This was my front yard yesterday after a day and a night of rain. Now, on to the boring parts:I can't help but be amused by some of the conversations I've read/heard about the upcoming switch to digital TV. The conspiracy theorists are the most amusing. Some say it's the cable companies doing it so that they can raise rates. Others say the government is doing it so they can control what we watch. Others say it's so the government can send subliminal messages through the TV.
What really amuses me is how many people are having trouble getting their converter box hooked up. One lady complained that she had to buy $80 worth of extra cables, adapters, and other types of converters to get her TV hooked up. Really? I just unhooked my co-ax from the antenna in connector on the back of my DVD player and hooked it into the back of my converter box. Then I hooked the converter box into the back of the DVD player. Very simple, very easy.
Someone else was complaining about all the extra stuff she needed to get her Playstation, DVD player, etc. connected to her antenna. What? Why does she need to connect that to her antenna? Shouldn't she be hooking it to her TV instead? Or her DVD player? That's where all our extra stuff is hooked. The antenna has nothing to do with it.
Yet another person said that even with her coupons, she had to pay $50 for her two converter boxes, because they charged her tax on the $50 price instead of the $10 price. I'm not sure where she bought them, but my total out of pocket expense was just under $11.
Today at work, some of us were talking about it, too. I walked up on a conversation between Roger and Rene'. Rene' was talking about getting her converter boxes hooked up because her DirecTV package doesn't have local stations. Roger was telling her about how many more stations he's getting in digital. Rene' was like "Really?" I jumped in and said that I was also getting a lot more stations. She said that if that were so, she was going to drop her DirecTV and just go with antenna TV.
The conversation went on from there. Rene' eventually walked off and Roger and I continued talking. I was saying how I'd managed to find all my stations, plus a few more. The only one I'm not getting in really well is NBC. He said he gets NBC in really well at his house. Yeah, but he lives about 10 miles closer to the transmitter than I do. I said that maybe I would get a stronger antenna than my rabbit ears. Roger said just to wait until after the deadline and see what I have before buying something else. He'd heard that once they turn off their analog broadcast, they will strengthen their digital broadcast. I replied that I wasn't going to do anything just yet, and that I hoped that they would do this. The conversation then moved on to Tax refunds...
My digital is all ready to go. I've managed, by tinkering with my antenna, to find all of my stations, including the ones I was having trouble finding before. I wonder sometimes if they were just not turned on yet. As I said, the only one that is not coming in really well is NBC. I think that's because I'm right on the edge of their transmission range. I'm hoping Roger is right and they do boost their signal strength after the switch. If not, I'll just get an outdoor antenna.
Now the latest is that the government wants to push the deadline back to June. I have to ask why? It's not like it's sneaking up on anybody. I mean, this has been in the works for some 5 years now. I personally have known about the switch for over a year. So why should they want to delay the switch because some people wait until the last minute? If you haven't gotten your converter box by now, whose fault is that? If you didn't get your coupon, whose fault is that? I say they should switch on the date they set over a year ago and be done with it. But that's just me.
Well, that's the end of my ramblings about digital TV.
Speaking of TV, this ended up being my favorite Super Bowl commercial.
3 comments:
but...you had to know that this switch was going to throw a wrench in the gearbox of the ones that only have one or at the most two gears turning anyway. Sounds like you're doing JUST fine with THE BIG SWITCH. Those conspiracy theorists shouldn't be worried about this...they'll be dying by the droves anyway from breathing all the poisonous gases being dropped on them from the contrails in the sky. Check out Doc at They Rode On, for his little take on that whole mess.
I'm with you Becky, as usual; anyone who has turned on a TV within the past 2 years knows this is coming. I'm also copying down your hookup instructions since we have the same kind and mine is still in the box. My TV it's going on has a dial channel changer & no remote (remember those)...will the converter box still work ya think?
Piper, that probably comes from having 11 years with only two channels. I learned that there is a lot more to life than TV.
Patch, here is a little Tutorial put out by one of the local stations. It also shows you how to tune a converter box, though ours won't be exactly the same. It's still the same principle. Now I would think that the dial TV would still work, but to be honest, I don't really know. I guess just try it and see.
Post a Comment