Using my phone hotspot for the tv.

valhalla360 wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:
Digital broadcasting via ATSC (the digital TV standard now used) has a lot of flaws, local RF noise severely impacts the reception, rain, snow, trees all affect the distance and then with many more UHF frequencies available than VHF really impacts the distance. UHF is strictly "line of sight", doesn't bend with the Earths curvature, signal will skip over deep valleys between hills and buildings, trees or other solid obstacles simply block it..

Yes, much more sensitive and less range. Not technically correct but effectively the power that used to go into one channel is now split up.

Also, unlike the old analog where the picture might be a little fuzzy but you could watch it. Digital is there or it's not. So when you are at marginal range, it usually means nothing or frequent freezing of the image.

Actually all of the stations ATSC output power goes into the same size as the old analog channel frequency allotment of 6 Mhz. The analog NTSC used the entire 6Mhz band allotment - upper and lower frequency guardbands (this was to reduce bleed over to adjacent channels) to deliver one channel.

NTSC vs ATSC

ATSC is all about transmitting digital data packets using very high digital compression (MPEG-2 which can be as much as 50 to 1 compression) which allows stations to decide to use all or only part of the 6Mhz band they are allotted. They can choose to have as many as 6 SD video streams or combination of one or several HD streams. Some may even elect to have only one HD stream and use the left over bandwidth to provide private data transmissions for other commercial use.

HERE is a good "primer" on ATSC and digital TV transmissions.

On edit..

From the last link I posted..


Click For Full-Size Image.

This is a representation of how the 6Mhz channel bandwidth use compares between ATSC and NTSC.. Ultimately and ironically the final output is more like AM (Amplitude Modulated) which if one has ever tried to listen to a AM radio transmission then one would understand the reason as why ATSC is much more sensitive to noise..