[BC] Re: Another Tower Collapse?

[SHAFFER, RANDY L]

Scott asked -
>This is going to be a silly question, but why would you not feed Dish
>and DirecTV out of your studios?  

You probably could, but fiber cost can be expensive for long distances to get
to the local receive site in some markets. Some stations might already have
fiber lines to cable head ends and can't justify the added expense to two more
locations. It also has to do with whatever agreement has been reached with the
Sat carriers themselves.

In our market, stations use fiber feeds, direct lines, off air and some use their digital
signal to feed the analog station to the sats.

This can have interesting results. One station previous owned by Gateway Commun.
never went stereo. Gateway bought the exciter conversion and extra stereo gear, but
never installed it because they didn't want to spend the money on the monitoring
equipment. The rest of the station was entirely stereo.
Jump ahead 20yrs. Someone asked me one day why they can watch 
Star Trek on the station on Dish and it is in mono, but their neighbor has Direct and 
their audio is stereo. Dish pulls the signal off air and Direct gets it direct from the studio.

So, before signing up for a Satellite service, it might be interesting to find out how the
service receives your favorite stations in your market. They are not always equal.


Randy Shaffer
Harrisburg, PA