On Wednesday 26 December 2007, Tim wrote: >Receiving 60,000 µV... > >Gene Heskett: >> And it was still snowy on the hauppauge card. Bin time, it also >> picked up all sorts of digital noises in the computer, doing that >> directly from the first install gitgo. > >That sort of thing has been my experience with all digital receivers >(radio or television) - lots of noise. They're noisy in themselves, >sensitive to noise, and/or emit noise and upset other equipment (so you >need high-isolation splitters to feed an antenna to more than one >receiver). And since the beginning of digital TV transmissions around >here, just about all analogue signals have suffered. We used to have >just six TV stations, four of them on the VHF band and two on UHF, with >all repeated once more further up the UHF band. Now, we've got several >more re-transmissions over the VHF and UHF band, and they interfere with >each other. I don't think they planned digital TV very well at all. > >Years ago I bought a cheap analogue TV card, a FlyVideo'98, and I've >never seen a crapper product. It had what'd have to be the world's >worst tuner, though my Liteon DVD recorder comes close. And the world's >crashiest drivers, you were almost guarenteed to lock up Windows if you >tried to use the card. It didn't fare much better with Linux, the card >would lock up occassionally, there was no way to get it to switch into a >PAL mode, and it wouldn't use the S-Video socket properly. > >At the time, and for a while later, various TV card reviews in magazines >didn't really have any kind words to say for any cards currently >available on our market. I don't think the situation has improved all that much either. I pick up boxes and read the fine print at Circuit City, but they often wind up back on the shelf with me making involuntary motions of blowing on fingers to cool them off. However, this pcHDTV-3000 card sees anything the other 3 receivers I have here can see, this with an LD antenna & rotator on the roof that's split 4 ways. Its not great but its watchable, ch 24, WNPB, about 80 air miles, is as good on it as on the other 3 receivers. But our 'starter' power level digital signal on ch 6 is invisible until we shut the analog on ch 5 off for maintenance, 5's adjacent channel noises and the difference in erp make that pretty much a foregone conclusion though. At the changeover point in 2009, we intend to use the digital as a driver for the TF-3A to make our digital power of 10KW average. No idea if it will pass muster though, and will need a new ch6 mask filter rated for that power level for the whole things output. The TF-3A can do it easily, its power tube is rated at 75KW sync tip, but we may have to buy/build another IPA stage as its not particularly high gain. I should try it some night at 3AM for long enough to make some measurements just for grins. Here in a market of this size & ranking, things get done on the cheap if at all possible. But then you've been to this dog & pony show yourself, so that shouldn't surprise you. :) Management thinks they can buy that mask filter with a phone call and a check with delivery Tuesday, so they're not listening when I say it should be on order now because of manufacturing lead times. Nothing to see here, move along now... -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
