How is free digital different from Free analog. Will people have to get new antennas?

Question

How is free digital different from Free analog. Will people have to get new antennas?

Answer 1

I'm assuming you're talking about TV.

The difference just means how the signal is broadcast over the air. Analog signals are broadcast as a bunch of signals in the form of electrical values which are then sent into various parts of the TV and picture displayed.

Digital signals are broadcast as a seires of 0's and 1's, binary code, whihc is the language computers. In digital transmission the 0s and 1s are sent through a decoder which then decodes these signals into the appropiate signals that the display device can understand.

Will you have to get a new antenna? It's possible. The current switch to ATSC currently means a lot of channels will be broadcasting UHF (or already are). There's nothing special about antennas used for digital reception, which is what's really important. Antenna design has to do with how well it can pick up a signal or how well it can recieve a specific band...the type of signal (digital/analog) does not matter.

Answer 2

Digital is a different form of modulation from analog.  Kind of like the difference between AM and FM.  You probably don't need a new antenna and if you do it's not because of the digital modulation.  The antenna doesn't know the difference.  The signal strength may be weaker in your area because of the transmitter power limits imposed by the FCC.  In theory, the digital power was designed to give the same coverage as the analog power but in practice this hasn't proved to be the case.  You may need a bigger antenna because of this.  Be careful about buying an antenna with an amplifier.  The cheap ones have cheap amplifiers and many have been known to cause more problems than they have solved.

Answer 3

Majority of the people will not have to get new antennas.  There are a few differences.

First, digital is more immune to interference than analog.  Digital devices talk in ones and zeroes.  Either a device sends a voltage or a 1, or it sends no voltage or a 0.  Analog picked any number between a range of numbers.  When interference occurs, a 4 can be confused with a 5.  When interference occurs with digital, it will most likely not affect it to the point where a one becomes confused with a 0.

The other advantage digital has is that now we can get more channels through multicasting.  In the Twin Cities, we get channels 4 CBS, 5 ABC, 9 FOX, 11 NBC and so on.  With channel 5, we get 5-1 and 5-2.  5-1 is regular old 5.  When the 5 pm news is on 5-1 and we don't want to watch that, I can switch to 5-2 and watch a TV show.  NBC has 11-1 which is regular old 11 and 11-2 which is a whether channel.  This is known as multicasting.

The last advantage that is transparent to us is the fact that digital takes up much less bandwidth.  This will free up the air waves for things like cell phones and emergency services.