Ofcom accept CARS view on digital switchover

Murray Niman G6JYB

Ofcom has now published its conclusions on the TV Switchover Consultation to which the Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society (CARS) contributed.

Ofcom have accepted CARS request for early adoption of 8K carriers to permit Sudbury and some new relays to be run at much higher power for decent TV reception (and with enough 64QAM capacity for extra channels/HDTV options as well).

Thanks to the efforts of Murray Niman G6JYB, CARS produced a first-class technical response to this consultation which helped win Ofcom over.

To see the response that CARS submitted go to: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/pods/responses/

One outcome of this is that the old ITV Digital Boxes along with some very early iDTVs will not be compatible so avoid them as they won't work in a few year's time.

If international clearance is obtained, we will see some amazing increases in Freeview signal strengths when they start this in 2008+.

Extract from Ofcom Statement at
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/pods/statement/

Another issue considered was the technical specification of DTT transmissions. The DTT transmissions currently use a variant of the DVB-T standard known as 2k.

Ofcom consulted on whether there should be a UK wide adoption of an alternative variant known as 8k, which allows the use of single frequency operation.
Having considered the consultation responses, Ofcom has decided that the adoption of the 8k format is essential in those areas where single frequency operation will be required. That is those areas where additional transmitters
required by Option 3 are to be adopted. It therefore proposes that these areas (covering the Meridian and Anglia regions) will adopt the 8k format when they are converted to all digital operation. The rest of the UK will adopt the 8k
format by the final digital switchover date of 2012, unless it can be shown to Ofcom's satisfaction that the impact of an earlier adoption would have minimal impact on viewers with 2k equipment.

CARS Website with Ofcom Consultation info: http://www.g0mwt.org.uk/

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