11 months actually. I suppose by now everyone has adjusted to having no over-the-air analog TV reception. And has either gotten converter boxes or new TV sets. Or given up TV or got cable or satellite.

Haven't heard of any analog pirate TV stations popping up in inner city areas. Those areas do seem to get a lot of pirate FM radio stations though.

I get a couple religious channel, one in english one in spainish. UHF and weak.

Got four Digital Stream converter boxes. Unless the antenna (Channel Master 4251 with 7777 amplifier) is aimed fairly good, it will still pixil once and a while. DXing can be a PITA as the boxes need a fair amount of signal to make them work. 100 miles is now the usual maximum where before the transition, 150+ was fair game for the CM4251!
Better pictures!
better sound!
more channels!
Swamp land for sale!
And just think! The FCC wants to take MORE bandwidth away:thumbsdn:

I check occasionally, but never seen any pirate stations. But I do still get Candian ch 9 up here.

I'm pretty well set up now with a converter box on ch5, and a dvd player on ch3 downstairs. Upstairs I have a dvd/vhs player hooked to one of those agile modulators which will give me chs 1-25.

Its Horrible!!

An outside directional antenna is a must.
The boxes ground loop and interfere with each other if they are connected to the same antenna.
Weather, reflections, cars and aircraft effect the signal and cause trash.
I dont like how almost everything is wide screen.
Small portables have been mostly rendered useless.

I adjusted by activating a direct tv receiver someone gave me.

I guess everyone in my area had adjusted. I don't hear much complaining, except the rare occasion where someone can't get good reception.

We had one low powered religious station on UHF; but, they went dark in February, due to lack of funds and the fact that not too many people were watching their OTA analog transmission. They are still on cable and satellite.

I have regular basic non-digital cable here; but, I have several DTV converter boxes for use with my old TV's and to have in case we end up dumping cable. The only set in the house that has a built in DTV tuner is my Mother's 26" Samsung flat screen.

I have one channel master box and two digitalstream boxes. Packed in the closet are a Magnavox (Funai) box and an Apex box. The Apex was free and I gave a guy $15 for the Magnavox once he discovered that he couldn't get crap out in the country using rabbit ears. The DS and CM boxes were bought new by me. I still would like to find a Zenith/Insignia box.

We have analog TV. We have analog FM. It's good to be Canadian!

We have analog TV. We have analog FM. It's good to be Canadian!

I supose you will soon be going digital. It seems to be hapening all over the world. Even so, I bet it's still good to be Canadian. The US is getting nuts anymore.

"Small portables have been mostly rendered useless. "

I guess that I am lucky... we still have 2 useful (low power) analog stations, so my small collection of Sony Watchman sets still can be used around the area when needed. When analog totally disappears, I will rig up a modulator to feed these sets in the house.
DTV portables have improved in sensitivity also... In every room of my house (12 miles from the transmitter sites) I can usually tune the major channels on this little 3.5 inch set, using the built-in monopole antenna. They are still worthless in a moving vehicle, however.

jr

I pulled out my old trusty 3.5" Panasonic B&W portable from '78, dug around and found a 3.5mm to "F" connector adapter, and connected it to cable and it works just fine. I could also use it with a DTV converter; but, I think the days of me loading it with batteries and taking it outside to watch are over. That little TV came in handy many times when we had power outages and bad weather. At least it has a fairly sensitive AM/FM radio that can still be used as a portable - that is until they decide to do away with that, too!

A strange thing happened here. For a while analog was completely dark. Now, after watching DTV over one of my analog sets using a converter, if I turn the converter off, a weak analog signal appears. I guess a low power analog station has turned on. I have not had a chance to investigate yet.

DTV works as it always has for me-ok in good weather, but garbage in poor weather. The most sorry thing for me is that this spectrum was essentially given the phone companies so they could charge us outrageous rent on it. Not the best use of a public asset in my opinion. I am completly against any more of this(even though I know the FCC is talking about it).

As to radio, we still have analog radio in the US with no plans to change as far as I know. The issue for me, at least with AM, is the programming is horrible(This is also true of most TV programming).

I have read that the UK is planning to go to only digital radio, but is having second thoughts-to many analog sets in use, especially in vehicles.

The most sorry thing for me is that this spectrum was essentially given the phone companies so they could charge us outrageous rent on it.

I have read that the UK is planning to go to only digital radio, but is having second thoughts-to many analog sets in use, especially in vehicles.

Hardly 'given' the fcc and gov made off nicely from the sale of this spectrum.

I cant see a point to digital only radio except the lower transmit power. Think about how much coverage would be lost with digital only radio. What a failure that would be

This is interesting that this was brought up as I was just going to mention something similar. I just wired up my first TV in the new house yesterday. Once I move in to the new house for good, I'll be much closer to the city and I'll be about 15 miles west of downtown. I was amazed that I could pick up 7 low powered analog stations when surfing the channels. In my Parents home in Batavia, which is about 40 miles west, these stations are virtually impossible to pick up. In fact, yesterday evening I made a video featuring a 1972 Zenith color TV wired up to the old beatup but working outdoor antenna. I was going to upload the video to youtube this evening.

The FCC(and US taxpayers) would have made off even nicer(and it is what should have happened) if they would charge the phone companies a yearly or bi-yearly rent for the spectrum. This is what the phone companies do to their customers and and it would guarantee that the US government(us taxpayers) would get the best return over time.

As to radio, there is not enough spectrum to gain for all the trouble. There are 100 million + cars with analog radios in them on US roads now. Do we make all these radios obsolete to gain some piddly bandwidth? There is HD(nicknamed Huge Disaster) radio now. I have one and cannot tell the difference between it's sound and FM radio sound. (I do not have an Ipod and do not need the Itune tagging).

You lucky Dog! I wish I could get 7 analog low power stations. I can only barely get one or two depending on the weather. I might have to check out houses by you and get rid of this one:D

here in central ohio we get 5.3 religious,1 spanish,i home shopping network.i do watch gomer pyle and perry mason on channel 23.other than that,i watch direct tv.my sony lcd has just an antenna,(not paying 300 dollars for another box).digital tv is the worst.cant breath heavy.the picture freezes and goes out.sitting here remembering how great analog was.at it may drift but was still watchable and entertaining.the best system in the world and they had to do away with it.

I'm about 2 miles west of downtown and get those 7 stations too. There's one on channel 6 that's very handy when working on pre-UHF sets :yes: It's fun to use those old UHF -> VHF converters too.

I remember the days of bringing home a TV and sticking a piece of wire in the center of the coax connector for a quick test. Can't do that anymore. Now, a "quick test" involves either dragging the TV to where there's a cable outlet or connecting one of my DTV converters to the TV.

Ah yes, the good old days of testing a TV by just touching your finger on the antenna screws and there you had a quick check to see if the TV was working OK or not.

Yes, channel 6 is very handy. I made mention of it in my video too. Its WLFM, 87.7 mhz and they play basically slide show images of Chicago while the radio station plays its smooth jazz format. I should be able to pull that one in nice and clear once I upgrade my antenna at the new place. I can pick it up fairly well in Batavia with the outdoor amplified antenna. Being much closer in now, I should hopefully get those stations with little to no snow. Then again, I'll take a snowy picture over the pixelated and sound drop out crap anyday.

What is general opionion in the U.S.A. about the closing of analogical televison?

I supposedly have four LP stations in my area, but can only pick up two lately. One is a shopping channel and the other (WBXN-CA) simulcasts the UPN affiliate (WUPL).

I don't really notice anymore, as I have converter boxes on my vintage sets and satellite on the daily sets. I was all worried about how I would still have fun with my collection of Sony mini-color TVs, but then I realized I never turn them on... They just sit in the display case. I do power them up now & then to work out the electrolytics, but I can do that with no signal.

Charles

Hey Charles, just get yourself an agile modulator and hook it up to some rabbit ears or whatever you want really. Then your little Sony's will be back in action. I have a small collection of Sony portables too and couldn't stand not being able to use them. I can take a walk around the block with one and have great reception, ok signal at two blocks:D
If only my neighbors knew they had free pay channels on analog, I'm not telling them:). I wonder if anyone around me has discovered my signals?

Analog OTA television has all but disappeared here in northeastern Ohio, with the exception of a few low-power stations. The switch has also rendered the auto-clock-set function of my Panasonic PV4022 VCR inoperative, though I can't see why it wouldn't work with either type of signal as long as the extended data signal is still there. I get two PBS stations on my cable, but only one of them had the XDS signal; now, with everything digital, that signal is apparently gone. Is there any reason why a DTV signal could not carry the XDS signal as well? Closed captioning still works although, with my cable service, the DTV signal is converted to analog NTSC; therefore I do not use or need a cable box. I have two analog CRT televisions here and do not want to spend upwards of $50 per month for digital cable.

BTW, I don't know where sampson159 in Columbus (in a post I read this morning) got his information regarding converter boxes selling for $300. I have yet to see any DTV boxes priced anywhere near that much; in fact, most boxes can be had (if they are still being sold) for well under $100--and I mean well under. Just after the DTV transition I was seeing, in newspaper ad flyers, ATSC->NTSC converter boxes selling for dirt-cheap prices in pharmacies, department stores, etc., and even in analog's last days the boxes had very affordable price tags as well. After all, if DTV converter boxes sold for anywhere near $300 at any time before or after the transition, a lot of people with older analog sets would be without TV today.

There are supposed to be 5 or so low-power analog stations within pretty close distance, but I can only pick up one of them at my house, and it's fairly weak. I've found it to be a good "fringe-reception" test for TVs though. :)

One thing-- it's a "home shopping channel"-type station. Seems like half the time I tune it in, they're selling a TV of some sort. While it's obviously coincidental, it's almost as if they're saying, "Hey! You there! You with the rabbit ears on your old analog TV! Don't you think it's about time you bought a new digital TV, for crying out loud?" :)

By the way, I was at a hamfest a few weeks ago, and happened to get in a brief conversation with someone who turned out to be an enginneer one of the local regular TV stations. I don't recall how the topic came up, but I asked if anyone still actually calls the station to complain about not being able to pick up their station on their analog sets. He replied that the station actually *does* still get calls like that from time to time! Apparently, even after a year, there are still people out there who are confused by or uninformed about the changeover...

Yes, channel 6 is very handy. I made mention of it in my video too. Its WLFM, 87.7 mhz and they play basically slide show images of Chicago while the radio station plays its smooth jazz format. I should be able to pull that one in nice and clear once I upgrade my antenna at the new place. I can pick it up fairly well in Batavia with the outdoor amplified antenna. Being much closer in now, I should hopefully get those stations with little to no snow. Then again, I'll take a snowy picture over the pixelated and sound drop out crap anyday.

Three questions, Doug. Can you get WLFM using a standard NTSC analog TV on channel 6 without an ATSC->NTSC converter box (i. e. with an antenna connected directly to the set), and is the audio signal receivable on standard FM sets? I would think it would be, since all FM radios can tune slightly above and below the FM band. Third, how much closer are you to the city's TV transmitters now than you were when you were in Batavia? Is your new location within a few miles of downtown, and how good is your DTV reception? Just curious.

BTW, I went the other way (from a strong-signal area to a much weaker television reception area) 10.5 years ago when I moved from an eastern Cleveland suburb to my present location. My apartment is located in a village which is some 35 miles northeast of Cleveland and about ten miles further southwest, give or take, of the city's television transmitters, which are located in the southwestern Cleveland suburb of Parma, Ohio. My OTA TV reception here in analog was very poor on most VHF stations (one, the NBC affiliate on channel 3, didn't get here at all on an antenna) and all but one UHF station, that station being the CBS affiliate on channel 19. I have had cable since I've been here for that reason, as does almost everyone else in the village; those who do not have cable have either Dish Network or DirecTV satellite service. The few outdoor TV antennas remaining on rooftops of homes here are, for the most part, falling apart, having been replaced by cable; those that are still standing and in good shape have very likely been abandoned in favor of cable or satellite since the DTV transition.

The one place in the village that still uses an outdoor antenna for TV, as far as I know at this time, is the local bowling alley, just down the street from my apartment. They have a rather large, high-power fringe-area TV antenna on a rotor, mounted on a short mast (I don't know how short) on one of the building's chimneys. I've never been inside the building, so I don't know if they still have an analog TV or if they upgraded to HDTV. I'm almost sure the reason their TV antenna is so large and on a rotor is so that they can receive sports events from out of town; my area is not far from Erie and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Youngstown and Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, so with a high-power antenna in the clear on a rotor it is indeed possible to get locally blacked-out sports from other markets. I regularly receive FM stations from those cities in the spring through early fall every year using just the internal antennas on all my radios, including my vintage sets.

the converter box in question,jeff,is for direct tv.not a d tv box.they sell for 29.99 here in columbus ohio.direct tv charges for equipment if you want to add another set.i have 5 sets with them already.you would think that they would give someone a break if you want to add another.never been late,always on time and sometimes a little early and yet no break.at least in 3 years it has never broke down....yet!

Hey Ron, watch out if a box does break. They will then renew your contract if you get a replacement box. I had to fight like hell with those idiots after that happened. Cell phone companies do the same thing:mad:

If direct tv was the only means I had to receive TV programming, I'd do without. I've already "been there and done that" with those morons. First off, that $49.99/mo. bill ended up being $70/mo. Of course, they don't tell you about all the little add on fees and taxes before you sign that contract. Found all that out after I was locked in for a year. I kept the service for eight months before making them turn it off. Of course, they gave me the "you're still under contract" speech. I ended up having to pay $48 in early termination fees; but, that was still cheaper than keeping the crappy service for four more months. Then, it took them forever to send the boxes in order for me to return the receivers. Even still, there wasn't enough packing material in the box and I had to dip into my packing material stash, which didn't make me happy. Finally, months later, I got a call from them claiming that I owed them money and they were going to turn me over to collection. I ended up telling them that they weren't getting another dime out of me and for them to do what they needed to do and that they'd better not call my house again. I never heard another word out of them, except for the almost daily letters from them wanting me to come back. IMHO, locking someone into a contract, rather it be for satellite TV or cell phones, should be illegal. If I want to cancel the service in one month, that should be my business. I should not be forced into keeping something just so I won't get ripped in new butthole in cancellation fees. And, I know several people who have switched from direct tv to dish network because of their bad service. I think if we ever get rid of cable, we'll just watch whatever we can get off of free OTA TV.

No VHF here at all. I pick up 2 UHF stations very faint both in spanish and one preaching station in english. Sometimes I am picking up channel 7 VHF whickh seems to be someones DirecTV. Think someone has a analog singal generator for use so they can watch the box OTA on an analog set. I see the DirecTV screensaver bounce around the screen.

Still getting Canadian stations. Not too many DTV reception issues here (outdoor homemade antenna).

Since a large part of my job involves watching TV (testing projectors), I don't really use my DTV box at home a whole lot.

other than wanting an extra box,i ve never had a problem with them.at and t was a headache!system never worked.i spent more time on the phone than watching.before i tossed them,i had credit built up.i dont sign contracts.i sold contracts for over 40 years.
i would never sign one with a service provider.let them pull the contract thing on me.when it was installed,(by a sub contractor),he tried to get a signature after it was in and operating.i told him i would take it too my legal council and to leave it with me.he didnt and it wasnt signed.if you want a contract,you need a sales professional to get the job done.they didnt have one!

The one place in the village that still uses an outdoor antenna for TV, as far as I know at this time, is the local bowling alley, just down the street from my apartment. They have a rather large, high-power fringe-area TV antenna on a rotor, mounted on a short mast (I don't know how short) on one of the building's chimneys. I've never been inside the building, so I don't know if they still have an analog TV or if they upgraded to HDTV. I'm almost sure the reason their TV antenna is so large and on a rotor is so that they can receive sports events from out of town; my area is not far from Erie and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Youngstown and Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, so with a high-power antenna in the clear on a rotor it is indeed possible to get locally blacked-out sports from other markets. I regularly receive FM stations from those cities in the spring through early fall every year using just the internal antennas on all my radios, including my vintage sets.

Why not ask them? It seems as if that might resolve many of your questions about DTV reception in your area. Many of the cities that you mentioned should be within the range for DTV reception with a decent antenna/rotor set-up. Detroit, for example, has several DTV stations with ERPs near 1 million watts, and a path that is mostly over water of only slightly over 100 miles.

I got lucky once when I inquired about a large FM antenna that I spotted only a few miles from my house, I thought that perhaps there was another FM DXer in my neighborhood... turns out that the antenna had not been used for years, and the guy was planing to remove it before painting his house. I helped take it down, and he gave it to me. :yes:
You might get lucky too.

jr

"Small portables have been mostly rendered useless. "

In every room of my house (12 miles from the transmitter sites) I can usually tune the major channels on this little 3.5 inch set, using the built-in monopole antenna. They are still worthless in a moving vehicle, however.

Even with an external antenna that clips onto the rain gutter around the car's roof? These antennas were used quite a bit with the first battery portable TVs for mobile reception; they worked quite well in the stations' normal coverage areas, but then again all TV was analog in those days and the signals were a lot stronger. However, I don't see having a television in a moving car these days as a problem; after all, it is illegal to have a TV set in a vehicle where the driver can see it. This law has been in effect for decades, dating back at least to the days of the 5" Sony Micro TV which was, IIRC, one of the first transistorized televisions capable of operating from a 12-volt car cigarette lighter socket as well as its own batteries. Besides, IMHO, I don't honestly believe there is anything that interesting on OTA network TV these days (yes, even the evening news) that can't wait until the person gets home to watch it on his or her regular TV set.

Even with an external antenna that clips onto the rain gutter around the car's roof? These antennas were used quite a bit with the first battery portable TVs for mobile reception; they worked quite well in the stations' normal coverage areas, but then again all TV was analog in those days and the signals were a lot stronger.

A little extra strength can't hurt, but the problem really is related to the digital system that was selected for the US.

"ATSC is optimized for a fixed reception in the typical North American environment and uses 8VSB modulation. The ATSC transmission scheme is not robust enough against doppler shift and multipath radio interference in mobile environments, and is designed for highly directional fixed antennas."

Possibly, some modifications to the coding scheme will help.

"To overcome these issues, additional channel coding mechanisms are introduced in ATSC-M/H to protect the signal."

Quotes taken from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC-M/H

jr

I don't see why you couldn't get reception as near to town a some of you guys are.
I live in central florida about 100 miles saouth of orlando and regularly watch tv
from there with a 30 ft tower and channel master antenna.
On good days I can also get west palm beach and ft meyers-occassionally miami.Miami is at least 200 miles away.
As in all digital schemes,the signal does break up at times.Some days are definitely
better than others-have no idea why.

I live in central florida about 100 miles saouth of orlando and regularly watch tv
from there with a 30 ft tower and channel master antenna.
On good days I can also get west palm beach and ft meyers-occassionally miami.Miami is at least 200 miles away.
As in all digital schemes,the signal does break up at times.Some days are definitely
better than others-have no idea why.

Usually a good deal of Tropo Enhancement in your area...Good DXing! :banana::banana:

http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html

jr

I think it is ine of the many things that is not for the good of the people but I am often wrong :(

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"ATSC is optimized for a fixed reception in the typical North American environment and uses 8VSB modulation. The ATSC transmission scheme is not robust enough against doppler shift and multipath radio interference in mobile environments, and is designed for highly directional fixed antennas."


"To overcome these issues, additional channel coding mechanisms are introduced in ATSC-M/H to protect the signal."


TV set manufacturers should use this mobile signal as a fallback if the set can't receive a decent enough regular ATSC HD signal. So at least the TV set user will see at least something. As I understand it, the mobile signal is intended for small display devices like cell phones.

That sounds similar to the system used in Japan. They have not switched off analog NTSC yet, but they also broadcast two types of over-the-air digital service, one intended for mobile devices and one intended for TVs. They use a different digital standard from ATSC. I like the idea of falling back to the lower-bandwidth signal, and I don't know if Japanese TV receivers do that or not.

It could get worse, apparently there is a proposal to downsize the TV spectrum to make room for more wireless networks. Article here points out some of the problems associated with "packing" the present channels into less space, using ATSC technology.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/97312

jr

What will hurt is when analog cable goes away completely.

What makes you think that? If analog cable "goes away" or whatever, everyone will just have to switch to digital cable. It's called progress.

Personally, however, I think analog cable will be around for quite a while, since there are still many, many analog TVs still in use in this country, and there are people (myself included) who are not willing to pay sky-high prices for digital cable. (I had my cable service downgraded from expanded basic when my bill went up to $55.67 per month; now that I have bare-bones basic [broadcast channels only], my bill is now on the order of $13 per month.) The government is already hinting at blocking inputs on set-top cable boxes so people won't be able to copy movies onto DVD or whatever; I found this out from a news report this afternoon on WGN America, which broadcasts WGN-TV's local newscast across the country (why? Most of that news is for the greater Chicago area and doesn't apply to the rest of the United States), and also in an article in the local newspaper.

The new ruling may also prevent recording of movies on VHS video tape, which, IMHO, would be going too far; after all, VHS is an analog medium and therefore is not (or should not be) affected by the ruling. Sony won a court fight against the motion-picture companies over three decades ago, which cleared the way for home taping of television shows and movies on VHS video; that has not changed--after all, the movie companies are more concerned nowadays with people copying films onto digital media, such as DVDs, and couldn't care less about an obsolete medium such as VHS. However, the article I read also mentioned that, when this ruling goes into effect (it may have already), people with analog televisions may not see very new movie releases at all, or until the film is released on DVD. However, I think the ruling will apply only to set-top cable boxes. I don't see how it would be possible to block, jam, whatever, the inputs of analog videocassette recorders (to which the cable is connected directly, without a box) to prevent recording of anything including television programs since, again, VCRs are analog devices. There are no laws, that I am aware of anyway, against recording TV shows on analog video tape.

I don't think, again, the motion-picture industry is anywhere near as worried about people copying movies onto VHS as they are worried about the same films being burned onto DVDs. They may have had a case back in the days of VHS movie rentals, but in today's digital age they very likely don't care much, or at all, about video tape anymore. After all, VHS is an obsolete analog video recording system which was upstaged some years ago by DVDs. Before we know it, DVDs will be made obsolete by Blu-ray....and who knows what the heck will follow?

Sheeeesh! I don't get it. I just do not get it at all. People have been recording radio programs, songs from phonograph records, etc. on audio tape for generations, and no one even bats an eye; why should television be any different? :scratch2: It's just another case of our government stripping us of our freedoms, one freedom at a time. Not wanting to go off on a political rant, that's all I'm going to say about this issue for now.

BTW, the so-called "death" of analog NTSC television is, IMHO, nothing worth celebrating when its first anniversary comes up on June 12, because its successor is causing quite a bit of trouble for viewers, even now. The change has forced many people to do without television when they found out their old reliable analog set won't work with digital signals unless they use a converter box, some people who cannot afford cable are having to deal with spotty or no reception on antennas, forcing them to do without certain broadcast channels they may have received perfectly well when TV was all analog, having to erect large antennas, in some cases with rotators and on towers, and so on.

Again I say, sheeeeesh. The FCC went waaaaaaay too far when it decreed that analog TV would end on June 12 last year. Did they not realize how much trouble this would, did and still does cause viewers today who cannot afford or do not want cable or satellite? :scratch2: Phooey.

---

We still get around 60 channels of analog cable. On my Zenith CCII, I use the built in rotary tuner to watch 2-13 and the VCR tuner to get everything above 13. It's a rarity that I watch anything above 13. My Mother is the one who watches the higher cable channels on her TV. When/if the cable company drops all analog delivery and forces us to go with a converter box, they'll either lose a customer or there will only be converter boxes on the most watched sets - My Mother's TV (new flatscreen) and my 19" Zenith CCII. There are six TV's in this house that are on cable and I don't plan on paying rental on 6 boxes. The cable is too high, anyway. I'm sure that within the next 5 years, cable via analog delivery will be gone.

"there will only be converter boxes on the most watched sets - My Mother's TV (new flatscreen) and my 19" Zenith CCII"

Won't that new flatscreen receive the non premium digital channels without a cable company box? The manual on my Sony HDTV says that it will receive digital cable ch 1-135 (QAM). Perhaps a card is installed in the TV for premium channels? I don't have cable, so I can't test how well this works.

jr

Once the new TV was programmed, it receives the same channels as the analog sets. Someone I know recently bought a LCD flatscreen TV and the cable company told him that he'd need a digital cable box to receive the digital cable channels, regardless of how new his TV was.

---

There are supposed to be 5 or so low-power analog stations within pretty close distance, but I can only pick up one of them at my house, and it's fairly weak. I've found it to be a good "fringe-reception" test for TVs though. :)

One thing-- it's a "home shopping channel"-type station. Seems like half the time I tune it in, they're selling a TV of some sort. While it's obviously coincidental, it's almost as if they're saying, "Hey! You there! You with the rabbit ears on your old analog TV! Don't you think it's about time you bought a new digital TV, for crying out loud?" :)

By the way, I was at a hamfest a few weeks ago, and happened to get in a brief conversation with someone who turned out to be an enginneer one of the local regular TV stations. I don't recall how the topic came up, but I asked if anyone still actually calls the station to complain about not being able to pick up their station on their analog sets. He replied that the station actually *does* still get calls like that from time to time! Apparently, even after a year, there are still people out there who are confused by or uninformed about the changeover...

I know, I'm the butt of jokes for time to time, our main TV is a 1982 Zenith System 3 since we bought it new and I hooked a Blu-Ray player to it. I didn't plan on it, my buddy got it for me for Christmas. I look at it this way, you use things and when they break, if you can repair them, fine but if not, then you buy new. I've known scarcity, been raised by a single mom plus I don't make a lot of money but lucky enough to have a job so I have to make every dollar count. Most people just buy new all the time and even toss out good working things, to me that is wrong.

I have four converter boxes, my aunt gave me her two when she got a couple of ATSC TV's.

Three questions, Doug. Can you get WLFM using a standard NTSC analog TV on channel 6 without an ATSC->NTSC converter box (i. e. with an antenna connected directly to the set), and is the audio signal receivable on standard FM sets? I would think it would be, since all FM radios can tune slightly above and below the FM band. Third, how much closer are you to the city's TV transmitters now than you were when you were in Batavia? Is your new location within a few miles of downtown, and how good is your DTV reception? Just curious.

BTW, I went the other way (from a strong-signal area to a much weaker television reception area) 10.5 years ago when I moved from an eastern Cleveland suburb to my present location. My apartment is located in a village which is some 35 miles northeast of Cleveland and about ten miles further southwest, give or take, of the city's television transmitters, which are located in the southwestern Cleveland suburb of Parma, Ohio. My OTA TV reception here in analog was very poor on most VHF stations (one, the NBC affiliate on channel 3, didn't get here at all on an antenna) and all but one UHF station, that station being the CBS affiliate on channel 19. I have had cable since I've been here for that reason, as does almost everyone else in the village; those who do not have cable have either Dish Network or DirecTV satellite service. The few outdoor TV antennas remaining on rooftops of homes here are, for the most part, falling apart, having been replaced by cable; those that are still standing and in good shape have very likely been abandoned in favor of cable or satellite since the DTV transition.

The one place in the village that still uses an outdoor antenna for TV, as far as I know at this time, is the local bowling alley, just down the street from my apartment. They have a rather large, high-power fringe-area TV antenna on a rotor, mounted on a short mast (I don't know how short) on one of the building's chimneys. I've never been inside the building, so I don't know if they still have an analog TV or if they upgraded to HDTV. I'm almost sure the reason their TV antenna is so large and on a rotor is so that they can receive sports events from out of town; my area is not far from Erie and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Youngstown and Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, so with a high-power antenna in the clear on a rotor it is indeed possible to get locally blacked-out sports from other markets. I regularly receive FM stations from those cities in the spring through early fall every year using just the internal antennas on all my radios, including my vintage sets.

I know when Mom and I are stomping around the Erie, PA area, we get the oldies station on 740 out of Toronto in the clear, Mom likes that station. I once talked across Lake Erie and 20 or 30 miles inland into Ontario by using my 2 meter HT on one-watt and a rubber duckie antenna.

I had expanded basic cable service for years from Time Warner, but when it went up to $55.67 a month a while back, I had my service downgraded to broadcast channels only (which costs me on the order of $13.56 or so monthly at this time) and have had such ever since. That's all I need, actually, as I can get other programming (namely, my old favorite shows from the '70s) on DVD and VHS; I have several old 1970s TV series (Mannix, Kojak, Quincy, et al.) on DVD that I purchased from Amazon.com a couple of years ago (to say nothing of a subscription to Netflix since 2005, when I got my first DVD player, and my large collection of '60s-through-'80s TV series and movies I taped on VHS), so when I want to watch these classic shows I can -- any time, without paying through the nose for expanded cable. I do not use or need a cable box for basic (what I call "bare bones basic" cable), as my cable connects more or less directly to my TV. I say "more or less" because the cable from the wall hooks up to the RF modulator for the DVD, with a jumper to the VCR, which then connects to the antenna port on the TV. A Rube Goldberg setup, I know, but it works.

I do not care that I don't get the digital channels, as long as I have my DVD and VCR. The programming on the broadcast networks doesn't appeal to me much these days, except for Law and Order on NBC, which is also on in reruns on the local MyTV affiliate and also on WGN America, and the occasional nature shows on PBS. Aside from the NBC nightly news at 6:30 Eastern time, that is all the network TV I normally watch these days.

I know scarcity all too well myself. My mother died in 1966, so my dad raised me from the time I was ten years old; we didn't have much money, so we were watching black-and-white TV for years. Moreover, I live on a fixed income today (disability), so don't have much money left after my bills are paid at the end of the month. My first color TV set (that I could call my own) was a 1964 metal-cabinet VHF-only Sears-Silvertone roundie I got in 1970 from a man who lived one street over from us in my old neighborhood; the set had been reposing in the man's garage for several years after it quit (or so he thought). A new circuit breaker was all it took to get the set working again. However, three years after I got it, the video-output tube socket broke out of a circuit board, so the TV was replaced by a 1961 VHF-only Philco "Briefcase 19" VHF-only 19" portable. I didn't get my first brand-new color TV until 1979, six years later. That set was replaced three years later by a Zenith 13" color portable with electronic varactor tuning. That set was replaced by my current TV, an RCA CTC185 XL-100 19-incher, in late 1999; the latter is the set I use today, on cable but without a cable box.

I don't yet have a Blu-ray player, for two reasons: one, I can't afford one, and two, all my DVDs (including the ones I rent from Netflix) were recorded under the original DVD standard. These discs will not play in a Blu-ray player (or maybe it is the other way around), so even if I could afford the latter it would do me no good, rendering all my current DVDs useless.

I read in the paper and saw on WGN America (on the latter's rebroadcast of "WGN Midday News" at one p.m. ET) the other day that the FCC has given the motion-picture industry the authority to block the signal outputs of digital cable boxes (and presumably DVRs), to thwart illegal copying of movies shown on premium cable channels. This measure is meant to stop people from copying very new movies shown on cable to DVD. I can see the worth of such a system; it will (supposedly) prevent the major studios (MGM, Universal, et al.) from losing money, but there will always be people trying to circumvent the blocking schemes, much as some people have successfully gotten around having to pay for premium movie channels (or used to, until the cable companies went high-tech and locked down the movie channels with passcodes and who knows what else), so this may be a never-ending battle against piracy.

We have analog TV. We have analog FM. It's good to be Canadian!

Until August 31, 2011, that is!

By the way, everyone in North America (except maybe in deep rural areas)
still has analog FM!

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You have that backwards. Blu-Ray players will play all your existing DVDs, and CDs just like a DVD player can. You just can't play Blu-Ray discs in a DVD player (any more than you can play a DVD in a CD player).

Thanks for the correction, Andy -- I thought I had it backwards myself (didn't realize it until I had posted my reply), but wasn't sure, which is why I said in my post "or perhaps it is the other way around". It's good to know, however, that Blu-ray disc players will play existing standard DVDs. Now all I have to do is wait for Blu-ray players to drop below $100 as have ordinary DVD players, and for my present Memorex DVD player to go bad. I won't replace a perfectly good DVD player unless it is absolutely necessary.

I'm wondering, though. Why won't Blu-ray discs play properly (or at all) in a standard DVD player--is the Blu-ray standard that much different from the one used for ordinary DVDs? :scratch2: I'm thinking there is the same difference between Blu-ray and standard DVDs as there is between analog and digital television; that is, as unmodified analog TVs will not display digital signals, standard DVD players will not play Blu-ray discs. What would happen if one tried to play a Blu-ray disc on a standard DVD player? I'm thinking the system would show an error message on the TV screen such as "Invalid disc", "Invalid standard" or the like, with the player promptly ejecting the disc; of course, the Blu-ray disc will not play.

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What would happen if one tried to play a Blu-ray disc on a standard DVD player? I'm thinking the system would show an error message on the TV screen such as "Invalid disc", "Invalid standard" or the like, with the player promptly ejecting the disc; of course, the Blu-ray disc will not play.

My Panasonic DMR-EZ47V, which is a combo VHS/DVD recorder simply states "cannot read. Please check disk".

jr

I'm wondering, though. Why won't Blu-ray discs play properly (or at all) in a standard DVD player--is the Blu-ray standard that much different from the one used for ordinary DVDs? :scratch2:

It's quite similar to why DVD's won't play in an old CD player. Different wavelengths of laser light, different size pits, different encoding of the bits and what the bits mean.