51 year old TV converted to digital
 

though you guys might get a kick out of this.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...gital-age.html

Someone beat you to it!

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=168797

Ok, um, here's a 22-year-old TV that's been "Converted"... :D

...Just one of these:

http://search-desc.ebay.com/?fcid=1&...pare&save=Save

and a DigitalStream DTV box. No effort whatsoever, just plug-n-play. The whole setup is pictured.

As usual, it's freekin hard to photograph a TV picture. It's actually razor sharp. The 500-ft range is a bit optimistic, but it fills a large room or a small house adequately.

I expect the repairman to be a member of AK unless he is unaware.
I'm very much like that man except for wanting to see lady Madonna. I couldn't go quite that far.

How good is this unit?
 

How good is that little transmitter? I live in a fairly rural area and I wonder how hard it would be to extend the range? Granted legally there are limits. But for total disregard to the law:thmbsp: seeing as my nearest neighbor is some distance away I could get away with MORE POWER. A bigger antenna would help. Circuit wise I wonder if some component substitution would yield a slightly higher output? One could build a linear amp I suppose, but that would be a little overkill and bring someone knocking.:thumbsdn: I think I am going to order one of these units and try it out. It would be nice to have one in the vhf range tho.

I once worked for a cable company and was hooking up a modulator for a reverse back to the headend and the head end tech said "Hooking up an antenna to this would be real fun...and trouble!" Sadly I never got the chance to get an old unit to take home.

These (I'm told) will drive an antenna pretty well:

http://search.ebay.com/search/search...e=search&fgtp=

. Probably outside FCC guidelines, so I'm not officially recommending it...

The little UHF transmitter is adequate. More of a toy than a commecial product. I specifically wanted one UHF transmitter for my vintage sets that have UHF tuners (only 3 of them), so they would have at least one UHF signal to look at. The toy serves that purpose acceptably. It does have an RF-out coax port, so you can hook it up to better antennas. Perhaps that's how they got the 500-foot range out of it.