Sunday, October 12, 2008

Longmont DTV experiment


This is difficult information to find in Longmont, as far as I can tell. Yeah, you can go to sites like tvfool and get a list of predicted coverage for your street address, or perhaps get some vague "it depends" answers from a salesperson, but here's some real data:

Using a 1980's era TV with its built-in rabbit ears and a Tivax STB-T9 digital converter box (purchased through the $40 FCC coupon program), here are the channels I can receive in Longmont, OTA (Over the Air), as they say.

  • 2-1 KWGN-DT Denver
  • 2-2 KWGN-DT 2 ("Coming Soon" screen; clear reception)
  • 14-1 KTFD Telefura/Univision (Spanish)
  • 20-1 KTVD "My 20" Denver
  • 25-1 KDEN NBC/Telemundo (Spanish)
  • 31-1 KDVR Denver/Fox
Notes:
  • No big four (ABC, CBS, PBS, or NBC)! I do get something tuned on channel 7 (KMGH/ABC) but it is totally blank, so it doesn't get counted as of now.

  • The experts are going to tell you that you'll likely need a rooftop antenna, and a new one at that, if you already have one, in order to pull in more stations.
Analog cutoff date is still February 17, 2009 as of this writing.

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