# Next Feb. will the digital broadcast signals be stronger? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 24, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655 "2008-07-24T21:20:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2008, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/21 "2008-07-25T23:06:41Z")
[QUOTE=CC] Basically, I think I’m learning that the picture quality will not be any better when we go digital. Those stations that come in fairly well with the antenna will continue to. Those that are hazy or of poor quality will be lost. Some advantage! [/QUOTE] I’m in a poor location for analog reception. Signals are weak, noisy, and suffer from multipath. With the latest converter box, I get significantly better reception with digital. Not perfect, but pretty good. It would be perfect with a rooftop antenna, but that is beyond my control. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/22 "2008-07-26T06:30:26Z")
That’s the difference between analogue and digital. With the former you can have a degradation of the signal quality but you will still see a picture of sorts. With digital it’s all or nothing. So if the if the signal is strong enough you will get a very good picture, if the signal is not strong enough, then you will get nothing. Very occasionally you will get “pixilating” of the picture if the signal is just on the border-line of acceptable and the digital circuitry can’t quite decide about it. ---
**Author:** ![SomeUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@SomeUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SomeUserName)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/23 "2008-07-26T10:33:55Z")
[QUOTE=Rayne Man] That’s the difference between analogue and digital. With the former you can have a degradation of the signal quality but you will still see a picture of sorts. With digital it’s all or nothing. So if the if the signal is strong enough you will get a very good picture, if the signal is not strong enough, then you will get nothing. Very occasionally you will get “pixilating” of the picture if the signal is just on the border-line of acceptable and the digital circuitry can’t quite decide about it. [/QUOTE] Would you get the same type of crappy reception and pixilating with a digital TV? or is just the converter that is the issue with this type of bad reception? ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/24 "2008-07-26T10:41:53Z")
[QUOTE=SomeUserName] Would you get the same type of crappy reception and pixilating with a digital TV? or is just the converter that is the issue with this type of bad reception? [/QUOTE] It’s an inherent feature of any digital transmission system that it’s all-or-nothing (with a narrow range in between where you get pixillated pictures or intermittent picture freezes). If the signal is corrupt reaching your aerial it doesn’t matter what you use to view it - a converter or a digital TV will both give pixillation/freezes or no picture at all. ---
**Author:** ![SomeUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e480ec/32.png) [@SomeUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SomeUserName)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/25 "2008-07-26T11:20:36Z")
[QUOTE=Alive At Both Ends] It’s an inherent feature of any digital transmission system that it’s all-or-nothing (with a narrow range in between where you get pixillated pictures or intermittent picture freezes). If the signal is corrupt reaching your aerial it doesn’t matter what you use to view it - a converter or a digital TV will both give pixillation/freezes or no picture at all. [/QUOTE] Well that sucks. I guess I don’t feel so bad now about not investing my money in a new digital TV. $19.99 or a couple of hundred dollars and I would still end up with the same results. Nice. ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/26 "2008-07-26T12:15:36Z")
[QUOTE=SomeUserName] Well that sucks. I guess I don’t feel so bad now about not investing my money in a new digital TV. $19.99 or a couple of hundred dollars and I would still end up with the same results. Nice. [/QUOTE] Well, with a digital TV you’re paying for the widescreen LCD or plasma display more than anything else. Assuming your analogue TV is an ordinary set with a CRT display, you might think that the upgrade to an LCD justifies the extra cost. But the digital circuitry in a converter box and in a digital TV is basically the same, so they give the same results. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/27 "2008-07-26T13:13:28Z")
I was really hoping there was a good answer to this. I live within 5-15 miles of most of the HDTV transmitters, and even with a new TV, huge antenna which is supposed to cover every frequency imaginable mounted way up in the attic, I still have hit or miss luck getting signals. If they don’t increase the power upon the transition then I don’t know what my options are, other than to get a HAM-style tower to receive signals from towers I can almost fucking _see_. 😕 (Or I could just cut down all the wonderful 50-60 foot trees in my yard, and be like everyone else in the subdivisions. :rolleyes: ) ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/28 "2008-07-26T13:47:56Z")
[QUOTE=Una Persson] I was really hoping there was a good answer to this. I live within 5-15 miles of most of the HDTV transmitters, and even with a new TV, huge antenna which is supposed to cover every frequency imaginable mounted way up in the attic, I still have hit or miss luck getting signals. If they don’t increase the power upon the transition then I don’t know what my options are, other than to get a HAM-style tower to receive signals from towers I can almost fucking _see_. 😕 (Or I could just cut down all the wonderful 50-60 foot trees in my yard, and be like everyone else in the subdivisions. :rolleyes: ) [/QUOTE] Can’t you stick your aerial up on the roof somewhere -wouldn’t that help? ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/29 "2008-07-26T14:19:29Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] Can’t you stick your aerial up on the roof somewhere -wouldn’t that help? [/QUOTE] I imagine it would, but the level of differential effort is much greater. If I was confident that it would work I’d do it. ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/30 "2008-07-26T14:21:47Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] Can’t you stick your aerial up on the roof somewhere -wouldn’t that help? [/QUOTE] Yes, and there are other issues with loft aerials which you can solve by mounting an aerial on the roof. To quote an expert installer on the subject of loft vs. roof: > [@](#): > > If you’re in a good service area, generally within 10-15 miles of the transmitter, this (a loft aerial) is a good solution for analogue TV. If you’re in a cul-de-sac and don’t mind the odd freeze when some kid goes past on a cheap motorbike, you can get away with this for digital. If your aerial is close to a main road you may have problems on digital. For a £20 investment you can suck it and see - it is your greatest likelihood for a DIY win, and you can take a dry run by taking the downlead through the loft hatch and down the stairs on a temporary basis. > > The problem is that the aerial is close to a lot of sources of impulse interference - light switches, mains wiring in the loft carrying mains-borne hash, central heating pumps going off. None of these sources is particularly strong, but their influence falls away with the square of the distance to your aerial. In a typical loft the mains wiring is two feet from the aerial. Put that on your roof and it’s ten feet from the aerial - so the interference will be 25 times weaker plus your signal will be more than doubled (you lose about 6dB measured at the TV input through a typical tile roof ). That’s a 50:1 improvement to impulse noise resistance! > > If it isn’t good enough in the loft put the same aerial outside - a bigger aerial is unlikely to work right in the loft. The reason you shouldn’t try to use a big aerial indoors is that an aerial is designed to work by the interaction between the conductive elements, and obviously, for a big aerial there are a lot of these. The aerial is designed assuming it is mounted on the roof with air space all around. That is not the case in your loft - there’s all sorts of bits of metal and often a great big water tank through which you definitely do not want the aerial pointing. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655/31 "2008-07-26T21:23:16Z")
Sounds like we’re toast. I’m not going to put an antenna on the roof, so we’ll get some decent reception digitially on a few stations and crappy to none on others. I guess that will open up even more bandwidth for someone, since that tv is seldom going to be used. Lord, please don’t let them make any more progress. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/next-feb-will-the-digital-broadcast-signals-be-stronger/457655.md?page=1)