Maria Saldivar, right, and Ernestine Ramirez get a close look at a digital-to-analog converter box at a forum about the 2009 digital television conversion in San Antonio, Texas. (Bob Owens/San Antonio Express-News/Newscom)
Thanks to DTV, my television has ‘fallen off a cliff’
Column: Don’t assume the digital TV transition will improve reception.
By Tom Regan | Columnist for The Christian Science Monitor/ December 2, 2008 edition
As I’ve mentioned several times in the past, I live in a part of rural Virginia undiscovered by cable TV companies. I won’t use a satellite dish for a number of reasons – for one, they look like barnacles on the side of a house. So I’ve depended on broadcast TV signals for the past year.
I don’t watch much television, so it has not been so bad. The picture is a little fuzzy, but not so covered in static that I can’t enjoy a movie or political debate.
But analog TV signals are going away on Feb, 17. On that day, federal law demands that all over-the-air signals switch to digital (DTV). Currently, many stations broadcast in both digital and analog formats, giving people several months to prepare.
If you have cable or satellite TV, this is not a problem for you. That’s most people in the United States – about 60 million homes, according to a recent report. But in some areas, as many as one in five homes only receive broadcast signals. For example, the El Paso Times last month quoted a Nielsen Media Research report that found 22 percent of homes in that area of Texas are not ready for the DTV switch.
But the solution is easy, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). You can either buy a new digital TV (in this economy?) or a set-top converter box that will transform digital signals into something that your old analog TV will recognize. The government offers families two $40 coupons to help purchase these converters.
I had paid no attention to this until my neighbor got a set-top converter. Suddenly, his fuzzy signals were transformed into something amazing: clear, crisp pictures like you get when you have cable. He even got 20 channels, including new ones he had never seen before.
So I thought, “why not.” I went to the FCC website that is giving out the coupons (dtv2009.gov) and ordered two. When they arrived a few weeks later, I scurried down to the local RadioShack and picked up a converter. I hooked it up to my old, in-house antenna and sat back to see what I could get on my “improved” TV.
That’s when the problems started.
I could only pick up about five channels, eight at most. And they were never the same ones. Twist the antenna one way and get ABC and NBC. Turn it another way and get CBS and Fox. I couldn’t get any PBS stations at all, which were the real reason I wanted to get a better signal in the first place.
I bought a longer coaxial cable so that I could move the antenna. I put it on top of a bookcase. I piled up a few boxes in one corner and put it there. Et cetera. Et cetera. Nothing improved the signal.
Then I bought a signal booster. No change. I bought a new digital antenna. The picture actually grew worse, so I took it back. The signal was super finicky. If I walked in a certain part of the room, the signal disappeared all together.
How could my neighbor get so much reception, and I get so little? I decided to do a little research.
The first thing you need to know about a digital TV signal is that you either get it, or you don’t. Unlike analog TV, which still produces a fuzzy picture if reception is poor, digital gives you all or nothing. The moment the signal drops below a certain level, the set goes black. The TV industry has an interesting way to describe this: “falling off a cliff.” No kidding.
Discovery two: A digital signal is affected by practically everything – where your TV set is located in your house, the walls in your house, the number of trees in your yard, how close it is to other electronic devices, birds migrating south in the fall. No kidding. A Washington Post story described how a woman who lived on the 20th floor of an apartment building would lose her signal for a few moments every time a plane landed or took off from Reagan National airport.
My third finding: Indoor antennas are almost useless when it comes to digital signals. Oh, if you live in the right place, have no criminal record, and go to church every Sunday, you might get the entire broadcast spectrum. But chances are you’ll end up like me.
You can buy an outdoor antenna and hope for the best. Of course, if you live in an apartment building or condo, putting up an outdoor antenna is a bit more difficult. The FCC has ruled that no one can prevent you from putting up an antenna (despite what the apartment or association rules might say). But getting a clear picture might not be worth dealing with nagging neighbors or a treacherous climb onto the roof.
Either way, take this as a warning: Don’t wait until February to update your TV. At least I can still get analog TV for a few more months while I sort this out.
What bothers me the most about this entire exercise? I feel led astray. The information that has been coming out from broadcasters and the FCC about the switch from analog to digital has been nothing but glowing. They haven’t told us (or at least haven’t spoken loudly enough) about the problems we might have getting digital signals. They haven’t told people about the extra expense that might be involved. And they haven’t told people that come Feb. 17, their television-viewing experience might be worse, not better.
The FCC has done several test rollouts in small cities such as Wilmington, N.C., and says it’s already refining its DTV strategy to make the transition as easy as possible. But for some of us, I think we’re going to be stranded here for a while.
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Comments
2. Lou Cioccio | 12.02.08
My experience is great. I am up on a hill and have an outside antenna. In fact my one neighbor and myself out of 9 neighbors are the only one that do not have cable or satellite TV. I have been able to pull in Canadian TV (Analog) on a regular basis. (CITY-TV-Toronto,Ont. from Erie PA). I always had ghosting unless I was spot on an analog station. With the converter box WOW. And yes if you are off a bit it drops out. This past summer when sporadic E layer was active I was getting Detroit off the side of the antenna with the digital box. I have to agree you need an outside antenna regardless and a rotator. I have told people not to upgrade to a digital TV keep your analog and wait. Remember when VCR’s cost 600$ now they are 50$ if you can find them.
3. Alex Hill | 12.02.08
I must share that my experience has been much better than the author’s. I used to have basic cable to get the local broadcast stations because the analog TV reception was very poor. (I live in a condo in a mid-sized city, less than 2 miles from most of the local transmitters.) With the switch to digital TV, I am able to happily stop paying for cable. My indoor antenna works well; I sometimes have to tweak it a bit, but can always get all the local channels. The picture quality blows the old analog out of the water (I didn’t know my 22-year-old TV was capable of producing such a good picture), there are more channels (for example, the local PBS station has three digital sub-channels, including one with entirely local programming), and the signal is consistently stronger.
I agree entirely that it’s crucial to get the digital converter soon to allow time to fix problems before February 17; I switched early largely because I was afraid (based largely on the government publicity) that my reception would be worse.
4. Mark M | 12.03.08
You have encountered one of the “dirty little secrets” of the DTV transition, and there is going to be a huge public outcry over this in a few months. To add to the confusion, some stations will increase the power of their DTV broadcasts AFTER the February transition, which means that stations you can’t get now MAY suddenly start to come in fine at a later date. To complicate matters, not all DTV converter boxes are created equal; some have better fringe reception than others.
Another thing that rarely gets explained clearly is that new TVs purchased in the past couple of years will already have a digital ATSC tuner built-in, and don’t require a converter box for antenna reception. I hate to think how many confused people are rushing to purchase converter boxes for these models. Then there are all the people with old TVs with only one input to connect an external device to, which they will already be using for a DVD or VCR.
Consumer Reports has a considerable amount of valuable info available online:
but only a bit of it is free to non-subscribers, for example:
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2008/02/how-to-use-a-co.html
Also the ubiquitous Wikipedia weighs in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CECB
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_CECB_units
Note that most of the best converter boxes are available primarily via on-line mail order. I’m thrilled with my Channel Master CM-7000 which I purchased this way.
5. Lou Carpenter | 12.03.08
The antennaweb.org website shows even with an expensive outdoor antenna I will get far fewer channels than I do now. I like the idea of learning to play a musical instrument. Bring back the days of when neighbors would gather around the parlor piano to entertain themselves after dinner. The world will be better for it.
6. Josh S | 12.03.08
I share the problems of the author. I just wanted PBS, but I will no longer receive it when we transition. I get NBC and CBS. Sometimes Fox. On digital I get 3 networks. On Analog 7 with two PBS stations. I would much prefer to watch with snow and get more choice than watch with a good picture and get nothing.
7. Charlie S. | 12.03.08
With my convertor box the picture is crystal clear - when I can get it. I tried it for a while and the whole family agreed - snow is better than the picture dropping out completely every few minutes. I tried positioning an antenna all over the outside of my house but with no better luck than the indoor one. We had some succeess with the front door open and the antenna balanced and pointed in a particular direction but that did not seem like a good long term solution. Most likely will let the thing fall off a cliff come February if I don’t throw it off first.
8. afnotz | 12.03.08
This is the reason analog cell phone give noisy sound when the signal is weak, and digital phones just “fall off a cliff.” You need a certain signal to noise ratio to reliably transmit digital data. You can plot the error rate vs Signal to noise, and you get a sort of “water fall” curve. Most data streams add something called Reed-Solomon coding which gives better error rates for noisey signals, up to a point. That’s the cliff.
In an area with multiple signal paths to your antenna (mountainous or Urban Canyon areas” the problem is compounded because the multiple refections often cancel each other, and those nulls can be just a few feet apart.
Basically, your screwed. That’s how new technology works - we find something sucessful, then improve it until it’s broken.
9. CJTalker | 12.03.08
I’m in Southern VT and the DTV Box install was very easy. I did install a very large outdoor antenna (other one was broken anyway) with Rotor and booster. I used to get 3 stations, now I get 6 (4 PBS, NBC, ABC) CBS only comes in using Analog, but very clear. I’m hoping the DTV power is being broadcast low now and will improve in February. I like having the ‘DTV program guide’ now also.
10. Carolyn | 12.03.08
I have a similar problem, but for the opposite reason - I’m smack in the middle of an urban area, not too hilly, very close to the transmission towers, and I only get half of the available channels. I’m not sure if the signal is sailing over our heads, or if it’s too powerful and just blowing out, or if our apartment is impeding the signal, or what. It’s frustrating, though, to say the least. No NBC for us.
11. Jim B. | 12.03.08
I live in the middle of Orange County CA and my DTV is a fair weather friend at best and often blinkingly intermittent. For now I can still switch back to analog. I guess we should all write our Congresspeople & tell them they were sold a bill of goods. DTV just doesn’t work.
12. pappy | 12.03.08
I have an irrational aversion to paying for cable or satalite. I got a 17″ LCD TV about a year and a half ago and hooked up an indoor antenna. Great picture and several “extra” channels. I got a 42″ LCD TV last Christmas, use only an indoor amplified antenna and get great reception. Everyone at work kids me about not have cable or satalite, including my boss, but I really just don’t like to watch so much tv. I would rather read a good book.
13. Ed C | 12.04.08
I live in Rockville, MD, and made the DTV switch a few months ago. At first, I was pleasantly surprised by the great picture quality on most of the stations, but then I started to notice that every so often the picture freezes up for a short time, and then resumes with a curious crossword-puzzle like pattern displayed in the transition. However, now I notice that when I’m watching even the best-received stations, every so often there is a brief dropout in the audio, with no interruption of the video. I was watching a program about Pavarotti last week, but I eventually had to turn it off because of these annoying audio dropouts.
And this is with a top-of-the-line (or so I was told) amplified indoor antenna (35 dB gain), carefully aligned to the transmitter. Oh, I can improve the reception if I stand about a meter and a half behind the antenna holding a roll of aluminum foil over my head. No kidding!
I only watch a few hours a week, at most, but DTV may get me down to zero. Advertisers take note: Your viewers are falling off the cliff.
14. digiman | 12.04.08
greetings everyone. anyone having difficulty receiving digital signals, lookout for a small new comer called DTV Green Dish. They are recycling unused satelliter dishes in miami florida and converting them to high gain hd antennas. they paint it green and put their logo on it.It is so powerful, it pulls in channels fromm west palm beach from homestead florida which is more than 70 miles. I get 37 dt channels from my location the antenna makes use of the dish to capture the weakest signals then amplifies them and you get all your local uhf dt channels at 87% and vhf dts at 60% they have one listed on ebay. the link to the websit is http://www.dtvgreendish coming soon. everyone who buys it has given great reviews.
they will be selling the conversion kit online soon. I bought one and I refered friends and family we love that it’s also recycled.
15. Charlie Palenz | 12.07.08
Reception of DTV is more complex, and I wanted an antenna for the HD features. I found one antenna could not drive two televisions well because of losses at the splitter. I have a Radio Shack medium range antenna in the attic that seemed to work well otherwise. So I went on the internet to see what might be built and discovered free plans for a Gray-Hoverman antenna that I felt was worth a try (http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/design.htm). It worked after some play to get aimed. That was October. Now in December I found my Radio Shack antenna does not receive my most distant station and the Hoverman that I built works better, all stations (NBC-CBS-ABC-PBS-FOX) are reliable, I am mystified why the Radio Shack antenna reception has deteriorated on my distance stations, re-aiming has not helped. If anyone wants to build a Hoverman for in your attic, you will need to convert the dimensions to inches,, #12 electric wire is fine for the elements, and chicken wire (one big piece) in place of the reflectors, and scrap wood for mounting the elements and spacing for the reflector. For outside durable mounting materials are needed like PVC pipe. Its easy to build.
16. Bill | 12.08.08
Early on when they were testing the digital broadcast reception with the converter boxes, they discovered that reception would not be as good as analog. Analog is a broad signal, covering a large area, digital on the other hand is a narrow beam signal, so most homes getting analog signals now, will not be in the digital signals beam width. They’ll be forced to purchase cable or satelite programing. I just hope they don’t do this to radio. Yep, once again we are sold out. I will miss having my twenty something year old b&w tv keeping me company in my workshop.
Bill, Santa Maria, CA
17. DB | 12.09.08
Anyone remember the infamous Jim Jones and the drinking of the grape juice. This is how I feel when discussing DTV. Everyone in the broadcast industry has already drank the grape juice of DTV, we are next. This whole DTV seems to be a means for electronic manufactures to sell us “new” high priced equipment. Just try and buy a 27″ CRT TV.
As the author mentioned I too have had the number of avaliable viewing stations reduced since I drank the DTV juice.
18. MR | 12.10.08
Isn’t our government wonderful? Forcing all citizens who receive their television signal over the air to move to a less reliable technology to increase revenue to the government? Yes, our congress people were not sold a bill of goods, they forced the bill of goods so they could sell the newly ‘freed up’ frequencies to the highest bidders. They wrapped this in the disguise that the ‘freed up’ frequencies in the lower end of the spectrum were needed to ‘help’ us by assisting our fire and police with their communications. DTV, follow the money.
19. RB | 12.13.08
We’ve two homes in Michigan. One’s in the Detroit area. The convertor box works great. The other house is a vacation home in a fairly rural area. With a 3 story tall, huge antenna with rotor and pre-amp there, we get 2 analog channels poorly, from broadcasters 40 and 60 miles away, ABC and CBS affiliates. Sometimes at night we can pull in a even worse signal from an NBC affiliate. We’ve always just put up with the fuzzy picture, knowing that it’s a rural location.
We plugged in the convertor box there that cost us $20 above the coupon and it displayed, “No Channels Found.” According to http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx the digital signals for that address are ZERO. Yes, NONE!! There’s cable available. There’s always satellite TV. But we just don’t spend enough time there to warrant the expense of subscribing to either. So, I guess well get news from radio - until that goes all digital! And we’ll watch old movies on DVDs and VHS, if we want to turn on the TV.
What’s kinda humorous is that the stations we receive in analog are cranking up the kilowatts of their signal for DTV. Their operating expenses for electricity are going to rise substantially. Simultaneously, the households watching are going to decline as those on the fringe will “fall off that cliff.” They’ll get less advertising revenue, while spending more on pricey electricity! How “green” is that, either way?
Why is it that where the government goes, “unintended consequences” always seem to follow?
20. PC | 12.31.08
Thank you…thank you…I thought I was going crazy. I live in Pasadena, California in a well populated area. I installed my dtv converter box and antenna last night and I’m having the exact same experience. Even though I get more channels, for the most part, the reception is garbage. Some don’t even come in at all. I now don’t get Channel 13 and Channel 2 goes in and out to the point that makes it unwatchable. Good bye CSI… I am so mad. This is just another con on the part of our government to force us to spend money we don’t have on technology that isn’t ready for prime time. Now the cable companies are going to get rich from people not able to get “free” TV. I’m not sure who to complain to, but my congressman is going to hear from me on this one.
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1. Gary Smith | 12.02.08
I too live in an area where off-air television is very difficult to receive.
I do not subscribe to cable or satillite television.
Without television, I am more happy and productive.
Instead of watching TV, I listen to radio, and have taken up playing music.
Hopefully, millions of others will abandon TV altogether with the 17-Feb cutoff of analog TV signals. Then they can spend more time with family and friends. Let it be known that the quallity of my life is vastly improved WITHOUT ANY TELEVISION.