Don’t Touch That Dial

I find this whole thing absurd. What happened to free TV? I couldn’t care less if I get HD, digital or not and I’m not buying a new flatscreen HD TV for $1000. And the folks in the stores don’t seem to know what’s going on, either. My elderly mother was told she’d need a new HD roof antennae or something along with the converter box. You know, not everyone can afford this big switch. She’s never had cable and will be forced to get it. Yet another monthly expense she doesn’t need. I wish the government would stay out of my house and my private life and not fix what isn’t broken.

Hey davej – you are on the money with your comment. We got our coupon’s last February/March – but they expired two weeks after we got them and there were no converter boxes available in our stores yet. Yes, we have satellite, but our local channels don’t come in and in the case of storms it doesn’t work…so need these. Help! If you didn’t get to use yours, can you reapply?

Some of the local channels in my area have already converted. SOoo… I got a convertor and guess what, it still doesnt work. When this was all started I read that the military needed the bandwidth. Now I hear google and others are lobbying to use the freed bandwidth for cell phones. There is no justifiable reason for this stupidity and it will get worse before it gets better. I really feel for the elderly who won’t understand any of this.

The Digital Coupon program sounds good but I live in Wilmington, NC and we went digital Sept. 8th 2008 and I still can’t get a $40 converter coupon. I have tried three times since early 2008 but no response. There is no real person to help, no complaint dept., no contact info, no nothing. I’m frustrated.

maybe the program wouldn’t be running out of money if they screened the people applying for coupons a little better. i know three people who have no financial difficulties whatsoever who felt they were “entitled” to a free box. also know several people who have cable/satellite who have gotten boxes anyway, just because they were free.

You only need a converter box if you are still using a rooftop antenna. If you have cable or satellite you do not need anything, and you DO NOT NEED an HD tv.

“What happened to free TV”
“She’s never had cable and will be forced to get it”
the ignorance of this switch is just staggering. you dont have to “get cable”, you dont have to have an HDtv. your 20 year old tv is fine if you already have cable. if you dont have cable, you get the little box, and thats it. this is no big deal

Television will still be free after the transition, it just will be digital instead of analog. The only people making money off of this is the United States Government and the companies that saw the future coming, and decided to build convertor boxes.
I almost had one of my coupons expire too, I do think that is crazy!
But 10 years ago the government figured they were going to run out of bandwidth in the frequency spectrum, so they decided to force the change to digital. Had the companies manufacuting tv’s started right away putting in digital tuners, a lot of this could have been prevented. I mean most people replace their television every 10 years, but they kept dragging their feet, and didn’t include the extra cost of the digital tuner in their tv’s.
Noone should have to buy a new antenna unless they want to recieve channels from further away.
Currently a single television channel takes 6 MHz of space to broadcast. When the switch is made to digital, many more channels will be able to fit into a smaller space. This will open up available space for everyone, military, cell phones, wireless networks, ham radio operators, police dispatchers, you name it. The government will sell some of this space to companies, and they will make back all of this money for the convertor boxes, and probably more.
I too have noticed that the old signals sometimes are better. With analog transmissions, you may get a little snow on the screen, but if the signal degrades a little with digital, it will either break up into little boxes, or freeze, or go to a blue screen. Hopefully when the full power analog stations shut down, they may be able to transmit a little more power on the smaller frequency spread, and improve the reception a little.
As for emergency communications, most of these boxes will run off of battery power, you just need to wire something up. If nothing else, you could use a UPS from a computer. If your little tv is running on batteries, the battery backup from a computer should be able to keep the digital convertor box running for quite some time. I suspect much longer than the batteries in your television last.
Take Care, and remember, it is all in the name of progress.

For all the people complaining about having to pay extra to cable to get HD, you can get it FREE with an antenna. And the quality is better because there is no compression. I get all my local networks (50 miles away) 100% fine with a UHF yagi and amplifier in my attic.

This changeover is far too early. What about rual customers and all those portable TV’s? Hook up a $60 box to each one??
All the more reason to stop watching tv, if I want to watch something, I download a pirated, commercial free torrent. Bye bye networks.

We adopted Digital TV as soon as we got the coupon in June or July. The converter works with rabbit ear antennas. There is one MAJOR PROBLEM with digital signals. If the signal drops below a certain threshold no information is sent to the TV. WE HAD MAJOR PROBLEMS RECEIVING WEATHER RELATED WARNINGS DURING THE SUMMER MONTHS because sound and picture information gets lost. Analog TVs just pop and hiss with some distortion of the imagine and can give plenty of weather related information because if you cant see it well you can at least hear it. Not so with digital signals. Also in bad weather the signals are weaker. We noticed significant problems with high wind and rain. No amount of adjusting the antenna will relieve us from the blue screen produced by the converted box. We had to switch back to analog to find tornado track information. This summer there will be no analog signal to switch back to during tornado warnings. I am very worried that people will be killed by bad weather because they will no longer have access to life saving storm tracking information due to poor digital signal strength. We only live 4 miles from the TV transmission towers.

Mark I agree. I hardly watch TV any more.

I find it strange that in a “free market economy” such as yours, you get vouchers to affray the cost of switching over to a better system. We didn’t in Australia!
We have been in the process of switching to DVB for about 3 years now, with the switch off to happen in 2009. There have been few problems, mostly due to good planning from our government agencies. Most problems are related to stupid home-owners and their antiquated antenna systems. A simple and cheap upgrade sorts that one out.

David, What planet are you from where you get basic cable for $10 a month. The additional fees and taxes are more than $10 a month alone.

The government is forcing people to change so they have to help sub someway. $50 a box is alot of money for some people.

I agree with others like Bob – We get HD over the air with an old roof antenna
that we have in the attic – we purchased a new tv when our old 1973 one finally bit the dust. If I had known what kind of great HD reception I could get I would have purchased one sooner.

Idiots. This is still free TV. The format in which it is being broadcast is changing. You don’t need to be plugged in all the time.
Do your research before posting something that will create a feedback loop of confusion.

The real problem is that when a atation goes digital it “reduces” its foot print (lower power broadcast). Those individuals living in “fringe” areas will be living in “dead” areas. I just happen to live in an area that is mid way between two broadcast areas. I was fortunate in that I could replace my antenna and raise it. Some may not be that fortunate.
Cable TV in this area is minimum of $60 (plus taxes per month). Considering the content that is a lot of money per year for for a very poor product.

We get free digital high-def TV through our old roof top antenna, with more channels than before and the picture is crystal clear. We also have two older TVs that we connected to the converter boxes (the antenna connects to the box and the box to the TV). We’ve never had such great reception. The folks around here with DishNetwork and DirecTV will still be receiving an analog signal for the local stations, so we’re better off with the antenna in that regard.

Mike,
This is not free tv. The cost of the converter box is not fully covered by the coupons and the coupons are subsidized with our tax dollars. The converter boxes consume electricity which you pay for as well.

We got the coupons, went out and got the converter boxes (which cost us more than the coupon was worth) and when they ran a test in this area to see if your boxes or TV’s worked – guess what? Nothing! We then learned that this backward rural county we live in is not going to spend the money to update the towers. So everyone in this area who watches TV without sattelite (cable is not available in many places here) is going to lose TV. It would only cost $30,000 to update the towers here, but they are just going to let them go to scrap I guess. Thank you Lyon County Nevada – exactly why do I pay my taxes here? The least they could do is let those of us who can’t or don’t want to afford to buy TV continue to watch it for free. What’s next government? Going to make us pay for radio?

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the folks who mandated the conversion of our TV signals to digital.
Great! Now I do not have to watch the crap. I get much more accomplished, and I feel like my IQ already raised ten points.

If you are in a fringe area like I am on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland -even with an outside antenna you get virtually nothing!!!!!! A fuzzy picture was better than NOTHING! They need to boost signals.

All this may not be a big deal for most of you. However, I have tried to get a signal with my HDTV and a box. I have been receiving 9 channels with rabbit ears for years. Even with a box, I cannot receive any kind of a signal on either my HDTV or the older one that really needs a box. Guess what, I’m going to have to go back to radio because the government wants to control everything. I can’t afford cable, don’t use credit cards so I can’t get DirectTV either. Guess they forgot about us older citizens that they were exploiting for MORE MONEY.

I don’t understand why they didn’t mail every home / address a coupon. It would have cost a whole lot less. Also, why do they have to expire in the first place? My sister has to use the box and when the did the test in our area everything was fine for her, although she did say that she will loose two channels she gets now and like so many others she can’t afford a roof top antennae.

Honestly, we’re not even going to get a new TV after the change. We’ve decide HDTV isn’t worth it for now. Maybe in the future we’ll get a new TV or get a convector but we get everything we need from the internet so we’re not even going to fuss with HD.

Regarding using an antenna to pick up digital signal, Duane said: “You do need a roof antenna and pretty much line-of-sight to the tower.”
Not totally true, it really depends on how close to the broadcasting station you are. I’m close and using nothing but the loop part of an old cheapo rabbit ear antenna and picking up all digital stations great, many shows in perfect crystal clear HD too. I have a Panasonic flat panel HDTV.
The very strange thing about picking up digital signals is that too much antenna reception power to the TV will actually make picture worse, or no picture at all which is usually the case with digital. I get a better picture just using that cheap little loop antenna than with a special new antenna I got with amplifier on it which amplified the signal too much. By the way, the loop part picks up digital signals better than the telescopic part.

I dropped my satellite service 2 years ago because they had a price hike. I stuck my antennae back up and slapped a booster on it. Recently, I added the DTV converter and I really love it. I get more channels than I ever did with analog. And aside from paying for that booster years ago and 20 bucks for the converter, my service is FREE and always will be. You arent being forced to buy anything. Although, I would like to know the true reason for the switch.

The RCA converter boxes (we got 2) are both pretty junky. Even though it is digital, you get pixelated squares and rectangles on the pictures a lot. We had to rig up the antennas and keep rescanning for channels to finally get PBS, and if you leave the converter boxes on constantly (like we do for our VCR and satellite) the converter box messes up, sometimes we have to unplug it and put it back for it to work right. It is a big pain, I hope eventually the converter boxes will work as good as they are supposed to and what people would expect.

The roof top will still work with a digital T.V. and you don’t need a box.The whole process still sucks

I found the http://www.dtvanswers.com web site listed in the article to be extremely helpful – it answered all my questions. Now I’m just waiting for my coupon – though it sounds like the boxes might be in short supply.

P.S. The switchover is to [D]TV not [HD]TV there’s a BIG difference between the two.
DTV is digital (broadcast) television and deals with the METHOD of transmitting the signal.
HDTV is HIGH DEFINITION television and deals with the CONTENT of the signal.
The two are NOT interchangeable and should not be confused.

For those who are making a huge deal out of the cost of a converter box – I am not minimizing the fact that expenses are tight and that not everyone has lots of money to throw around, but come on! It’s 50 or 60 bucks – and only $10 or $20 if you have the coupon – a one-time cost. The cost of a relatively modest night out to dinner, or for those of you who smoke, a carton or two of cigarettes. How much money do you waste on other junk? We have two HDTV’s hooked up to antennna for locals and Dish for satellite, and another hooked up to antenna via a converter box. Once you see an HD picture you will not want to go back to analog, trust me – and even the DTV picture on an analog set is dramatically better than the old picture. You’ll be glad you made the switch. If you’re having problems, chances are you don’t have it hooked up right or your antenna setup isn’t appropriate for your station distance, elevation, etc.

Female Veteran, this whole conversion has been heavily publicized for the past two or three years, maybe longer. I got my coupon and redeemed it. Boxes have been available at Best Buy and Circuit City for a long time. You can order boxes online via the internet, which you obviously have access to. Who cares whether one smokes or not – I don’t either for that matter – my point was that MOST people throw money away on frivolous stuff all the time that would have paid for a box. The fact that you sat on your coupon and let it expire and didn’t redeem it and are now bitter because of YOUR miss is not my fault. You are negative by the tone of your various posts and nothing anyone says will change your mind. Enjoy your internet!

there isn’t anything worth watching on tv anyway. Shut it off, go outside, or read a book. :)

Concerning people that have expired coupons: Try to get a friend or relative who doesn’t need one to order coupons for you. You should be able to use these when they arrive. Also when you have poor reception you have 2 options: get a better antenna and/or get a booster. I got a 60 dollar digital stream from Radio Shack and it works very well. Still had to pay about $25 each.(tax is on the whole amount) It gets stations that my analog wouldn’t get before, and I lost some that I could get before. The picture immensely improved and please people, quit confusing hdtv and dtv.(high def. and digital)-both are digital. High def. requires an expensive high def. tv and high def. broadcast signal.
Also, if you only ordered one tuner, you can still order one more.
You can record using a vcr on one tv while you watch another channel on the other. (Works best if you have 2 vcr’s)
If you need severe weather info get a weather radio that runs on batteries.
There is supposed to be a separate fund for those who can’t get anything but free, over-the-air reception. So they may not be running out of money in both funds.

Oh grip, gripe, gripe. Not all the converter boxes out there allow analog pass through so if you already have yours connected that doesn’t allow it, no, it’s not going to work yet. This change isn’t something that was just sprung on us… there has been quite a bit of warning for someone to save $5 a month to put towards the balance after the coupon. It’s not fair to gripe about bad TV antennas out in the boonies… you have quite a few drawbacks when you want to live so far away from society. Septic tanks perhaps? I don’t feel sorry for the elderly about not understanding this change because they don’t teach TV in schools. If you have to buy an antenna, a smart antenna is like $100… which is still way cheaper than a monthly cable bill. If you’re dealing with emergency weather, you should probably be taking cover and listening to a radio than sitting on the couch watching the TV anyway. Better yet, ditch the TV and do something physical.

I still have one 8 inch tv, that I have not done anything with. I will turn it on after “D TV Day”! Curious to see if it will still works, without any additional help, and for sure , will let me know if the American public has or has not, BEEN RIPPED OFF!!! once again.

I sent for the coupons (actually cards similar to debit cards) and never got mine. I had to ask a friend who didn’t need them to request a couple for me, and one of the converters I got doesn’t work so I’ll have to exchange it when or if the store gets more of the same make and model in. On the plus side, the one functioning converter is working fairly well. The gummint really mucked up this program with their failure to include some mechanism that would track which cards go to whom, provide some means of issuing replacements if they got lost in the mail, and imposing a 90-day from data of issue (NOT receipt) “use it or lose it” limitation. At least bankcard companies have these kind of things under control.

We have seen the end of HD DVD, and now we look forward to the demise of awful broadcast NTSC. Progress! Throw out that old set and get HDTV. You will never regret it.

WHY?

At this moment, I would like to say I love Analog TV better.

Quietman…if you are so worried about not getting the proper warnings through your TV, then get a NOAA weather radio. That will solve all of your problems.

Something must be done to make whole the owners of “tv sound” radios and handheld tv’s!
The poorest, most vulnerable members of our society depend on them as a lifeline to mainstream culture.
All you “I’m all right Jack” digi-lovers–Imagine how devestating it is to a partially sighted person, an old lady who lives in a crowded apartment, a bum who sleeps behind a dumpster– to be cut off from drama, comedy, Jay Leno, Oprah, even soap opera—the things ordinary people discuss, the knowlege that becomes part of their background.
Put yourself in the place of the security guard, the nurse, the assembly worker who must be on duty during prime time– they could listen–but not watch. Now they can do neither.
When this “economic stimulus package” for the electronics industry was passed, the livin’ was easy. Now we are in a deep recession, and the fifty bucks for the box is an issue for millions more people.
The incoming administration should TAX the manufacturers, distributors and importers of tv sets and digital broadcast equipment, and SPEND the money providing a bare-bones battery operated “tv sound” receiver to every owner of a “tv Sound” radio or handheld tv.

What’s really unfortunate is all the irresponsible people out there who don’t know what the hell is going on and are getting the vouchers and don’t even need them and are cable or satellite subscribers. I know of one such person. That’s one less person that will get a voucher that really needs it.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to blame Bush for this.

RELIABILITY should be the forefront consideration with the transition to digital over the air (OTA) service and the elimination of analog OTA VHF service. In my technical opinion based on experimentation with typical user configurations, the experience on today’s service in the San Diego area is not acceptable. The frequent signal drop outs should not be tolerated. The highly sensitive signal is frequently interrupted by wind gusts, precipitation and air traffic as such digital OTA service reliable source for information distribution during weather related emergencies. The problem is that today’s digital TV processors require a certain signal strength to be able to read the signal data, rather than passing on a degraded signal such as a static distorted image for the user to discern they go to a blank screen or freeze on the last image received. Transmission and receiver performance will need to be improved in most areas to consider OTA digital TV an improved service over analog.

So why don’t you tell the really truth about the convert boxes??? I got my coupons, had a guy who knows all about how to hook them up come in to hook my up for me. Big problem if you don’t have an outside Antenna you wont get a signal!!! He even got me a new indoor antenna, I get the PBS stations and that is it!!! I live in an apartment complex’s that has an outdoor antenna that needs to be fix, but my landlord wont fix it. I even offered to pay to get it fix-no go on that. And in my lease it say “I can’t put up an outdoor Antenna” So when Feb 17th comes me and some of my neighbors will be without because someone decieded to go digital.. I live on a fix income and I am NOT PAYING FOR CABLE OR DISH NETWORK!!! So tell the people the truth that if you live in certain area’s you have to have a big outdoor antenna…..

We live 43 miles from from the TV towers, and we upgraded w/ the converter boxes and a bi-directional, amplified antennae in our attic. We love it. A multi-directional antenna would work even better (we do have an occasional brief loss of signal on a few channels). I would also like to try a SMART antenna, but I didn’t see anything online that I thought would work in our area. We have a NOAA weather radio for emergencies, though TV reception hasn’t been a problem during bad weather for us. What surprises me is that someone hasn’t capitalized on the need for people to set this stuff up for them. People are complaining about the cost of the converter boxes, but I’d bet a lot of people would throw money at the problem if someone would come over, tell them what antenna they need, and hook it up for them. There are plenty of places to buy an outdoor (or attic) antenna, but who can you hire to put it up for you? I would have gladly paid for an installation service.

What a joke. We can’t cable where we live–not available, too many trees which interfere with the satellite signal we’re told. So we bought the converter boxes. They work terribly.
We looked into getting “digital” rabbit ears but were informed there’s no such thing. They’re just regular rabbit ears and are called digital ones for marketing purposes. At least the salesman was honest…

Cable and satellite companies are private concerns and charge very different rates across the country. In rural areas they are generally cheaper than large urban areas for satellite service (cable service is a bit rare in rural areas). I pay less than half of what I paid in L.A. for cable service now in rural PA for satellite service. But I still pay over $50 per month (for the same services).

You know this article is only a few days old, but you could have updated it to state that there is no more vouchers…plus there has been so much information about this on TV, newspapers and the web that if you are cought in the dark; oh well. I hate to sound heartless, but people need to own up to their own responsobilities and get on the ball with this. I can see if they announced it during Christmas tv specials and changed in 2 months, but this has been out there for going on almost 2 years.

Doesn’t matter to me, i got rid of my outside antenna 6 years ago, I am a Directv customer, and i am glad they are getting rid of analog signals!! Because i am already 100% portable digital that is, Directv. Who cares for local crap!! I have everything i need on portable cable. So long analog television!! I have already got a Digital converter box, a Directv box that is just as big as a converter box and the other thing is just another piece of techno crap that i don’t need to hook up to my tv besides Directv

For something that was forced on the public this should have done for free. unlike computer you are not forced to have one, but for the analog digital stuff you have to. this was done so wrong.the point is you are forced to change at your on expense. I have cable but people should not have to pay for changes they don’t agree with.