Lim Hitchcock of Defiance is concerned. Click RELATED LINK to see his editorial to The Toledo Blade today. He has a right to be.From the start, the converter has been a bad idea. But to those in government it was the cheapest way of getting the job done.
From the start, I've been saying that there needs to be several factors to the success of DTV.
1 - Antenna Education.
2 - TV tuners with better sensitivity.
3 - Honest Reporting.
Antenna education is simply letting people know that they may have to upgrade their antenna, or at least the wiring to their antennas. The antennas may be good, but the wiring must be good, too. And the viewers much know the difference between UHF and VHF.
Better Sensitivity is a design in the receiver. There are sets out there that are quite sensitive, but I have also seen some sets that can't get our channel 8 signal from 4 miles away with a good antenna! Come on, manufacturers, your markup is good enough. You can make a tuner that is as sensitive, OR BETTER, than older NTSC tuners. (BTW: The sensitivity issue especially applies to converters).
Honest Reporting is simply that the public is a lot smarter than government thinks they are. The idea of "branding" DTV channels with the NTSC channel number was a bad idea. The PSIP supporters said that it would help people know where their stations are. Stations should have been required to display their call sign followed by the network affiliation. For example, a viewer in Bowling Green commented that he had problems getting WTVG-DT. He said he spent hundreds of dollars trying to get Channel 13. We all know that channels 2-13 are VHF, and 14-69 are UHF, so why couldn't he get WTVG with his antenna?
WTVG is on 13 (analog), but their digital is in the UHF hand. Our viewer couldn't figure out why VHF is somehow UHF. Once he found out this tid-bit he purchased a UHF antenna and all was well. He didn't have a problem with our signal because from the start WLIO said we were channel 8. Period.
I think there is too much water over the dam to correct these issues, but I also think it's a lesson learned about having an arm of government that knows nothing about broadcasting offering, and managing broadcasting.
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