The Digital Switchover

Back in the glory days, I enjoyed digital TV over the airwaves for free... in High Definition to boot. Of course, I had to spend quite a bit for the UHF antenna that was mounted on my shed, and the HD Tuner wasn't anything near "cheap", either. But the setup was fantastic, and best of all, no monthly fees.

Fast forward to now, and I can't watch a thing on TV because of the digital switchover - my TV does not have a digital tuner. A few weeks ago, I decided to take Uncle Sam's incentive and ordered my digital conversion box coupon. Last week, it arrived, so I went to Best Buy and traded it for a box and bought an amplified antenna. I had done my homework already. I knew the closest network station was in West Palm Beach - many miles away - so I knew I'd need an amplified antenna to stand a chance of getting any reception. I raced home and wired it all together, only to find no stations strong enough to be detected by the auto tuner. After fiddling with some settings, I was able to pull in channel 25-1 and 25-2; an ABC affiliate and its weather channel.

While helping Nikki move last weekend, I came across a spool of coaxial cable. I asked if I could have it and was told to take it. I accepted, then drove off without it - of course. Today, we met Aunt Cathy and Uncle Dave near Cape Canaveral and I got my cable back, in exchange for a few of Andrew's graduation pictures.

On the drive home, I had an idea. I knew the apartment was wired for cable. I wondered if there's a cable outlet upstairs somewhere. When we arrived at home, I went upstairs and found a wall outlet in our bedroom. I quickly connected a piece of cable between the converter downstairs and the cable wall outlet. Then I connected the amplified antenna to the cable wall outlet upstairs. Pretty clever, heh? I turned on the converter and ran the converter's auto tuner. It ran and ran for a very long time. I thought, "If it's taking that long, it must be finding dozens of stations." And I soon found out that I was wrong. Not a single station was tuned and saved. No problem, I thought, I still have 25-1 and 25-2. Wrong again! Neither station would come in, or even show a blip on the signal strength meter. I re-wired the antenna as before, totally expecting to have my old stations back again. And I was wrong AGAIN!

Now I have zero stations coming in. That does it for TV in this house. I've lived without any TV at all since October and I can do just fine without it again. Now where did I put that Best Buy receipt?