DTV Transition Day: Will You Get Through It?
June 12th is the transition day and there have been a few useful items I’ve seen that may be helpful to your effort. I just helped my younger sister in St Louis set up a converter box on her little kitchen TV and she’s a very happy camper. Living in Shrewsbury, she went from getting 3 analog stations to 7 digital stations with room for more once we figure out why the Public TV channels weren’t coming in.
First step if you are still in process would be to download the DTV Transition Made Easy booklet from the FCC and Consumer Union. 5 Simple Steps, in a 16-page booklet.
My sister is getting the reception without the addition of a fancy antenna, courtesy of her location. You may want to look into the service capabilities in your area by checking the Maps available on DTV.org. Personally downtown, I’m receiving all of the local channels well except for KOLR10 which is black, zilch, a non-entity. Kind of remarkable given that they were an early adopter and the original digital signal they had worked fine with my Panasonic plasma TV and basic rabbit ears. When they made their final transition to digital-only, it eliminated them from my viewing habits. I’ve heard they are increasing the power of their broadcast signal but I’m not spending any money on a new antenna. Speaking of which, I spent $40 on a ‘special antenna’ I bought at Sam’s. The result did not improve on my rabbit ears. We’ll see if it helps my sister get PBS in STL.
One other item of interest, from Videomaker, although I haven’t seen this behaviour from Mediacom yet based upon my other sister’s service in Southern Hills:
Some cable TV companies are trying to take advantage of the confusion going on over the DTV conversion. Consumer’s Union, the parent company, writes that some programs viewers enjoy on their usual cable tier are being scrambled and placed on a higher tier, requiring viewers to rent set-top boxes for every TV in the house to watch them.
The CR report goes on to say that the digital TV transition change affects only those that are watching TV via an antenna only, and that this is a deceptive excuse for a rate hike. The story adds, “If the cable company says the channel changes are due to DTV conversion mandated by the feds, notify your state’s attorney general. They’re not.” (Consumer’s Reports, November 2008).
So there you go, the MFAS basics on keeping up with DTV.
