In a report that may get more frequent as we move towards
all-digital broadcasting, Nashua Telegraph writer Joe Konopka complains about aircraft knocking out his HDTV signal momentarily every night. Sure it was annoying after the nearby airport was built and sound pollution and radio interference affected his ability to get a good night's sleep or listen to the radio. But now that he's purchased a high definition television with a built in
OTA tuner, losing picture during a tense moment of
24 is the simply unacceptable. Unfortunately, now that the airport is built he doesn't have much ability to change things and laments not joining forces with an environmentalist friend to get plans changed while the airport was still being built.
Ouch. Any HD Beat readers dealt with a similar issue and have suggestions? (Other than switching to cable or satellite.)
posted Aug 3rd 2006 9:52AM
It’s not an airport, but I am pretty close to a well traveled road. When large SUV, or idiot teen in their modified (translated, broken exhaust) Japanese economy cars comes racing past, the HD signal freezes for a second. If I lived near an airport, I would be pretty upset. Cable is expensive, and unnecessary. Especially for HD, all the best stuff if in the air. Sorry Joe.
If found that the further my indoor antenna is from the windows, the better chance the signal wont get messed up. This does however cut my available channels in half. It’s worth it.
If you haven’t tried an amplified indoor antenna yet, it might help. I had to take mine inside before I saw any improvement.
I live next to a municipal airport and when the jets take off, one in five time means a quick glitch in reception. Placing my antenna inside the attic helped reception immensely as did adding an inline amplifier.
But it's still no match for a GV's radar/electrical whatever.
I'm in the flight path for Dulles Airport, but it's a path not used often. Maybe twice a hour.
I get a problem with my dishwasher, my family room is in the basement under my kitchen. I only run the dishwasher after dinner and before going to bed (my Aunt's house was half way burned down because the dishwasher got stuck on a cycle). When the dishwasher goes from one cycle to another it messy up my OTA, for about 3 seconds.
I feel your pain also. Our OTA HDTV goes out for a few seconds when a plane passes over. When we hear the jet sound, we just know we're in trouble. Nothing is worse than during an episode of LOST when something is revealed for the first time and a plane passes over. (good thing we tivo the show even tho we watch it in OTA HDTV live). I have also noticed problems with our reception during really windy days. Bad weather is not our OTA HD's friend. We use an indoor zenith Silver Sensor antennae.