Re: OT: Digital TV

William R. Walsh wrote:

* There's a flash ROM inside...makes me wonder if there's a means to update
it over the air? I should write down the current software revision numbers.

I doubt it. These boxen are basically throwaways, just to get people into DTV. They're the cheapest of the cheap. I had to finally get two of the Magnavox TB100MG9 because they were the only thing available here with analog passthough. Later, I got two more coupons from a friend and got a pair of the Digital Stream DTX9950 from Radio Shack. I like the DIgital Stream much better. The performance is about equal, but the Digital Stream is much nicer looking, the menus look nicer and seem to respond faster, the analog passthrough is much more convenient than on the Magnavox, and the remote is a lot better. I would love to get a couple more coupons or swap these Magnavoxen for two more Digital Streams.

* For a very short period of time last week, the automatic channel scan
found a whole bunch of channels located in northern Missouri. When you
consider that I'm up in eastern central Illinois, that's really quite
astonishing. They were very watchable, but faded into darkness after a few
minutes. I still don't know what caused this, but I suspect it was some kind
of atmospheric effect, considering that it was late at night.


In radio terms, "the band was up". It has happened to you before, you just probably didn't notice it or didn't know what it was - it can manifest itself as odd herringbone interference or ghosty background signals from co-channel interference to an analog signal from another signal coming in from farther away. This is a well known propagation effect that happens most typically in the summer months. It typically affects the VHF portion of the band (and FM broadcast), but can occasionally extend up into UHF. Usually a tropospheric effect, but occasionally sporadic-E skip on the low end also. Google for TV DXing and you will probably find more info. Many hams regularly monitor the low VHF TV or FM broadcast bands to find out when such events are occuring, so they know when to look for signals on the VHF amateur bands.

-Jim (welcome to my world)


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