DTV Transition Likely to be Delayed until June... So What?

[MrBoylan]

A bill backed by President Obama to delay the DTV (Digital Television) transition passed the Senate last night, making it likely that the the analog broadcasting cut-off will be pushed back from February until June. But if millions of Americans suddenly are unable to watch TV, is that necessarily a bad thing?

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[wulf]

maybe most of your normal viewers live in climates that never have severe weather, or all have cable and don't need to worry about the dtv transition - more likely they all have digital tvs and therefore laugh at the poor country hicks who don't. for those of us that use the information on our analog tvs with the rabbit ears to find out when the tornado is about to blow our manufactured home into the next county, and even with our converter boxes can't yet get a reliable signal because they forgot to tell us until recently that oh by the way you also need a new antenna because the digital signal isn't as easy to receive out in the country, but we don't have enough antennas available to sell you one because we didn't realize that you actually wanted to keep watching your poor pitiful tv....

losing tv reception can be a big problem for me and many others, and even if we tried to get the information we needed as soon as the converter boxes first became available and didn't work, nobody wanted to admit that there were problems that weren't caused by us being too lazy or stupid or poor to shell out big bucks to hire someone to put in an hdtv with a satelite dish with all the channels and trying to figure out for ourselves why the converter box didn't work with our old tv and our old rabbit ears - gee you must have hooked it up wrong. sure I read and talk to neighbors and walk the dog and all those good things, and none of those activities accurately indicate the location of the severe thunderstorm or the size of the hail in the approaching storm or how gusty the wind is becoming. just ask dorothy and toto if they really want to go back to oz or whether they are glad aunty em has tv now and that the digital conversion won't happen before aunty em gets a new antenna. and watch out for the flying monkeys!

[MrBoylan]

maybe most of your normal viewers live in climates that never have severe weather, or all have cable and don't need to worry about the dtv transition - more likely they all have digital tvs and therefore laugh at the poor country hicks who don't. for those of us that use the information on our analog tvs with the rabbit ears to find out when the tornado is about to blow our manufactured home into the next county, and even with our converter boxes can't yet get a reliable signal because they forgot to tell us until recently that oh by the way you also need a new antenna because the digital signal isn't as easy to receive out in the country, but we don't have enough antennas available to sell you one because we didn't realize that you actually wanted to keep watching your poor pitiful tv....

If you're really concerned about bad weather, shouldn't you own a Radio with the NOAA Weather warning feature on it instead of relying on TV? These are available from around $20 and up and some models even turn themselves on when there is a severe weather condition in your area. These are the systems that *alert* the TV stations about weather problems. Why not bypass the middleman?

Also, the digital signals do not require a "new antenna." Actually they work quite well with very *OLD* antennas. Any antenna that can receive UHF and upper VHF frequencies is ideal to pick up the new digital transmissions. There is nothing special required in the design of an antenna to pick up digital signals.

Yes, if you have only a pair of "rabbit ears" or similar VHF-only antenna, then you will most likely have problems receiving digital signals because they're on a different frequency, but a simple roof-mounted UHF antenna which costs less than $40 at Radio Shack (or online via a number of sources such as Amazon.com or Solidsignal.com) can give you exceptional HDTV reception without any fancy dish or monthly fees. Here's a great antenna for under $40.

There are plenty of articles written on the subject over the past 10 years. Here's one I wrote four months ago:

• How to get your HDTV for Free

losing tv reception can be a big problem for me and many others, and even if we tried to get the information we needed as soon as the converter boxes first became available and didn't work, nobody wanted to admit that there were problems that weren't caused by us being too lazy or stupid or poor to shell out big bucks to hire someone to put in an hdtv with a satelite dish with all the channels and trying to figure out for ourselves why the converter box didn't work with our old tv and our old rabbit ears - gee you must have hooked it up wrong. sure I read and talk to neighbors and walk the dog and all those good things, and none of those activities accurately indicate the location of the severe thunderstorm or the size of the hail in the approaching storm or how gusty the wind is becoming. just ask dorothy and toto if they really want to go back to oz or whether they are glad aunty em has tv now and that the digital conversion won't happen before aunty em gets a new antenna. and watch out for the flying monkeys!

I admit I got a chuckle out of that, but seriously... TV is for entertainment and (maybe) educational purposes. Using it to decide when to batten down the hatches is probably not your best bet - and certainly not your only option. Check out the NOAA Weather radios. I believe they have over 1000 transmitters now and are pretty well saturated all over the country.

And get yourself a cheap UHF roof antenna (you know, the ones people were throwing out 20 years ago when they got cable?), point it toward your nearest transmitter (which you can find via sites like TVfool.com and antennaweb.org) and you will still be able to get your TV working in time for the original February cut-off date.

I have one on my roof. Works like a champ.

Regards,

-Chris