🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan7.135714.15683@osf.org> kenny@osf.org (Kenneth Crudup) writes:

   In article <C0GJqK.1D4@tegra.com> vail@tegra.com (Johnathan Vail) writes:

   >Cable companies pick up the "air" channels the same way you do: off
   >the air with an antenna.  No broadcast, no cable.  There is no magic
   >wire from each broadcast station to each town's cable company.

   Are you sure about this? I really, really doubt it. I'm very sure there are
   local microwave links. 

Several people have questioned my statement.  It is possible I could
be proved wrong for some towns in some cases.  But I know for a fact
several companies work the way I described.  The head end and thus the
recieving antennas are usually located on a hill or other good
location.

If they had a dedicated microwave link who would pay for it?  Cable
companies are cheap and only provide the air channels because they are
require to by law.  I can't see the TV stations laying out seperate
dedicated links for each town.  I don't know for sure that they don't
use dedicated links but why bother with the expensive approach when
the cheap will work fine?


              Look at the quality of 'BZ in, Worcester, for example.


A half decent antenna 50' up a tower on a hill and aimed line of sight
towards a multi-kilowatt or even megawatt transmitter less than 30
miles away should be able to provide a P5 or better crystal clear
signal.

As a point of comparison, I installed a Radio Shack antenna and
pre-amp at my girlfriend's house about 15 miles Northwest of Nashua
NH.  With the antenna about 20 feet off the ground at 800 feet of
elevation she can get the major Boston stations perfectly.  She can
get channel 68 from downtown Boston better than I can living in Ayer.

With VHF and even more so, UHF, elevation and line of sight is
everything.


jv

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|     | Johnathan Vail     vail@tegra.com     (508) 663-7435
|Tegra| jv@n1dxg.ampr.org    N1DXG@448.625-(WorldNet)
 -----  MEMBER: League for Programming Freedom (league@prep.ai.mit.edu)