Here's some news....
I finally just got access to a couple of coupons as I was getting the royal run around about getting mine because I have a PO Box and I'm not on an Indian Reservation or using an APO. So I had to go about getting mine by using my Middle name sending them to a family members address (Not mine - and not a PO Box) and just adding an Apt. 2 at the end of the street address to finally get them. Sucks you can't be honest to get them you have to be a little street smart I guess you'd call it.
Anyhow, I have only hooked up the one in my bedroom so far until the transition. I have DirecTV in my Living Room and my oldest son's Bedroom. The Analog with a signal booster I am getting some other channels I can't pick up yet with my Convertor Box. Not only that I hooked it up and scanned for channels at 6 PM EST got 9.1, 9.2,16.1,16.2, 22.1, 22.2, 22.3, 25.1, 28.1, 34.1, 46.1, 57.1, and 69.1 at that hour and all comming in rather quite picture perfect. I have found that in the late evening hours to early morning 5ish they come in fine during the day time 9.1 & 9.2 Pixelate (or digitize - however you want to call it) and I lose 28.1, 34.1, and 46.1. What's up with that? It's not all cracked up to be what they say. OMG! it's worse then having Cable, DirecTV, or Dish Network at least the only time you had problems with channels was during major storms with the trees rustling in the wind or power outages in the main output area.
This is supposed to be FREE TV for those (like myself now - but I'm very thankful my parents have been helping me so I can keep the DirecTV on the two TV's it's been installed on for some years now as lets face it. Galien is in the boonies! Unless you have a good big antenna up high you don't get much. But at least with the Analog I must say I at least got a snowy picture on some of the further stations I just barely got a signal from.
I can understand the Governments reasoning behind going digital so that in an emergency they can use the Analog signals to communicate from one side of the country to the other. But quite frankly, just how is that even going to be possible when just viewing television you can only pick up stations a certain mile radius depending on your antenna! So my Question is "Why the change? Most importantly why the rush to do so when in this economy people are loosing jobs and aren't going to be able to pay for their Cable or Satelite before long and during storms it will be much worse as if I can't get a signal during the day when it's calm because of the SUN or HUMIDITY playing in a role in getting a signal. Or is it just that the stations are not broadcasting strong enough? Did the government think of that?
