Posted on 06/17/2009 12:46:03 PM PDT by conservativesister
HELP, this digital TV conversion really is horrible! I used to get 9 channels with my antenna. I bought a new digital TV and now I get 2 channels, and they are spotty. I live outside the cable covered area and they will not bring it on up the road, so how can I get local TV stations like I did before?
DirecTV??
Go back to your antenna?
Get a dish of some kind.
On 11JUN09, I got lots of DTV signal. On the afternoon of 12JUN09, I had basically nothing. So I re-scanned the TV ... and it found more signals than I had before.
Re-scan your TV.
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
We’re on antennas and I had to rescan after the transition.
Yep. Satellite TV is your only option.
You may need a better antenna. Try this site -> http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
Please come over here, fso301.
Btw, It’s raining to beat the band here in MI so I didn’t test my signals.
We are having the same problem.
Amen, bro. The thing that sold me on Directv is the ability to set you dvr from an internet-ready cellphone or computer anywhere. Dish TV doesn’t have that luxury. I missed recording something once and found out about this capability. Never again will something be missed.
Yep a better digital type antenna would probably do it.
Getting a different antenna helps lots of folks.
Same here. We were receiving 14 digital channels before the shutoff date. All we watched at the time was HDTV, after that date my dad hit the “find channel” button on the remote to search for any new HDTV channels and came back with 1! Just 1!. Can’t get anymore. We’re 50 miles LOS from Seattle five hundred feet up a mountain.
You can't. They're stopping those transmissions now...
Some channels moved. At 11:59 pm last Fri night, WHDH-TV 7
in Boston had an analog signal on Ch 7 and a digital one
on Ch 42; then they switched them both off and powered up
the digital signal on the frequency of Ch 7.
They soon found that many people who could pick them up on
Ch 42 couldn’t pick them up on Ch 7! They’re saying the FCC
didn’t allocate them enough power. So for now they switched
CH 42 back on (with FCC permission) and are trying to get a power boost for the Ch 7 digital frequency.
The FCC and other sources are saying you should re-scan
Some are even saying unplug antenna from your TV. Unplug
converter box, etc. Then plug everything back in and
rescan.
Also: your antenna may not be adequate enough.
Some complaints have come in about Channel 6-es in
Schenectedy and Phila. Also some complaints about
stations putting their signals on “VHF-Hi” (i.e.,
channels 7-13; VHF-Lo is 2-6)
And I know how much you’d miss “I’m a Celebrity, Get me out of here”
/sarc
You could call Obama and ask him to fix it for you. I will help if you send a campaign contribution. :-)
You could get a much bigger antenna, and make sure it includes VHF, apparently during the “transition period” some stores sold UHF-only “DTV” antennas, which worked since the DTV broadcasts were in the UHF spectrum.
Now many are in VHF, which doesn’t propogate as far, and also I’ve read somewhere that the power levels aren’t allowed to be as high. Kind of like “bait-and-switch”.
You could get a satellite feed, directTV or Dish Network. they are available anywhere, and often have local channels.
You might be able to boost your signal with a larger or preferably higher antenna and a pre-amplifier. But, the best choice may be a satellite TV dish.
It's not free, but it's competitive with terrestrial cable (if you could actually get that). Both DirecTV and Dish Network will give you the equipment for free, if you commit to keeping the service for 1-2 years. You should be able to get it installed for a minimal cost, as well.
What kind of antenna do you have? Make sure it is a strong UHF antenna. Most of the digital stations are on the UHF frequencies.
If your antenna is old, consider replacing the antenna and the cable from the roof. Cables lose the ability to transfer higher frequencies first as they age. Check all the cable connections.
Make sure the antenna is oriented toward the towers. I have a small roof antenna and the one station that transmits off axis has a much lower signal strength than the channels that are in line with the antenna.
get cable. You can get only on air local stations for about $20.
If you're using an indoor antenna, you may want to buy one with an internal amplifier. That will probably improve your signal level.
We are having the same problem. Its a government program, what did you expect? We have sworn off TV completely. Screw em.
I used to 10 channels, now I get 2. What the hell, it is a waste of life anyway.
Right ... that's why re-scanning is step one.
dirty little secret of DTV....
Lots of antennas that were perfectly fine for analog TV are having a hard time with digital. That is because if a digital signal is coming in weakly it will pixilate or not display at all. And since likely your signals are coming from various directions, it is impossible to get all of your channels with your antenna oriented in one direction on one scan. You would need to reorient the antenna and rescan (and when you do this, likely you will lose other channels). Supposedly they have “smart” antennas that can pull from competing directions, but they are expensive. A little detail they forgot to tell us during the conversion.
I know nothing about TVs. I don’t even watch it, BUT here’s a site that tells how to scan your TV when you switch over:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/rescan.pdf
And most likely this is why the FCC, etc. is telling people to re-scan. The case I gave above about Ch 7 Boston re-broadcasting on Ch 42...again...means that even if people
re-scanned on Sat., they’ll have to re-scan again...as they
didn’t power CH 42 back up until the other day.
All of the TV programs about digital TV conversion (run by many stations on “nightlight” stations that are still on analog—for example, on channels 2, 4, and 5—analog—in Boston) all say the same thing: “You may have to/will have to
rescan”
You need to rescan your TV.
or
Go back to analog, get a better antenna, get the convertor box. I did this with much success after the rescan on 06/12.
I don’t think you can. You have to have your regular TV antenna hooked up to the digital converter.
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Welcome.aspx
Try the site to select a new antenna type - it will tell you the heading to face the antenna and the directional type depending on what stations you want to recieve. I bought a new single directional antenna for my cabin, averaged the headings of all the stations (luckily mine were within a few degrees of one another) and installed the equipment - OUTSIDE. Also - very important, select antenna on your TV set up afterward and scan for stations again or anytime you move your antenna.
have heard that too; some people say if you have a portable antenna someone moving around the room will affect recep.
so much that the signal pixilates.
>>You would need to reorient the antenna and rescan (and when you do this, likely you will lose other channels).
One site I’ve seen, rabbitears.info IIRC, has you do a search for your zip code and it tells you what channels you should get and gives you a little map showing in what directions
the antennae are. But yes the smart antennas would be
expensive.
I so glad they've gone..., that's how I feel, bunch of worthless whores one and all, usually just make me mad or at least go tsk, tsk.
More time for other interests, life is much better now.
Actually, you can scan several times and see which channels you receive from what position of the antenna.
Then go into the channel programming mode and manually select all the channels you know you receive.
You’ll have to get up off the sofa and move the antenna with the channel changes...but it works!
I built one of these for about $5 and put it in a second-story window of my house and get 12 stations.
We have a similar problem here in the Raleigh-Durham area.
Channel 11, ABC, switched back to ch.11 from the uhf ch. they used for DTV.
The reduced power has made a mess to getting reception. They are talking to the FCC.
Antenna location is an important factor, but many of us in fringe areas who could pick up analog signals with a good antenna in a good location are finding out we can’t get reliable digital signals.
Amplifiers are very good. I use one made by Motorola. Without it I can get 4 or 5 stations, but with it I can pick up cities to the east and west and that gives me about 20 stations. Digital signals are also more direction-specific, so you may want to consider a motor to turn the antenna for best reception.
Me too. It worked very well a month ago when I experimented with it.
Now that the switch is complete not so well.
I'm guessing that prior to the cutoff they used full power and now reduced power.
I've gone from a 75% (approx) signal to about 35-40%.
I was in the same boat until I added one of these.
If you are getting any kind of signal at all, this will make it come in loud and clear.
“Any questions?”
Where do you get wire coat hangers these days?
Get one of these.
As long as you are getting some signal, this will get it the rest of the way.
Worked for me. Without it I got two stations. With it, twelve.
My wife's closet.
Indeed. 3 years without, and I don’t see how anyone could possibly have time for it. Tried signing up for cable several times, but totally balked at the price ($60/mo for decent lineup? nuts!).
I follow the DTV stuff out of techincal curiosity; _what_ is delivered is largely crud (gimme my NetFlix), but _how_ it’s delivered is interesting.
Dry cleaners.
Sounds like you’ve done everything you can.
Yea. I had my pie and the man took it away.
I was concerned for my Father In Law when he splurged and bought an LCD HDTV. He too lives in a fringe area for coverage (reception was hit-or-miss with the old analog). To our surprise, he gets twice the channels he did before. With digital, you either get it or you don’t. There really isn’t much gray area between. That being said:
Your options, as best I can tell:
1. an outdoor antenna. Correctly put together and mounted, you should be able to pick up what you want. Don’t go cheap and get a itty-bitty $20 antenna and lean it against a tree... Part of correct installation is using good coax cable and connectors.
2. Call DirecTV or DishNetwork and have them come out and hook you up with satellite.
3. post and complain - though it can help with venting, it doesn’t generally help TV reception.
And the positive about getting Dish or DTV - you are not stuck with local variants on the mainstream media. You could get FoxNews.
Rescan and get an outdoor antenna. Works wonders.
All these comments about Satellite TV and boosters and so forth are nice, but consider what you might want to do to get at least local TV when the power goes out.
We were without power for almost a week last fall and I hooked up a TV with antenna to an inverter and a car battery to get the local stations, for news and updates and so forth. Hope I can do the same with a TV and the converter.
And does anybody know what to do with those small battery operated TVs with built in antennas that you can’t hook up to a converter?
the so-called “digital” antennas are a scam in general. There is nothing digital about them. Just get a good antenna. Lots of places to get them. I even think Radio Shack still sells them (though you might have to order it). Get a big one with high gain.
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