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  #16  
Old 05-01-2013, 05:46 PM
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StarMover StarMover is offline
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Location: North Alabama
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No, I am a speaker guru, but a vintage TV nubie so please enlighten me!
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  #17  
Old 05-01-2013, 08:02 PM
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Electronic M Electronic M is offline
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I'm surprised you've never heard of them. It was being crowed about all over radio and TV a few years back during the DTV transition.
It is sort of like a cable box for over the air(only once you buy it you don't have to keep paying to use it). They stopped nearly all transmitting of TV signals in a format that set can naturally receive a few years back...Soon there will be nothing transmitted in a format that set can tune on it's own. Basically all over the air TV signals are digitally encoded nowadays so that HD and or multichannel SD broadcasts can fit in the bandwidth of an old analog SD channel only problem is that older sets were not designed to decode this signal.
A converter box basically tunes the digital signal, decodes it and converts it into the type of signal your set uses. You do have to connect the RF out of the converter box to your set for it to work though.
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  #18  
Old 05-01-2013, 09:12 PM
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StarMover StarMover is offline
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Thanks Tom! I'll keep my eyes open for one.
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  #19  
Old 05-02-2013, 01:29 AM
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radiotvnut radiotvnut is offline
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Don't buy an APEX box because they are total garbage. Look for a digitalstream, Insignia, Zenith, or Channel Master. The Funai-built Magnavox/Philco boxes seem to hold up; but, are not quite as sensitive as the other brands. I think radio shack still sells DTV converter boxes and they are available on ebay.

The box will have an antenna input coax connector and an output coax connector. Connect an antenna to the input and connect the output of the box to the VHF antenna terminals of the TV. For this set, you'll likely need a 75 ohm to 300 ohm matching transformer (balun) in order to connect the coax cable to this TV (older TV's usually don't have 75 ohm coax inputs, they only have two screws for VHF and two screws for UHF for connecting 300 ohm twin-lead). Once connected, turn everything on and set the TV channel selector to the output channel of the DTV converter (usually channel 3 or 4). Then, follow the directions that came with the DTV converter as far as auto programming the channels. You may have to adjust the fine tuning knob on the TV for the best picture. This knob is the large outer knob around the main channel selector knob.

With OTA digital broadcasting, the signal will either be "all or nothing". That means that you'll either get a crystal clear picture or one that is unwatchable. In the analog days, a weak signal would cause a bad picture; but, it was still usable. I was trying to watch the news down in the shop a little earlier; and, despite it being a strong station and that I had a good antenna connected to the DTV box, the sound and picture kept cutting in and out. I almost blew a gasket and threw it all out in the backyard.
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  #20  
Old 05-08-2013, 10:27 AM
Rod Beauvex Rod Beauvex is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2005
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As an aside, there are also frequency converters for analog cable, where they input the analog cable signals, for those carriers still broadcasting it, and outputs 2-13 on VHF, and 14-83 on UHF. Great for basic cable on on older sets that can't tune cable frequencies. They're kind of hard to find these days though, both the converters and cable companies still providing analog basic cable.
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  #21  
Old 05-08-2013, 01:53 PM
AVeturri AVeturri is offline
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That's a really cool G.E.
Did you know that the SF chassis was used in the monitor for the vintage video game, Computer Space?
.Nostalgic
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