[Jeffhs]

I just looked at the local over-the-air TV channel listings for the Wheeling-Steubenville area and found that you can get all three networks (NBC, ABC, CBS) from channels 7, 9 and a subchannel of channel 7, plus two PBS channels, so even if you are in a poor signal area for Pittsburgh TV you can still get the same network programs you were watching when you were in Pennsylvania.

I don't know if you've considered basic cable, but that could be an option if your OTA TV reception is poor. Digital TV is especially dependent on strong signals for good pictures, so unless you are in a strong signal area you may have problems with the signal breaking up, or you may not get certain channels at all.

I have basic cable here where I live (30+ miles east of Cleveland), but only because I cannot get two major TV stations OTA with an antenna. (I can see many stations using the OTA antenna, including NBC, ABC, and PBS from Cleveland, as well as two independents from outside the area.) Seems that the two stations in question, on channel 8 (FOX) and 19 (CBS), transmit on DTV channels 8 and ten, respectively, which my digital antenna cannot receive. (The other local Cleveland stations transmit on UHF DTV channels, so I see them just fine.) This is too bad, since the subchannels of these two channels (Antenna TV and MeTV, respectively) are the ones I watch the most; I like TV shows from the '60s and '70s, the time period during which I grew up. I have many DVDs and VHS tapes of TV shows from that era, so I am almost never at a loss for something to watch on TV. I don't especially care for most programming on the major networks these days, so the only thing I watch on any network (unless something special pops up, which isn't often) is the evening news on NBC (channel 3 from Cleveland) and, outside the networks, my DVDs and tapes. I have the entire ABC network run (five seasons) of The Odd Couple and seven seasons of Quincy, M. E. (which ran on NBC from 1976 to 1983) on DVD, both of which starred an actor named Jack Klugman, and the first or first and second seasons of several other '60s-'70s TV series as well.

Glad to hear you were able to get a Zenith console TV from the early part of the 21st century (2002). These sets were made, I believe, just before the company's reputation went sour. Don't know if yours has a bad CRT or not (Zenith TVs from the mid-'90s until the end of the CRT TV era had CRTs that were prone to shorts and other problems that often damaged other parts of the TV, such as the video output stages, and also had HV regulation troubles), but if your set's tube is still good it will probably make a good picture, as Zenith had a reputation for quality long before LG (the Korean electronics firm that bought them out in the late '80s or nineties) got hold of the company.

Good luck in your new area. Since you have an old friend near there, as you mentioned, it will be easier to get used to the area as you will not have come to town not knowing anyone. When I came here 15 years ago, I didn't know anyone, but I eventually found out that two old friends of mine I grew up with and went to school with now live in towns not far from here. We now keep in touch with one another via e-mail; it is as if none of us had left our home town (a suburb of Cleveland) at all.

I am also back on the air, so to speak, with my amateur radio station, although my HF operations from my apartment are digital using Echolink, an amateur radio linking application that links users' computers to traditional amateur stations. I am also on 2 meter FM, being a member of a local radio club which has a repeater (N8BC/R, 147.81-21 and also on 440) in the next town south of here. There is a club net that meets on that repeater every Thursday evening at seven o'clock; I used to check into that one quite regularly but got out of the habit. One of these days (probably next week, if I don't forget), I'll check in to that net again.

73,