As I See It

You went out to your favorite electronics supplier and purchase a digital television converter.  Now what?  Plug it in and see what happens.

These boxes are not very complicated. Antenna in, television out, power and a remote.  So give it a spin and be ready for the shock of your life!

Be sure to RTFM.  Read The Freakin’ Manual.  Do what it tells you to set it up.  It will find any strong digital signal and display it for you.  This process can take a few minutes, so go get a drink or a snack.

When you start checking out the new digital channels, you will be in for a few discoveries.  The best is that stations now can transmit multiple signals.  In Vermont the public broadcasting station offers me channels 41.1, 41.2, 41.3 and 41.4.  The .1 channel is the full HD (high definition 16:9) channel, while the others are SD (standard definition 4:3).  In New Hampshire I get only 2 channels, one HD and the other SD.  On an older set, the HD signal can be received by your choice of letterbox with full width of the transmitted picture or cropped where you have only the center portion of the 4:3 SD signal.

The biggest issue I fear you will find is a large number of missing channels that you normally receive.  You have just experienced the cliff effect of the digital signals.  They are either 100% great signal, or nuttin’ honey.  Sadly, most people will lose one or more channels.

Now is the time for showing your outrage to your congressional representatives, the station you have lost, and the FCC.  Demand answers as to what they are going to do.  You won’t get a good answer.  The answer is, add cable or satellite.  Spend money will be the answers. Yours, not theirs.

Don’t get me wrong.  This digital conversion is the right thing to do.  It is just very ill prepared, not thought out, and is headed for disaster for a lot of citizens.  Unfortunately, you are either going to miss out on channels and programs, or you need to sucumb to cable or satellite.

One final word. The converter you just installed will block your analog signals you know have. So, after you are done testing, disconnect the antenna from the converter and reconnect it to your television.  There are a few units that will allow the analog signals to pass when you turn the power off on the converter.

—-David S. Calef

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