# Is there a deadline for Max. power for OTA digitals?



## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

It's been about a year and a half now and three out of five of my local digital stations are still low power. I still can't effectively receive two of them which are some distance away. I thought that there was some FCC requirement that gives them a deadline and it seems with the present state of affairs, waivers extentions may or may not be allowed. Any good info. out there?


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

IIf I remember correctly ,it seems like it is July of 2006 when they have to be all high powered. The following website is very good about providing details about all the FCC changes.

www.tvtechnology.com


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

For top 100 DMA's the deadline is July 2005.

All other stations the deadline is July 2006.


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## oljim (Aug 6, 2002)

Sav Ga is in the top 100 but only NBC is full power, FOX and ABC are parking lot power and no HD. CBS is less than full power and has not changed in 3 yrs


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

oljim, 

you dug up an old one. So to update, we still have the 5 digital stations three of which are at low power. All five are now doing HD when available. Our local FOX is supposed to go to full power this month. Hopefully ABC and PBS will soon follow.

John


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

Jim5506 said:


> For top 100 DMA's the deadline is July 2005.
> 
> All other stations the deadline is July 2006.


My DMA is iirc #16. Our main PBS channel (WVIZ) is running a whopping 1kw on a 99' tower. I can just barely get the signal 4 miles from the tower.

Their analog signal is on a tower that they do not own. Supposedly there are issues with the tower owner regarding the installation of the digital antenna.

There is a station in the next DMA (WKBN Youngstown) that had a similar issue with their tower owner. This kept them off the air while their two competitors went digital first. They finally went on the air and now has the best coverage of any DTV signal in Northeast Ohio! Their signal covers all of Cleveland and parts of Pittsburgh! I can pick them up with an indoor Silver Sensor 56 miles from the tower. Their competitors are still "low power" btw.


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

MY local Cbs station engineer when I wrote him, responded that this July there is no deadline for all the engineers to go full power. That they only have to go full power or they will lose their over the air interference protection. Which means that any other tv station can put up a full power tv antenna tower in their area and it could cause interfernce and there is nothing that they can do, because they didn't meet the deadline for July 2006. So according to him there is no mandate for the rest of the tv dmas, other than the top 100, to go full power by this July. I bet when the analog tv goes off in 2009 there will be a rush to go full power by all the rest of the tv stations, or there will be no one watching.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Mike D-CO5 said:


> MY local Cbs station engineer when I wrote him, responded that this July there is no deadline for all the engineers to go full power. That they only have to go full power or they will lose their over the air interference protection. Which means that any other tv station can put up a full power tv antenna tower in their area and it could cause interfernce and there is nothing that they can do, because they didn't meet the deadline for July 2006. So according to him there is no mandate for the rest of the tv dmas, other than the top 100, to go full power by this July. I bet when the analog tv goes off in 2009 there will be a rush to go full power by all the rest of the tv stations, or there will be no one watching.


I just finished viewing the FCC pdf (FCC 04-192) relating to digital to full power process for ABC, CBS, NBS, and Fox (no mention of PSB). What you post and what the engineer is telling you is correct. The first 100 DMA markets were to go full power by July1, 2005, the remaining market are to go full power by July 1, 2006 for "interference protection deadline." If they remain on their current digital channel after the transition, the stations must fully, "replicate and maximize" by this date. If they move to another channel post-transition, they must be serving by July 2006 at least 80% of the number of viewers served by the 1997 facility on which their replication was based (whatever this means?).

If a station fails to go full power by this deadline, such as a station in my DMA, this DMA may suffer little if any affects form another station in any given DMA as there are many miles and mountains restricting an effective signal. I believe the FCC will still regulate same DMA channels so not to allow interference. So it is quite possible that remote DMA's could remain on low power thus giving up their interference protection. It will be interesting to see how this would play out as now the low-power stations will compete for channel assignments.


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