Thursday, March 19, 2009

An announcement, followed by a quick DTV hit.

UPDATE 5PM: I have decided to go ahead and create the blog as a placeholder for when I start posting to it.

When I launch it on 4/12, the URL is:

http://ohkyindtvwatch.blogspot.com/

Until then, it is a private blog, as I will be tinkering with it.

Original item follows...

_____________________________________________________________________________________

First, the announcement.

In the interest of keeping all DTV stuff separate, starting April 14, all DTV-transition items from then on will be posted to a separate blog. This way, we can keep those things, separate from the main blog - but a link will be provided from here to each item as it's posted, and when we post a DTV item, that will be a separate Twitter update.

Now a quick piece of interesting news from Rich Emery, who wrote us this morning to tell us he was able to pick up stations in Indianapolis and Louisville from his home in Hamilton(!) via his analog TV.

After telling us of previous experiences being able to pick up a station in Denver, Colorado (!!), Rich writes:

Here's why I bring this up -- around 7 AM this morning, I turned on a bedroom TV with nothing but amplified rabbit airs that's tuned to Ch. 3; before turning on the DTV converter box, I noticed an incredibly clear signal from Louisville's WAVE-3. It was equal to anything from Cincinnati this morning, which piqued my curiosity to see what other distant signals might come with such great atmospheric conditions.

By my tally, I was able to pick up completely viewable, identifiable analog signals from TWENTY-NINE stations today. Every single VHF channel except for Ch. 10 had something on it, something I've never seen before.

Dayton -- 7
Cincinnati (including WPTO, two KET stations from N. Kentucky, and two low power stations) -- 10
Indianapolis -- 6
Louisville -- 6


Let's see...12, 22...yep that's 29 stations! (Just double checking.)

This brings up an interesting point.

At 7 this morning, atmospheric conditions weren't precisely ideal for this kind of viewing. What you ideally want is high pressure, clear skies or fog, and light winds.

It should be noted that at 7 this morning, according to National Weather Service observations, we did have mostly cloudy skies in the Tri-State. A front had moved through this morning, and it had rained. The only ideal condition we did have was the light winds (at Hamilton, winds were calm at 7am) and fog (at CVG, or the International Airport). There was yet to be high pressure established.

Still, it's pretty amazing that even under what were less than ideal conditions, signals from Indy and Louisville STILL propagated all the way to Hamilton...

No comments: