The last post was a video on Digital TV. Thought I'd do a post on my experience with DTV. Back in April I went online and applied for the coupons for converter boxes. About five weeks later I got two coupons that were like credit or ATM cards in the mail. I left one here and took one with me when I went to spend the summer UP on the tundra. I discovered that finding a converter box would not be easy. Not every place that sells electronics were selling them and the ones that were were sold out. After checking several places in person with no success, I phoned around and found a couple of places that had them in stock. At a Pamida store 50 miles away I got a converter box. There was one 10 miles closer, but it cost $20 more. After getting the converter, I hooked it up to my TV as the instructions said and hit channel search. After going through all the channels I got a message that said "no programs found". Next time I went to town I went to the library and got online. I checked the website for the local TV station that we call "With Luck U C TV". They had info on DTV and had a link to a site where I could find the exact compass heading to aim my antenna. Also found out they had been broadcasting in digital for the last four years. After checking to see that my antenna was pointing in the right direction, I hooked up the converter again with the same result. Next year the TV station will increase the power of their signal and add 150 feet to their transmitter tower. To make sure that the converter worked I brought it with me when I returned to the land of Kudzu and tried it. With the little rabbit ears on the little portable TV I was able to get a bunch of channels with the converter box. Of course being only a few miles from the transmitter vs 40 or so miles helps.
Next year when I go back UP on the tundra I will find out if I can get a signal then or maybe I will need a new UHF antenna and a signal amplifier. If that's the case I may have to get along without TV and play tapes in the VCR or listen to the radio and read.
This is good to know. No I'll not be heading up t the Tundra, but the kids who live in the front house don't have digital TVs so the coupon I got (before I got a digital TV and a comcast hookup) will work for one of them.
ReplyDeletewe've had wind up to 50 miles an hour and something went 'blink' with our crappy cable and it went out ....so I've been listening to music and reading...life is good.
ReplyDeleteI never turn on a TV except to watch a movie on a VCR or DVD. And if I went to the Tundra I wouldn't take any of that stuff with me, not even a computer.
ReplyDeleteThe cable company here broadcasts in both bands so no converter is needed. I read a while back how to make your own antenna for the new waves, but I have no need to do that.
I got a kick out of how those commercials hawking the converter boxes didn't say if you had cable you didn't need the box, until a couple months ago.
ReplyDeleteTV reception in the Tundra is piped in on the same channel as sunshine!:)