Hi A recent newstory here about the FCC deciding to change the over the air digital rules. Seems they want to sell the sub-channels over the stations have avalible to them to cell phone companys. then the channel they have left will be only low-def (480i). Why I dont know but it means no more uncompressed over the air hi-def. And the last brilliant stroke is to finally remove all over the air channels altogether. Why they had everone buy those converter boxes is beyond me. It then seems they will help everyone to pay to go to satellite or cable. Of course its a few years off but I just cant belive it.

To error is human. To completely #*!!-over something like an economy or an infastructure requires beaurocracy.

I'm not particularly upset about losing the sub-channels, but to actually change the primary channels from HD to 480i digital seems profoundly stupid. Seems really odd to me. Have you got a link to the story?

the site was whio tv dayton ohio. the link seems gone but they posted the story nov 6 2009. I went back and couldnt find it.

I have made a brief search for a story like this, but haven't found anything yet. I may poke around a bit more today.

Go to whiotv.com in thier search block type fcc changes digital channels. the story is in thier archives. Dated nov 6 2009

I found the article , but it was pretty sketchy on details. Seems like weak reporting, wiht no sources cited and very little specific details given. Even weirder, this is the only article I was able to find that seems to be discussing these proposed changes.

Here's one problem I see: subchannels are not separate entities. Each station has a certain amount of bandwidth available, and the broadcaster can use all of that bandwidth for a single HD broadcast or use some for an HD digital broadcast and use the rest for one or more SD digital broadcasts. Therefore, the FCC can't take away the subchannels. They can reduce the available bandwidth, but I'd be hard pressed to see how they justify that. They'd have to cut it back from 19mbps to probably 2 or 3mpbs to force stations back to a single 480i DTV broadcast. The digital transition was pretty clumsy, but this change would make it look like a well-oiled machine. Before I believe the FCC is seriously considering cutting stations' bandwidth by a factor of ten, I'd like to see some more proof.

Im hearing a lot more about this now. Seems the national assoc. of broadcasters is running a PSA about how congress wants to limit or remove free over the air tv from broadcasters. The goal seems to be to make alot of money by selling the frequency spectrum to wireless companys. The NAB website has more about it. To be honest I really dont see this happening, While most people do have cable or sat. Many of their second or third tv's are on antenna-not to mention all of the people that are strictly antenna and maybe cant pay for cable. As far as the primeary channel going to low def I doubt that too, all the money spent to produce high def local broadcasts is to great.

The issue appears to be related to an ongoing FCC study on a national wireless broadband policy , which just concluded a comment period that apparently generated a lot of varied feedback . It's hard to say where it's going to go.

I lived in Scotland for a while and there we had only 4 channels the 4th of which(and maby the third, I don't remember now ) was auctioned off every few years to the highest bidder in each market. It was a great source of revenue and, I expect, financed a good bit of the superb BBC programing.
In the US now, we have dozens ,or mabey hundreds, of channels available, but there's still nothing on at many times that's worth watching.I'm not sure that all of these channel options help us much.
It sounds neat to have, for example, the History channel ,but their programing consists largely of crab fishermen, logers, Alaskan truckers and "Modern Marvels". What does this have to do with history ?
Thank god the weather channel still broadcasts the weather.
That's my rant for the month.
Thank you very much.

Appears randy tee's origonal post was accurate. There're plenty of articles out there now where the FCC spells out their plans of taking over (hijacking) a majority of broadcast frequencies for the sake of cell phone companies. Obviously cable and sat companies have something to gain here too, and are no doubt at least in part behind the lobbying. Here's one interview with FCC's Levin:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article...roadcasting.php

The FCC spokesman plainly states their position that broadcast picture quality doesn't matter at all. Upsetting.
I love having lots and lots of options, I love competition and free enterprise, I'm ok with the history channel, and bbc is just, well, bbc.

With cable,sat, and wireless companys all for this- I now think it will happen. All the lobbyists will "buy" the votes they need. So I guess there is no reason to whine about it. I quit Directv a few months ago because To go to high dey my bill would jump $35. Why we mindlessly throw our money to them is wierd. Out of 200 channels we watch about 16 or 20. Yet we pay for infomercial channels and many others we never watch. How many re-runs of law and order can we take. They raise your bills and we blindly write the big check to keep feeding the monolith. I wonder at the big board meetings how hard they laugh at us viewers... "Lets add 50 more commercial channels and charge $50 more.. HA HA HA HA" and we bend over and smile real big as they give it to us.

The fcc has been re-allocating frequencies for years. The 800MHz broacast band (channels 70-83) dissappeared in the 80's to make way for the AMPS mobile phone. In June of 2009 the 700 MHz band (channels 52-69)was eliminated as part of the transition to digital television.

For those who are interested there's a (slightly-out-of-date) US frequncy allocation chart located on the right side of this page:
NTIA OSM Home

Refering to the chart:

Digital channels use the frequency bands that used to be occupied by channels 7-51. That's the lower UHF and the upper VHF bands. As noted above the upper UHF band has already been re-allocated.

Channels 14-20 have already be allocated as multipurpose landmobile/fixed/broadcast. I can see that happening to the rest of the UHF band also.

Channels 2-6 from 54 MHz to 88MHz are not really used for TV anymore. Some of this is already in use by other interests such as radio controlled airplanes.

Note: I've used the old channel references not the digital channel references. Digital channel 2 is NOT on the same frequency as the old analog channel 2.

Other countries made the decision to re-allocate the VHF bands since they are less suitable for digital TV. The US decided to re-allocate the upper UHF band becasue they could get more money for those frequncies.

'nuff said.

We're paying for tv every time we watch a commercial. If there's commercials in your programming then it's being broadcast over the air somewhere and the network could care less if you have cable or sat or an antenna, b/c they're getting paid with ratings. HBO etc (no commercials) requires subscribtion. Our ability to get free tv has been diminishing, and our ability to get free high def w/5.1 could soon be eliminated according to the FCC's own statements, So I don't think it's "nuff said" at all.
Like so many other issues the core is gov't by the oligolopies and for the oligopolies, not by the people and for the people any more. Cable is clearly a monopoly, with sat being an oligopoly that doesn't offer much competition either. All cable does is help maintain the cable on the poles and pay washington to maintain their license to steal from american consumers. Unfortuneatly, if we payed our own gov't to maintain the cable and offer programing (read socialized media) it would cost way way more and not work as well when it worked at all. This leaves anti-trust legislation as an option - what's left of it anyways - and maybe common sence like preventing the gov't from trying to regulate the internet, remove audio/video quality from over air broadcasting, etc etc.