Review: Zenith DTT901 DTV converter box

[Pete C.]

It's not the most user friendly, which is probably why it isn't linked from the consumer DTV pages:

Query on DT, STA, or other relevant fields. The ERP (Effective Radiated Power) field will tell you their transmission power. You'll see multiple entries for stations with different status fields like CP (construction permit), LIC, etc. Where you see ERPs of a few to tens of KW for a main channel (not LP or aux of some type), you can be pretty sure that value will go higher after the cutover.

[dpb]

...

Thanks; it appears all are so far at least, pretty low (highest was roughly 80kW) so one may hope they're not planning on simply ignoring the rest of the state (altho that's certainly a typical action of the KC/Topeka/Wichita bunch that the other 80-90% of the state (by area) doesn't matter).

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[Mike]

How about the blue light on it? That thing will light up a dark room, or it seems that way when I wake up in the middle of the night.

I am new to over-the-air TV having canceled our cable TV last summer. I'm using the Zenith and am more than happy with it. Of course, I watch about 10 minutes of TV a day, so I'm easy to please.

Mike

[Pete C.]

I would certainly expect any of the mainstream stations to get to the hundreds of KW at least and more likely to the MW level.

[dpb]

Pete C. wrote: ...

These are the translators for the SW region of the state from the Wichita base stations for the three major networks -- they're all there is other than a bare-budget PBS that have no idea what they've got the money to be able to do, if anything.

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[N8N]

Hmm....

I have the exact same boxes, purchased maybe a month or so ago. I just got 'em because I'm a cheap bastard and didn't see replacing all my ancient TVs with new ones, as pleasant as that would be. I would say that the picture is superior to either OTA analog (which is crappy in my area) or digital cable (I hooked one up downstairs on the old big screen to try to watch a football game OTA so I could get the whole picture rather than just 4:3) Also, the Zenith box will pull in stations that my (admittedly cheap) Viewsonic HDTV/monitor combo cannot. I also prefer the Zenith's on screen guide to the Viewsonic's, although for a cheap Craigslist buy it serves its purpose as a lightweight portable TV and a backup monitor. (my old monitor is a monstrous Samsung CRT that has probably a superior picture, but it certainly won't fit on a small desk and you can't carry it around tucked under one arm.)

I am digging the OTA digital HDTV though. I am considering installing a roof mount antenna so that I can get all the stations that I should be receiving.

nate

[N8N]

I was researching these online a while back and at the time it seemed that the Zenith was the best coupon eligible box available in stores BUT a repeated comment was that the included coax to go between the box and the TV was crrrrrrap. If you're using RCA cables to get your DTV signals into your TV that could certainly explain what you are seeing.

nate

[dpb]

Well, actually, when I was plugging it in for the first test I overlooked there was a cable in the box and used another instead. So, if it's that piece of cable, it would be a pretty strong coincidence.

As noted just earlier, I did a search of the FCC site for the particular stations and it appears that none are at the present broadcasting their digital signal at much of a power level at all. It appears that the links to signal "maps" at the popularized websites must be using license application limits rather than actuals on file w/ the FCC as they all indicated usable strengths. I've not gone back and done a detailed comparison of the data; perhaps the other sites are simply using the analog signal strength w/ the assumption of eventual digital matching that knowing that the bulk of the population is so near a transmitter it really doesn't make any difference, anyway, so why worry about the fraction of a percent to whom the real data might be of some use?

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[David Nebenzahl]

On 11/4/2008 10:18 AM Mike spake thus:

I take it you never turn yours off.

Yeah, that power indicator light is weird. Blue when on, red when off, both garish and bright. Who designed that? For my money, I'd rather see

*no* light when it's off.

[Mike]

Hey David -

Yes, I set my box to never turn off. Why? Well, I have 2 of these boxes, one of which is hooked to a Tivo and the Tivo instructions told me to set the box to always stay on (otherwise they shut off after a certain timeframe, which is odd to me). Anyway, I made the change to both boxes. For what it's worth, the Zenith works great with a Tivo box driving it.

Mike

[Keith S.]

[Mike O.]

When it's off, it's in "analog passthrough", so they probably intended it as blue for digital, red for analog. Of course in our area, there's only one low power, non-digital station that we can get anyway, and we didn't watch it before we had the converter box, so I pretty much don't use the analog passthrough much.

[dpb]

Pete C. wrote: ...

Well, I got the lift working again and had a nice day w/o too much wind one day last week so did the 'spearmint of direct coax from the antenna to the converter box.

Scan did manage to find one transmitter but signal so low didn't even register on the signal strength tuning indicator. Fiddling w/ antenna direction got one frame w/ quite a bit of drop out to register--following that, the big nothing. Since couldn't see what was happening from the antenna location and wife currently is hobbled w/ a knee so can't ferry messages easily, I may try taking a small set and the converter box up w/ me and see if can fine tune any, but seems little point at this time. Unless there's going to be significantly more signal strength than there is currently, it looks like OTA broadcasts are a thing of the past for us. Which probably means we'll be back to 50's as I'm thinking I'm not going to spend the $$$ they want for satellite. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens when it goes dark and try again then. Ain't gubmint "help" wunnerful??? :(

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