Digital TV

[murffdog]

I know I asked about this some time back but I forgot and can't find it. We were talking about this around the campfire and you get 10 different answers. Come February the TV has to be digital. On cable with a HD TV or the digital box, no problem. In labor language, in your RV, on the roof antenna, you need a different "box", correct??

[whodo]

Basically your only concern is the "TV" not the antenna on the RV. If the TV is digital capable, or if you have a converter box, or if you have Satellite/cable then you are all set. For more information go to the following web sites.
http://www.dtvanswers.com/
https://www.dtv2009.gov/

[clayl]

Old style TVs will require a converter box to be able to receive off the air digital signals. Newer TVs have tuners that will work with the digital signals.

HD is digital but digital signals are not always HD. In other words the transmission is digital for both HD and standard definition but all digital signals will not be HD.
The antenna you have now will work fine for digital broadcasts - both standard definition and HD.

The Direct and Dish satellite signals are already digital and are converted to analog by the satellite receiver.

[betsytom]

This digital tv thing is interesting. We are NOT tv people, got rid of Dish, Direct and cable, too expenisve and honestly the programing, unless you are a sports person, is a wasteland. The only time 'we' watch is on Sundays when the Mrs. turns on the mystery type shows on pbs, yeah, yeah, I know-pbs..... we are both conservatives-and no we don't cough anything extra up during the begathons. We always felt that the people they/and the American taxpayers have made rich should finance the deal, plus last year the govt. gave them almost a billion.

Usually I just hear, 'honey, would you mind getting up and give the 'thing' a twist?' but this time its, 'honey I can't seem to get any picture at all' seems the creeps at pbs decided to go digital early. Luckily, for me, we had gotten the coupons for the converter box a few months ago so all I needed to do was stop at Best Buy and get a box, which I did the next day after work. I decided on an Apex DT250 because it has analog pass through and an S video connection. The following Sat I got it hooked up and remember thinking to myself, 'a happy wife is a happy life'.
Well Sunday comes along and in the evening I hear something that always makes me cringe, 'dear can you come here a sec?', now I don't know about the rest of you guys but here 'honey' is good but 'dear' is bad, very bad, it ALWAYS implies fault. 'Dear, before you put that 'thing' in at least I could get a fuzzy picture, now there is nothing-anywhere, what did YOU do?' And here is where the digital education got more in depth-seems digital pictures are an everything or nothing thing, by that I mean that where you could watch a so so analog picture, that same station in digital can be a no go-lower power I think, and the nature of the format.

Well the short of it is this, we now have an antenna back on the house, Winegard 7694P, with an amp Winegard Chromstar 2000 and a Channel Master
9521A rotor and remote, total cost about $210.00. But we have also gone from barely getting three fuzzy stations to now receiving ten stations with perfect pictures, in my opinion off air digital is at least as good as cable, satellite and may be a bit BETTER.

Unsolicited advice, get the biggest antenna you can safely put up, the size 'decreases' significantly once it is on the roof and you WILL need an amp-though the bat wings are an active antenna, and rotor, digital is wierd in that with fringe signals a few degrees can make the difference between no signal and a perfect picture, its really wierd. Having said this on non fringe stations we get a very high quality picture with the antenna in the opposite direction from some stations.

Life is good again, now I only hear, 'honey can you make the 'thing' go around?'

http:www.antennaweb.org/

http:www.tvfool.com/

The links are working now.

I did business in person with Stark Electronics, Worcester , MA and will only say, go there at your own risk. He was either off his meds that day, or is, in every sense, the 'antenna nazi' becoming civil only after he realized that I was there to buy.

[jonesrvers]

Just installed the box in my class c. Had to tear just about everything above the cab out to get to the wires. Found the ignition interlock on the tv. Not much space to work up there. Also took out the vcr and installed a dvd since I had it all apart. Every thing works good. Better picture than I ever had with analog. Only thing I found is that the power boost must be on or the box says no signal.