Is your favorite OTA TV Station going away ?

opps wrong thread for my post.

Some interesting info on RabbitEars web site:
http://www.rabbitears.info/repackchannels.php?country=US&city=&state=&mktid=&owner=&sort=loc

I plugged the info into Excel and got the following:

2197 Total channels before repack
45 Lo VHF
442 Hi VHF
1710 UHF

2047 Total channels after repack
150 Going Off air
62 Lo VHF
448 Hi VHF
1537 UHF

Before repack:
2.05% Lo VHF
20.12% Hi VHF

After repack:
3.03% Lo VHF
21.89% Hi VHF

It looks like the initial impact on us viewers will be slight.

On the original Analog to digital transition, the broadcasters ran PSA’s for several years letting everyone know about what was coming, and also to talk about the free STB’s the government was giving away. It was to our advantage to do this for all the obvious reasons. There were, and still are very good technical reasons for moving to UHF (that’s also why the wireless carriers want to be there too), and I guarantee allot of those who foolishly elected to stay on VHF wished they hadn’t. This repac is completely different. There are blind auctions, and lots of behind the scenes negotiations between stations or broadcast groups involving hundreds of millions of dollars; nobody is going to show their hand while all this is going on. Even so, it has been no secret that the VHF band was coming back to life, so I have no idea where the antenna folks were as all this was going on ?

I am also on the Comcast forum rated as a "Problem Solver"

There are many complaints there from people who opted to used cable instead of dealing with the free digital converter box for OTA transmissions.

Well they are paying the price now for cable. The requirement for cable companies to supply analog signals has run out, along with local subsidized cable pricing on minimum service kept low.

They now receive digital signals on a special cable-box with vastly higher monthly costs. Many are complaining they can no longer afford the cable service.

That should help local OTA stations.

The broadcasters themselves need to take some of the blame. They did very little to educate the public. Since only a small percentage of viewers receive content over the air, there was little incentive for them to spend time and money on doing so. During the transition period when stations were broadcasting both analog and digital, virtually all the digital broadcasts were on UHF. Antenna manufactures jumped on board and started pumping out UHF only antennas, hyping them as High Definition Digital antennas. When the analog broadcast was shut down many stations reverted to the VHF band. Shortly many more stations will revert to VHF leaving many OTA viewers wondering why they can no longer tune in there stations.

I purchased my 2005 Sony 1080p television back at the start of 1080p television transmissions. The RV manufacturers continued to produce analog televisions in RV's for another 5 to 6 years. They just dumped old stock on the "Clueless" customers. They did not care then and not today either on proper antennas.

It is still "Buyer beware" as usual.

Yep, when I switched from cable to Dish for TV at our Adirondack cottage, I wanted to add an OTA antenna for the locals when we're on the road changing service addresses. I couldn't find a suitable LP antenna that included low VHF coverage for the relatively short 40 mile LOS distance. Since the only area low VHF station is on RF channel 6, I modified an FM band dipole to add the needed elements.

That's too bad for both Winnebago and the Jack folks for their lack of ability to see yet another change in technology, except this ones been coming for years. And Winegard too for their current offerings across the entire product line. The last catalog I saw, they had removed the VHF Low elements from most of not all their log periodic antennas. Wonder if they have any clue at all what's coming?

I just finished taking a tour of the Winnebago plant in Forest City, IA. I noticed that all their units were using the Jack TV antenna.

I checked several of the major brand RV websites and couldn't find any that were using the Winegard Batwing antenna.

About one fourth of the the TV stations in the U.S. are presently broadcasting on VHF. This number will increase after the channel reallocation. Clearly the RV industry is not very concerned about OTA TV reception.

The last two weeks I have been getting stations from over 125 miles with my double damped Razer antenna in Minnesota, Iowa, and. Wisconsin. No problems seen yet.