Market research firm Centris checked DTV over-the-air reception of stations in Las Vegas, Philadelphia and St. Louis. They measured coverage in a 60-75 mile radius from TV towers with 5 mile increments.
The results were not promising Beyond 35 miles from the towers continuous coverage was hit and miss with an outdoor antenna. On top of that Centris says their research shows more than 75% of households that watch TV over-the-air use indoor set-top antennas.
For the study Centris used data from AtennaWeb which only takes into account outdoor atennas.
As alarmist as this study makes things to be, it may not be so relevant to Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market because the viewing area for the stations is about 30 mile radius from the antenna farm. WTVJ’s tower though according to Google Earth is 57.3 miles from the north Broward county line.
OTA viewers of Palm Beach based stations who live in Martin county could experience spotty DTV coverage, if this study is to be believed, except with WPBF whose transmitter is near Palm City. Which of course means Boca Raton, 54.2 miles south of the WPBF tower according to Google Earth, OTA viewers might have to tune south, something many are already doing anyway.
/hat tip Wayne/
WTVJ’s analog tower is in Princeton, north of Homestead, but the station’s digital antenna is at the ‘farm’, on WFOR’s tower. In fact, the antenna stack is directly below WFOR’s digital antenna.
DannyBoy is correct. Check out TV Fool (http://www.tvfool.com) – it’s an alternative to antennaweb. The major MIA/FTL digital channels all come from the farm, including WTVJ-DT.
I thought once the digital is turned totally on in Feb the stations will then go ‘ full power ‘ … a lot of stations are not using full power and that makes a dtv signal harder to get….
Currently, some stations are not operating at full power and some are not yet broadcasting on their permanent digital frequency.
Go to tvfool.com and click ‘TV Signal Locator’ on the left. Fill in your location information and click ‘Find Local Channels’. The results page allows you to select current vs. post-transition. Compare the two to see which stations will be increasing power and/or switching digital frequencies.