The northwest has just concluded the FCC mandated DTV transition phase. This period was to be from October 2019 to the middle of January 2020.
I have been following this transition phase carefully as it has affected a number of venues where I do live sound.
I have spent far too much time on the FCC website. I have consulted the FCC complete, presumably, list of where the stations were (before transition) and where they will move to.
My problem: I perform actual RF scans in the venues I work. What I am finding is that I am still seeing the signature of DTV stations in bands that are supposed to be now clear. And I am not seeing channel bands being utilized by DTV that are listed by the FCC to have stations dedicated to them.
My question: Does anyone have a definitive idea on what the RF landscape is supposed to look like in the 98033 zip code? The FCC site is not giving me the same picture that my RF scans are painting. Perhaps another question might be is some of the band usage I am seeing in my scans (that is supposed to be clear) a result of analog broadcast entities?
What your scans are showing you is what the actual landscape is, at the time that you take the scan. What it is
supposed to be, based on transition schedules etc is a whole other can of worms. If you are talking about the spectrum above Ch-37 (614-698 MHz), I just last week saw evidence of an active DTV channel AND cellular uplink/downlink activity in that range (in St Louis...I haven't looked at the repack schedule
).
If you are talking about the spectrum below Ch-37, 470-608 MHz, it is not uncommon to have DTV channels called out by a database (like in IAS or WWB, which are derived from the FFC database) that are not actually present. Sometimes this is because they are just not strong enough to get into the venue where you are scanning, and other times it's because the station is simply not on the air. The latter is typically because the channel has been licensed but is not yet broadcasting.
