ANTENNAWEB.ORG NOW LETS YOU SEE WHAT THE FINAL DTV CHANNELS WILL BE
I am happy to say that today I discovered that www.antennaweb.org is now listing what the final DTV channels will be for your area when you are looking to select an antenna for over the air DTV reception. When you use the site and it lists the results, if you click on the "Show digital stations only" radio button, you will now see among the listings stations that will be changing their DTV frequency once the transition completes on February 17, 2009.
If you look at the "Live Date" column, if a result for a digital station says "February 17, 2009 (post-transition)" it means that the "Frequency Assigment" listed for that station is the permanent one that has been approved by the FCC, but it will not take effect until the transition is completed. Until then, the Frequency Assignment for the same call letters in an entry that does NOT have the post-transition Live Date entry is the one that is currently in use.
However, the listings for the post-transition stations will predict the signal strength of reception as that broadcast will be full-power per federal regulations. So now if you are currently using a UHF antenna to get your DTV over the air, you may want to visit www.antennaweb.org again to see if you may need to add a VHF antenna to ensure you will get all your desired channels following the transition. If you do enough research, you may be able to find antennas designed for UHF and VHF High Band (Ch 7-13), in case the listed frequency assignments are in the 7-51 range, which would not be insanely wide in the back and an eyesore monster on your rooftop.
I believe the reason it has taken a while for Antennaweb to post the final DTV frequency assignments is because many stations are only beginning to submit their construction permits to the FCC to build and deploy their full-power DTV transmissions on their final selected channels. The data would include the expected antenna height and power, which are needed by the Antennaweb program to predict what signal strenghs are expected at a given location.
Given the cold and snow that the nation has been enduring this winter, it may make more sense to get an antenna system set up over the summer so you won't have to go out in the cold to relocate an outdoor antenna next February - thankfully the Antennaweb site will now let you plan to do just that.
I am happy to say that today I discovered that www.antennaweb.org is now listing what the final DTV channels will be for your area when you are looking to select an antenna for over the air DTV reception. When you use the site and it lists the results, if you click on the "Show digital stations only" radio button, you will now see among the listings stations that will be changing their DTV frequency once the transition completes on February 17, 2009.
If you look at the "Live Date" column, if a result for a digital station says "February 17, 2009 (post-transition)" it means that the "Frequency Assigment" listed for that station is the permanent one that has been approved by the FCC, but it will not take effect until the transition is completed. Until then, the Frequency Assignment for the same call letters in an entry that does NOT have the post-transition Live Date entry is the one that is currently in use.
However, the listings for the post-transition stations will predict the signal strength of reception as that broadcast will be full-power per federal regulations. So now if you are currently using a UHF antenna to get your DTV over the air, you may want to visit www.antennaweb.org again to see if you may need to add a VHF antenna to ensure you will get all your desired channels following the transition. If you do enough research, you may be able to find antennas designed for UHF and VHF High Band (Ch 7-13), in case the listed frequency assignments are in the 7-51 range, which would not be insanely wide in the back and an eyesore monster on your rooftop.
I believe the reason it has taken a while for Antennaweb to post the final DTV frequency assignments is because many stations are only beginning to submit their construction permits to the FCC to build and deploy their full-power DTV transmissions on their final selected channels. The data would include the expected antenna height and power, which are needed by the Antennaweb program to predict what signal strenghs are expected at a given location.
Given the cold and snow that the nation has been enduring this winter, it may make more sense to get an antenna system set up over the summer so you won't have to go out in the cold to relocate an outdoor antenna next February - thankfully the Antennaweb site will now let you plan to do just that.
posted by Derek (IA) | 4:57 PM
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