RIP Rabbit Ears For Your TV

[Soulstation1]

TV goes basically all digital tomorrow

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Most digital broadcasts are in the UHF band. Therefore, with a set-top digital tuner (free from Uncle Sam), "rabbit ears" should be all you'll need. There will be less need for the extendable antennae from here out.

I installed a gov'ment approved free digital STB for a friend of my Mom's and she got way more channels than before and every one came in perfectly. She was ecstatic.

[Chuck Nessa]

Many small wattage stations are still analog. Most contain religious programs and don't fall under the digital rules because of their size.

[Quincy]

I've been digital since January with the converter box. The same old rabbit ears (V & O-ring) that I used when the signals were analog work great.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Many small wattage stations are still analog. Most contain religious programs and don't fall under the digital rules because of their size.

I don't know how long they'll be grandfathered in - the government sold the frequency spectrum to cell phone providers for 4G network transmissions. Once those cell phone towers start transmitting, any TV broadcasts will mess with them.

Later,

Kevin

[Drew Peacock]

I live in an area where we had excellent analog reception. We kept an old ratty TV outside to watch on the patio. About a month or so ago I hooked up the digital converter box to see how good the reception was. I was very disappointed. The TV would freeze and the signal would be searching. I went back to analog in less than an hour.

My hope is that they were broadcasting at a lower power output and would be increasing the signal strength by today. I'll let you know how good it is on Monday. Also, I didn't have as many channels but I know most were not yet sending out a digital signal.

[Quincy]

I live in an area where we had excellent analog reception. We kept an old ratty TV outside to watch on the patio. About a month or so ago I hooked up the digital converter box to see how good the reception was. I was very disappointed. The TV would freeze and the signal would be searching. I went back to analog in less than an hour.

My hope is that they were broadcasting at a lower power output and would be increasing the signal strength by today. I'll let you know how good it is on Monday. Also, I didn't have as many channels but I know most were not yet sending out a digital signal.

TVfool.com can help in showing signal strength and map where the TV stations are broadcasting from. (I used to get this info from a different site but have lost the bookmark, though the info appears to be the same.) Generally speaking if you have a little bit of snow in the analog picture or occasionally fuzz in the sound then the digital equivalent of that station may not come in as digital tends to be "all or nothing." You may also have to move the rabbit ears around for certain stations too. To me the biggest annoyance is when the reception is such that the picture is fine but there are audio dropouts. For us this happens the most with NBC, so it can make it seem like words are being bleeped out of the Thursday night comedies.

Edited June 12, 2009 by Quincy

[Soulstation1]

Damn

No Price Is Right this morning

[Chuck Nessa]

Damn

No Price Is Right this morning

Life can turn to shit in a minute.

[Soulstation1]

i need the PIR models to start my day off

if not I am grumpy

[GA Russell]

You won't believe this. I have had the converter box for over a year, and everything has worked fine.

Tonight, the high-number ex-UHF stations and their digital sub-stations came in fine, so if I wanted to I could watch The Rockford Files, but the NBC, CBS and ABC stations were off the air, at least as far as my TV was concerned.

This meant, of course, that I was unable to watch the Penguins win the Stanley Cup. It was the only hockey game all year I wanted to watch!

Too bad the NHL radio broadcasts are not on the internet.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

lol @ GA russell: my facebook update yesterday:

got the digital-TV box: so great, now I can watch the Rockford Files-- really worth putting America thru a 7 billion dollar infrastructure change!

[Quincy]

You won't believe this. I have had the converter box for over a year, and everything has worked fine.

Tonight, the high-number ex-UHF stations and their digital sub-stations came in fine, so if I wanted to I could watch The Rockford Files, but the NBC, CBS and ABC stations were off the air, at least as far as my TV was concerned.

You need to rescan the stations*. Check your remote for "menu" or something like that. Whatever you did when you first bought the box. Yeah, it was rotten timing if you were a hockey fan given that rescanning would be required in most cities for some station or another.

*rereading your post perhaps it might now be antenna related if the above doesn't work.

Edited June 13, 2009 by Quincy

[GA Russell]

Thanks Quincy. I got them all back except the CBS station, which has the best signal of them all. It is after 1:30 am here, so maybe they are off the air doing something. I'll try again tomorrow.

[Serioza]

TV goes basically all digital tomorrow

oh ....huh.... this is nice

there was idea to implant reciever directly into brain

Edited June 13, 2009 by Serioza

[GA Russell]

Thanks Quincy. I got them all back except the CBS station, which has the best signal of them all. It is after 1:30 am here, so maybe they are off the air doing something. I'll try again tomorrow.

Well, for reasons unknown I have the CBS affiliate today. So all is well. As I have stated elsewhere, I'm not a television watcher, and I could have gotten along without CBS. As it is, I get along without PBS, whose station is too far way to pick up here. However, I can imagine that there might be an NFL game in the fall on CBS that I might want to watch.

As it happens, today is the 24 Hours of LeMans, and I've spent the day listening to it on the internet at radiolemans.com, and in the car on Sirius. Given the choice of missing one or the other, I would rather miss the Stanley Cup finals than LeMans, so I'm happy.

[papsrus]

I've had to reboot my DTV receiver three times tonight in the span of about an hour. I think I'm ready for rabbit ears.

[Drew Peacock]

We did the rescan yesterday and our first impression is positive. The low signal strength that we experienced a month or so ago seems to be gone. The only times when the signal wavered was when a set of unplugged Christmas lights were near the antenna. In fact any type of moving metal close the antenna created pixelation. The sound is a bit funky. There is a buzz when set to high volumes and we need to turn it up much further to get the same decibel level.

There are some good positives. We went from about 8 channels - 4 which were crap infomercials or SAP, to 16 where we have no infomercials and only one SAP. The new stations are mostly public broadcasting but we also have a few that play old sitcoms and movies. The wife is thrilled. I'll be happy when NESN and ESPN are available.

Edited June 14, 2009 by Drew Peacock

[Tom 1960]

To be honest, I don't notice a bit of difference in signal quality before and after. I already own a high def TV and hi def box from the cable company. The cable company(Time Warner) has an offering of channels CBS, NBC, ABC, ESPN, CNN, and other usual suspects, set aside in the 700 - 800 channel range and those channels are incredibly clear. Watching a ball game is absolutely unbelievable on these channels.