ANTENNAS ARE NOT HD!

This is a PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Antennas are not HD. Antennas are not digital. Only the broadcasts are HD.

Whenever you see an antenna that purports to be an HD radio antenna or HDTV antenna it is marketing hooey. Digital reception in every sense of the word is a synonym for analog reception.

An antenna of any kind whatsoever is just a piece of metal designed to be responsive over a range of frequencies. When they first began planning the HDTV cut over, there was the vain hope that everyone would migrate nice and orderly to the UHF band. If that had happened, you could at least have argued that an HDTV antennas was somehow different than some older TV antennas. That didn't happen. There are still VHF stations in almost every market. It's a total pain in the ass. Because of these disorganized stragglers, viewers  still need to be able to receive UHF and both VHF bands. (you know who you are)

Fractal Antenna

Fractal fail. This one wins the most-annoying-home-project-ever award. I found some online instructions for a "fractal" HDTV antenna on Instructables. [here] On first glance it looked more simple than the Bowtie model I made a few weeks ago. Flush with spare coat hangers and scrap wood from that prior project; I gave it a go.  It started off very simple. Cut some plywood...

...Sand and prime it.

...Sand again, and paint it.(This part ain't rocket science)

Then measure and mark out all the holes... cut the 8" lengths of wire for the aerials. I won't rehash all the instructions, it's not wildly different than the home-brew antenna I made late last month. [here]  I didn't stop until I got partway through the instructions. Then something went wrong. With a fractal antenna the idea is that you are shaping the aerials with self-similar patterns, the angles and lengths are very specific.You'll probably see it right off, but I just wrote down the numbers and made my cuts and bends.

The problem is that some of those 60° angles are acute, and others are obtuse. All I know is that it's wrong. If all the angles and lengths were the same it'd be shaped like a wave. What I think they meant was 120°.  But I don't know that for sure. Anyway, realizing the angles were wrong I made some educated guesses. But re-bending all the aerials twisted them, which certainly didn't help. I plugged it in just for a dry run and got 3 stations. It is substantially inferior to the previous home-brew antenna. Below is a somewhat mangled fractal antenna. I will have to cut all new wires and begin again.

For the record, fractal antennas are a very recent discovery. They were first discovered in 1988 by boy genius Nathan Cohen and patented in 1995. The fractals resonate to tuned frequencies and make the antenna much more effective. Most manufacturers just print fractal designs directly on circuit boards. That allows them to make smaller and more intricate fractal designs without the changes in resistance you get bending wire. The antenna gets more sensitive the more self-similar repetitions occur within the design. The one I messed up was actually quite simple. Next time I get some scrap copper wire I'll take another shot at this.

DTV as I say, not as I do

In its final DTV update, Nielsen reported that 2.8 million American households are totally unprepared digital transition. That's not so bad, that's less than 3%. Before the original February deadline it was more like 10%. So in my estimation it was worth waiting. Yet for all the hubbub there are 3 types of stations still broadcasting in analog.1. Border Stations.
The FCC gave special dispensation to UHF and VHF TV stations on the U.S./Mexico border. This is to allow them to compete with the Mexican stations that cannot be legally compelled to switch to DTV. I do note this same courtesy was not extended to the Canadian border. Whoops, that order never materialized. The analog Mexican TV stations continue to broadcast, those in the US do not.

2. LPTV
The Low Power TV stations in the U.S. do not yet have a head deadline for DTV conversion. The FCC could issue a deadline at any time. I assume that the reactions to the Friday switch will largely dictate how far out this is. Some of these stations emulate FM station on 87.7 WNYZ-LP in New York and WLFM-LP in Chicago will likely drag this out as long as possible.

3. "Nightlight" stations
To help sweep up that 2.5% about 100 stations will continue running their analog signal but only to carry DTV conversion information for consumers. I don't have a complete list but it includes: KWQC-TV, KNBC-TV, KTLA-TV, WKMG-TV, KNSD-TV, KWHY-TV, WITI-TV, and about 95 others. They are scheduled to sign off on June 26th.

To commemorate the occasion I snagged the sign offs of four Analog stations. The cut offs range from dead mid-sentence stops to 6 minute extravaganzas. Downloads below:

WBRC-TV 08:54 AM
WLNS-TV 11:56 PM
WRTV-TV 08:05 AM
WTVR-TV 08:58 PM

DTV Transition

This is a public service announcement

The problem is multifaceted. For some of America, analog television is already gone. For other parts of America it only has a few hours to live. And for most of the rest of us... nobody really knows. Until 02.13.09, only a few days ago, the deadline for cessation of analog television broadcasting was assumed to be 11:00 PM EST on February 17th. You may have heard that has changed.

The result is messy. Some parts of the country have already made the conversion. The metro of Wilmington, NC converted at noon on September 8th last year. In Hawaii, the transition already happened at noon on January 15th. Many stations, who had already prepared to flip the switch tonight, appealed to the FCC to stick with today. So far over 120 stations have been given the OK to do so. The FCC [posted a list here. But it's not that simple...

Some border stations have been given special dispensation to have earlier and later dates. KPBS-TV in San Diego is scheduled for March 31st. There are certainly more stations that will drop analog quietly. Gray Television in Atlanta despite the clear and obvious phrasing of the original 11:00 deadline already flipped some of it's stations because their lawyers interpreted the rules to mean they should has analog off the air by the 17th. Which is not what the FCC said at all. But no one advocates they flip back. That'd be even more confusing. To add to the confusion, other sources put that same deadline as 11:59:59 PM. I'll admit there was a certain lack of detail.

Will your "rabbit ears" TV antenna work tomorrow? Who knows?