Almost a year since analog TV died

[wa2ise]

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.

[DaveWM]

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

[Zenith26kc20]

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

[Adam]

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.

[ctc17]

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.

[radiotvnut]

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.

[amptramp]

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

[compucat]

Originally Posted by amptramp

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.

[jr_tech]

"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

[radiotvnut]

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!

[peverett]

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.

[ctc17]

Originally Posted by peverett

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

[drh4683]

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.

[peverett]

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).

[zenithfan1]

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