DTV on standard NTSC TVs
 

When a DTV converter box is used with an older NTSC television, I realize there will be black bars on either side of the picture (letterbox effect) as if the picture was a 16:9 one being viewed on a flat panel (I've seen this on TV commercials, whereas the program itself is a full-screen image). How does a converter box handle this? Is there a zoom button on the converter remote to change the aspect ratio from 16:9 to 4:3, as with flat-panel sets? I wonder about this because I am very new to DTV, having purchased my first FP set two months ago, and because I saw a picture in another, very recent post to this forum of a 1971 RCA console color set (CTC-44A) that showed a full picture on its 25" screen. Was that picture from a TV broadcast or a DVD? I did see what appears to be a converter box atop the television cabinet, so my best guess is the picture is from the former, probably in NTSC format since the image is full-screen, no letterboxing.

BTW, how much longer will we VKers (and anyone else) using converter boxes with older TVs be able to use these boxes? I ask because many cable systems are converting to 100 percent digital, and reception of local broadcast channels on many if not most systems will require the use of the cable operator's own cable boxes after a certain date. Time Warner Cable in my area is already digital (all major network TV stations in Cleveland show as DTV channels on my flat-panel's channel indicator), but I understand there is a hard date some time in 2012 by which time all U.S. cable systems will have to convert to full digital. It will not be an option.

Time-Warner Cable here in northeastern Ohio may be completely digital, however, but the company does offer an analog cable hookup (no box required) that provides all broadcast channels and digital subchannels such as RTV, MeTV, Antenna TV and four subchannels of the PBS station here, not to mention standard cable. To get every digital channel on the cable (upwards of 120 channels), however, one must upgrade to a level of service that requires the use of a box. Is there any such thing as an ATSC digital flat-panel TV that will receive literally every channel on every North American (i. e. US and Canadian) cable system without ever having to use a cable box? I imagine the cable companies wouldn't like seeing such a set on the market, as they get a lot of their operating revenues from the rental of cable boxes and the sheer price of digital cable service itself. I once had Time-Warner digital cable with a cable box on one of my analog TVs, and was paying well over $100 each month for it; then I downgraded to standard analog cable and was paying $55.67 monthly. I don't know what I'm paying for analog cable now, as my cable service is part of a bundle -- cable, home telephone and Internet service.

Most of the converter boxes have a 4:3 option in the menu. I dont use it because it looks stretched. Letter box looks fine on old sets.

Today most cable and satellite boxes still have a channel 3 and composite output. Once those are gone there is an hdmi converter.

There are still rf modulator converter boxes made for vga, hdmi and composite so theres hope. 40 years from now....who knows.

We're almost to the point that it's easier to watch TV via a high speed internet connection. I suppose the cable companies will combat that by raising our HS rates. I don't particularly care if I can't watch any live network TV. It's a great time to latch on to a few older DVD/VHS players with built in rf modulators. We still have basic expanded cable here, but I'm sure the end is very near.

I've got Verizon Fios, and run an HD box on an SDTV. I did this because I have a non-hd slingbox, but it doesn't handle interlaced content that great. So I mostly have the box to send 720p 16:9 in to the thing.

However, I use RF on my old TV. The box will let you pick letterbox or pan-scan options. It all works well....except....on some locals and when content is pillarboxed (4:3 matted for 16:9). I essentially wind up with a picturebox, pillarboxing from the station...letterbox because the box auto leterboxes HD channels. I have to set it to pan/scan when this happens...otherwise I enjoy the letterboxing...and the donconverts of HD *sometimes* looks sharper than the actual SD channel...although since fios runs their SD channels at full res and not 480x480 like other providers....there's rarely much difference.

Sent from my Samsung Intercept with Tapatalk

Over the air converter boxes usually have a zoom setting to get either letterbox (black on top and bottom) or cropped to 4x3. If you use the 4x3 option going into a 16x9 flat panel, you see stretched, but that was not your question.

On cable systems, there are sets that will receive the QAM digital signal if it's in the clear, but usually it isn't, and requires a set with a Cablecard interface and a descrambling card supplied by the cable company.

The original idea of Cablecard is that it could be owned by and installed by the consumer, and portable from one cable system to another. I don't think the portable part ever worked, requiring different cards for different systems. Cable companies have dragged their feet on Cablecard availability, requiring their technician to plug it in, etc., to the point where receiver makers have given up on designing the interface into all sets.

The future appears (maybe) to be a simpler cable interface box that converts to Ethernet combined with a TV with an Ethernet port.

I use two DTV boxes to convert over the air (OTA) ASTC transmissions to NTSC for my analog sets. Zoom functions are provided by both the Channel Master and Zenith boxes that I use. I am NOT connected to a cable system, and whatever the cable system in my area does, it will NOT affect my reception in the slightest. Yes ! I watch "Antenna TV "with an antenna! :music:

jr

I have OTA DTV boxes by Channel Master, Digitalstream, and Magnavox. All of these have the zoom feature. I have one box connected to a '69 Zenith tube-type B&W console and the other box connected to a '78 Sylvania solid state B&W console. The third box is used for testing TV's on the bench and the fourth box is used for a spare.

The other TV's in the house are connected to comcast cable. For now, 2-12 can be received by an older analog set. Any channel above 12 requires the use of one of their "digital devices". Their basic digital transport adapter is about the size of a deck of playing cards and it tunes the digital cable channels and outputs an NTSC signal on either channel 3 or 4. There are no buttons on the box and there are no A/V output jacks. If you lose the remote or if the remote fails to operate, you are stuck. The other box is the big Motorola model that allows the user to access PPV movies, etc. I heard that sometime in 2012, they would be stopping analog delivery of channels 2-12; but, I guess only time will tell.

How long will we be able to use our older TV's? I suppose that we'll be able to use them as long as there is some type of D2A converter available. As far as OTA boxes, they are already getting hard to find on the new market. In fact, most stores around here discontinued them not long after the DTV transition. AFAIK, Radio Shack still carries the digitalstream box. I'm trying to get as many boxes as I can because I know there will be a time when they are NLA and the ones we currently have will eventually die.

The cable boxes and the OTA boxes will work on virtually any TV that can receive NTSC channels 3 or 4. If the TV has 300 ohm screw-style antenna input terminals, an inexpensive 300ohm/75ohm balun can be used to connect the 75 ohm coax lead from the box to the 300 ohm VHF antenna input terminals on the TV.

Specialty houses like Solid signal still seem to stock them:
http://www.solidsignal.com/cview.asp...verter%20Boxes
Amazon seems to have a good supply:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...Adtv+converter
I'm not too worried ...yet!
Not affiliated,
jr

The digital set-top tuners should be usable for decades, until either ATSC is replaced by another over-the-air standard (probably sooner than NTSC and its B&W predecessor were), or over-the-air itself goes away (which I have heard is possible, as awful as it sounds).

Whether cable systems become all-digital or not is a separate issue from the ATSC tuners, because they are not usable on cable anyway.

Maybe a LOT sooner. ATSC 3.0

http://broadcastengineering.com/news...011/index.html

Time and time again, I keep seeing DTV, ATSC, NTSC being discussed here. Extreme overkill, one thread after another beating a dead horse about converter boxes, which one is better, will this one last, this one is made in china, this one is made in korea, followed by rants that NTSC was shut down... We get it.

I think this site should be renamed converterboxkarma.org

"Your one stop resource to discuss DTV converter boxes and curb picked smoker sets from the 80's"

How about a fourth TV category, something like "Digital TV - Flat Panel" to keep these discussions off of the categories that are intended for more vintage sets?

jr

Sounds like a plan to me. In fact, I'll make it live shortly.....

An idea whose time has come
 

I agree with the posters complaining about the threads on flat-panel/digital TV on the antique television category of VK, and hope the new FP and digital TV forum is up and running soon. :yes:

I'm all for a separate DTV/flat panel forum. This one, as others have noted, is for discussions of vintage and antique televisions; discussions of sets newer than the '70s definitely do not belong here. :nono:

I'll be looking forward to seeing the new forum; it is, as my subject line says, an idea whose time has come. IMHO, VK should have had a DTV forum some years ago, when DTV took over from NTSC.

ChrisW6ATV mentioned the possiblity of broadcast going away. This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. In fact, there is a proposal that just left committee, S. 911, to sell even more of the broadcast spectrum in the guise of helping the budget. This would not yet end broadcast TV, but would chip away at it(depending on who would give up their spectrum for what essenctially is a bribe).

My congressman is one of the sponsers and I wrote a letter to her telling her this is a very bad idea as was the last sale(over the air TV stolen from millions of Americans to help some rich phone companies in my opinion). I also asked her why are we not renting or leasing the spectrum instead of selling it if we need money that bad. Seems like this would be better for the budget and the US would retain more control over the spectums use.

Alternatives to broadcast TV
 

I'm not the least bit concerned, as I have cable. If broadcast TV is someday discontinued, I'm sure the cable company here (Time Warner), as well as every other cable operator in the country, will continue to carry the signals over the cable, even if it eventually means getting direct feeds from each of Cleveland's seven OTA network TV stations. Cable companies already do this with must-carry cable networks such as ESPN, CNN, TBS, TNT, et al. -- why can't broadcast TV be received at the headend the same way? If broadcast TV is eventually legislated out of existence, this may be the only way to get the broadcast TV stations many of us can see free with an antenna. If I say any more I'm liable to get political, so on that note I'll hush up.

Some cable headends (and especially satellite services) do get direct feeds. Many remote cable headends use digital over-the-air receivers to pick up broadcast stations and convert them to analog if they have an analog tier. They generally report that the digital signals are higher quality and more reliable than the analog signals used to be.

I'd give five dollars to see "gellis" say something remotely useful rather than bitch about this forum.

This better DTV signal has not been my experience, or some of my friends in rural Oklahoma. I do not have a large antennas, but they worked fine on analog. Every time we have a windy day, the DTV craps out half the time on all the DTV converter boxes I have(I have several brands) and the one Digital TV that I have. And I am less than 30 miles from the transmtter! I did not have this issue with analog TV.

As to my friend in rural Oklahoma, it not only crapped out during wind, fog would kill DTV. The is 70 miles from the transmitter and finally gave up and got Satellite. He has a limited budget, so I am sure this extra cost hurt!

I used to live in the same area of Oklahoma and analog TV worked fine 70 miles from the transmitters.

I suspect these cable receivers are placed at the very best locations in their area for broadcast TV reception, both analog(before) and digital(now). The average homeowner does not have this luxury. The homeowners have to put up with things like blowing tree leaves, mutlipath receiption and such. These are the kinds of thing that reduced analog TV picture quality, but did not destroy the reception as these effects do with DTV.

Digital data transfer over wires and fiber optics makes pretty good sense, digital over the air, not so much. Just look at all the cell phone towers littering our countryside, pretty good proof that the technology does not work as originally advertised. Maybe they can use those same towers to relay OTA DTV.

channel master looks best
 

Very good thread w/ info. That channel Master converter looks top notch. HDMI, RCA, analog outputs--can it feed an old tv and New HDMI set at same time too?! That's an old brand w/ good history, looks better. I really wish had need for one, can't receive more than a few channels.

Wanna save 1 to 2 K$ a year? Get one of these and watch free tv if you live in right metro area. My ATSC HD portable TV has awesome picture! Can only receive lots of free DTV signals near my work, NOT home. Several coworkers complimented me on amazing portable tv picture. Use it for breaks.

Watch free tv and save $120 to $200/ month, I WISH I COULD. I would just rent movies instead of paying sheisty movie channels. People just don't realize how expensive cable is, no real competition, a real monopoly like the old ma Bell.

Which Channel Master converter has HDMI output?

CM7001:
http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp...r%20Boxes&sku=
Not affiliated,
jr

Interesting device. I guess it might come in handy with a monitor that has HDMI input and no tuner, or use it as a second tuner for dual tuner PIP use with some TVs. I see they discontinued the CM7000 aka Dish DTVPal DVR.

Yes indeed! I keep a running total of the money saved since I cancelled satellite TV in late 2005; it is up to about US$5,900.00 so far.

It is true that DTV is "less forgiving" of marginal signals than the old analog. Still, I would not go back to daily TV viewing OTA with analog. I lived for a time in Little Rock AR and had to deal with severe multipath in an apartment. Gave up the analog OTA and went with a "limited basic" package from the cableco.

I had moved back to rural Southeast Arkansas some years ago and knew the writing was on the wall for analog TV (I'm also a dx'er), so I built a decent OTA antenna system that would work great for DXing DTV but also provide solid "local" reception. Even when I subbed to Dish Network, I used the sat box's built-in DTV tuner for OTA locals. Last August, I cut the cord and once again became OTA only+Netflix streaming/Bluray/DVD.

The key to "fringe" DTV reception is three things: feedline/preamp, antenna, and antenna height. I don't have a tower so am limited in the height department but I do use decent RG6 feedline and a decent consumer-grade preamp (CM-7777) and separate UHF and VHF-hi antennas. It may sound like overkill, but in the long run it will pay for itself quickly (vs a $60-100+per month Sat bill).

Technology is changing almost literally at the drop of a hat these days, everywhere you look. Broadcast TV may well be discontinued for good eventually (but just when is anyone's guess), with all present OTA TV stations putting their signals on cable. This will also spell the end of "portable" television as we have known it since the first portables appeared on the US market in the 1950s. It is certainly possible to connect a portable TV to a 100+-foot-long cable (!) so that the set can be moved around the house (but who would want to deal with that long cable, not to mention the safety hazard it causes?), or, alternatively, cable outlets can be installed in every room of the house so that a portable TV can be hooked up anywhere the viewer wishes -- even on the front porch, patio, etc. if desired.

However, as I mentioned, TV technology, like everything else, is changing, like it or not. If and when (at this point it is much more "when" than if) broadcast TV ends in the US and all TV is distributed via cable, we will just have to deal with it. The days of watching OTA TV via converter boxes and antennas on older (pre-1990s) TVs are just about over, except for VK members and other antique/vintage TV collectors. Most homes today are wired for cable or satellite, so the market for OTA television antennas is not what it once was. The village in which I live is served by Time Warner Cable; most residents, myself included, are connected to cable via this cable operator. I see very few (and I mean very few) outdoor TV antennas here; those I do see are falling apart, losing elements in every wind/snowstorm we get here (I live near Lake Erie, so we get the wind right off the lake in the winter and sometimes the gusts are quite high, on the order of 40 mph or more) and are becoming real eyesores.

Over-the-air television, IMHO, will eventually disappear in this country, as I said earlier, being replaced by cable and/or satellite services, although a few people I've talked to (my barber, for one, who lives almost literally on Lake Erie) have expressed displeasure with the latter because of reception issues during inclement weather -- for example, one other person with whom I spoke recently told me her family's satellite service goes absolutely blank when the dish gets covered with snow, when it rains, etc. I suggested to her that they switch to cable, but she told me she wasn't sure whether Time Warner will run cable down her street in a rural area of Geauga County, Ohio. My barber recently switched to AT&T U-Verse TV service from satellite for the same reasons (reception issues in bad weather).

We must face facts -- OTA television's days are numbered. Just when TV stations will turn to cable exclusively I don't know, but I am sure the day is coming. VK member Radiotvnut in Meridian, Mississippi has mentioned that the cable system in his area will cease analog delivery of channels 2 through twelve eventually (some time next year), and I see most other cable operators following suit. This means that, sooner rather than later, all TV will be not only digital (as it is today), but available only through cable, with over-the-air service becoming a relic of a bygone era -- not unlike the NTSC analog television broadcasting standard, which was abolished in 2009 and replaced by ATSC digital TV on June 12 of that year.

Our children's children will, in all likelihood, have no memory of OTA TV, as by that time (a generation or so from now) I am sure broadcast television will have ended here. Even televisions with "dials" and picture tubes are unheard of to today's kids; a nationally-syndicated comic strip, "Mother Goose and Grimm", in today's newspaper (the Lake County, Ohio News-Herald) drives that point home exceedingly well, IMHO. Grimm (the dog) and a cat are shown in the first panel in front of a TV set; Grimm asks the cat "What are you watching?" The cat answers, "I don't know, some stupid program." Grimm then asks the cat why he doesn't change the channel. "I can't," the cat answers. "They said 'don't touch that dial.'" In the last panel, Grimm whispers to the cat, "What's a dial?" The cat replied, "I don't know."

That was as good a commentary on the shift in technology from dials to buttons on televisions as I've ever read, and it applies to today's children very well. Kids today do not, by and large, know life before digital (ATSC) television, growing up or having grown up with that standard and seeing a television in their parents' living room that is completely devoid of dials (only buttons on the front or side of the set), and with a flat screen instead of a picture tube (what we VK folks call CRTs). If a teenage kid, knowing only life with DTV and flat panel televisions, saw an old, large NTSC-standard TV with a picture tube screen and knobs and dials (including, of course, the one that goes "clunk-clunk-clunk" to change the channel -- what we VKers know as the tuner) today, he or she would almost certainly be amazed that people actually used to watch television on these things.

I should also point out that telephones also once had dials. This is because telephones (before the touch tone system which we now have today) used to be accomplished by rotating a circular object (then, known as a "dial") about its axis. These early pre-touch tone telephones were referred to as "rotary dial telephones", because the dial (the device which was part of the telephone) was used to complete the numerical input of a telephone number (which is needed when placing a phone call).
Many commercials today indicate to "dial" a phone number. This may be confusing to some as it would be physically impossible to "dial" a telephone number with a modern day touch tone key pad. I often wonder if the advertizers realize that they are suggesting the use of an obsolete technology when they tell the viewer (or listener if the broadcast is being heard on the radio) to "dial" their telephone number, or perhaps this is just a slang term that has become a mainstream part of our culture that everyone recognizes when one is asked to place a phone call :dunno:

If we are making a list of common use terms that are remnants of bygone technologly then we should add "ice box" and "tin foil" to that list.

At least into the 1980s, people in my family referred to lights left "burning", and my mother used the term "carfare" (as in streetcars) for all public transportation spending. Some people still use the word "album" for a collection of songs sold together, even though real music albums went away in the 1940s or 1950s (when the word started being used for long-play vinyl records).

How are you getting TV reception today if you cancelled your satellite service? (Just curious.) My best guess would be that you either went to cable or to AT&T U-Verse, or even to an OTA antenna.

In response to Vintagecollect's remarks regarding being in the "right" area for good OTA DTV reception: Yes, that is still a major problem with DTV, and is the reason most people today have either cable, satellite, or (if available) AT&T U-Verse service -- OTA reception of digital television signals in most areas is just too iffy. Even if you are within line-of-sight range of your area's TV transmitters, the problem would not be signal strength but reflections, causing dead spots and hot spots in different areas of your house; this can even cause problems with the proper aiming of outdoor TV antennas. As a somewhat extreme example of what I am referring to: I live in a semi-fringe area for Cleveland television, the transmitters for the seven stations serving northeast Ohio being just under 40 miles from my apartment. I was getting fair to poor reception of most stations using rabbit ears (and no reception whatsoever from NBC channel 3 in Cleveland) -- no outdoor TV antennas permitted here -- before the DTV transition. I have not tried antenna reception of the Cleveland stations since the DTV switch, however, so I don't know what my DTV reception would be like. Since NTSC analog reception here was fair to poor, I wouldn't expect much better results with digital; the one channel I was missing in analog probably doesn't reach here in ATSC DTV either, and the reception of all other Cleveland stations would very likely be hit-or-miss as well. Channel 5, the ABC affiliate in Cleveland, was talking about increasing its antenna height and/or increasing transmitter power shortly after the transition, but I don't know if they ever went through with it. Channel 19 is the CBS affiliate for this area; they did increase transmitter power several months ago, in response to complaints that their DTV signal was not reaching the west side of Cleveland and the suburbs of the city located there.

Whether this problem was corrected when the station increased power output, however, I don't know. I think they would have had better results if they would have increased their antenna height, rather than the transmitter output power. I am an amateur radio operator and learned that lesson very early on; the higher your transmitting antenna, the further your transmitted signal will go, even if you are transmitting with just a few watts of power.

Jeff, I am using a TV antenna on my roof. I am also a ham (the W6ATV in my nickname here) and I own this house, so the TV antenna is just one more in the collection. It is a Channel Master Stealthtenna, that I installed to replace a bigger log-periodic-type one because I wanted multi-direction reception without using a rotator. I live in a flat area about midway between San Francisco and Oakland, California, so I pick up good signals from both cities here (about 25 miles from either city). In fact, this is a good location in general, because I can pick up all of those signals indoor with rabbit ears on a good DTV receiver (Zenith or Channel Master) as well. It is fun to use a 1950s pair of rabbit ears and a 1965 RCA CTC-16 and watch flawless color TV with the Zenith tuner.

I would definitely recommend that you give an antenna or two a try with your DTV converter (and your flat-panel TV in antenna mode as well) again. Reception here is much better than it was in the early days of digital TV, so the stations really have been improving their signals recently. As I am sure you probably know, if/when you move your antenna to different angles or positions while testing it, you need to wait a few seconds or more in each position to let the digital tuner catch up before judging the signal and moving the antenna again. Good luck.

Chris, I just now looked at the "antenna" listings at TVGuide.com for the San Francisco/Oakland area, and am astounded at how many channels one can get just with an antenna in that area. I didn't count them, but my best guess right now is perhaps 30 channels, from both SF and Oakland -- some of those channels being duplicates (I noticed two DTV channels on the LiveWell Network in the SF/Oakland area, and several PBS stations).

I think I just might try my Insignia flat-panel TV on an antenna, just to see what I can receive here OTA. As I mentioned, the NBC station in Cleveland did not reach here at all in NTSC analog, and the digital signal is likely even weaker, so I don't have much hope that I'll get that channel here with an indoor antenna. ABC and CBS, on channels 5 and 19 here, respectively, just increased their transmitter power (at least 19 did; channel 5 just installed new transmitting antennas and is, to the best of my knowledge, still operating at the same power output it had when it was operating in analog), so I may have a good chance of seeing those two channels in ATSC digital. I don't have DTV converter boxes for my two analog CRT TVs yet, and don't know if I can even get them anywhere anymore, as most stores that did stock them prior to the DTV transition no longer do so, although I read somewhere on this or another forum that Radio Shack still stocks Digitalstream-branded DTV converters; for how much longer, however, is anyone's guess. Flat-panel TVs are becoming dirt-cheap these days (I bought my 19" Insignia FP at Best Buy this past August for $130, less shipping), and I just saw an ad in my Sunday paper for a 19-inch off-brand FP selling for under $100. Because FPs, except the monster 40-, 50-, 60+-inch ones, are becoming so cheap, there may not be much need for converter boxes (people more often than not trash their old CRT TVs, replacing them with FPs these days when the old sets develop any kind of repair problems), so I guess now is the time to get a box if you can find them.


BTW, I have noticed your ham radio callsign as part of your member name here at VK, and I remember reading in one of your posts to another thread a long time ago that you operate amateur TV on 440 MHz. That's one mode I never explored when I had my HF ham station in a Cleveland suburb, before moving here in 1999. Now, I operate basically just 2-meter FM and, for HF, since I cannot erect antennas (lease restrictions), I am on Echolink, node number 331660. My callsign is WB8NHV (first licensed June 1972) and appears after my name in my profile signature.

OTA television just may eventually disappear on its own, without the need to mandate its extinction.

Up here in the pacific northwest, a very historic television pioneer, KVOS is just such case. This was the first station that served the Vancouver BC market. It was a CBS affiliate (and at one time Dumont in 1953), that once it lost CBS (it was considered a Seattle market station, which had a CBS affiliate) it was all downhill from there. It just sold for 2.2 million to an investment firm owned by Michael Dell. The previous sale a number of years back was 28 million, so someone got a bargain.

In Vancouver BC, the market penetration of cable is so complete that most stations did not bother to go with transmit ERP's to equate their analog signals, and the "public" broadcaster (CBC) even discontinued a number of translators and fill transmitters across Canada.

Those who run the big 3 networks in Seattle made getting locals on satellite so difficult that when Directv first offered them, we had to file waivers to each affiliate to get ABC, CBS, and NBC. The ABC affiliate insisted to Directv that we should be able to get their signal (CH4) off air, even though where I live in Blaine, WA is well outside their grade B contour (we're >100 miles from Seattle, through typical northwest mountains and forest). Come ATSC, and even off my 50' amateur radio tower and with a "super deep fringe" UHF amplified antenna, I can't even begin to see their signals on a spectrum analyzer.

If you cannot receive the Seattle stations where you are with an antenna, and satellite doesn't carry Seattle's locals for any reason (what about Spokane stations?), your only other option would be cable if your area has it.

I would think, in an area over 100 miles from Seattle, you would have at least one cable system -- unless you are way out in the boondocks. If you are located in eastern Washington state (I don't know where in the state your town is), you should be getting stations from Spokane and also across the border in British Columbia; since the latter, and for that matter all TV stations in Canada, now have converted all their TV stations to DTV, one converter box on your TV should do the trick if you still want to use an antenna.

If you cannot receive the Seattle stations where you are with an antenna, and satellite doesn't carry Seattle's locals for any reason (what about Spokane stations?), your only other option would be cable if your area has it.

I would think, in an area over 100 miles from Seattle, you would have at least one cable system -- unless you are way out in the boondocks. If you are located in eastern Washington state (I don't know where in the state your town is), you should be getting stations from Spokane and also across the border in British Columbia; since the latter, and for that matter all TV stations in Canada, now have converted all their TV stations to DTV, one converter box on your TV should do the trick if you still want to use an antenna.

Now local channels are mandatory on Dish and DirecTV. I had to battle Dish go take the local channels OFF of my service as I receive over 70 OTA channels which Dish certainly can't duplicate, and they are not effected by rain outages. Dish made Locals mandatory shortly after I signed up for their service, and the first change I made to the service updated my account to include locals and added the fee to my bill. I argued with them and won, saving me a whopping $5 a mo off my Dish bill. Hey why pay for it if you already have better.

Seventy over the air channels? Wow! You must be at a very high point in your area, or else you have a 225-mile deep-fringe antenna with a preamp, rotor, the works. I've never known or even heard of anyone (until now) who can get seventy channels of TV without cable. You must be getting stations from everywhere in the Southwest US, and then some.

Nope just from Cedar Hill TX about 30 miles south of me. That includes all the digital multi channels. Some have up to 5 standard def channels.


My not so deep fringe antenna, in the attic of the garage, an old Antennacraft-made sold at RadioShack back in the '80s-90s.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ageatticsm.jpg

A neighbor was throwing it away so I salvaged it, cut the back end off about a foot with the longest elements (damaged) no longer needed since there's nothing on the old channels 2 through 6 low VHF.

Your antenna looks almost exactly like one on a house I pass on my way to the supermarket here every week or so. That antenna also has lost most of its VHF elements, and could be used for DTV in this area if not for the CBS affiliate in Cleveland, WOIO-TV. That station operates on virtual channel 19 (the station number shown on digital TV sets and converter boxes) but its DTV signal is on channel 10, the only VHF DTV station I am aware of in this area (the rest of the DTV stations in Cleveland are on UHF channels). I suppose if all the damaged VHF elements were taken off that antenna, leaving only the five or so undamaged ones, it could be used as a dedicated channel 10 antenna, with the UHF section (which is undamaged) being used to receive the other Cleveland DTVs. However, since there is a potential interference problem between DTV 10 in this area and a Canadian station (CFPL-TV in London, Ontario) on the same channel, there is a chance that one or the other may be forced, eventually, to move to a UHF channel. However, because of the higher frequencies, lower power and therefore limited range of digital television signals transmitted over UHF channels, there may not be that much of an issue as far as interference is concerned; only time will tell what may or may not shake out in that situation.

You said that many of the stations you can receive have as many as five (!) digital HD and/or SD subchannels; that's amazing. How many standard TV stations did you receive in your area before DTV? The PBS station in Cleveland has three subchannels (PBS World, PBS Ohio, and PBS Create);the NBC station has one (weather radar), the ABC station has one (the LiveWell Network), the CBS station has one (MeTV), the Fox station has one (Antenna TV) and the CW Network affiliate has an HD subchannel, but no other alternate programming. There is a PBS station about sixty miles southwest of here that has three DTV subchannels as well. All told, on the cable system here I can get twelve channels, counting the broadcast channels' DTV subchannels, in addition to the standard "must carry" cable channels; the complete total number of channels I can get on Time Warner Cable -- broadcast, DTV subchannels, and must-carry channels -- comes close to the number of OTA stations you are receiving with your converted antenna.

You are also saving a bundle by receiving your TV over the air, as cable systems raise their already high rates every year. I'd like to put up an OTA antenna here, but there are at least two problems: one, I live in an apartment building, so cannot erect an outside TV antenna, and two, I am in a semi-fringe area for Cleveland television, the transmitters being located just under 40 miles southwest of here. One VHF network station did not reach here in analog, and the others, except for channel 19, were fair to poor, using rabbit ears. I doubt I'd have much better luck with DTV -- in fact, I think my reception of all Cleveland stations would be the same or perhaps worse than it was in NTSC analog.