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?
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.
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