In 79 days, I will no longer be able to watch tv. I live in a rural area. There is no cable tv. Satellite is way beyond what I can afford as a retired person, on a fixed income. I got my $40 coupons and my converter boxes. All I get is One PBS channel. On analog, I can get 7 channels. I quit using that converter for now. February
2009 will be a very sad time. No news, no weather reports, no sitcoms, no movies, no talk shows, no soaps, just Barney and the Teletubbies.......Goodbye tv.
snipped-for-privacy@invalid.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Buh-bye.
snipped-for-privacy@invalid.com wrote in news:45f9j4teh21qp943t2muq4od7ak4okk4t9@
4ax.com:
The channels you get on analog now probably are not broadcasting digital yet.
I thought I read that there are exceptions to the digitl by 2/2009. You could call the stations of the ones you get now to verify if they are broadcasting digital now or will they be in 2/2009. Or check their web site.
Also, to see what is being broadcast digital now for your address go to
Exactly where do you live????
There's nothing on tv anyhow. Just the 87th rerun of Law & Order, as Nina Tottenberg put it.
However, if you live in a really rural area, far from the stations, there may be repeater transmitters that will still broadcast in analog. They are rarely mentioned, but I saw a list of them somewhere.
In addition, teh stations you can get may be broadcasting in digital now, but I read something that implied they are likely not to be doing so at full power. They'll increase their power on the big day. I wish I knew how much the increase would be.
I bought one converter, which I haven't connected, and a Philips DVDR with Hard Drive. I've had it for 6 months, just using the hard drive, and I just bought some blank DVD's Friday, just to have one if I need it4.
I too watched digital for a while, and then went back to analog. My big complaint about digital is it takes at least 5 seconds, it seems like more, to tune the station in. Are they all like that?
And I can't change to another channel until the first one tunes in. Are they all like that?
If I turn the dvdr on and it's set for channel 11.1 and I want 2.1, I have to wait until it tunes in to 11.1 before I can change stations. And channel surfing is going to be slow it will be impractical. And I know longer get the newspaper tv-guide. I use a website, but I don't want to go upstairs when I'm watching tv in the kitchen, or get out of bed when I'm watching tv in bed, just to see what is on the other station.
On Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:50:06 -0600, snipped-for-privacy@invalid.com wrote Re 79 days left before the end of TV.:
I also live in a rural area. We moved here 23 years ago from California and found that we could only receive two broadcast stations. The reception was so bad we decided it wasn't worth bothering with; so we just left the TV off.
We turned to books and reading and haven't missed the TV in all this time. Now we get movies from Netflix, news and weather from the Internet and everything else from the library. We raised two children without TV and IMO they are better people for it.
Try using your mind instead. Or, if you can't do that then move to a city. We don't need mindless cry babies in rural areas. We have enough problems just getting a dial-tone on the phone.
Do you know they are broadcasting in digital yet, call the stations. Do you have a good outside antenna. CR reviewed digital boxes, the ones at stores have the worst picture only online can you get the better ones and prices are the same, I dont know if they affect reception.
Antenna aiming is more critical with digital or at least different, I found my digital sweet spot quite a few degrees from the analog one. My experience is the opposite, my analog sucked, digital gives me a much better signal, and I'm in a fringe area. I'd spent so much trying to get the analog signal (big antenna, rotor, amplifier) that digital rolls right in.
.com:
call congress and COMPLAIN!
We have Satellite tv but my friends who watch just regular tv all report reception is poor.
the analog channels that were noisey, ghosty or snowey, arent viewable most of the time on digital.
in the carolinas a early stop of analog resulted in viewership decline of 20%
bad program, poorly implemented, a real congressional special:(
all it was about? $$$ to make the federal budget look better, without regard to american people.
the 40 buck boxes arent very good, and often require a outdoor antenna with rotor, which none of my friends want to deal with.
call your supposed congressional representives and complain loudly, and while you at it demand unbundling of cable and sat channels, so everyone can buy ala carte just the channels they want
Free-To-Air Satellite TV...
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Don't be all that concerned. You may find that you don't miss it. I've quit watching TV for the most part and find that I have more important things to do.
As long as you can get a couple of good newspapers, communicate with folks via E-mail, and visit frequently with friends, you should be happy. These newsgroups can afford an interesting passtime as well.
TV (radio too for the most part) is just trash with all variety of trashy people jabbering away at you. Get it out of your life if you can; you'll be a better person ---- yes, you will.
McDave =================================================================
so the folks who dont want a TV antenna with rotor on their home wouldnt mind a 3 foot diameter dish with equatorial mount in their yard, and still no local channels?
You're getting four more analog and one more digital than am getting here.
Only hope I see is _IF_ (the proverbial "big if") the stations are not yet broadcasting digital in full power yet as someone else suggested. There was another thread a month ago or so where somebody posted a url to the FCC website that has current station power. I'll try to go look and repost it; a search on google group may find it sooner.
Only thing I'll really miss which is important here in High Plains is the local weather radar/live forecast/warning information. (And yes, we've had the discussion before, what's local to the relay transmitters is _NOT_ what is shown on the city stations for local weather/news segments so satellite is not the solution.)
As someone else noted, it does suck, at least so far. I have no idea on what the underlying motive(s) were/are really, certainly I could care less about much of the touted reasons. I've been unable to ascertain from the stations to date what their plans for signal strength of the pertinent transmitters are--their web sites are uninformative about real problems (as are all psa's and the ludicrous PBS "special" w/ Norm and buddies "solving" everybody's problems in some residential 'burb) and at least so far, e-mails have been ignored. Eventually I'll pick up the phone and call and see if there's any sentient life form available.
Anyway, don't give up complete hope; if you're close enough to an urban area to have 7 OTA stations, I'm pretty sure you'll have sufficient signal for most of them although it may take a better antenna and tuning.
Re: the comment on the CR report on the converter boxes -- afaict by reading the reports, the only thing "better" boxes did was slightly less drop out if one is after the absolute perfection in picture quality and some features on programming, menus, etc. I saw no mention of SNR, signal strength sensitivity, etc., etc., etc., that would have any bearing on or any help in choosing one over another for marginal reception areas--I sincerely doubt they were tested for such.
--
Find a hobby. Some study showed that people who spend less time in front of the tube (or panel) are happier and healthier. Programming went down the tubes years ago and the news is all sensationalized anyway.
"Eric in North TX" wrote
Same here. We got a box just on a whim as we have a 3rd older style TV used just for PS2 and other such ilk games. Got a box for almost nothing after the coupon as we'd heard there were local stations not on our cable TV and it was true. The reception isnt as good as the cable but it's not bad and we get 7 stations of which we have 3 we find useful (of the 4 we arent interested in, 2 seem mostly religion based and 2 we get via cable already).
BTW, I do not live in a rural area. I live in what is called 'Hampton Roads' (think Norfolk VA area and the 5 cities combined are called Hampton Roads).
Be sure to try the convertor box again after the cutover date, say in March as many of the stations will be transmitting digital at considerably higher power than they are currently using temporary transmitters/antennas.
Get one of those gizmos from the salesman on Second Hand Lions.
Steve
How well does this stuff actually work above?
Do YOU use it?
snipped-for-privacy@invalid.com wrote in news:45f9j4teh21qp943t2muq4od7ak4okk4t9@
4ax.com:
I quit watching TV in 1991 or 92 when my cable price doubled. After a momnth or so I didn't miss it a bit.
I get my news from NPR and entertainment from XM satellite, CDs, books, magazines, sudoku, crosswords, etc.
Ken
I broke down and bought a new digital tv. Reception, even on the analog channels, is much better than it was with my old set. I'm even getting analog channels I never got with my previous tv. Dunno if you can manage it on your budget, but smaller digital sets now can be had for as little as a couple hundred dollars.
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