Wireless Network or Weird Al?

coronaride writes "This article over on Wired discusses the current topic of the FCC's regulation of UHF's (ultra-high frequencies). Apparently, UHF channels 52 through 69 are in danger of being taken over by wireless networking!" Insert your Conan the Librarian or Wheel of Fish joke here.

Comments

YOU SO STUPID!!!!!

[xneilj]

Well if you didn't get the reference, you'll just think I'm insulting you :)

Re:YOU SO STUPID!!!!!

[Ozymandias_KoK]

Offtopic? Who's the idiot moderator who did that? I beleive the commentary actually solicited UHF jokes, did it not?

Mrs. Weaver and the Wheel of Fish

[AtariDatacenter]

A friend's mom, Mrs. Weaver, was a contestant on the "Wheel of Fish". What you probably didn't know, but could figure out, is that when you spun the wheel, fish scales and stuff starting flying EVERYWHERE. It was a riot.

PS: I think it was appropriate that the film was shot in Tulsa.

Goodbye UPN...

[polymath69]

I get my Enterprise fix over broadcast, channel 59. Goodbye, Archer!

But at least I'll still have Buffy.

Re:Goodbye UPN...

[colmore]

UHF/VHF is free

Oh sure

[PhysicsGenius]

When it begins to interfere with TV we start complaining. But where was the uproar when wireless networking started interfering with radio astronomy?

Re:Oh sure

[theantix]

Thanks for clearing that up, Brian. I was wondering what happened to that page. Damn slashdot effect works in comments now.

Re:Oh sure

[zer0vector]

As a possible combat to this a few people have been wondering if large radio telescopes (GBT, VLA, etc..) could put out enough power transmitting to disable communications satellites and clean up radio frequency interference. Of course this is entirely unrealistic since the electronics of the telescopes are designed for receiving not transmitting, but I think it would be funny if some radio astronomers blew out the front ends of all the Iridium satellites so they could study OH again.

Re:Oh sure

[GutBomb]

you don't get it. when wireless networking affected the radio astronomy nobody cared. now that the same wireless networking is affecting tv, more people are noticing. your comment was ALMOST right.

it should have read:
It's probably because there are a couple of hundred radio astronomers as opposed to a couple of hundred million television viewers...

But who am I to explain this to a brilliant AC like you?

If you insist

[Kphrak]

Karate Master: "And TODAY on Wheel of Fish, what do we have!? Ah! A wireless network! Now....will you keep the wireless network, or will you take what's on...broadcast TV?"

Woman: "I'll take...uh...um..."

[everybody shouting different answers at her]

Woman: "I'll take...broadcast TV!!"

Karate Master: "And now we see...what's on...broadcast TV! What's good that's on...broadcast TV?!"

[hushed pause; they turn on a TV, "Friends" is on]

Karate Master: "NOTHING!! THERE'S NOTHING GOOD ON BROADCAST TV!! STUPID! YOU'RE SO STOOPID!!!"

Comply with the law or else

[Winged Cat]

Like it or not, the FCC does have legal jurisdiction over the airwaves, on the theory that they are a limited resource. Said theory is increasingly becoming untrue as better and better use is made of the airwaves, but it is true that there can only be one station broadcasting on the frequency that matches channel 40 (for example) in a given area. Which means the FCC has every right to demand that these broadcasters make better use of said airwaves - say, by switching to digital broadcasting. One can debate the money (whether the FCC should pay for new broadcast equipment, say), but the broadcasters were told quite some time ago that this was going to happen. Mass disobedience of the law is no reason not to enforce it. (It may indicate something is wrong with the law - see the civil rights protests - but that does not appear to be the case here.)

Re:Comply with the law or else

[Jafafa Hots]

The problem with this is that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of very low power UHF stations that are run by non-profit organizations and service a small demographic...
Such as non-english channels, alternative media, community info, etc.

These tiny channels, with signals reaching only maybe 20 square miles, could NEVER afford the upgrade to digital - they get by on a shoestring budget. Some are run out of people's homes.

As a result, only the larger, corporate broadcasters will be able to have a voice.

Re:Comply with the law or else

[Winged Cat]

Which is why I mentioned the money issue. One could very easily argue that, if the FCC is to impose this mandate, it should defray the upgrade costs for the poorer (or maybe just non-profit) licensed broadcasters so as to avoid this effect. It's not an argument that derails the switch to analog (unless, of course, there's simply no money to pay for the upgrade - which is only true from a certain political point of view).

Re:Comply with the law or else

[Jafafa Hots]

Yeah, but that simply will never happen. The FCC would never pay for it.

I'm not sure how this would work, either - I don't know if the smaller stations would have the space and expertise to operate digitally even if the FCC gave them the equipment.

I'm not referring to the channels that run Gilligan's Island reruns - I'm referring to the micro-broadcasters that have been around about 10 years. The ones with the funny call signs like WU59 or KL62.

Some transmit only to a few neighborhoods or even just a few blocks, almost all are in cities, and few are carried by suburban cable systems, as they are not required to be.

Because of all of this, they tend to represent a segment of the population that has no access otherwise - the urban poor, immigrants, whatever.

Most people who aren't poor are not even aware that these stations exist, since they aren't on their cable system.

Many are in people's basements or whatever. I know of one that is run by a housewife in her own home.

The FCC created the rules allowing such stations only about ten years ago in order to give minorities, small communities, etc., a voice. Now they are probably going to lose that voice.

Then it will be back to the status quo, where television shows are just the bait to get you to see ads for beer and doritos.

Re:Comply with the law or else

[Jafafa Hots]

An inane right? Anyway... it's AIM is not to hinder speech. It's EFFECT is to. Yep. There was a strange, unforseen effect of auctioning off spectrum to the highest bidder: turns out that when you do that, the people with the most money are the ones who get to use it. Imagine that.

Re:Comply with the law or else

[Scottaroo]

Yes, and the technology to do analog broadcasting is 50 years old. The only reason that the digital equipment is so expensive is that there isn't a second-hand market yet, and the technology isn't old enough to have produced the "all-on-one-chip" solutions that drive down the price of manufacture. Give it a few years and the prices will come down just as they do in any other technological area. By the time the change-over is enforced (does anyone really believe that will be 2007?) the prices will be a lot more reasonable.

Re:Comply with the law or else

[Jafafa Hots]

These are people who have never even HEARD of wireless networks, let alone be in a position to use them. I'm talking about people who have a TV, but thats it. A lot of people seem to forget that there is a whole section of our population who are being totally passed over - who don't have cell phones, don't have cable TV, don't have suburban homes and SUVs... hell, many don't even have REGULAR phones. I happen to live near such a city - white flight caused almost all but the poor to leave the city. The government regionalized and so now caters to the affluent suburbs. The stores and supermarkets moved out, so the city residents have nowhere nearby to buy food... the suburban shopping centers refuse inner city bus traffic, and black motorists who dare to drive out near the malls get stopped by the (white) suburban cops. The population of the city has dropped, but is still close to 300,000... but the average yearly wage in the city is less than $16,000. A whole CITY of people a large majority of whom can't afford cable, use pay phones down the hall in their projects or residential "hotels," or on the street corner... Who's local paper ignores their existence, who get only over-the-air television... who, if they EVER have touched a computer or have seen the internet, it was at their local library. These people, hundreds of thousands of them, will NOT be using wireless networking. They only just now are beginning to see some of their viewpoints and concerns addressed by their cooperative, community microbroadcasters... and when they lose those, there won't be anything to give them thier voice back.

Re:Comply with the law or else

[wesmills]

You know, I've always wondered why people never name names when they write these long treatises on how life sucks near where they live? Your story would be a lot more credible if you'd have said "I happen to live near such a city (name of city and state) -..." Instead, I'm left wondering where you're talking about and not being able to read up on it further.

Wes, from Lewisville TX.

Re:Comply with the law or else

[Genom]

By the time the change-over is enforced (does anyone really believe that will be 2007?) the prices will be a lot more reasonable.

You're overlooking one thing - it's in the best interests of the businesses selling the digital broadcasting equipment to keep the prices high, regardless of drops in the cost of manufacture, until *after* the mandated changeover.

Why? So they can bilk as much money out of the *rich* stations as possible. Why bother selling $5000 of equipment to each of four stations, when you could sell $25,000 of equipment to each of two bigger ones? The companies selling the equipment have a vested interest in keeping the prices high until the changeover is "complete" -- then they *might* drop prices, at which point it could become possible for smaller stations to afford the equipment - but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Were I a conspiracy theorist, I *might* surmise that the broadcasting industry giants might be "silently" endorsing the higher prices as a way to force their competition out of the market...but I'm not, so I won't ;P

Re:Comply with the law or else

[DNS-and-BIND]

Where is this city? What's its name?

You sure you didn't just make this all up, just to scratch some sort of itch you got due to reading too much kuro5hin.org and salon.com?

That's ok

[Rufy]

With all the people willing to shell out money to fight lawsuits over copyright violations, I'm sure we can raise $75,000 by 10pm Friday night.

But I don't understand...

[marian]

So, we have telecommunications companies crying because the spectrum isn't being auctioned off to them. If I remember correctly, this is the same telecommunications industry that is declaring bankrupcy, asking for loans, not implementing new types/expansions of broadband, etc. Exactly why do they need it and where will they get the money to pay for it? Something doesn't smell right.

UHF

[Nyarly]

I'm not sure I see any rational argument to stay in that band of UHF. I mean, UHF starts at Channel 13! Is there any local where everything from 13 to 52 is full? And the move would make UHF that much cooler a cult film, since the battleground wouldn't exist any more.

IMO, though, the FCC shouldn't be requiring that the current spectrum holders go digital. They should change their licenses to empty channels below 52 at no cost, but make the switch manditory. It's malarky like this that makes the FCC a pox on the States.

Re:UHF

[EccentricAnomaly]

Is there any local where everything from 13 to 52 is full?

In metro LA there's: 13, 17, 18, 22, 24, 28, 30, 34, 38, 40, 50, 52, 56, 57, 58, and 62. And yes, I can pick up all of them. (Most of them aren't in English though).

So I guess 56, 57, 58, and 62 could find open slots between 13 and 52, but then there might be a conflict with some UHF stations in San Diego, San Bernadino, Orange County, Ventura, Lancaster, Santa Barbara, or Bakersfield where reception areas overlap on the edge of the city, or when weird weather makes a station broadcast further than normal. Plus, when stations are close together on the dial they can interfere (as I've noticed with 17 and 18).

Re:UHF

[Quikah]

13 is not UHF. Anyway you can add 31,36,42,43,53,59,60,61,65, and 66 in there as well. They are the digital channels.

Re:UHF

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok,

-Each television channel currently gets 6Mhz of bandwidth

-The UHF band (Channels 14-69) approximately covers the range 300Mhz to 3000Mhz

-TV stations on adjacent channels need to be at least 75 miles apart to avoid interference with each other

-Stations on the same frequency channel need to be at least 150 miles apart to avoid interference with each other

In a large state with low population centers, there is maybe a group of tv stations in the big city that uses UHF translators all over the state to rebroadcast the transmissions.

But a place like LA not only has tons of stations, but they are close enough to other large cities like San Diego, that have their own stations, and could interfere if the same frequencies were used.

oh, that's ok then

[natefaerber]

"It's not like the broadcasters are getting totally screwed," said Carri Bennet, an attorney representing the Rural Telecommunications Group, a lobbyist for wireless carriers in rural areas.

Partial screwing is fine.

Re:oh, that's ok then

[unitron]

Well let's see. If the big broadcasting companies aren't getting screwed at all, but are continuing to be granted a government license to print money, and the little guys running the chewing gum and baling wire operations are totally screwed, then, yeah, that averages out to broadcasters in general not getting totally screwed.

Is Broadcast TV Outdated?

[Mr. Fusion]

This perhaps is a better question to ask. On one hand, cable tv is ubiquitous, yet there are plenty of television owners who depend on broadcast VHF and UHF stations. Yes, this is only a limited amount of the UHF band, this might be a precursor to more UHF bands, let alone any current wireless/broadcast channels, being overtaken. Later on, we might find ourselves completely dissolving of old but useful technologies just because some techie bureaucrats want a monopoly of their product.

Why can't we create a technology that uses the UHF bands without television interference? History has shown that modifying technology to accommodate backwards compatibility gives way to a successful alternative to both sides. DSL still lets you talk on the phone while you surf, CD's still work in DVD players, and people with black and white tv's can watch a color broadcast (in B&W mind you) without modifying their sets.

All or nothing technologies have prevailed before, but in some regards, it's a lot easier on the consumer if accommodations to current technologies are made.

-Mr. Fusion

Re:Is Broadcast TV Outdated?

[GigsVT]

It's not a precursor, it's the second step, UHF AIR 69-88 or so were already taken for use with cell phones.

Re:Is Broadcast TV Outdated?

[Eil]

History has shown that modifying technology to accommodate backwards compatibility gives way to a successful alternative to both sides.

Hmm. Windows 95 + Dos 7.

I don't think so.

Re:Is Broadcast TV Outdated?

[Screaming Lunatic]

people with black and white tv's can watch a color broadcast

And NTSC and PAL are an evil ugly hack because of the backward compatibility. The signal has to be split up into intensity and colour information. B&W tv uses the intensity values, while a colour tv would use both.

If the engineers didn't have to worry about backward compatibility, we could allocate more bandwidth to represent more colours. And we wouldn't be stuck with crap ass effective resolution of 350x350.

Re:Is Broadcast TV Outdated?

[mellifluous]

Why can't we create a technology that uses the UHF bands without television interference?

Communication theory shows us that there are limits to what we can send in a given amount of bandwidth. If you want to send information in a different way, it is much less hassle allocate a discrete part of the original band for a different purpose. You are going to detract from the available bandwidth anyway, so why not segment the space to avoid the cost of making two systems work together?

Re:Is Broadcast TV Outdated?

[clem.dickey]

70-83 were removed in the early 80's. And then there was channel 1, which disappeared (to become the 6 meter ham band) in 1948.

Re:Is Broadcast TV Outdated?

[DeepZenPill]

I don't see why we don't just avoid all this hassle and jump to Ludicrous High Frequency

Re:Is Broadcast TV Outdated?

[AtariDatacenter]

Speaking of which, when I was young, I *didn't* get on my roof with a neighbor kid and a small television, and listen to cellular calls in the high UHF channels. ;)

Had I have done so, I would have thought that someone's phone was being tapped or something, called a few numbers that I heard spoken, and generally panicked a few people. Especially ones who call 'the other woman' and express their love over the open airwaves.

Consumers lose? No way!

[MrCocktail]

Heh. It always seemed to me that the Spanish-language networks (both TV and radio) had the most powerful broadcasting equipment on the face of this earth. I can pick up a Spanish radio station pretty much anywhere, and the Spanish TV channels are much clearer than any other channels picked up by my antenna. Converting those airwaves to wireless services means I can truly be connected anywhere!

Re:Consumers lose? No way!

[Dun Malg]

If you live near the Mexican border, more than likely those powerful stations are in Mexico. Here in LA, there are a few AM radio stations broadcasting from Tijuana that come in better than locals. Why? Because in mexico the FCC can't tell you that 100,000 watts is too much...

"You get to drink from...THE FIRE HOSE!"

[thesolo]

Insert your Conan the Librarian or Wheel of Fish joke here.

Of course, all the real UHF fans make their jokes about "Spatula City" or the cut scene of "Oh Those Homos!". ;)

If you haven't seen that last one, I suggest you rent/buy the DVD immediately! It's worth it just for Al's commentary alone!

Sen. Hollings you just won!!

[MongooseCN]

Sen. Hollings wins the "Inane Bill Of The Year" award!!!!!

Applause from audience...

Sen. Hollings gets to drink from the Firehose!!!

Insane cheering from audience...

Re:Sen. Hollings you just won!!

[Alsee]

Sen. Hollings gets to drink from the Firehose!!!

May I humbly suggest Sen. Hollings take the firehose from the other end?

-

14-51?

[hoowee]

I'm sorry, but.... 52-69? Anybody have more than four local UHF stations? Think maybe they could fit all four between 14 and 51?

Re:14-51?

[EccentricAnomaly]

In LA we have 16... I'm teaching myself Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Armenian, and what I think might be Thai.

Re:14-51?

[Kamel Jockey]

Anybody have more than four local UHF stations?

In many rural areas of the USA a lot of stations, even network affiliates, are UHF.

Re:14-51?

[molo]

Anybody have more than four local UHF stations?

Actually, yes.

14 (Spanish), 20 (WB), 26 (Chinese/Japanese), 28 (Korean), 32 (?), 36 (Fox), 38 (QVC), 44 (UPN), 48 (Spanish), 54? (PBS), 58? (Christian), 60? (PAX) 64 (Spanish)

However, I do have to agree, they will fit within 14-51.

Re:14-51?

[mellifluous]

You have to take frequency reuse into account. If there are stations broadcasting in your area, there is a much bigger area where the signal is not strong enough to be effectively received, but still enough of a problem to cause significant interference to other stations. For every square mile served, there may be 5-6 square miles where that station cannot be used effectively. This ratio is called the frequency reuse factor. The total number of channels you need is this factor times the number of channels you want to operate in any given area. So operating 5 channels with a frequency reuse factor of 6 requires 30 channels to be reserved for national use. 14-51 looks more reasonable in this light.

Re:14-51?

[ncc74656]

Anybody have more than four local UHF stations?

Last time I checked, Las Vegas had more than a dozen. Only three or four of them are carried by the local cable system; you get to break out the rabbit ears if you want to tune in the rest. (When UPN moved to a different station a few years ago, Cox didn't bother carrying the new channel for a year or two after the move. If you wanted to watch Voyager, you had an antenna.)

Re:14-51?

[Surak]

I live in Detroit. Channel 62 is our CBS affiliate. Not that I'd miss it much. :)

Re:14-51?

[StenD]

Not just rural areas - Austin, TX is typically ranked as one of the most wired cities in the country, and the local ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and WB affiliates are all UHF. The Fox affiliate, and two unaffiliated stations, are VHF.

Re:14-51?

[Alsee]

I'm teaching myself ... what I think might be Thai.

I've been watching the same show. I couldn't figure out what language it was. Thai you say? Cool!

I love learning the ways of foreign cultures. Did you know that in Thailand they like to eat their food live and drink Blood Wine? They also all have really bad haircuts.

-

Re:14-51?

[_xeno_]

More than four? Well, sure, but I won't bother listing them and will only say that I think WLVI might be a little pissed if they had to change their channel number from 56.

(Think Roman numerals if you don't get it. Oh, and it's the WB station in the Boston area.)

Re:14-51?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Bzzt. You're one of the folks who moved in to Austin the past few years, right?

For years Austin's sole VHF station was Channel 7 KTBC, a CBS affiliate. Of course, everyone knows VHF beats UHF hands down in quality...that's why all of Houston's network affiliates are VHF, and the crappy stations (I'm sorry, but Fox and WB and other "networks" that broadcast a grand total of 2 hours of programming a day do NOT qualify) are UHF. KTBC was owned by the Johnson family for many years, and they used their leverage with the Feds to keep any and all competing stations off VHF. If you wanted to broadcast in LBJ's territory, you got shunted off to the UHF ghetto.

Stanley Spadowski [kramer] wouldn't take it

[Leimy]

and neither should you!!!

ah... who cares

They better get a lot of money

[anthony_dipierro]

That auction better give the government a whole lot of money (which they'll probably waste on crap like DMCA enforcement). These are my airwaves, and while I have access to television programming free of charge, I'm sure this high-speed wireless internet access isn't going to be free.

Correction..

[mindstrm]

They *are* a limited resource. It is not increasingly becoming 'untrue'. It will NEVER be untrue.
They will ALWAYS be a limited resource.

The only thing changing is that we can make more efficient use of them, and have to take a fresh look at how we use them.

Re:Correction..

[edrugtrader]

yes, and there also aren't any problems that can't be solved in a limited amount of time... even if that amount of time is 13 quintrillion years.

as more and more bands are open to public use and better use is made of them, there is EFFECTIVELY infinate amount of use for them. 3000 bands per human is more than enough. you do of course still need the FCC to say who can broadcase 'friends' on channel 4.

Re:UHF Channel 62...

[Eggman27]

Al is definitely still around - he got married in February 2001 and on June 4th of this year, he and the band headed back into the studio to start working on his 11th studio album.

Sadly, Frankie Yankovic is no longer with us as he passed away not too long ago - but contrary to popular belief, he and Al are in no way related. The polka/accordion thing is a mix of coincidence and Al's parents belief that there should be another accordion-playing Yankovic in the world when they signed him up for accordion lessons when he was 6 years old.

Let TV broardcasters pay for airwaves.

[bstadil]

Why should TV be able to use airwaves for free while most other commercial endevours have to pay.

Let Disney pay for ABC etc. They are so afraid of loosing out due to new technology but never seem to understand that they indeed has gotten something for free for many years. Seem silly to use airwaves for something that is inherent stationary.

Reference MIT's media lab Negroponte's law (1990 or so) states that everything that is now via fixed media need to be wireless and conversely.

I bet they do

[g4dget]

the telecommunications industry says, could easily provide your favorite programming by way of cable

Sure, at only $20-$60/month, and without those pesky regulations that go along with broadcast TV.

UHF

[jayhawk88]

Insert your Conan the Librarian or Wheel of Fish joke here.

I would never resort to such a blatant, cheap attempt at humor. Now if you'll excuse me I must go drink from the fire hose.

New digital format.

[DeadBugs]

UHF is now on DVD.

Thank the mess that is HDTV for this one.

[El Camino SS]

This whole "take the UHF and VHF stations and cut them up" is the entire purpose for HDTV.

You see, the FCC under the Clinton administration (although, admittedly it sounds like a Republican plan, but yes, it was the Clinton administration) wanted to take all of the non-military band and sell it off to cell phone companies and the like to make money for the government. This new taking of outside bandwidth is just Plan B after the fact that the FCC is a bunch of morons and couldn't anticipate that the cell phone industry would find a good compression scheme for the next gen of phones in under six years.

"But I thought the whole RF spectrum was the property of the people?" Someone muses in the back.
"Not when there is someone getting paid," moaned all of the broadcast engineers that had to invest MILLIONS into a non-standard "standard" that has yet to be decided... and costs the end user way too much for the promise of better TV (but not really for most people, because HD signals are so big they have multipath reception problems. Meaning this: you might have a tough time getting a HD signal anyway, at the least it is much more difficult than getting a standard analog signal, and especially in a city).

By the way, some television stations have to broadcast right now in HDTV. Unfortunately, the FCC has yet to decide what the hell that standard should be in the USA. But then again, why should the FCC decide? They (the FCC) have been getting lobster dinners, hot lobbyists, and secret funds jerking around corporate Japan (because NONE of the HD patents are owned by US companies) for years being "indecisive" about the standard. Of course, all of this added expense and lack of vender competition has made all of the local television stations that are privately owned go "belly up." TV stations are FORCED TO PAY outrageous sums of money for an outside patented system that they are unsure whether even 1,000 people have bought in the entire area.

I know a lot about this, because I am one door down from a TV engineer at a broadcast station. As they tell me, it doesn't take long to follow the money to find out where this mess all got started from.

Re:Thank the mess that is HDTV for this one.

[Thing 1]

They (the FCC) have been getting lobster dinners, hot lobbyists, and secret funds jerking around corporate Japan (because NONE of the HD patents are owned by US companies) for years being "indecisive" about the standard.

obConspiracyTheory: the US corporations are taking their time deciding on the standard in order to run out the time of the other countries' patents.

Re:Thank the mess that is HDTV for this one.

[zangdesign]

And what exactly does HDTV provide that is any better than what we're currently watching? Is the programming going to get any better?

Re:Al?

[ncc74656]

How does this effect... Al Frankin?

Al Franken is a big fat idiot. Weird Al Yankovic, OTOH, is a comedic genius. :-)

Yankovic's First Law of Robotics

[Dirtside]

Jeez, at first I thought it said "Weird AI". I'm like, "There's such a thing as non-weird AI?"

Re:Why an FCC?

[BCoates]

The band plan in Minnesota has absolutely zero impact on me here in California. Heck, where I am neither does the bandplan in Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona or Mexico. Why is it that a bunch of beaurocrats in Washington DC should have complete and total say over issues involving strictly local transmission and reception of radio signals?

It would be rather complicated to manufacture TVs, radios, etc. if the RF bandwidth weren't standardized... 50 different tv tuners in one would be complicated today, and probably impractical around the time they added the UHF system...

--
Benjamin Coates

Re:old TVs == packet sniffers?

[cpt kangarooski]

he could do both if we adopted a communication protocol that relied on I Love Lucy reruns.

Uninformed story, comments

[eggboard]

The FCC was obliged in the late 1990s to reallocate the spectrum currently allotted to UHF 50 to 59 and 60 to 72 in multiple auctions after Digital TV (DTV) was in full swing. There's nothing new about this. The story at the top of this page makes it sound as though this is a sudden effort to steal UHF for wireless. It ain't.

The broader public interest issue was debated and buried and lost years ago, and the juggernaut of DTV has moved a few inches, not toppling the analog signals as were expected.

The UHF broadcasters, just like everyone else, have been assigned new DTV frequencies, but it's ridiculous to ask small broadcasters to foot the bill to turn over to DTV, especially with few views and little interest.

But it will happen. The former FCC head, Kennard, said he thought it was more like 2020 instead of 2007 when he spoke on the issue last year.

furry at missalocation

[Erris]

These tiny channels, with signals reaching only maybe 20 square miles, could NEVER afford the upgrade to digital - they get by on a shoestring budget. Some are run out of people's homes.

The delay is a good thing. Instead of autioning off the airwaves to a bunch of cell phone pigs, it would be better to work out a scheme where this spectrum could be usef for free wireless networks. The techonlogy is here. All that needs to be done is for the FCC to agree on a set of decent standards (IEEE, WWWC what not) and enforce decent behavior on it (oh my God a new mandate for the FCC, anti-spam enforcer!) This way any houshold could become a broadcaster and have an infinite range.

Erris sees what good can be done by people who don't give in to the urge to make a quick buck like Billy C did with those stupid acutions. He is obviously deluded and insane. Insanity is statistical.

Re:Why an FCC?

[Erris]

It would be rather complicated to manufacture TVs, radios, etc. if the RF bandwidth weren't standardized... 50 different tv tuners in one would be complicated today, and probably impractical around the time they added the UHF system...

Nah, they just need 50 decss keys. p.Opps! you were not supposed to hear what the new HDTV plan is. Now I have to kill you.

Wired wrong, channels will probably reshuffle

[isdnip]

I worked on the abortive 700 MHz (Ch. 60-69) auction a couple of years ago, on behalf of a potential bidder, before it was "postponed". Wired has a lot of details wrong, though the FCC has screwed up too.

Today's stations above channel 51 are not necessarily going off the air. Almost every station has two channels now, one analog and one digital. If the analog channel is >51, the digital one probably isn't. The plan is to eventually shut down analog and move to all digital, all below channel 52. So most stations will just move.

Analog stations don't have to go dark until 85% of their market can receive digital, so the 2007 deadline is unlikely to be real. I suspect the 2010 deadline (to go all digital ANYWAY) will end up being postponed. TV stations have priority over wireless ops. The wireless licensees can buy off the TV stations, but most stations won't just shut down.

It is possible that the wireless (2-way; TV, after all, is wireless too) ops will pay for a station below 52 to shut down, in order to accommodate a move to their channel from someone now above 52, so that they can use the channel for wireless. Home Shopping channels and the like are candidates for such shutdown. The FCC however did not adopt a proposal to formalize this via an auction process, which had been proposed.

Re:UHF n tall buildings

[unitron]

Both of you are correct in what you said, allowing for some use of different phraseology. When he says "ghosty" he probably means what you and I would call "snowy". When he calls UHF low frequency microwaves he isn't necessarily saying that he thinks VHF is higher in frequency.

He has a good point about UHF being more useful in cities that are built wide instead of tall.

Russian tv!

[British]

You think that's funny? I discovered an all-Russian TV station(which doesn't get Interceptor, a crazy GTA like game show, DARN!) which makes sense since most of my apartment complex's tenants are Russian senior citizens.

I Don't Care But My Mom Would

[IHateEverybody]

She loves the local Spanish channel 66.

DTV, not HDTV

[XNormal]

HDTV = High Definition TV
DTV = Digital TV

It seems that the broadcasters are much more interested in using the digital technology to transmits six channels in the same bandwidth formerly used for one than to transmit one high definition channel.

Re:DTV, not HDTV

[El Camino SS]

It seems that the broadcasters are much more interested in using the digital technology to transmits six channels in the same bandwidth formerly used for one than to transmit one high definition channel.

You're exactly right... if the FCC actually lets them. That is one of the big problems we are dealing with... are they really going to decide what to do with all of this or are they using it as a crutch/money stall to let the cable/sattelite companies crush all of the local channels?

Probably the latter. They are all in bed with the cable systems, after all, they have no regulations, no requirement for the public good, and sll the money.

If the government came in and told you how to run your business like the FCC does, there would be class actions up the ying-yang. But unfortunately, these administration appointed noobs actually hold their own court with this too.

UHF is FINALLY on DVD!

[Aqua OS X]

On a side note, UHF finally came out on DVD two weeks ago. It is only 10 bucks at best buy, and it comes with tons of deleted content and other goodies.

"You get to drink from the FIRE HOSE!!!"

It's not a shutdown, it's an upgrade

[pyramid termite]

The problem with this is that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of very low power UHF stations that are run by non-profit organizations and service a small demographic... Such as non-english channels, alternative media, community info, etc.

And what exactly prevents them from presenting that content over a wireless net, especially a wireless local net?

Legal broadcast tv?

[randomErr]

Could this mean you could legally start up your own tv station as long as its under 5 watts and has a digital data stream?

Re:Learn to speak ENGLISH!

[horati0]

This is a stupid reason. If I moved to Russia, I would EXPECT to have to learn Russian for news and emergency information. Same if I moved to Mexico or Spain.

Why is it so different here. You move here, learn to SPEAK our language or MOVE BACK!

Easier said than done. Since it takes some time to learn a new language (especially one so ass-backward as English), keeping emergency broadcasts in an immigrant's native tongue makes sense. How would a foreigner know how to understand "massive volcanic eruption" if they hadn't got that far in their English book?

It's easy to say "learn the language or get out," but imagine yourself dropped into say, China, for the next five years. Or Germany. Or Nigeria. Wherever you land, it'll take time to learn the language.

Badgers?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Badgers! We don't need no stinking badgers!

Do the math

[fm6]

How many people watch TV? How many people do radio astronomy?