[oldave]

The FCC's database of who's on the air and what their effective radiated power and antenna height above average terrain had better not be out of date.. and at a quick look at some random ones that I know about, it's not.

Antennaweb uses simple distances to determine what should be receivable, and it doesn't take terrain into account... mostly.

Obviously it doesn't accurately reflect situations like manicd being amongst the hills out there in Colorado...

But it doesn't really matter... Dish Network cannot deliver distants, so he'll have to try going through NPS.

 

[oldave]

These companies need to go out in the field and actually verify what is available or not. These companies are making decisions for people and not even bothering to verify that the data is correct.

Oh, please. You want them to spend the money to go out and do field strength studies and provide that information to you for free... gotcha, Comrade.

I do not know of any conventional FCC approved antenna (since according to the FCCC you are allowed an conventional antenna and not one two miles high at your dwelling as you legal right.) that can pick signals form outsides a given stations signal area even when that station says that a location is outside that signal area.

That's ok, I'm not aware of any FCC approved receiving antennas, either.

So it goes to show that the database are out of date.

With the possible exception of some dark stations, the FCC's database is quite accurate. It contains information such as the center of radiation HAAT and ERP.

It does NOT contain topographic data for the area allegedly served by any given station.

Question? Can one even pick up a staion's signal over completely flat land over 250 miles with not a sigle house, tree and ony other obstruction in the way?

That depends entirely on the height above the terrain of both the transmitting and receiving antennas, as well as effective radiated power at the transmitting antenna, as well as gain of the receiving antenna, line loss in the receiving system, etc, etc, and so on and so on. Doing a path study seems pointless.

Question? How big can a stations grade A nd B counours be allowed by law?

No such animal. That all depends on HAAT, ERP, antenna (directional or not?). Oh, sure, there are power limits that effectively limit the area served by any particular station... but there's nothing in the rules that addresses specifically how large that area can be.

And yes I was turned down by NPS even thought the stations say I am not in the signal/service area. NPS relies on Decisionmark who is not supplying or even verifying the information they provide.

If enough paying customers complain about the data to Decisionmark, they'll work to update it. Otherwise, you're just wasting breath.