Yep, last year the tornado touched down, then the NOAA weather radio went off. Not much they can do about that I suppose. They were at a Tornado watch with the cell still 15 miles out, but as it adjusted course from NE to ENE, it condensed just as it crossed the main highway and the tornado dropped right into the middle of the population zone between Debary and Lake Mary in Seminole and Volusia Counties. The big problem was the speed of the storm as it passed over. It was moving at about 45 mph when the tornado dropped, and NOAA was having a tough go just keeping the alerts out ahead of the cell in time, and with the course change and the erratic development, it made the alert system somewhat dysfunctional.

Florida was a different beast from most of what I experienced in west Texas. There, you could see the cells coming from a distance, and you weren't surrounded by jungle obstructing your view beyond 100 feet to 100 yards out. The storms also didn't tend to move in so quick out there.

Hi Alex,

I'm affraid the Laura L36 DVB-T won't work with the ATSC broadcast standard as the DVB-T standard is a European one.


Different Standards around the world.

The Laura portable TV works quite well.

Laura DVB-T in operation (8.76 Mbytes video)

The Archos is pretty good and will allow hundreds of IPTV channels from all around the world. Of course access to IP services via DSL or wireless 3G would be required in an emergency

Archos WebTV in operation (8.65 Mbytes video) - IPTV - Just in case you want to know whats happening in Cuba, Iran or California etc.

Archos Web Access in operation (3.39 Mbytes video) - Interweb Communications.

Archos DVD video in operation (3.39 Mbytes video) - useful for entertainment purposes.

Archos InterWeb Radio in operation (3.39 Mbytes video) - Hundreds of world wide radio Stations

Actually if I was thinking about putting together a similar setup I would now probably go for the Archos 5G model. This has wireless 3.5G HSDPA data access and even has attachments to turn the Archos 5G into Sat Nav and Digital TV devices.



I would then power the device with something like a PowerGorilla and SolarGorilla combo.

https://powertraveller.com/iwantsome/primatepower/powergorilla/

Yes, constamt coverage here too, but they are very delayed. The tv may have pictures of the weather but you go to the noaa web site and its ahead of the one on the tv. Or listed to the scanner and your hearing the same story that the people on tv are hearing but your hearing it right away where they are going to hear it then take it to the control center say whatever is going on now needs interrupted and then somene hunts down the recording, finds it, they interrupt the weather guy playing with zooming in and out of the picture then tell you what happened.

One local TV station also broadcasts their audio in FM.

The lower end of the FM band overlaps certain TV stations Audio programming. That will be gone after the 19th.

I tailgated the Cardinal-Rams NFL game this weekend. About a dozen people in the area I was in, had their TV satellite dishes running off generators which were also running flat screens to watch other NFL games. One guy had five t.v.'s going at the same time.

I think if anyone is using satellite for their home viewing,it would be easy to find a forum to learn this set up. If someone can cart all this from their house to party in a stadium parking lot, it must be easy enough to set up at home in a power outage due to nature disaster.

Its not the perfect fix like say an affordable, portable digital t.v. but its a great workaround for information.

This question about "decent" quality Portable DTVs has been asked on several of the AV/Home Theatre forums and I know for a fact it's been kicked around inside the industry. Samsung and a few others have just released and/or are releasing smaller (and cheaper) chip sets so more products will appear. In the meantime I believe there are two choices....

1) A low quality unit like Insignia or other things out of China. Here are two with battery pack and charger options:
7" and 8" Portable DTVs


2) Think differently and step "around" the issues of hungry ATSC chips sets, cliff-effect reception, low quality manufacturers. Check this out:
Truly Portable DirecTV

This thing is self-contained with antenae, battery pack and 17" screen. Yes you must subscribe and it's expesive, but maybe the coolest solution out there!

Hope this helps,

Digital TV article

I've been wondering the same thing...

From the article:
"...why is the government so anxious to help American citizens experience a clearer and more highly defined television picture? Does that make sense to you? Since when is the government so concerned about the visual quality of our televised entertainment that Congress would pass an undebated statutory proclamation which mandated that the HD conversion take place on Feb. 17, 2009 and then subsidze about 90% of the associated cost?

I'm only guessing, but if there are 200 million "regular" televisions in America to be converted into HD, then that $40 in government subsidy per TV ¥ 200,000,000 = $8 billion. Why is the government so anxious to spend 8 billion dollars on her citizens to improve the clarity of a TV picture? Or is the recently touted "additional bandwidth" cover story that supposedly is to be gained with the HD technology the only and genuine reason for spending so much taxpayer dollars on HD conversion?"

Well, they will recover quite a bit of bandwidth with the change, and in a critical part of the spectrum to boot. But I suspect that there was a bit of lobbying that went on as well.

Going to HD will allow for greater regulation of the signals in the long run. The government always favors more control.

Well, I'm no engineer. But when cell phones went from analog to digital it not only freed up a lot of bandwidth (more calls can fit in less frequency) but also decreased the power needed to transmit.

If that is analogous to television's conversion, they get a key piece of their spectrum back, the reception footprint may actually grow, and they don't need to give as much bandwidth out (or they can at least fit more content into the same amount).

In any case, it can be argued that the cost is justified since the FCC (AKA the government, AKA us) gets a lot back in return. It's not just a gimmick to sell TVs and set-top converters (although it's probably that too).