Re: How will the US local area stations commerate the end of System-M?

>I noticed the other day when I was down in San Antonio that between 
>there and here in Austin, the hardest to tune channels have their analog 
>on either channel N-1 or N+1. (8-9, 29-30, 42-43) The only Waco station 
>I get any signal from is adjacent to its analog channel (25-26), and 
>it's hard to tune sometimes too.

If the analog and digital channels are physically adjacent (in
frequency), then you're probably seeing adjacent-channel interference.
The digital station probably isn't at full power yet, but the analog
one is, which just makes things worse for the digital station.

If the two stations on adjacent frequencies are owned by the same
station, it probably doesn't want to make its analog transmissions
WORSE yet by using full power for digital.

>There's one case in Austin where two digital channels are adjacent 
>(21-22), and those are actually two of the easiest to tune in.
>
>I'm wondering if this is a coincidence, or if an adjacent analog channel 
>(even from the same antenna farm) really does make an ATSC station hard 
>to tune in.

I think the same problem occurs with analog vs. analog adjacent
channels, keeping in mind that there are frequency gaps between
bands, so the FCC avoids allocating adjacent channels too close
together, even before any of this digital stuff came up.

>If this is true, then the shut-off can't come any too soon for me.