RabbitEars

RabbitEars (also known as the website name RabbitEars.info) is a website that provides information on over-the-air digital television in the United States, its territories, protectorates, and border areas of Canada and Mexico. It lists network affiliations and technical data, and also covers stations with Descriptive Video Service, TVGOS, UpdateTV, Sezmi, Mobile DTV, and MediaFLO RabbitEars maintains a spreadsheet of current television stations.

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Quick facts Formation, Purpose ...

RabbitEars
RabbitEars logo
Formation	April 14, 2008; 17 years ago (2008-04-14)
Purpose	Educational
Headquarters	Virtual space
Region served	United States
Official language	English
Owner	Trip Ericson
Main organ	Website
Staff	4
Website	RabbitEars.info

RabbitEars.Info has been cited by The New York Times,^{[Ref 1]} The Washington Post,^{[Ref 2]}^{[Ref 3]}^{[Ref 4]} the Los Angeles Times,^{[Ref 5]} the Columbus Dispatch,^{[Ref 6]}^{[Ref 7]} and the Gotham Gazette^{[Ref 8]} for news stories, the Electric Pi Journal,^{[Ref 9]} CEOutlook,^{[Ref 10]} Sony's eSupport,^{[Ref 11]} and Crutchfield^{[Ref 12]} websites for additional technical information, and WCCB-TV,^{[Ref 13]} WOLO-TV,^{[Ref 14]} and WGHP^{[Ref 15]} television stations in relation to the digital television transition.

History

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Perspective

RabbitEars was created to replace 100000watts.com, a site started by Chip Kelley around 1998. Originally listing every TV station in the US, 100000watts expanded to include AM and FM radio information. Due to time constraints, Kelley sold the site to Clear Channel/M Street Publications in late 2002,^[1] which made it subscription-only. In response, Trip Ericson developed RabbitEars as a free alternative.^[2]

After the digital television transition started in 2008, RabbitEars began tracking digital subchannels, digital transition reports, and analog termination requests made to the FCC. These pages were attached to an incomplete design that Ericson had begun to implement in 2004, but that had never been finished due to lack of coding knowledge. As the transition-related pages in particular received attention, corrections were sent to add to and correct the incomplete data that was kept on the rest of the site, and a notice was posted asking for additional assistance. On March 14, 2008, Bruce Myers joined the effort by creating an updated website design, and on April 14, 2008, RabbitEars launched in its current form.^[2] Because of these circumstances, while the web address was registered in 2004, the 2008 date is considered to be the beginning of the organization.

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Data

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RabbitEars maintains a spreadsheet of DTV channels that includes information about stations such as their locations, call signs, network affiliations, channel, ERP, HAAT, and more for full-service DTV stations. The spreadsheet was originally hosted on AVSForum by Mike Mahan, who is better known as "Falcon_77", and was integrated into the RabbitEars project on July 29, 2008.^[2]

RabbitEars tracks stations that use descriptive video service, TVGOS, UpdateTV, mobile TV, Sezmi, and individual datacasts provided by local television stations in addition to providing lists of television station ownership, network affiliations, and some other miscellaneous information. It covered the digital television transition extensively, and maintains a history of the transition. Also provided is continuing documentation of stations requesting different channels, as well as stations having problems with VHF transmission.

At the end of October 2009, the site added listings for Qualcomm's MediaFLO service, which has since gone defunct. In December 2009, the site also added listings for high powered transmitters Echostar would be using to launch its own mobile video service.^[3] It is believed that the high-powered transmitters MediaFLO and Echostar use could result in overloading of preamplifiers used to boost television signals, and that these lists could help mitigate those concerns.

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External links

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