Digital TV Transition Delayed

[Mr__Bill]

What they are not telling you, is that many people who are on the edge of an analog broadcast area, cannot get a digital signal unless the station increases power or they get a better and higher antenna - and - in some cases, both.

Because TV was designated an essential service - your gummint has to find a way out of being sued for not providing an essential service.

Check out Hawaii - which has already gone digital. Lots of communities have lost TV reception where they had decent reception with analog.

I only hope our gummint and related agencies are paying attention!!

I bet there won't be any skip either with digital TV. Remember cranking the antenna around and on the right night you could watch TV from a bazillion miles way? I think that was the video game of the 50's!

Bill

[BerniePA]

Leave it to our government to screw it up!!! As I read it, if you are not ready for digital NOW, you don't have any idea if you will have TV service on 2/18 or any given day after that date. Talk about russian roulette!!! You might have it, but the guy two or three counties over might lose his. Good old government. Well, they said there would be change!!

[just started]

I bet there won't be any skip either with digital TV. Remember cranking the antenna around and on the right night you could watch TV from a bazillion miles way? I think that was the video game of the 50's!

Bill

The info on the signal won't change the skip properties but if most of the stations go UHF then they won't skip. Any stations that switch the low VHF signal to digital will still skip but the signal might not be strong enough to be viewable.

[twistsol]

I think that TV as an essential service is hysterical. Until I was about 12 we had a 13" black and white and got 5 fuzzy channels. One night during Laverne & Shirley, my dad said "This is crap," we never saw the TV again. I didn't have TV for almost 20 years and didn't miss it.

Cable isn't an option here since we live out of town, so we have DirecTV and a 19" RCA. Of our 250 channels, I watch HGTV or DIY for about half an hour on Saturday mornings.

I'm guessing for most of the people who haven't made the switch yet, it's just not a big priority.

[Len]

It is mostly the Gov's fault, from what I understand.
First, the product wasn't available and the Gov was handing out coupons.
Then the products were ready, but the coupons people had expired.
Then the government ran out of coupons so people couldn't get them and they were telling people who had expired ones T.S.

Please let someone more competent than this is handling the bailout! Kinda scares the bej.... out of ya, doesn't it?!

Dead on, that's exactly what happend to me. Got the coupons, but nobody had the converters. Converters finally came in, but coupons were over 90 days old. If nothing else, they could at least extend the coupon cutoff dates to 1 year from the original cutoff.

Len