Chicago Weekend Fun!

I got my Digital TV converter box this summer (with the $40 credit coupon) and I love it. Here is how to get your TV Converter Box Coupon and get your signal converter box hooked up to your TV before the transition happens on February 17th, 2009.

First though you may not need a digital converter box for your TV if you fit into these situations: 1. Over half of the population gets Cable so those people don’t have to worry about the Broadcast TV Signals changing over from Analog to Digital on February 17, 2009. The rest of us still do!(Some people might first object to the fact that I don’t get cable, but in this internet age why do I need it? The basics of free TV are just fine for me.) 2. If you bought your TV in the last year and a half it probably already accepts a digital signal with nothing new to add to it. (HDTV qualifies) (Personally, I did not want to replace my 2002 edition TV with a new digital TV since it really works fine and I don’t watch TV that much to warrant a $500 purchase anyway.)

So in summary, if you don’t have a digital TV, or cable TV, you will need to buy a very simple signal converter box before February 17, 2009. I recommend getting one now before they are sold out. These Digital TV converter Boxes are sold at most appliance and electronics stores, I got mine at Best Buy. (also be available at bestbuy.com)  

The trick is not to pay full price for the digital converter box and get one using the government sponsored coupon. After the $40 discount from this coupon I paid $25 for my box. That seemed like an affordable price to me for a small digital black box that is about 10 inches x 10 inches x 2 inches tall. You can go to dtv2009.govand sign up for a coupon to be mailed to you within a few weeks. I got mine in about a month. It looked like a credit card or a gift card and it was easy to swipe it like a credit card when I made the purchase at Best Buy.

Connecting the digital converter box to my TV was easy too. Dtvanswers.com has a great FAQ section that can help if you get stuck but the basic idea is that the digital signal converter box goes between your existing TV antenna and your TV. Yes, the same old antenna works to receive the digital signal, my parent’s attic antenna from 1968 works as does my 2002 rabbit ears antenna, it’s just the TVs that can’t receiver the signal, so we get converter boxes to help.

Take the Antenna cable from the TV and plug it into the converter box and then use the converter box cable to connect it to the TV. (the VCR goes in between the TV and the converter box if you still use one, see diagram) There is also a power cord to plug in. When you get your converter box it will also come with a new remote for the box. I have to leave my TV on channel 3 now and use the converter box remote to change channels there to get the digital channels. The new remote turns on the TV and the converter box and can adjust volume too.

I like the digital channels better than the old analog ones because there are more of them and there are more programs available now. I also have no problem with signal reception now although my parents live way out in the suburbs and have some trouble getting digital signals in bad weather or just at random times. When the signal is low the screen gets all pixelated and computer like. Which is kinda sci-fi future movie creepy but it doesn’t happen very often for me. It happens once or twice a week for my parents in Downers Grove though.

So, instead of watching ABC Channel 7 in Chicago I can now see 7.1, 7.2 or 7.3. Same for NBC 5, it is 5.1, 5.2 or 5.3 with widescreen and cropped screen views as well as a 24/7 weather and news summary channel. Sometimes 5 and 7 also re-run the noon or 10 pm news on the .2 channels or run other programs from other regions which are interesting.

WTTW Channel 11 has used the digital signals to diversify the most with the regular programming on 11.1, digital wide screen on 11.2, a new content channel called Create of all cooking and “how-to” shows on 11.3 and a spanish language versions of their shows on 11.4. Channel 20 has also diversified quite a bit the same way too. Channel 2 is the laggard here with only turning on it’s digital signal in the last month and I still don’t get it most of the time.

One last thing I want to mention about this digital TV conversion process. It is easy to do for most people but it may not be easy for older people who are not tech savvy. If you have a grandparent, aunt, uncle or neighbor that doesn’t understand how to get a converter box or the coupon for one, help them out and order one and get the box for them. You should also help install it for them so they don’t loose their link to news and information every day.

TV is much more important to the people who are in their homes a lot and either can’t or don’t, go out much. It is important for weather updates and alerts and general news. With newspaper delivery going by the wayside eventually (I predict) the TV and Radio may be the ways to find out what is happening in the world for people who are older, retired and don’t use a computer.  I read that 20% of the US does not use the internet, so there are still a great number of people in this group who might need some help.

Update 1/9/08: the Government has been reporting that they are out of money from the budget they had set aside for sending out discount cupons to citizens. This is not suprising since less than half of the cupons send out to date have not been redeemed. So, if you want one, still go to the site and get on the waiting list anyway. Then they are looking at also extending the analog signal for a while longer and pushing the cut of date back a month or two to help with this transition. I hope that happens also, since a lot of people would loose their link to information and updates if they have not converted.  

Update: Congress has decided to give people four more months to prepare for the upcoming transition from analog to digital TV broadcasting. The House voted Wednesday to postpone the end of analog TV signals until June 12, 2009. The move is meant to address concerns that more than 6.5 million Americans with older TVs would not be ready by Feb. 17, the originally mandated deadline.