Oregon Media Insiders

Will any of the TV stations cover this? I know KPTV won't, unless someone's purse gets stolen at the event.

Tell them that Adelstein is a meth dealer.. Watch how fast they show up!

All the stations have shown interest in covering the commissioner's visit

Hopefully he explains it in a less tacky way than his website does. Seriously who approved this piece of crap?

http://www.dtv.gov/

Despite the efforts of the FCC and the country's Tv stations there is going to
be a lot of people surprized when their pictures go away in Feb/09

The cry of "Wheres my game show" will be heard around the world!

The FCC wants to auction the 2155-2180 MHZ band to the highest bidder. Big mistake.

Municipal wireless — using 2150 Mhz — would be faster, cheaper and more reliable than WiFi. Practical, even.

The range of 2150 Mhz WiMAX averages 3.5 miles (similar to 2.6 Mhz WiMAX), so each antenna tower might cover 10 sq miles. A 100 sq mile city might only need 10 towers. Each tower might require about $50K in gear, or $500K total.

Municipal WiFi networks typically costs $100K+ per sq mile ($10M per 100 sq mi.), requiring 30-40 nodes per sq mile, plus lots of backhaul gear. Do the math.

Adelstein is the most sympathetic to digital divide issues of all the commissioners. I think 2150 Mhz should be dedicated to Municipal Broadband - defined as covering perhaps 80% of a city.

That band should be free — like WiFi. Like Radio. Like Television.

ATSC is a lost cause. Furgetaboutit.

- Sam
(http://www.dailywireless.org/2008/10/10/fcc-2150-mhz-no-problem/)

I had a chance to hear and talk to Commissioner Adelstein at the NAB Radio conference in Austin Texas last month. If you have a chance to be at either of the town hall meetings you should go. Adelstein is very articulate about the DTV transition and while nothing that is said at the meetings will delay the switchover, what is said may help the commission adjust what happens over the next few months leading up to the shutdown of analog TV.

I bought a couple of the DTV converters as I still watch my TV via rabbit ears (not for long, though). I live in an area where the signal is not crystal clear, except on one station. The problem is the boxes I bought do not seem to pick up and translate the digital signal unless the incoming signal is crystal clear. What I don't know is if the $50 boxes work any better or worse than the $70 boxes. The DTV website is useless for this sort of thing. I would agree, there will be quite a few folks caught off-guard by this change, even though it is talked about many times on TV, radio, newspaper, etc.

Now, if we could just convince the cable companies to offer their channels a-la-carte. They say it would cause the price to go up. I disagree.

on a couple of outdated issues like 'children’s programming' rules and what constitutes 'children’s' programming. Plus the FCC's take on 'operating in the public's interest'. Stations are using news programming to show that they are addressing issues in the community. Should there be a limit on one-dimensional programming to entice a station to provide a variety of programming that serves the communities needs. Also, the rules on 'Closed Captioning', which limits the amount of new programming that hits the air. The costs for CC an independent program can be cost prohibitive and keep good programming off the air.

I just want to say the FCC and the stations have done a very poor job communicating to the translator'ed people out in rural Oregon that they won't need converter boxes. I've been contacted by several friends from rural Oregon asking about these DTV set-top boxes. All they have done is highlight the confusion and lack of communication. Not to mention the ones who have purchased converter boxes can't return them.

Goes to show you the total disconnect between the east and west coasts.

...how were the town halls?

Rob