(That's More of the Same, Piled higher and Deeper.)
Sometime over the weekend WPVI fine tuned its signal, so here in Coatesville we are getting a decent picture with only occasional pixel dropouts. Sound runs continuously, too. This is on our small TV with the old antenna and 10 dB amplification. The big TV with the S-video and a 20 dB amplifier is near perfect. This is good, because Bob prefers WPVI 6ABC news.
Wonder how they are doing in Washington, DC with their two deadhead stations? A lot better than Metro, I hope. We rode that Red Line through the accident site on May 29. There but for the grace of God.....
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Results of the digital conversion
Goodbye, rabbit ears falling on head. Goodbye, interference from the computer in the next room and the DSL modem. Goodbye, fridge door antenna. Goodbye, hand as antenna. Goodbye, head in the field.
However, goodbye WGAL channel 8. It was refreshing to watch news that wasn't full of gang war and city corruption, and had views of country life. But goodbye WPVI channel 6??? Google 'digital stations lost', and the leading story is that BOTH the CBS and ABC affiliates in Washington, DC went AWOL. Philly channel 6 is next, followed by Chicago's ABC affiliate is a distant third.
It seems that some digital stations kept or moved to VHF frequencies (the old channels 7-13), and these are giving the FCC a pain in the netherlands. Hey, I'm still using my mother-in-law's roof antenna with a 20 decibel amplifier. Channel 6 has to get it to me before I can use it to blast out the living room. :) Stay tuned....
However, goodbye WGAL channel 8. It was refreshing to watch news that wasn't full of gang war and city corruption, and had views of country life. But goodbye WPVI channel 6??? Google 'digital stations lost', and the leading story is that BOTH the CBS and ABC affiliates in Washington, DC went AWOL. Philly channel 6 is next, followed by Chicago's ABC affiliate is a distant third.
It seems that some digital stations kept or moved to VHF frequencies (the old channels 7-13), and these are giving the FCC a pain in the netherlands. Hey, I'm still using my mother-in-law's roof antenna with a 20 decibel amplifier. Channel 6 has to get it to me before I can use it to blast out the living room. :) Stay tuned....
Friday, June 12, 2009
The Joy of Digital Television
Keep coming back - I won't be finished until later with this!
Since we brought all our analog sets with us from California, and everyone is SO unemployed, of course we went for the converter boxes. Bob had to blow both $40 coupons on the cheapest GE model available at BJ's Warehouse (closest competitor to Costco and Sam's Club), after I had told him I wanted one box with analog pass-through since our local PBS (WHYY 12, Wilmington/Philadelphia) was not broadcasting a strong enough signal for us to get out here in the boonies of Chester County.
I hooked up the converter to watch the Rose Bowl in hi-def. So Bob tried to change the channel to tape something else. Hello, the converter box changes the channels. Plus one box feeds the same signal to both the TV and the VCR. Disconnect box.
We went down to Costco in Delaware, and decided to check out the Circuit City bankruptcy sale across the parking lot. The store was virtually sacked down to bare shelves, except for stacks of APEX brand digital converter boxes... with analog pass-through. Price $30, with a disclaimer that the bankruptcy sale operator wasn't taking the $40 coupons. We didn't have one anyway.. so home one goes. I hooked it into the TV antenna line, but left it unplugged. That way, we can get our TV regular or hi-def and not pay PECO (Philadelphia Energy Co. to you non-Pennsylvanians) one mite more than necessary.
The big day of June 12 came. When I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, I plugged in the box with the pass-through. WHYY 12 (PBS) had announced it was switching off the analog at noon. Just after noon I switched from WGAL 8 to 12.... static. I kicked in the converter box and scanned. Success!!!! Channel 12 had gone digital! They'd diverted the power from the analog broadcast to boost the digital signal enough to get out of Philly and reach us. I switched back to 8.
Fifteen minutes later I tried WPVI 6 (ABC). "Channel 6 is gone," I announced. By 12:30 pm the only analog stations still in business were the CBS affiliates and associated stations: KYW 3 Philly, WGAL 8 Lancaster, and Channel 57 (CW Philly, but owned by the group holding KYW 3). WGAL 8 had announced it was switching at midnight.
We watched Channel 8 news for what I figured would be the last time that night. Its reception had always been fuzzy, but it was the only thing the rabbit ears would pull in, in the kitchen. The digital box wouldn't pull in the New Jersey PBS stations, so I knew Channel 8 Lancaster would go too.
I went out to Radio Shack after the girls got hoe from the barn to get some video cable connectors, so I could use what cable I had on hand to connect the kitchen TV to the roof antenna. While I was there the salesman commented on how many complaints he had gotten that day of "Channel 6 went off the air!!"
However, watching Channel 6 for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune proved to be a new trial. The picture had digital pixel drop-outs scattered all over it, and sometimes it froze. Ditto for the sound. BIG bummer. How can a family figure it has the full offerings of broadcast TV if one of the Big 3 is AWOL, or acting hung over and/or stoned? We watched what we wanted for the night on other channels.
Then Bob switched to a newly discovered treasure (for us), Y arts on WHYY 12.2. Y arts provides concert music and dance in all genres. Bob stated he prefers it to Conan O'Brien.
EarlierI got to work on putting in that kitchen connection through the basement. As a woman, I am happy that I understand the work and can do it. But as a married woman who was expected to stay home with the kids, I am fuming that my husband doesn't "get it" well enough to do the job. And as a handicapped person, I know there will be a price to pay in pain to do the job. I miss my son Thomas. He does this electric spaghetti stuff much better than I.
First, on Friday,I cleared the broken concrete away from the spot where the high water pressure shook the hot water pipe until it broke the wall. There's my pass-through from the back basement room into the main room. Then I pulled the stuffing out of the hole the kitchen sink pipes pass through the floor. This was a surprise... the floor joists had been covered with plywood, and the space between the laundry room ceiling and the kitchen floor there was stuffed with trimmings of plastic-backed fiberglass insulation. It's itchy as all get-out! (insert one of my dad's profanities here)
Now that I could see my target, I hooked the connector of one end of a 25-ft. video cable in a straightened coathanger and poked the hanger through the hole by the cold-water pipe. Then I went upstairs to see my progress. I couldn't see the wire, back down I went. Poked the wire a little farther. Went back up the stairs. This time, I could see a foot of the 3' hanger wire, and pulled the cable through. Now I have to get it behind the sink cabinet, and the space didn't look big enough for the video connector. Lo and behold - it went straight up behind the sink. I pulled out enough slack to reach the opposite wall, screwed the connector to the converter box we got for this TV, and went back downstairs and repacked the fiberglass. (@#$$!%!!)
I screwed a connector to the other end of the 25-ft. cable, connected it to a 10-ft cable I'd picked up from the recycling dumpster at the apartment we'd lived in in California, and pushed it through the wall. Much easier than the last job. I found the joint cleared the water heater, and I packed the hole with some of that itchy fiberglass and some foam. The cable followed the water intake into the main basement room, but didn't quite reach the main video cable from the roof antenna. I had to connect another 4 feet of cable to get there.
Saturday was the day of the big connection. First I fed some of the slack in the antenna line down into the basement through the hole the installer had drilled in the living room floor. Then it had to be fed back through its tight carrier clips to the point where the kitchen cable caught up to it. (Repeat 2-3x.) Then I had to select a good position on the floor joists to fasten the 10 decibel amplifier/signal splitter; it had to reach both the cables, and the only available electric outlet fastened to the floor support beam near the furnace. I could reach it standing on tiptoe, and bear in mind, I'm lucky I can stand on tiptoe at all.
Cut the mainline from the roof to the living room. Attach screw-on connectors to the two cut ends. Be sure the end from the antenna attaches to Input, and the two diverging lines are attached to the Outputs. Screw the box onto the floor joist.
The last thing proved the hardest, as first I hammered a pick into the joist for start holes. Then screwing in the Phillips screws was tight, and required a lot of strength. After getting them half done I found the Kick Step stool, and got on the first step 6" up from the floor, and found the going a lot easier.
But after all this reaching overhead, my calves, hamstrings, and glutes were on fire. (They are still!) So I plopped down with my feet up for the last job - making a short connector for the signal splitter. I put the short connector between the 20 decibel amplifier and a (non-powered) signal splitter, and then connected leads for the TV and the DVD/VCR combo. Yes, a technological fossil.
Channel 6 was still ornery, so I called the FCC number and the local DTV info number.... which proved to be WHYY info. (A fox in the henhouse?) I was told by the FCC to file a complaint, and by WHYY that channel 6 was having "internal issues", which probably means more than the 65+ comments on WPVI's DTV site. (I left 2.)
So it's time for me to sit back with my feet up in my lounger and ease my aching legs, and enjoy the fruit of my labor.
Since we brought all our analog sets with us from California, and everyone is SO unemployed, of course we went for the converter boxes. Bob had to blow both $40 coupons on the cheapest GE model available at BJ's Warehouse (closest competitor to Costco and Sam's Club), after I had told him I wanted one box with analog pass-through since our local PBS (WHYY 12, Wilmington/Philadelphia) was not broadcasting a strong enough signal for us to get out here in the boonies of Chester County.
I hooked up the converter to watch the Rose Bowl in hi-def. So Bob tried to change the channel to tape something else. Hello, the converter box changes the channels. Plus one box feeds the same signal to both the TV and the VCR. Disconnect box.
We went down to Costco in Delaware, and decided to check out the Circuit City bankruptcy sale across the parking lot. The store was virtually sacked down to bare shelves, except for stacks of APEX brand digital converter boxes... with analog pass-through. Price $30, with a disclaimer that the bankruptcy sale operator wasn't taking the $40 coupons. We didn't have one anyway.. so home one goes. I hooked it into the TV antenna line, but left it unplugged. That way, we can get our TV regular or hi-def and not pay PECO (Philadelphia Energy Co. to you non-Pennsylvanians) one mite more than necessary.
The big day of June 12 came. When I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, I plugged in the box with the pass-through. WHYY 12 (PBS) had announced it was switching off the analog at noon. Just after noon I switched from WGAL 8 to 12.... static. I kicked in the converter box and scanned. Success!!!! Channel 12 had gone digital! They'd diverted the power from the analog broadcast to boost the digital signal enough to get out of Philly and reach us. I switched back to 8.
Fifteen minutes later I tried WPVI 6 (ABC). "Channel 6 is gone," I announced. By 12:30 pm the only analog stations still in business were the CBS affiliates and associated stations: KYW 3 Philly, WGAL 8 Lancaster, and Channel 57 (CW Philly, but owned by the group holding KYW 3). WGAL 8 had announced it was switching at midnight.
We watched Channel 8 news for what I figured would be the last time that night. Its reception had always been fuzzy, but it was the only thing the rabbit ears would pull in, in the kitchen. The digital box wouldn't pull in the New Jersey PBS stations, so I knew Channel 8 Lancaster would go too.
I went out to Radio Shack after the girls got hoe from the barn to get some video cable connectors, so I could use what cable I had on hand to connect the kitchen TV to the roof antenna. While I was there the salesman commented on how many complaints he had gotten that day of "Channel 6 went off the air!!"
However, watching Channel 6 for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune proved to be a new trial. The picture had digital pixel drop-outs scattered all over it, and sometimes it froze. Ditto for the sound. BIG bummer. How can a family figure it has the full offerings of broadcast TV if one of the Big 3 is AWOL, or acting hung over and/or stoned? We watched what we wanted for the night on other channels.
Then Bob switched to a newly discovered treasure (for us), Y arts on WHYY 12.2. Y arts provides concert music and dance in all genres. Bob stated he prefers it to Conan O'Brien.
EarlierI got to work on putting in that kitchen connection through the basement. As a woman, I am happy that I understand the work and can do it. But as a married woman who was expected to stay home with the kids, I am fuming that my husband doesn't "get it" well enough to do the job. And as a handicapped person, I know there will be a price to pay in pain to do the job. I miss my son Thomas. He does this electric spaghetti stuff much better than I.
First, on Friday,I cleared the broken concrete away from the spot where the high water pressure shook the hot water pipe until it broke the wall. There's my pass-through from the back basement room into the main room. Then I pulled the stuffing out of the hole the kitchen sink pipes pass through the floor. This was a surprise... the floor joists had been covered with plywood, and the space between the laundry room ceiling and the kitchen floor there was stuffed with trimmings of plastic-backed fiberglass insulation. It's itchy as all get-out! (insert one of my dad's profanities here)
Now that I could see my target, I hooked the connector of one end of a 25-ft. video cable in a straightened coathanger and poked the hanger through the hole by the cold-water pipe. Then I went upstairs to see my progress. I couldn't see the wire, back down I went. Poked the wire a little farther. Went back up the stairs. This time, I could see a foot of the 3' hanger wire, and pulled the cable through. Now I have to get it behind the sink cabinet, and the space didn't look big enough for the video connector. Lo and behold - it went straight up behind the sink. I pulled out enough slack to reach the opposite wall, screwed the connector to the converter box we got for this TV, and went back downstairs and repacked the fiberglass. (@#$$!%!!)
I screwed a connector to the other end of the 25-ft. cable, connected it to a 10-ft cable I'd picked up from the recycling dumpster at the apartment we'd lived in in California, and pushed it through the wall. Much easier than the last job. I found the joint cleared the water heater, and I packed the hole with some of that itchy fiberglass and some foam. The cable followed the water intake into the main basement room, but didn't quite reach the main video cable from the roof antenna. I had to connect another 4 feet of cable to get there.
Saturday was the day of the big connection. First I fed some of the slack in the antenna line down into the basement through the hole the installer had drilled in the living room floor. Then it had to be fed back through its tight carrier clips to the point where the kitchen cable caught up to it. (Repeat 2-3x.) Then I had to select a good position on the floor joists to fasten the 10 decibel amplifier/signal splitter; it had to reach both the cables, and the only available electric outlet fastened to the floor support beam near the furnace. I could reach it standing on tiptoe, and bear in mind, I'm lucky I can stand on tiptoe at all.
Cut the mainline from the roof to the living room. Attach screw-on connectors to the two cut ends. Be sure the end from the antenna attaches to Input, and the two diverging lines are attached to the Outputs. Screw the box onto the floor joist.
The last thing proved the hardest, as first I hammered a pick into the joist for start holes. Then screwing in the Phillips screws was tight, and required a lot of strength. After getting them half done I found the Kick Step stool, and got on the first step 6" up from the floor, and found the going a lot easier.
But after all this reaching overhead, my calves, hamstrings, and glutes were on fire. (They are still!) So I plopped down with my feet up for the last job - making a short connector for the signal splitter. I put the short connector between the 20 decibel amplifier and a (non-powered) signal splitter, and then connected leads for the TV and the DVD/VCR combo. Yes, a technological fossil.
Channel 6 was still ornery, so I called the FCC number and the local DTV info number.... which proved to be WHYY info. (A fox in the henhouse?) I was told by the FCC to file a complaint, and by WHYY that channel 6 was having "internal issues", which probably means more than the 65+ comments on WPVI's DTV site. (I left 2.)
So it's time for me to sit back with my feet up in my lounger and ease my aching legs, and enjoy the fruit of my labor.
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