>>>More power does NOT equal more distance; only antenna height will give more distance
This too is wrong. When WPVI-6 quadrupled its power, it also extended its range to double what it was before. It used to barely reach from Philadelphia to northeast Maryland, but now it reaches all the way to Baltimore. They didn't change their towers' height - only their transmitter power.
>>>100,000 watts is overkill for things that computers listen to
What do you think TV is? Answer: Computer data. If you want to send that computer data across 50 miles, you need at least 100,000 watts. By the time it reaches your home it's degenerated to only a few microwatts - just barely receivable by a larwe antenna (and not receivable at all with rabbit ears/loop).
WPMT-DT broadcasts at 933,000 watts. WPHL-DT is at 645,000 watts. WMPT-DT is 209,000 watts.
THAT'S what it takes to transmit the DTV computer data across 50 miles range so people at home can receive it.
Let's see..... 2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,24,27,29,31,33,35,36,37,41,42,44,45,48,49,51. Every one of these is a station I can view from my home, although some of them, like 6, only come-in after dark (the sun interferes with TV reception).
>>>channel allotment is artificially limited by the FCC
False. Channel allotment is limited by physical law. You can't have a channel 11 in Baltimore, and another channel 11 right next door in Washington or Richmond. The two stations would interfere with one another and the viewers would end-up seeing nada.
The study admits its methodology is Flawed (like those studies claiming cellphones cause cancer are also flawed).
It only looked at the Trenton NJ market, and never bothered to look at neighboring cities like New York or Scranton, all of which *also* occupy space on the dial and "stretch" into the Trenton area. You cannot have TV Band/whitespace Devices broadcasting over those channels. When I look at that city using TVfool.com and a typical rooftop antenna, I see about 5 open channels. That's it. Everything else has a TV station assigned to it.
Another flaw I noticed in the study: They counted channels 14-19 and channels 37 as "open" channels. Wrong. 14-19 are assigned to police/firefighters' emergency radio. Channel 37 is assigned to radioastronomy.
>>>1000 and 1600 are mutually exclusive if you're counting values between... 598
Well in that case you're till wrong. Excluding 1000 and 1600 MHz, you can have a cellphone assigned 1000000000.1 Hz and another assigned at 1599999999.9 Hz, so that would be 599999999.9 Hz, or 599.9999999 MHz.
Or you could just not be anal and round it to 600 MHz, like I did in my original post.
>>>25 channels, assuming every other one can be used in an area, is still 12 channels.
False assumption. Where I live, because all the cities are packed closely together, they use every 4th channel. I made a list further below where you can see every channel from 2 to 51 is occupied by a TV station. That means if they cut back to 25 channels, then half the stations will need to be pulled off the air.
50 miles requires a large antenna like the one I'm using now (4 by 3 feet) to receive a signal..... not really practical to attach on an iPod or iPad. 50 miles also requires a transmitter output of ~100,000 watts. That would drain a tiny iPad battery in about 1/4 minute.
>>>What are all of those channels with no call numbers next to them
Quoting myself: "Here is a list of all the occupied channels". In other words they all have TV broadcasts on them. Every single number listed in my last post is occupied by a Station broadcasting video.
As for your percentages above, they are not even close to accurate. Cities overlap. People can see TV stations from neighboring markets - in my case I can see 4 different markets, and sometimes even 5. So excluding isolated places like Alaska or Hawaii or Phoenix, you can take most of the percentages in your post and divide by two (or even three):
FIXED: Charleston, West Virginia 36% Helena, Montana 31% Boston, Massachusetts 13% Jackson, Mississippi 30% Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas 20% San Francisco, California 18% Portland, Maine 33% Tallahassee, Florida 31% Seattle, Washington 26% Trenton, New Jersey 20% Richmond, Virginia 22% Manchester, New Hampshire 16% Little Rock, Arkansas 30% Columbia, South Carolina 35% Baton Rouge, Louisiana 22% .
And also because I don't want tv shows/movies/news LOCKED UP behind a paywall (where you have to subscribe to Comcast or ATTT Wireless to gain access to the programming).
Because I don't want my Free TV killed. Because I can't afford to spend ~$1000/year to get CATV. That's why. .
>>>Your free TV will not go anywhere.
The FCC has a plan right now, endorsed by our president, to shrink TV from 50 to 25 channels. It used to be 83 channels but they keep nibbling-away piece after piece, the same way RIAA/MPAA is using the ACTA treaty to nibble-away your right to backup your personal CD/DVDs. In another five years I fully expect broadcast TV won't exist at all.... they'll remove the final 25 channels.
>>>didn't they move the spectrum during the digital changeover?
No they did not. Analog 2-51 and Digital 2-51 are exactly the same spectrum. In fact a lot of the stations are had to do a "live cutover" from analog-to-digital at midnight June 12, because they occupy the exact same spot. These stations include WPVI, WGAL, WBAL, WHYY, WJZ, and so on. .
>>>This is the whitespace formerly used by *ANALOG* broadcast TV.
Mistaken again. The former analog channels 52 through 69 have been sold to cellphone companies (plus emergency police radio), and are already in use even as I type this sentence. These TV Band/whitespace Devices don't operate in channel 52-69 and also don't exist yet.
>>>(600 megahertz is a frequency, not a bandwidth.
How on earth did you get out of college with an engineering or science degree?!?!? The SI unit "megahertz" can be applied to a discrete point (600 million cycles per second on the EM spectrum) - or - as a measure of bandwidth (700 through 1300 MHz == 600 megahertz of space). So going back to what I said:
- Cellphones have been assigned, by the FCC, approximately 600 megahertz of bandwidth - TV has been assigned approximately 200 megahertz of bandwidth
Perhaps I am to blame. Perhaps I wrote my sentence in shorthand (aka technospeak) but this IS slashdot after all - I expect technically-minded persons to understand the basics they learned in PHY101.
Okay I just did a quick scan of my region, and here's all the occupied channels. Do you see any open spots for these TV Band/whitespace Devices? I don't. Also notice that many TV stations overlap simply because the FCC ran out of room!
VHF lo: 2 3 4 5 6 (VHF-lo) FM Radio: between 6-7 VHF hi: 7 8 9 10 11 11 (WBAL and WBRE) 12 13 13 (WJZ and WYOU) UHF: 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 21 (WHP and WIOC) 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 29 (WUVP and WMPT) 30 31 32 34 34 (WCAU and WPXW) 35 35 (WDCA and WYBE) 36 36 (WTTC and WITF) 37 38 39 40 41 41 (WVIA and WUTB) 42 42 (WMCN and WTXF) 44 45 46 46 (WBFF and WFMZ) 47 49 50 50 (WDCW and WNEP) 51
Uh. Hello? The spectrum is already being used. By TV (channels 2-51) and FM Radio (sits between channels 6 and 7). There are empty channels if you live west of the Mississippi, but not along the east coast which is already assigned for Broadcast Video/Music and very, very full.
>>>I'm tired of having to choose between two or three effective local monopolies for internet access
Sorry but that's not will happen. The people behind these whitespace TV Band devices are the same people that control the cellphone market. ATT, Sprint, and so on.
Where I live (the Northeast Megalopolis) there are NO open channels. Every single channel from 2-51 is occupied by a TV station.
(sigh) I can easily imagine the kid next door turning on his "next gen wireless iPod or iPad" directly over top the Philadelphia or Baltimore sports game I'm trying to watch. Technically the FCC rules say I can order the kid to turn off his gadget, but that doesn't mean he would comply.
Cellphones currently have 600 megahertz of space. TV has 200. Let TV keep its space.
This is also not true, you just need to download enough of it that you will have downloaded each frame of the rest of it before you need to decode it.
So instead of waiting 19 hours, you have to wait 17 hours (assuming a two hour movie) to begin watching it. Not a huge difference.
Also you're wrong about the Bluray layer deal. BDs used to be single-layer but now almost all of them are dual layer since the (1) customers were demanding quality better than the 30gig HD-DVDs. The single layer didn't cut it and (2) the cost difference between SL and DL is now negligible.
According to latest Census figures, there are only 17.5 million (5% of Americans) that are not insured either by a private company or the government (SCHIP, medicare, etc).
Also 2 states out of 50 is equivalent to if 1 out of 25 EU states chose to require full service stations. i.e. It's not a big deal.
So I just say, "Fine. Whatever. Pump the gas." Or, "Go ahead, call the cops and arrest me. I don't care. Do you treat all your tourists like shit?" Or, "I'll be sure to tell everyone back home in Maryland how much Jersey sucks. 'Course they already know that."
>>>Reminds me of the common/. pro-piracy arguments wherein "they make it hard to be a legitimate customer" is offered as a part of the justification
Not my fault. I scanned the item and put it in the bag, but the machine refused to see it and kept demanding I put an item in the bag. It was like I was stuck in an infinite loop. The only way to escape that loop was to add an extra item to the bag, and the only item I had was an UNscanned item from the cart.
It's also faster because there are two people working. The full-time worker is scanning while I'm still unpacking the cart & putting it on the belt. And then she's bagging the goods while I'm pulling out my wallet, swiping the credit card, and signing.
So it's double the productivity (versus a single person in the self-service lane).
No.10 - Mexico No. 9 - Switzerland No. 8 - Spain No. 7 - Malaysia No. 6 - Italy No. 5 - Poland No. 4 - China No. 3 - Russia No. 2 - Brazil No. 1 - Greece (where farming is king and the sheep are scared) - Note that Europe made this list 6 times, and North America not at all. Bunch'a prudes.:-(
Slashdot Mirror
Wouldn't cellular internet be cheaper? Where I live they advertise $40 per month for 1500k speed.
>>>More power does NOT equal more distance; only antenna height will give more distance
This too is wrong. When WPVI-6 quadrupled its power, it also extended its range to double what it was before. It used to barely reach from Philadelphia to northeast Maryland, but now it reaches all the way to Baltimore. They didn't change their towers' height - only their transmitter power.
>>>100,000 watts is overkill for things that computers listen to
What do you think TV is? Answer: Computer data. If you want to send that computer data across 50 miles, you need at least 100,000 watts. By the time it reaches your home it's degenerated to only a few microwatts - just barely receivable by a larwe antenna (and not receivable at all with rabbit ears/loop).
WPMT-DT broadcasts at 933,000 watts.
WPHL-DT is at 645,000 watts.
WMPT-DT is 209,000 watts.
THAT'S what it takes to transmit the DTV computer data across 50 miles range so people at home can receive it.
Almost all of them.
Let's see..... 2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,24,27,29,31,33,35,36,37,41,42,44,45,48,49,51. Every one of these is a station I can view from my home, although some of them, like 6, only come-in after dark (the sun interferes with TV reception).
>>>channel allotment is artificially limited by the FCC
False. Channel allotment is limited by physical law. You can't have a channel 11 in Baltimore, and another channel 11 right next door in Washington or Richmond. The two stations would interfere with one another and the viewers would end-up seeing nada.
The study admits its methodology is Flawed (like those studies claiming cellphones cause cancer are also flawed).
It only looked at the Trenton NJ market, and never bothered to look at neighboring cities like New York or Scranton, all of which *also* occupy space on the dial and "stretch" into the Trenton area. You cannot have TV Band/whitespace Devices broadcasting over those channels. When I look at that city using TVfool.com and a typical rooftop antenna, I see about 5 open channels. That's it. Everything else has a TV station assigned to it.
Another flaw I noticed in the study: They counted channels 14-19 and channels 37 as "open" channels. Wrong. 14-19 are assigned to police/firefighters' emergency radio. Channel 37 is assigned to radioastronomy.
Basically that study is all kinds of wrong.
>>>1000 and 1600 are mutually exclusive if you're counting values between... 598
Well in that case you're till wrong. Excluding 1000 and 1600 MHz, you can have a cellphone assigned 1000000000.1 Hz and another assigned at 1599999999.9 Hz, so that would be 599999999.9 Hz, or 599.9999999 MHz.
Or you could just not be anal and round it to 600 MHz, like I did in my original post.
>>>25 channels, assuming every other one can be used in an area, is still 12 channels.
False assumption. Where I live, because all the cities are packed closely together, they use every 4th channel. I made a list further below where you can see every channel from 2 to 51 is occupied by a TV station. That means if they cut back to 25 channels, then half the stations will need to be pulled off the air.
I doubt the stations will broadcast that far.
50 miles requires a large antenna like the one I'm using now (4 by 3 feet) to receive a signal..... not really practical to attach on an iPod or iPad. 50 miles also requires a transmitter output of ~100,000 watts. That would drain a tiny iPad battery in about 1/4 minute.
>>>What are all of those channels with no call numbers next to them
Quoting myself: "Here is a list of all the occupied channels". In other words they all have TV broadcasts on them. Every single number listed in my last post is occupied by a Station broadcasting video.
As for your percentages above, they are not even close to accurate. Cities overlap. People can see TV stations from neighboring markets - in my case I can see 4 different markets, and sometimes even 5. So excluding isolated places like Alaska or Hawaii or Phoenix, you can take most of the percentages in your post and divide by two (or even three):
FIXED:
Charleston, West Virginia 36%
Helena, Montana 31%
Boston, Massachusetts 13%
Jackson, Mississippi 30%
Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas 20%
San Francisco, California 18%
Portland, Maine 33%
Tallahassee, Florida 31%
Seattle, Washington 26%
Trenton, New Jersey 20%
Richmond, Virginia 22%
Manchester, New Hampshire 16%
Little Rock, Arkansas 30%
Columbia, South Carolina 35%
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 22%
.
P.S.
And also because I don't want tv shows/movies/news LOCKED UP behind a paywall (where you have to subscribe to Comcast or ATTT Wireless to gain access to the programming).
>>>Why do we have to go through this every time?
Because I don't want my Free TV killed. Because I can't afford to spend ~$1000/year to get CATV. That's why.
.
>>>Your free TV will not go anywhere.
The FCC has a plan right now, endorsed by our president, to shrink TV from 50 to 25 channels. It used to be 83 channels but they keep nibbling-away piece after piece, the same way RIAA/MPAA is using the ACTA treaty to nibble-away your right to backup your personal CD/DVDs. In another five years I fully expect broadcast TV won't exist at all.... they'll remove the final 25 channels.
>>>didn't they move the spectrum during the digital changeover?
No they did not. Analog 2-51 and Digital 2-51 are exactly the same spectrum. In fact a lot of the stations are had to do a "live cutover" from analog-to-digital at midnight June 12, because they occupy the exact same spot. These stations include WPVI, WGAL, WBAL, WHYY, WJZ, and so on.
.
>>>This is the whitespace formerly used by *ANALOG* broadcast TV.
Mistaken again. The former analog channels 52 through 69 have been sold to cellphone companies (plus emergency police radio), and are already in use even as I type this sentence. These TV Band/whitespace Devices don't operate in channel 52-69 and also don't exist yet.
>>>(600 megahertz is a frequency, not a bandwidth.
How on earth did you get out of college with an engineering or science degree?!?!? The SI unit "megahertz" can be applied to a discrete point (600 million cycles per second on the EM spectrum) - or - as a measure of bandwidth (700 through 1300 MHz == 600 megahertz of space). So going back to what I said:
- Cellphones have been assigned, by the FCC, approximately 600 megahertz of bandwidth
- TV has been assigned approximately 200 megahertz of bandwidth
Perhaps I am to blame. Perhaps I wrote my sentence in shorthand (aka technospeak) but this IS slashdot after all - I expect technically-minded persons to understand the basics they learned in PHY101.
Okay I just did a quick scan of my region, and here's all the occupied channels. Do you see any open spots for these TV Band/whitespace Devices? I don't. Also notice that many TV stations overlap simply because the FCC ran out of room!
VHF lo: 2 3 4 5 6 (VHF-lo)
FM Radio: between 6-7
VHF hi: 7 8 9 10 11 11 (WBAL and WBRE) 12 13 13 (WJZ and WYOU)
UHF: 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 21 (WHP and WIOC)
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29 29 (WUVP and WMPT)
30
31
32
34 34 (WCAU and WPXW)
35 35 (WDCA and WYBE)
36 36 (WTTC and WITF)
37
38
39
40
41 41 (WVIA and WUTB)
42 42 (WMCN and WTXF)
44
45
46 46 (WBFF and WFMZ)
47
49
50 50 (WDCW and WNEP)
51
>>>Let's use the spectrum
Uh. Hello? The spectrum is already being used. By TV (channels 2-51) and FM Radio (sits between channels 6 and 7). There are empty channels if you live west of the Mississippi, but not along the east coast which is already assigned for Broadcast Video/Music and very, very full.
>>>I'm tired of having to choose between two or three effective local monopolies for internet access
Sorry but that's not will happen. The people behind these whitespace TV Band devices are the same people that control the cellphone market. ATT, Sprint, and so on.
Where I live (the Northeast Megalopolis) there are NO open channels. Every single channel from 2-51 is occupied by a TV station.
(sigh) I can easily imagine the kid next door turning on his "next gen wireless iPod or iPad" directly over top the Philadelphia or Baltimore sports game I'm trying to watch. Technically the FCC rules say I can order the kid to turn off his gadget, but that doesn't mean he would comply.
Cellphones currently have 600 megahertz of space.
TV has 200. Let TV keep its space.
This is also not true, you just need to download enough of it that you will have downloaded each frame of the rest of it before you need to decode it.
So instead of waiting 19 hours, you have to wait 17 hours (assuming a two hour movie) to begin watching it. Not a huge difference.
Also you're wrong about the Bluray layer deal. BDs used to be single-layer but now almost all of them are dual layer since the (1) customers were demanding quality better than the 30gig HD-DVDs. The single layer didn't cut it and (2) the cost difference between SL and DL is now negligible.
According to latest Census figures, there are only 17.5 million (5% of Americans) that are not insured either by a private company or the government (SCHIP, medicare, etc).
Also 2 states out of 50 is equivalent to if 1 out of 25 EU states chose to require full service stations. i.e. It's not a big deal.
What do I need a break for? I'm *sitting down* - can't get any more relaxed then that.
You're right. I do sometimes get yelled at.
So I just say, "Fine. Whatever. Pump the gas."
Or, "Go ahead, call the cops and arrest me. I don't care. Do you treat all your tourists like shit?"
Or, "I'll be sure to tell everyone back home in Maryland how much Jersey sucks. 'Course they already know that."
>>>Reminds me of the common /. pro-piracy arguments wherein "they make it hard to be a legitimate customer" is offered as a part of the justification
Not my fault. I scanned the item and put it in the bag, but the machine refused to see it and kept demanding I put an item in the bag. It was like I was stuck in an infinite loop. The only way to escape that loop was to add an extra item to the bag, and the only item I had was an UNscanned item from the cart.
It's also faster because there are two people working. The full-time worker is scanning while I'm still unpacking the cart & putting it on the belt. And then she's bagging the goods while I'm pulling out my wallet, swiping the credit card, and signing.
So it's double the productivity (versus a single person in the self-service lane).
>>>Slashdot still isn't sexy
Maybe somebody could submit this article: Top 10 Horniest Countries http://www.askmen.com/top_10/travel/top-10-horniest-countries_10.html
No.10 - Mexico :-(
No. 9 - Switzerland
No. 8 - Spain
No. 7 - Malaysia
No. 6 - Italy
No. 5 - Poland
No. 4 - China
No. 3 - Russia
No. 2 - Brazil
No. 1 - Greece (where farming is king and the sheep are scared) - Note that Europe made this list 6 times, and North America not at all. Bunch'a prudes.