HURRICANE WINDS AND THEIR EFFECT ON DIGITAL BROADCAST

[gregg75]

I'm getting some blips from this BERYL storm all the way in Atlanta.

Would it be safe to say that probably all Jacksonville stations over the air signals were disrupted
by the 70mph winds? .....while the old analog would have hardly been touched.

At what mph does digital signal loss become an issue? I'd guess about 35-40mph.

Are hurricane winds at a more (or better) atmospheric level for digital disruption than a regular thunderstorm?

[nfladxer]

I live in jacksonville and have an attic mounted antenna pointed toward the Jax Southside antenna transmitter farm.  Three of the Jacksonville stations, WJCT, WJXX, and WTLV, operate on physical channels 7, 10, and 13, respectively.  Up until midnight, during the time of highest substained winds from Beryl, all three VHF digitals were very steady.  Since there is a large row of trees behind my backyard, and in the path toward the transmitters, all the UHF's (with shorter wavelenghts), and to a lesser extent, WTEV (physical channel 19), suffered some amount of pixelization and dropouts.  During any wind event, this has, more or less, been the case.  But up until I lost power, all of the Jacksonville area TV stations continued on air, with the ABC, NBC, CBS stations, and Post Newsweek independent WJXT, providing wall to wall coverage of the storm, in studio, at the beaches, and at various area locations. 

[Mark]

I watched TV during Hurricane Andrew and had no trouble getting TV with rabbit ears.

[nfladxer]

I watched TV during Hurricane Andrew and had no trouble getting TV with rabbit ears.

I think the original poster, gregg75, was wanting observations about what effects a tropical storm has on "digital" TV reception.  In 1992, all TV was analog during Hurricane Andrew.

[TheRob]

Heh. The breeze from my air conditioner interrupts my digital reception. I would stand no chance with 75 mph wind.

[w9wi]

I would suggest high winds, in themselves, will have no effect on TV reception, analog or digital.

What will affect it, is if the antenna (on either end) is moving in the wind. 

In my experience, wind can't move the *transmitting* antenna enough to cause problems.  (that said, I'm in Tennessee & have never experienced a hurricane.....  we have had tropical storms make it up here though)

My *receiving* antenna, on the other hand, does have some problems during severe storms.  If an indoor antenna was possible, that problem would probably go away. (it's not at my location: too far from the towers & too many computers making noise)

I can see moving outdoor obstructions (trees) causing reception issues.

[Greg Branch]

Agree with w9wi. Winds have no direct effects on RF signals, whether analog or digital. Most of the adverse effects that you see during storm events comes from the fact that the wind is moving stuff around in the RF path, like trees and antennas. Those movements will have a larger effect on UHF than VHF. Rain doesn't really have much an effect, as the wavelengths involved with VHF and UHF are much bigger than rain droplets, but heavy, wind driven rain can seep into your coax connections and cause problems. VHF will suffer dropouts due to lightning.

[nfladxer]

Agree with w9wi. Winds have no direct effects on RF signals, whether analog or digital. Most of the adverse effects that you see during storm events comes from the fact that the wind is moving stuff around in the RF path, like trees and antennas. Those movements will have a larger effect on UHF than VHF. Rain doesn't really have much an effect, as the wavelengths involved with VHF and UHF are much bigger than rain droplets, but heavy, wind driven rain can seep into your coax connections and cause problems. VHF will suffer dropouts due to lightning.

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[Mark]

I watched TV during Hurricane Andrew and had no trouble getting TV with rabbit ears.

I think the original poster, gregg75, was wanting observations about what effects a tropical storm has on "digital" TV reception.  In 1992, all TV was analog during Hurricane Andrew.

Correct, I was confirming what Gregg75 said, even in a hurricane analog signals were no issue to bring in, with rabbit ears.