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TechnoBabble

by Charlie_Layno from Greensboro, NC

Last Post 14 days, 12 hours Ago


Hawaii to go Digital TV In January
Oct 20, 2008 | 11:03 AM
Category: News
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The Hawaiian Association of Broadcasters have announced that all of the full power TV stations in the state will cease analog broadcasts at noon on January 15, 2009. This is due to the US Government prompting them to dismantle the analog TV sites before the Hawaiian petrel breeding season on Maui.

The Hawaiian TV stations were denied colocation of their digital transmitters with their analog transmitters because of this bird and the US observation station across the road from the transmitters. Those transmitters were reloacted to a mountain that is about 4000 ft lower than the current analog sites.

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Member Comments Total Comments: 4
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ShaneKSmith read my blog view my photos
Oct 22, 2008 | 12:12 AM

Your Tower shots are great. It's nice to see what a digital transmitter really looks like. Will the lower level cause the digital signal to not reach the public in Hawaii? Is a digital signal more powerful than an analog signal? Does it move the same way? How much electrical power does it take to run each tower? What sort of backup generators do you use to run the towers during a bad ice storm or other outage?
Charlie_Layno read my blog view my photos
Oct 22, 2008 | 8:21 AM

SOOO MANY QUESTIONS!!! SOOOO LITTLE SPACE!!!

In full discloser, I didn't take the tower pictures. Those were taken in 2005 by our general contractor foreman who built our transmitter building. He took a ride up the tower on the day it was getting its final inspection. He had been wanting to so the tower crew let him. Me, it was too cold that day (December 2005) so I passed, since I had already done it.

The digital power is the same as the analog power when done on a one to one comparison (one is peak power and one is average power so the numbers don't match so you have to convert the data to get the correct outcome). When the transmitters are running, it is pretty expensive on the power bill. Remember, we have as much power in the building as a small factory. We have BIG generators to keep the sites running during storms. The back up tower has a 250 kW generator and the main site has a 600 kW generator. We also have a 250 kW generator at the studio as well.
ShaneKSmith read my blog view my photos
Oct 22, 2008 | 2:49 PM

Thanks Charlie. Will anyone be left out in the dark in Hawaii because of a shorter tower? Do Digital signals bounce up and down off the atmosphere to the ground in a zig zag fashion? Do the signals act different on water or salt water differently than land? I don’t understand why the analog towers had to come down. Could they have been used as cell phone towers?
Charlie_Layno read my blog view my photos
Oct 22, 2008 | 4:12 PM

The US government has a listening station directly across the road from the transmitters and they did not let the FCC allow the stations to put their digital transmitters there.

There may be people out on the fringe of the signals that might not get them, but the primary areas shouldn't have any problems according to what the engineers there have said.
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Charlie_Layno

I am one of the behind the scene people here at FOX8. I work in the Engineering department and speak quite a bit of technobabble. I run the TV transmitters that allows everyone to see all of the programs and news on FOX8. I like to say, if you see a good picture and hear good sound, I am not working very hard, but if you see or hear static, I am working very hard!

Member Since: 7/27/2006


 

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