A RANT
We live in a rural area between two metropolitan areas on a high hill. We have gotten most of our TV from the area to the west. We probably watch at most 10 hours of TV a week - low by US standards.
We have refused to get cable or a dish because we don't want to pay FAUX any pennies we don't have to & up to now we have been able to get analog on the air through good rabbit ears atop 2 small TVs. Also since we spend so much time on-line, we would not be able to watch even a portion of what is on cable. We have an owner built type of house that one cannot string wires between walls (very solid).
But Friday nights are different - we watch PBS - Newshour, Washington Wk, BILL MOYERS, Now and a local news analysis program, as well as Nightly Business Report and several other programs on PBS during the week. We are basic members of the PBS station. Of the 4 local commercial stations, the FOX one comes in the best (won't you know!) - CBS not at all on one TV and the other TV, upstairs, barely gets CBS, NBC, & ABC.
We got the converter boxes for the 2 TV's which were working just fine in analog. It took until today, when the stations switched and supposedly the digital signal would be stronger, to tell how it would work. Tuning occurred all day, by a very technically knowledgeable family member.
It isn't working. People in rural areas are getting screwed. We worked to move the indoor antennas around - even moving one outside. Nothing worked.
The picture and sound kept breaking up. This is even more important here, because as a fairly deaf person, I often depend upon captioning when dialog is too fast. Of course the captioning kept breaking up too.
Buying a new Digital TV would not help us. Our choices are cable, at $50. a month or buying an outdoor antenna, and having to feed in lines running all over the house interior. (Would have to do this with cable or a dish also) An outside antenna would be subject to the high winds and lightening strikes we get on the top of our hill, and cost $300 + to buy and install. If we are forced into cable, then we will have wasted $60. on the d*mned boxes.
Almost as upsetting as all this is the arrogance of people who are dismissive of those of us in rural areas and over the switch in general. Newspaper blogs from the local papers to the NYT have been full of ugly comments about those of us who are having sincere trouble with this switch, not to mention the 80 yr olds that just want to see their quiz shows and news.
Was going to put this in an Open Thread, but decided to see if others were p*ssed too. ARRGGGHHHH!
Suggestions? Commiserating rants?
I do intend to notify the TV stations that we cannot receive their signals now.