As we go to Digital Television
A significant Safety Feature is lost
Why once again “DIGITAL HAS NO BACK UP”
By: Nick Markowitz Jr.
Broadcast Engineer WAVL 910-AM
When storms hit and the TV set goes off with the rest of the power in the house many people turn on there Battery powered AM/FM radios to get information as to what is going on .Many of those radios are multi band and include a channel which allows you to hear the TV stations FM audio Carrier (82-88Mhz) so you can still follow along with your favorite TV show or listen to the news many country folks use the TV band radios because they can some times get the video but the voice is screwed up so they turn TV set volume down and turn up the TV band radio .But this is all going away except in a couple of instances where stations are going to try and keep there FM carrier working what are known as Franken FM’s at 89.9 with music and limited video . NPR and others are pushing to get the Franken FM’s off the air As TV stations move to digital they are also completely moving off the VHF band 2-13 where the audio can be heard to UHF channels 14-99 and as of the latest current Radio Industry news no one plans to bring out a multi band radio with Digital TV Sound any time soon.
So once again a very important news and communications source is lost. TV stations for the most part are all backed up with generators for power failures and can still broadcast
And have actual people in there studios while many small and even large radio stations do not especially on the weekend they run automated. This is the most dangerous time for a serious incident to happen and not be able to notify people.
So once again digital proves its dangers.
Your best bet at this point is to have a multi band radio with Battery and even solar or wind up capabilities even better with weather band where at least the weather service can get important messages out. That is if you’re local Emergency Management Coordinator
Is smart enough to call them and most are not.
So all the money spent by our Dept. of Homeland Security and every other agency once again proves it is totally worthless.
Every radio and TV station has some type of system which monitors the Emergency Alert System (EAS) which our government put into effect during the cold war in 1951 and during 9-11-01 it was never activated. Finally they are planning on a continental US wide test some time this year. To see if it even works nation wide.
Our government proves everyday just how incompetent it is and if any thing they have managed to
Decrease our safety instead of increasing it when they mandated the digital TV change.
Note : When I originally wrote this article digital was just starting and now I have found out with
The government’s interference with the Converter box program once again shows
Just how we the taxpayer got ripped off again.
I get calls all the time I can no longer get thru the air TV when I use to be able to get 2-4 channels I have tried everything got couple different converter boxes new antenna everything does not receive signal.
Well another dirty little secret the industry does not want to tell you most of these converter boxes are useless and of inferior quality.
The tuners in them will not pick up properly. How do I know this because when I bring my cheap little digital TV set and put it right next to the analog TV with converter I get a perfect signal, with just a simple set of rabbit ears. So what’s going on?
Very simple the digital TV’s with built in digital tuners have a better built receiver in them than the converter boxes which of course forces the consumer to go buy a new TV.
But even a new TV does not solve the problem some areas you are just plain out of luck you will not get reception even in the big city because buildings trucks etc block the digital signal. And all these so called new fancy digital TV antennas being sold are nothing more then good quality UHF antennas because this is where TV band has been moved to so do not waste you money on new antenna till you sure you need it.
Once again the public has been hood winked by government and big business. You want to watch TV then pay a fee. How dare you watch it for free.
They are trying to do the same thing to terrestrial radio as well. With the advent of XM/Sirius Satellite and Internet radio.
So unless you keep up on technology you will find yourself paying thru the nose for stuff you can get for free thru alternate channels.
No comments:
Post a Comment