Now Hear This Newsletter, May 22, 2008 Posted by Bob at 05/22/08 12:46 PM

Longtime telecommunications consultant Tom Allibone recently appointed himself an “FCC Deputy,” looking out for consumers in the looming transition to digital television. We’re glad he has.

“Deputy Tom” has posted a story online about the trials and tribulations of getting his rural New Jersey home ready for the February 2009 switchover by full-power TV broadcasters from their traditional analog signals to all digital.

Allibone’s story should be required reading for the government officials at the Federal Communications Commission and the Commerce Department in charge of the switchover, which will affect millions of Americans who rely on free, over-the-air television. Ditto for electronics makers and retailers, as well as the TV broadcasting industry.

You can read the whole sordid story by clicking here.

Tom’s story begins with the arrival in the mail of his two $40 DTV converter box “coupons.” He cheerily headed off to his local Best Buy to check out his options – which turned out to be precisely one model – the Insignia NS-DXA1, which the store was selling for about $60.

The salesman knew virtually nothing about the converter box. If he had, he might have been able to tell Tom that the Insignia model he was being sold did not have a feature allowing analog signals to “pass through.” That’s important because hundreds of low-power television stations will continue to broadcast analog signals after the February 2009 switchover. Many of those stations are located in rural areas, like where Tom lives.

Without a converter box, Tom had always been able to pick up 11 channels from Philadelphia and New York. Some are little snowy, but watchable. He hooked up his new converter box and did an initial channel scan. To Tom’s surprise, the screen flashed “No Signals Found.”

We’ll let Tom take the story from here.

“Upon rechecking the connection, I found the issue and performed the auto-channel search again. This time the display found seven channels. As I moved the antenna, at one point the auto channel search found as many as 14 channels. And it was bizarre. I got a Korean channel, some local station from a small NJ town and other mixed-bag watching – all of which I didn't know existed – and would never watch.

”This is where things got very interesting. The digital converter box has a "signal strength" button that shows a color coded bar. When it is displayed on the screen, you can watch your signal bounce up and down like the wind was blowing thru your TV. It was probably one of the most useful features with the digital converter as I continued to reposition the TV and see what happened.

”Basically, my digital signal strength mostly fell into the 15% to 50% range. If I repositioned the antenna, I could receive one Philadelphia station and others would pixilate, freeze the screen, provide intermittent sound and in some cases revert to a black screen saying "no signal".

”It appeared that when a station worked well, meaning consistent picture and sound with no pixilating or sound degradation, the signal showed 75% or higher. At the 60% to 75% signal strength, the picture would experience degradation issues previously described.

”Like many rural country consumers with TV antennas in the attic, we chose to give up some of the signal power for a number of reasons. It has worked well in the analog world but the new digital signal does not appear to be as resilient. Based upon my experience, it appears that minimum signal strength of 75% is needed; otherwise, reception begins to degrade.

”At this point in the process of converting to over the air digital, it was clear that simply buying a digital converter was not the answer. I couldn't get the basic channels I watch without pixelating, etc. Using my current system configuration with the converter does not work as well as my analog system. So, where do you go from here?”

We highly recommend you read the rest of “FCC Deputy” Tom’s story for yourself, but we’re sure he won’t mind us telling you the anything-but-happy ending.

It looks like he is facing a total bill of $650 to buy a new, high-tech antenna and get it installed so he can continue to get the same channels he now watches just fine with his old analog TVs.

He concludes with these words: “The government claims that this should go smoothly… and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars for us to drink the Kool-Aid – only to find out that it's now undrinkable purple stuff for millions of customers.”

comments (6)

1 Posted by Joe at 05/22/08 03:07 PM

Isn't this a Federal Government project? No wonder it's screwed up!

2 Posted by JOE ADAMS at 05/22/08 04:42 PM

As a retired TV technician for 54 years, with stores in two states. I said when they first started talking about this, it was a rip off. You could buy a larg size TV, 25" or more, for less than $200.00.
Starting price for the HD digital TV is around $1,900.00.
It's a rip off of the American consumer. Somehow, the Japaneese TV manufacturers bribed the necessary officials to get this law passed.

3 Posted by Cindy Sue Causey at 05/23/08 10:51 PM

Found you all through FreePress.net whom I just came across this past week.. *Thank you* for this story..

Once this (questionable..!) forced analog to digital TV change occurs, those trapped in long term care (LTC) facilities will be losing one of the very few social outlets they can already barely afford.. Long term care facilities include institutions like nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and the like..

The crib notes version to the above is that (some number of) nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and other long term care (LTC) facilities garner people's [income, insurance, etc] when they walk in the door.. *IF* those [consumers] are lucky, in some notable number of instances, they *might* be allowed back $10, $20 a month..

For *EVERYTHING* personal they may need within that month..

This.. DTV swapover [garbage] knocks them completely out of being able to afford the company of personal televisions, for so many their one and only outlet to the meatspace community..

Deputy Tom's piece saddens my Heart for he recounts the experience of one individual with "resources" to his credit, not someone inaccessibly locked away in a long term care facility somewhere..

But, likewise..

Deputy Tom's effort as referenced also gives these Fingertips hope that there is a Heart out there to be touched very soon, one this moment at the ready complete with his own Life-garnered experience necessary for the empathy factor..

People like him and you all sharing similar stories are in a position to somehow *maybe* help affect turning things around for those in long term care and on *extremely* limited, near inhumane incomes before the ugh, social stifling deadline of February, 2009..

*NO* pressure, though.. :wink:

Cyber hugs from Talking Rock..

4 Posted by Bernadette at 06/01/08 09:19 PM

How old can the tv be to get reception with the converter box. My mom and dad both have old tvs and I am having trouble getting a signal for channels that they were once able to receive. Do you have any suggestions on how I can correct the problem for them without them having to get new tvs? Thanks

5 Posted by Peter at 06/03/08 11:17 AM

You may find that the digital signals from some stations will improve after the analog signals are gone. Currently analog and digital signals from the same station are on different frequencies. Thus, is possible that the transmission power of the digital signal is lower than it will be after Feb 2009 to avoid interference with an analog station in an adjacent community. I would not spend a lot of money on an antenna system until after Feb 2009.

6 Posted by Tars at 06/05/08 05:52 PM

You might want to try a coax switch to go from over the air to digital.

We have 3 position coax switch in our RV for the bedroon TV that allows over the air TV in one position and cable or satallite in the other 2 positions, works great.

On the front TV in the RV there is a $7.50 coax slider switch which works OK bur not great it only goes from over the air to cable. Which is Ok since we only rarely bother to orient the satallite dish as it is manual and a pain to raise and lower.