Ditching Cable Television

[tw]

Originally Posted by Pete Zicato

I know that HD still carries on uhf and vhf frequencies, but aren't the newer antennas more directional?

Everyone should know what Congress did to protect companies such as Zenith.

Did you see an NTSC TV with ghosts? The same picture is repeated lighter and off to the right. A ghost image. Your TV is getting a signal directly from the transmitter. And another from a reflection. You are now watching radar. If the ghost is from an airplane, then you watch the ghost move. (NTSC is a TV standard defined before WWII.)

But digital cannot have two signal sources. A signal and its ghost confuses the TV's computer.

To protect Zenith, et al, Congress ordered America to use a code called 8VSB. 8VSB cannot easily reject the ghost. So you need a better antenna that will receive a stronger signal and (more directional) a lesser ghost image.

Meanwhile, all other nations went to a standard that also makes WiFi and cell phones so flexible - COFDM. This standard can better ignore ghosts. Can even be used reliably in moving vehicles.

Rather than explain this, retail sales wants you to be dumb. And Congress hopes you stay dumb. They hype a mythical 'digital' antenna rather than admit to total 'loss of signal' due to ghosting and the inferior 8VSB format.

In a move to eliminate big brother government, the party in power imposed an 8VSB standard in 1997. All TV stations were to convert to digital by 2003. Politics rather than science and technology choose the standard and timeline. You now must buy a more expensive analog antenna.

No problem. A salesman hypes it as new technology. He must be honest. He makes you feel good. So many will believe even Saddam had WMDs - liars use the same techniques. There are digital antennas and were WMDs - except where people ask simple damning questions.