I live in an apartment building about 30 miles due west of Mount Wilson. The building antenna, which no one uses (the building is also wired for cable, and a couple of us have DBS antennas), is in the attic, uses 300-ohm twin lead for distribution, and (according to the management) has been in place at least since the late 1960s.

That antenna provides poor, interference-prone NTSC reception on low V channels, reasonably clear reception with occasional ghosting on high V channels, and horrible multipath on the Us.

Out of curiosity, I invested in a low-end D-to-A converter and hooked it up to the building antenna. I am getting rock solid reception on every channel whose contour map says I should, with all subchannels. I find that totally fascinating given that all of the Wilson stations are presently transmitting ATSC on the U band, where I had the worst reception in NTSC. Based on this, I believe those who complain of poor reception of digital signals must be doing something wrong, and I see no reason whatsoever to delay the transition further.

Also, given the nearly-foolproof installation of the converter (I already had a 300-to-75 ohm converter on the feed from the antenna, from years back) and the multitude of announcements run on the local television stations -- I even found a promo announcement running on one station's * .2 channel, leading me to wonder why a promo would be necessary for viewers who obviously had ATSC receiving equipment already -- I fail to understand why Congress and President Obama think a four-month extension is going to change anything. Either viewers are paying attention and are ready, or they are not paying attention and will need the "brick to the head" of NTSC service ending. (* - The call letters of said station are omitted to avoid embarrassment.)

I'm also disappointed that the network O&Os are going along with the political hysteria and agreeing to hold off completing the transition until June. Are they admitting that their viewers are too dense to have been paying attention up until now, perhaps?


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