[anador]

Some of the tallest structures on this continent are neither offices, nor Observation Points, but Television Masts.

Does anyone know what they are going to do with them now that we are Digitally Transitioned?

Undoubtedly these towers cost the television companies millions of dollars to maintain, and the insurance required is probably equally baffling. Not only could some kid climb up and fall off in the night, but if a quarter mile tall steel needle fell from the sky, people for quite a ways around would be in danger.

Are they going to be sold? dismantled? turned into over designed cell towers?

Just wondering.

[mos6507]

Why wouldn't digital transmission use the same towers? It's still a radio signal. It's just digitally encoded.

[anador]

WOW, i guess im pretty dense today

That was a pretty stupid question,

But doesn't the lower bandwidth affect the height requirement at all? It seems like the lower bandwidth higher energy signals would have different requirements than the older system.

[mos6507]

The only difference I know between digital and analog is that digital is an all or nothing signal and analog degrades with distance. It seems fairly forgiving, actually, as digital includes a fair amount of forward-error-correcting to account for signal dropouts. If you get a weak station that would seem crappy on analog, you might still get the digital signal which would appear perfect. I don't know exactly where the cutoff is, though. A lot has to do with how good your antenna is or how it's aligned. I just know when I cut over to digital in california that many stations I had trouble getting would come in perfectly in digital. I believe in many cases these towers are owned by the stations so when they cut over they probably just updated the transmitter. I'm trying to see where you're going with this and how it relates to doomerism but I can't see it.

[anador]

O it really was just an idle question, which is why I put in open discussion.

I was listening to a podcast about the burj Dubai and how it overtopped even the tallest tv mast.

I thought if the transmitters were more efficient, maybe some of these towers would be decreased in height, or eliminated altogether.

But thanks for the informed response.

[Googolplex]

The primary reason for the digital signals was the massively reduced bandwidth. Analog TV was using a huge chunk of some of the most valuable radio spectrum. More then any other single application as far as I know. As more stuff becomes wireless, we need more spectrum, and there is only so much of it. In fact, "peak spectrum", or eventually running out of usable radio spectrum is an issue that has been predicted for decades.

The digital signals also would tend to give better range at the same power level (assuming perfect picture, i.e. not fuzzy), thus theoretically allowing antennas to be lowered a little bit (though why they would do that I don't know), however my understanding is that most stations were also directed to reduce power, thus keeping coverage the same or worse.

[emersonbiggins]

I didn't really appreciate how similar digital and analog signals were until I saw that you could make an HD antenna out of a coat hanger.

Coat hanger HDTV antenna (it really works!)

[efarmer]

Dupe

[efarmer]

Old TV used FM for sound and AM for Video and took 6MHZ bandwidth per channel.
(AM video sparkles and tears up with lightning so the video showed artifacts but
the audio stayed good.) DTV freed up the more forgiving lower VHF for public safety
and other uses, especially mobile receivers that can't finesse the antenna as easily
as a fixed base receiver like your home.

In my area the DTV is now all UHF, which is more line of sight and less tolerant of
foliage or material between the receive and transmit antenna. If you are not very
close you may need a roof antenna. If you get a directional antenna do a rough
plot of it's reception angle (in the papers with the antenna) and where you are in
relation to the transmitters you wish to pick up. If the cone of reception does not
open up over distance enough to pick all the transmitters up, you may need to rotate
the antenna, or use a fancier system to pull it off.

For those who wear tin foil hats, yes they could be used if wired in for a UHF antenna
but it would be a safety hazard, and "they" would probably be able to download
evil thoughts directly into your mind, and you would have to remain motionless and
insulated, and remember to repeat:"Don't touch me, I am receiving a program"
to everyone in the room. Make a burqa from a large black trash bag to wear
for anonymity, cut a face hole and one hole to snake an arm out and jam
snackage in your pie hole every once and awhile.