NiMBY
Posted on | September 9, 2005 at 12:51 pm | 2 Comments
The city of Golden, home of Coors beer, has launched another salvo in the war to keep the new digital television broadcast “super tower” from being built on Lookout Mountain (one tower, replacing several other analog ones, which could then be removed). According to this article, they are contemplating several tactics, including buying up the land, or condemning the land using the power of Eminent Domain. Keep in mind that the land in question is not actually in Golden – it is part of unincorporated Jefferson County. (See this editorial for an interesting take on the plan.) The city is allied with a group of homeowners on Lookout Mountain who don’t want the tower in their backyard. (One wonders why they moved there in the first place, since the existing eyesore/radiating towers have been there since the 30s.) This battle has been going on for many years, and the next development is a 9/27 JeffCo commissioners meeting, where the group behind the tower has to provide evidence that the new tower is not going to fall and cause a domino effect with other towers, taking out a lot of real estate. Yes, it’s become that ridiculous. It is anticipated that this supposedly last roadblock will be hurdled and then construction can begin on the tower at last. But if the history of this debacle is any indication, I’m sure more roadblocks will appear. Especially if Golden gets its way. There is even a movement underway to “Boycott Golden” among tower proponents. Golden is particularly stubborn about these sorts of matters, as they also keep trying to block the construction of the Northwest Parkway, which would complete the beltway around the Denver metro area (and which is sorely needed for anyone trying to go North/South in west metro).
Denver is still the only Top 20 market without full power over-the-air DTV, and I believe it is in violation (or will be soon) of the FCC because of it. Studies have shown again and again that Lookout Mountain, where all the present analog towers are located, is the only viable site for a DTV tower. Currently the local stations are broadcasting low-power DTV from a variety of locations around the metro area, including downtown and off of some existing towers on Lookout Mountain.
Ironically, even though I am for the super tower, I believe there’s a good chance it won’t do anything for me and my ability to receive DTV signals. There’s a big hill between me and Lookout Mountain, and I have trouble pulling in the two DTV stations there, our local Fox and WB affiliates. I used to be able get Fox pretty good, but can’t really get it at all now. I even spent an afternoon this week crawling around in my attic, sweating like a pig, and repointing my antenna to try to bring it in better. (The antenna is already on a remote-controlled rotating pole, but has a sweep area of only around 90 degrees due to the smallness of the attic and the location of the beams in it.) It didn’t do any good. The signal strength keeps cycling between 70%, 55%, and 0%, so something weird is going on. I can pull in the WB station a bit better, but I still get breakups. Fox is only broadcasting at 1/3 power and the WB at 1/2, so I’m hoping if both of those (and the other stations on the proposed new tower) were full power from Lookout Mountain, I’ll be able to get them. We’ll see. The Mt Morrison site probably would’ve worked better for me, but it’s not so good for the rest of the metro area. I can currently pull in all of the DTV stations broadcasting from downtown except for the ABC affiliate, which is very low power. But I have to repoint the antenna slightly (using that remote dial) depending on which station I want to watch. That’s a pain, especially when setting up the DVR to automatically record from different stations and trying to remember if I currently have the antenna pointed the right way.
For the most part, I’ve given up caring. Over-the-air and antennas is a stupid way to receive TV channels in this day and age. It’s like a throwback to the old days. However, the towers are needed for people who can’t afford cable or satellite, the people who will be most affected by the government-mandated digital changeover. The government is determined to sell off that analog spectrum, so the only free broadcast signals available will be digital. At this point, it might be more cost effective for the government just to pay for providing local channels via cable to everyone. Me, I’m just going to hope that the satellite providers will eventually provide all local channels in HDTV, and I won’t have to worry about it. I suspect that day will come before this tower ever gets built. But maybe that’s what the city of Golden and the LM homeowners are waiting for: everyone to just get tired and give up.
More info:
Denver DTV Info
The Local HDTV Info and Reception forum on AVS Forum (look for the Denver, CO thread).
Latre.
Comments
2 Responses to “NiMBY”
September 9th, 2005 @ 9:10 pm
Frankly, I’ve always wondered at the FCC’s wisdom in the whole broadcast DTV arena. While Denver may be an exception, having a very tall mountain nearby, in most metropolitan areas the sort of people who don’t have cable or satellite are not the sort of people who are going to be able to put up the large rotating antennas needed to make DTV reception possible (a set of rabbit ears in your apartment in the projects will *not* give you reliable DTV reception). I wonder what the local TV stations will do once they realize they’re spending huge amounts of money on electricity broadcasting to a very tiny fraction of their audience (and probably an audience that their advertisers don’t really care about).
September 10th, 2005 @ 11:49 am
I think broadcast TV is essentially doomed, but it’s going to take awhile to die off completely.
Actually, I think rabbit ears will work for a lot of people in metropolitan environments with full power DTV. Heck, I can usually bring in the Lookout Mountain stations better on my rabbit ears than on the VHF antenna in the attic. It’s a pain getting them pointed right though.