Digital HD TV and 396T Radio

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mfn002

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No. Currently, no scanner, TV-audio capable AM/FM radio, or portable TV will recieve these signals.
 

SCPD

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good to know, I was curious about this too. so I guess I'll have to continue to pay for my XM, oh well! maybe in 20 years they'll make scanners which will decode XM, DTV, ect.
 

rdale

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MaxTracker said:
maybe in 20 years they'll make scanners which will decode XM, DTV, ect.

No. If you want XM, grab an XM radio... If you want to hear DTV, get a DTV...
 

KC5EIB

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The days of the portable AM-FM-TV radios are numberd. I have seen one portable digital tv for about $200 and heard that it would cost too much to make a portable radio to pick up digital TV audio. Maybe someome write the programing for a SDR (software defined radio) to decode this signal though there are no portable SDR's yet.
 

bpckty1

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josephdavis13, don't worry, your portable tv should still be useful. If it can connect to a vcr/dvd player, you can still watch movies/if you have cable, you should still be able to watch your favorite programs/if it accepts playstation and other units, you can still play games/if it is heavy enough, it will make a nice doorstop/if you have a cat, you can keep it turned on and keep the cat comfortable on those cold nights/etc. You just won't be able to watch digital signals unless you purchase a digital tuner to connect to your antenna.

;^>
 

gmclam

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You guys can get a "converter" to convert the ATSC signals into NTSC (or baseband audio) and still use your old antiquated portable TVs or TV audio capable scanners to receive TV audio. Portable TVs will come out which support ATSC, but I doubt they will start as low as $200. That's because there is a whole new industry forming for portable video on your cell phone, media player or similar type device.
 

bpckty1

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GRE made a converter that fit on the antenna connection that converted 800 MHz signals to 400 MHz signals (pre-trunked radios and not very many 800 MHz scanners) a few years ago. A similar digital converter that would translate the audio digital signals to P-25 should be a "hot" item.
 

tj20

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Digital and HD are two different things. TV stations will be required to be digital but not HD. I also tell people to get a $40 digital tv coupon for your old tv so all you will have to pay for the converter is $10 at hell-mart. Like other people have said the hand held portable tv's days are numbered. Radio Shack is the only place I have seen have a portable digital tv and it is $200.
 

bpckty1

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Has anyone attempted to connect one of the new digital tv converters to a scanner, such as the BR330T or the BCD396T, to test the hypothesis gmclam presents?
 

josephdavis13

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I posted here, because I, was asking for frequencies in Texas for Digital and HD TV, that the BCD 396T radio could monitor. The tread has kind of expended beyond my request for digital and HD TV frequencies.
 

bpckty1

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You should check the FCC database(s) for the frequencies, since the digital channel assignments do not correspond to the analog assignments. For example, Channel 2, analog might be channel 35 digital, etc. Your cable provider will use one of their wizards, or the tv's tuner will recognize the signal on digital 35 as being used by the station assigned analog channel 2 and be seen on your tv as channel 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, etc. Go a couple of states away, and channel 2 may be broadcast on the digitial frequency assigned to channel 18. Somewhere, either in the database's archives, or hidden in a dusty folder n the internet, the frequencies for digital are posted.

Looks like we have a quest.

Further Research:

Here are a few sites I Googled to find the information about tv channel assignments.
Interestingly, the best, and easiest for the layman to understand, info was found on Wikipedia. Hope this helps your quest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_stations_in_Texas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_broadcast_television_frequencies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_TV

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_television_system

This one, albeit national, is also informative:

http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98483
 
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n5ims

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You can look up your local (and other area) DTV channels here http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

They'll ask for your complete address, but you only need the zip code. Feel free to uncheck the marketing info (not that they can do much with just a zip code anyway).
 
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gmclam

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ATSC channel numbering

josephdavis13 said:
I posted here, because I, was asking for frequencies in Texas for Digital and HD TV, that the BCD 396T radio could monitor. The tread has kind of expended beyond my request for digital and HD TV frequencies.
Your BCD 396T can not receive any ATSC broadcasts (without a converter). The TV frequencies being used for ATSC are the same as being used for NTSC. One difference is that ATSC will eventually use only channels 2 to 51, with the current channels 52 to 69 going to make up the 700 MHz band. Note that the "channel number" displayed by a station over their ATSC broadcast is not the physical channel being used. Also note that after full power analog stations are turned off, the physical channels being used for ATSC broadcasts will change in many cases.

Here is an example or 2 in my area:
KVIE is on analog 6. KVIE-DT is physically on 53 and displayed as 6.1, etc. After the transition to digital they will be physically broadcasting on channel 9, but still displayed as 6.1, etc.
Another example is KOVR currently on analog 13. KOVR-DT is physically on 25 and displayed as 13.1, etc. After the transition they will continue broadcasting ATSC on channel 25, displayed as 13.1, etc.

I know this seems confusing. The general public typically only sees the displayed channel, which does not change through all of this. But to us techies that are installing antennas or using other receivers to get the signal, we need to know the physical channel.
 
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