HDTV Forum

Broadcast pattern verse time of day.

I live in fringe area Poughkeepsie, NY . There are no local stations to speak of all station are located + 60 miles away.

Yesterday I just hooked up my RCA Model STB7766G1 to my roof mounted antenna and ran an autoscan for stations.

The question do the stations change there broadcast pattern verses the time of day?

And if they do, is there a way of determining what it might be?

I have google for this but have yet to find anything on it the term used was

BROADCAST COVERAGE AREA

, I have also gone to the FCC site and looked for the information there but was unable to find anything.

The reason I am asking this question was the wife was watching tv this morning and she was looking for " Today" with Matt Lauer. Prior to 7:00am she was unable to recieve station WNYT however after 7:00am the station showed up.

So do the stations change there "BROADCAST COVERAGE AREA" ?

Each station has a fixed transmitter at a fixed power so the broadcast is constant. This can change over time due to upgrades/construction, etc. but it doesn't change day to day or week to week or even year to year.

A remote possibility is that the station is off the air before 7 a.m. but I don't know any network stations that do that today so that's not likely.

Radio waves are affected by weather, especially temperature and temperature differences in the atmosphere. That's the more likely explanation.

What type of antenna do you have? How old is it? What type of coax (RG59 or RG6)? Are you using a signal amplifier?

A new antenna (possibly UHF only depending on the stations you're trying to receive) with new RG6 quad shield coax and a pre-amp might greatly improve your reception and viewable channels. Tell us which stations you're trying to watch from which cities.

Hi gondorff -

Did you mean the www.antennaweb.org site ??

Some are periodically signing 'off' analog for a testing to the surrounding area so that everyone that doesn't yet "know" about Feb'09 WILL become aware.

Ours does this around Noon & again during the evening news, etc..

IF available, what's the make / model of antenna, please ?

At { 60 } miles, you'll be extraordinarily lucky to ever get / have 100 % dependable digital reception!
That's the "Curvature-of-the-Earth" limitation for UHF band transmissions.


There could have been weather differences between your antenna & the TV Towers as well as air traffic in patterns for landing / take-offs at Albany... for us, it's the Medical helicopters to / from nearby hospitals.

The majority of peoples in a fringe area are slowly finding out that "absolute" UHF digital reception will be a hit-miss proposition, especially compared to analog VHF band channels.

eli
Just did "look" at your TV possibilities .... of course, depends exactly on where you are with respect to the far or near side of your city from Albany, NY, or Schenectady but it IS about 62 - 65 miles from any of the networks. The sole ones nearby are at Kingston = 14.6 miles on channel 48.1/48 and 54.1/27.

Unfortunately, none seem to be reverting back to Hi VHF after Feb..

(back) gondorff -

The typical "lay-of-the-land" between yourself & either of those two cities may also seriously restrict / eliminate any success w/ "UHF" band reception.

I.E. --- if in the valley, near the river, the beam from the TV Towers will "shoot" over your antenna.