Whelp, I was in WNY when the analog to DTV transition fully flipped in 2009. Buffalo, back in the 1950's, was chosen to server WNY (Western New York) and NWPA (North West Pennsylvania), a total of 10 counties, but covered way more towards CNY, PA, and a good portion of Southern Ontario, Canada. Three 100KW VHF station each on a 1,000ft tower, for ABC, NBC, and CBS. CH2 was in South Wales, NY (Seen from Rt 16 and Rt 400.) and CH's 4 and 7 were west of that in Colden, NY. They were, and probably still are, the tallest structures in WNY. They covered the deep valleys of the Southern Tier of WNY and NWPA pretty well. CH7 could be watched on a telescopic whip portable TV in downtown where I lived, about 55 air miles from the TX. Rooftop antennas could bring them in near CATV quality. All UHF stations for PBS, FOX, IND, PAX, etc., chose to put towers on Grand Island, NY, just above the falls of Niagra Falls, NY. Only the very tallest hilltoppers could get them at a distance, except for temperature inversions. I use to take hilltop walks with a portable TV and DX TV. I miss that. In my APT in where I lived I used my patented Delta Loop VHF ANT to watch CH7. Weak and noisy, but viewable in that APT at the bottom of a deep river valley. When the analog stations were turned off, so was broadcasting TV where I was. CH's 2,4, and 7 were moved to UHF (Despite that bogus virtual channel arrangement that just confuses people even more.), DTV was only available to CATV subscribers and hilltoppers. The thing of it was, I knew that would happen. I do have a $100.00 impulse buy DTV portable that I took up to a hilltop to see what I could get with its telescopic rod. I had to be in the middle of a wide clearing field and only got in what is now the new CH's 4 and 7, but not the new CH2. And even they pixilated. Yeah, 55 miles is a longshot for UHF TV, but in my mind, full coverage wasn't very well thought out. Then again, neither was the whole 8-VSB DTV system chosen. The Europeans chose COFDM, (Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), which can allow for variables in signals like multi-path (Old analog ghosting) and fading to a degree. 8-VSB the signal has to be damn near perfect, or nothing. More about that here, [
searchnetworking.techtarget.com] Live field reporting is used that way from truck to master control studios. If signals are weak, they can narrow band-width (And definition.) to still make the link happen. So, I'm certainly not a fan of the big DTV transition.
