eugene when he was going through school @ U of O in the early 70s .

""..................................
hadn't heard of this. Perhaps since the VHF signals have a larger percentage bandwidth for the 6 MHz channel, that might impact the ability to transmit the digital signal bandwidth without phase and amplitude rolloff. However, the equalization in the receivers should be able to deal with this, since it looks a lot like the distortion caused by multipath, which they must be able to handle or die.

I remember how much trouble Mokan had getting the Channel 2 transmitter diplexer at KTVU in Oakland tuned to handle the relatively wide 54-60 MHz band. He had to use an RCA precision alignment tool (available to mortals at Sears as a rubber mallet) to convince the filters to do their thing properly!

Maybe Byron knows about this. I'll forward this to him for his 2 yen worth.

Keep clam,
Terry