>>>I've never had to fiddle around with the antenna on digital TV.
Must be nice. I have stations icoming from four different cities, so that means I have to turn my antenna in four different directions. It's not possible to just "set it and forget it".
>>>love the fact that a self-confirmed resident of Pennsylvania, USA has the audacity to tell me how my TV works from the other side of the Atlantic.......
But it's okay for you to do it? QUOTE: "the FCC has managed a frak-up of truly epic proportions."
According to the FCC, 99% of stations are already at their full digital power limits. Only a few will be increasing their power in March 2009.
One major change is that most stations will be moving from UHF to VHF, and VHF is less prone to breakup. For example my local WGAL is moving from 58 to 8, which should stabilize the image.
No but I would have voted for that "radical" named Thomas Jefferson had I been alive. He had it right when he said, "From time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants." A $19,000 bill represents 33 weeks of slavery paying-off AT&T, and I am not going to be a slave. Like Harriet Tubman, Malcom X, or Martin Luther King I would fight back rather than bow to the oppression of servitude.
$19,370 of Cellphone bill represents 1290 hours or 33 weeks worth of fulltime work for the average American.
I am not going to be a 33-week slave to AT&T's greed. I will not pay. I will commit "civil disobedience" in the best tradition of Henry David Thoreau or Martin Luther King. I will not bow to the oppression of tyranny, no matter how much they threaten me with this injustice.
I can't remember the last time a storm knocked-out cable in my area. We live in a civilized area of the U.S. where the cable is buried underground & away from the elements. There's really no need to have a backup antenna-based television, because the cable never fails.
In fact, my brother doesn't even own an antenna! He couldn't watch over-the-air even if he wanted to.
No they sold us unlimited TIME for the connection. Which is an improvement over the old model where we had to pay by the hour (AOL), or were disconnected after ten hours use (Netzero).
Nobody sold you unlimited bandwidth; they sold you unlimited time (24 hours / 7 days a week).
>>>I was able to cut down most of my giant VHF antenna and raise the remaining tiny UHF part up another 10 feet....
That was rather foolish.
Some of your stations are moving from UHF to VHF in February, and now you won't have a VHF antenna to receive them! Ooops. (Also a bit of advice: remove the amplifier; they may disrupt the digital signal according to an NPR study.)
With analog you got 4 stations. With digital you got 4 stations.
That's not an improvement. That's identical performance, which is good. I'm happy for you, but for me, my station count went from 24 to 6 stations, which is lousy.
I find it hard to believe you can pull-in UK Terrestrial without adjusting your antenna. I've seen images of the boxes, and they include "strength" bars to make tuning easier for UK viewers.
I suspect you're discussing DTV through cable or a dish, which is non-relevant to this over-the-air topic.
>>>Over on the other side of the state, in Pittsburgh, the mountains provide all sorts of issues.
Yeah I feel really sorry for my friends who live in western Pennsylvania. For example I know a guy who lives in Milroy PA (just outside Penn State University), and he already has lousy analog reception of only 3 channels, but at least he has the major networks. When he tried a DTV tuner, he got a DVD-quality image of a blank screen. (rolls eyes). Brilliant.
>>>can't get NBC, Fox, CW or CBS at all..... I'm not complaining too much, though.
Well you should. Every Congresscritter deserves a loud, time-consuming call from every citizen who was screwed by Congress' stupid "downgrade" from analog to digital. They deserve the same criticism as Microsoft got for the XP-to-Vista downgrade.
I wish you were right, but unfortunately you're wrong on both counts. Every analog station in my area is also simulcasting digital signals, and they are all operating at their full licensed power.
Lame response. I've already have a CM4228 - best antenna you can buy. Plus I've tried five different brands: Hisense, DTVpal, Zatwell, Zenith, and Channel Master. They all operate roughly the same receiving only 5 or 6 digital stations. That's a far cry from my usual 24 analog. The problem is the DIGITAL TRANSMITTER DESIGN, not the receiving end.
>>>I was able to receive around 5 channels in analog.
I don't believe you; or more accurately, I don't think you really tried. According to tvfool.com, your area will receive approximately 15 stations from Boston, Providence, and Manchester. With a rooftop antenna, you'd get around 20 analog stations same as I do in Lancaster PA.
That same tvfool plot shows your area will only get 10 digital stations, due to low-power restrictions.
>>>The thing is its very ambiguous how much gigabytes you're using.
Not really. A modem can certainly count how many bytes you sent or received. "Theres nothing like an odometer to measure..." Yes there is. Right there on my screen there's a little icon of two computers talking. It tells me that in the last 30 days I've sent 45 gigabytes and received 89 gigabytes.
Simple.
A fair and reasonable company would charge me by the gigabyte. Say 10 cents per gigabyte == $13.40 a month. My electric company operates on that same principle (9 cents per kilowatthour), so why can't my internet company work the same way? No reason I can think of.
>>>"poor granny is twiddling her thumbs waiting for Ancestry.com to load."
SOLUTION: People who use less than, say, 10 gigabytes per month, should get a $10 rebate for that month. Make granny happy & encourage others to save resources too. (Save energy; save the planet; et cetera.) Of course, that idea will never fly past the greedy corporations who enjoy pocketing $50 a month from granny even though she only costs them $10 in actual usage.
>>>They could shut off all broadcast TV as far as I care. I can't beleive anyone still watches over the air broadcasts
Thanks for insulting me and other over-the-air folks.
But that's okay. I can't believe some people are foolish enough to pay ~$700 a year for NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CW, Ion, and MyNetworkTV programming, when they could get those same programs totally free. And even if you are a fan of cable-exclusive shows like Monk or the Shield (like I am), you can still watch those shows, for free, online or in reruns. So it seems rather foolish to pay $700 for them.
>>>even the poor.
I guess the poor think it's more important to invest their $700 a year on FOOD. Gee. What a shocker. I guess people would rather EAT AND LIVE rather than watch the MTV or Disney. Who'da thunk?/end sarcasm
Over-the-air DTV works terribly. First off, with analog, I could point my antenna in just about any direction and get SOME kind of fuzzy picture that was watchable. In other words, analog was easier to tune in,
With digital the tuning is much more difficult. I have to align the antenna perfectly along the 55th meridian, check the stars, adjust the horizontal azimuth, and get down on my knees and pray the signal is strong enough to not freeze the video (extremely annoying). And if there's a Tropical Storm blowing by? Forget it. The rain attenuates and destroys the signal. Yesterday I was unable to get my normal programming due to Hanna's presence... just a bunch of pixelated images instead of clear video.
DTV also provides fewer stations than analog.
In the Lancaster PA region analog reception provides these stations: 2,3,6,8,10,11,12,13,15,17,21,27,29,33,35,43,45,48,49,51,57,61,65,69 from various sources like my hometown, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Switching over to my DTV tuner trims that number down to just a few: 8, 15, 43, 49, 57, 61. Twenty-four downto just six.
Pathetic.
The FCC's discontinuation of analog in favor of digital broadcasting is yet another government-sponsored frakup. Good thing I've learned how to stream TV shows off the net. Thanks to DTV, I no longer can watch ABC or CBS stations. Channels 21 and 27 have disappeared off my DTV dial! What a brilliant job Mr. FCC Engineer. I now have LESS choices to watch, not more./steps off soapbox
>>>This is going to happen in February, why on earth should a tropical storm delay it if it's still September?
Ya know, it helps to RTFA (read the frakkin' article). In the very first sentence, it states that Wilmington NC (which was hit by the TS Hanna), will be going 100% digital on Monday (i.e. tomorrow). No more analog.
So you see, the transition for Wilmington is NOt February. It's September 8.
>>>Possibly the US regulator should be doing the same thing (or don't you have one?).
No. We have State General Attorneys that handle that stuff, and they usually only interfere when it's a problem that affects thousands, not just one or two persons. As example, paypal got-away with dishonest practices when it was just a few, but once they started ripping-off thousands, then the courts sued the pants off paypal.
We also do not have 70% tax rates like Europeans have (ours are 35-40%) - there are advantages to having a slim government & self-regulating market. Sometimes we get raped by dishonest corporations, but that's a damn sight better than getting raped by EU or other government officials:
- If AT&T rapes me, I just cancel my service and go to somebody else (Virgin Mobile charges $5 a month). - If the EU apes me with 70% tax rates, I have to bend-over and endure the pain (or else serve jail time for tax evasion).
A multitude of choices is preferable to the monopoly of government. I prefer a smaller U.S.-style government that is less-intrusive & sends me smaller bills. I prefer 35% tax rates to 70% tax rates, even if that means living in a slightly-riskier, less-protective environment.
It worked in the Paypal case. The U.S. Judge declared that not only was the contract confusing to understand, but it also violated several consumer protection laws and declared it null & void. Paypal settled. They were ordered to issue $40 refunds to every customer who merely stated "I lost money" (that included me), and full refunds to customers who had all the necessary paperwork to prove loss. In total Paypal lost millions of dollars in refunds.
I suspect a lawsuit against AT&T would have similar results. The Paypal case set precedent that contracts can not nullify consumer rights or supercede state or federal laws.
Interesting viewpoint. It seems logical. I guess that's why so many countries & individuals hate the United States for propping-up dictators during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.
I don't believe Jobs, Gates, or any other CEO is obligated to do anything. I was refuting the ridiculous claim by SuperKendall that "if this somehow was possible, I'm confident Steve Jobs would step in and either set AT&T straight or foot the bill himself."
It did happen about a year ago (when Iphone was still new and te kinks were being worked-out), and Jobs did absolutely nothing. Therefore SuperKendall was wrong.
I don't believe Jobs is obligated to do anything. I was refuting the ridiculous claim by SuperKendall that "if this somehow was possible, I'm confident Steve Jobs would step in and either set AT&T straight or foot the bill himself."
It did happen about a year ago (when Iphone was still new and the "kinks were being worked-out), and Jobs did absolutely nothing. QED SuperKendall was wrong.
I have my doubts it cost AT&T $19,370 to send JPEGs and emails the ~300 miles from Vancouver to Portland.
More like $100 or less.
So that's a [b] 20,000% markup [/b] above cost! This is just pure greed on the part of a corporation that is severely overcharging for a relatively cheap service. I'd refuse to pay even if that meant serving a few days in jail. AT&T can go shove it.
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>>>I've never had to fiddle around with the antenna on digital TV.
Must be nice. I have stations icoming from four different cities, so that means I have to turn my antenna in four different directions. It's not possible to just "set it and forget it".
>>>love the fact that a self-confirmed resident of Pennsylvania, USA has the audacity to tell me how my TV works from the other side of the Atlantic. ......
But it's okay for you to do it?
QUOTE: "the FCC has managed a frak-up of truly epic proportions."
According to the FCC, 99% of stations are already at their full digital power limits. Only a few will be increasing their power in March 2009.
One major change is that most stations will be moving from UHF to VHF, and VHF is less prone to breakup. For example my local WGAL is moving from 58 to 8, which should stabilize the image.
No but I would have voted for that "radical" named Thomas Jefferson had I been alive. He had it right when he said, "From time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants." A $19,000 bill represents 33 weeks of slavery paying-off AT&T, and I am not going to be a slave. Like Harriet Tubman, Malcom X, or Martin Luther King I would fight back rather than bow to the oppression of servitude.
$19,370 of Cellphone bill represents 1290 hours or 33 weeks worth of fulltime work for the average American.
I am not going to be a 33-week slave to AT&T's greed. I will not pay. I will commit "civil disobedience" in the best tradition of Henry David Thoreau or Martin Luther King. I will not bow to the oppression of tyranny, no matter how much they threaten me with this injustice.
I can't remember the last time a storm knocked-out cable in my area. We live in a civilized area of the U.S. where the cable is buried underground & away from the elements. There's really no need to have a backup antenna-based television, because the cable never fails.
In fact, my brother doesn't even own an antenna!
He couldn't watch over-the-air even if he wanted to.
>>>unlimited bandwidth.
No they sold us unlimited TIME for the connection. Which is an improvement over the old model where we had to pay by the hour (AOL), or were disconnected after ten hours use (Netzero).
Nobody sold you unlimited bandwidth; they sold you unlimited time (24 hours / 7 days a week).
>>>I was able to cut down most of my giant VHF antenna and raise the remaining tiny UHF part up another 10 feet. ...
That was rather foolish.
Some of your stations are moving from UHF to VHF in February, and now you won't have a VHF antenna to receive them! Ooops. (Also a bit of advice: remove the amplifier; they may disrupt the digital signal according to an NPR study.)
With analog you got 4 stations.
With digital you got 4 stations.
That's not an improvement. That's identical performance, which is good. I'm happy for you, but for me, my station count went from 24 to 6 stations, which is lousy.
>>>Plus, no messing around with tuning at all
I find it hard to believe you can pull-in UK Terrestrial without adjusting your antenna. I've seen images of the boxes, and they include "strength" bars to make tuning easier for UK viewers.
I suspect you're discussing DTV through cable or a dish, which is non-relevant to this over-the-air topic.
>>>Over on the other side of the state, in Pittsburgh, the mountains provide all sorts of issues.
Yeah I feel really sorry for my friends who live in western Pennsylvania. For example I know a guy who lives in Milroy PA (just outside Penn State University), and he already has lousy analog reception of only 3 channels, but at least he has the major networks. When he tried a DTV tuner, he got a DVD-quality image of a blank screen. (rolls eyes). Brilliant.
>>>can't get NBC, Fox, CW or CBS at all ..... I'm not complaining too much, though.
Well you should. Every Congresscritter deserves a loud, time-consuming call from every citizen who was screwed by Congress' stupid "downgrade" from analog to digital. They deserve the same criticism as Microsoft got for the XP-to-Vista downgrade.
I wish you were right, but unfortunately you're wrong on both counts. Every analog station in my area is also simulcasting digital signals, and they are all operating at their full licensed power.
>>>Get a different tuner/antenna.
Lame response. I've already have a CM4228 - best antenna you can buy. Plus I've tried five different brands: Hisense, DTVpal, Zatwell, Zenith, and Channel Master. They all operate roughly the same receiving only 5 or 6 digital stations. That's a far cry from my usual 24 analog. The problem is the DIGITAL TRANSMITTER DESIGN, not the receiving end.
>>>I was able to receive around 5 channels in analog.
I don't believe you; or more accurately, I don't think you really tried. According to tvfool.com, your area will receive approximately 15 stations from Boston, Providence, and Manchester. With a rooftop antenna, you'd get around 20 analog stations same as I do in Lancaster PA.
That same tvfool plot shows your area will only get 10 digital stations, due to low-power restrictions.
>>>The thing is its very ambiguous how much gigabytes you're using.
Not really. A modem can certainly count how many bytes you sent or received. "Theres nothing like an odometer to measure..." Yes there is. Right there on my screen there's a little icon of two computers talking. It tells me that in the last 30 days I've sent 45 gigabytes and received 89 gigabytes.
Simple.
A fair and reasonable company would charge me by the gigabyte. Say 10 cents per gigabyte == $13.40 a month. My electric company operates on that same principle (9 cents per kilowatthour), so why can't my internet company work the same way? No reason I can think of.
I'd be more concerned if Timmy wasn't doing that.
>>>"poor granny is twiddling her thumbs waiting for Ancestry.com to load."
SOLUTION: People who use less than, say, 10 gigabytes per month, should get a $10 rebate for that month. Make granny happy & encourage others to save resources too. (Save energy; save the planet; et cetera.) Of course, that idea will never fly past the greedy corporations who enjoy pocketing $50 a month from granny even though she only costs them $10 in actual usage.
>>>They could shut off all broadcast TV as far as I care. I can't beleive anyone still watches over the air broadcasts
Thanks for insulting me and other over-the-air folks.
But that's okay. I can't believe some people are foolish enough to pay ~$700 a year for NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CW, Ion, and MyNetworkTV programming, when they could get those same programs totally free. And even if you are a fan of cable-exclusive shows like Monk or the Shield (like I am), you can still watch those shows, for free, online or in reruns. So it seems rather foolish to pay $700 for them.
>>>even the poor.
I guess the poor think it's more important to invest their $700 a year on FOOD. Gee. What a shocker. I guess people would rather EAT AND LIVE rather than watch the MTV or Disney. Who'da thunk? /end sarcasm
I just tell people:
"If you have cable, dish, or FiOS television, then you need not worry about the over-the-air transition. It does not affect you."
Over-the-air DTV works terribly. First off, with analog, I could point my antenna in just about any direction and get SOME kind of fuzzy picture that was watchable. In other words, analog was easier to tune in,
With digital the tuning is much more difficult. I have to align the antenna perfectly along the 55th meridian, check the stars, adjust the horizontal azimuth, and get down on my knees and pray the signal is strong enough to not freeze the video (extremely annoying). And if there's a Tropical Storm blowing by? Forget it. The rain attenuates and destroys the signal. Yesterday I was unable to get my normal programming due to Hanna's presence... just a bunch of pixelated images instead of clear video.
DTV also provides fewer stations than analog.
In the Lancaster PA region analog reception provides these stations: 2,3,6,8,10,11,12,13,15,17,21,27,29,33,35,43,45,48,49,51,57,61,65,69 from various sources like my hometown, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Switching over to my DTV tuner trims that number down to just a few: 8, 15, 43, 49, 57, 61. Twenty-four downto just six.
Pathetic.
The FCC's discontinuation of analog in favor of digital broadcasting is yet another government-sponsored frakup. Good thing I've learned how to stream TV shows off the net. Thanks to DTV, I no longer can watch ABC or CBS stations. Channels 21 and 27 have disappeared off my DTV dial! What a brilliant job Mr. FCC Engineer. I now have LESS choices to watch, not more. /steps off soapbox
>>>This is going to happen in February, why on earth should a tropical storm delay it if it's still September?
Ya know, it helps to RTFA (read the frakkin' article). In the very first sentence, it states that Wilmington NC (which was hit by the TS Hanna), will be going 100% digital on Monday (i.e. tomorrow). No more analog.
So you see, the transition for Wilmington is NOt February. It's September 8.
>>>Possibly the US regulator should be doing the same thing (or don't you have one?).
No. We have State General Attorneys that handle that stuff, and they usually only interfere when it's a problem that affects thousands, not just one or two persons. As example, paypal got-away with dishonest practices when it was just a few, but once they started ripping-off thousands, then the courts sued the pants off paypal.
We also do not have 70% tax rates like Europeans have (ours are 35-40%) - there are advantages to having a slim government & self-regulating market. Sometimes we get raped by dishonest corporations, but that's a damn sight better than getting raped by EU or other government officials:
- If AT&T rapes me, I just cancel my service and go to somebody else (Virgin Mobile charges $5 a month).
- If the EU apes me with 70% tax rates, I have to bend-over and endure the pain (or else serve jail time for tax evasion).
A multitude of choices is preferable to the monopoly of government. I prefer a smaller U.S.-style government that is less-intrusive & sends me smaller bills. I prefer 35% tax rates to 70% tax rates, even if that means living in a slightly-riskier, less-protective environment.
It worked in the Paypal case. The U.S. Judge declared that not only was the contract confusing to understand, but it also violated several consumer protection laws and declared it null & void. Paypal settled. They were ordered to issue $40 refunds to every customer who merely stated "I lost money" (that included me), and full refunds to customers who had all the necessary paperwork to prove loss. In total Paypal lost millions of dollars in refunds.
I suspect a lawsuit against AT&T would have similar results. The Paypal case set precedent that contracts can not nullify consumer rights or supercede state or federal laws.
The friend of my enemy is also my enemy?
Interesting viewpoint. It seems logical. I guess that's why so many countries & individuals hate the United States for propping-up dictators during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.
I don't believe Jobs, Gates, or any other CEO is obligated to do anything. I was refuting the ridiculous claim by SuperKendall that "if this somehow was possible, I'm confident Steve Jobs would step in and either set AT&T straight or foot the bill himself."
It did happen about a year ago (when Iphone was still new and te kinks were being worked-out), and Jobs did absolutely nothing. Therefore SuperKendall was wrong.
I don't believe Jobs is obligated to do anything. I was refuting the ridiculous claim by SuperKendall that "if this somehow was possible, I'm confident Steve Jobs would step in and either set AT&T straight or foot the bill himself."
It did happen about a year ago (when Iphone was still new and the "kinks were being worked-out), and Jobs did absolutely nothing. QED SuperKendall was wrong.
I have my doubts it cost AT&T $19,370 to send JPEGs and emails the ~300 miles from Vancouver to Portland.
More like $100 or less.
So that's a [b] 20,000% markup [/b] above cost! This is just pure greed on the part of a corporation that is severely overcharging for a relatively cheap service. I'd refuse to pay even if that meant serving a few days in jail. AT&T can go shove it.
Actually it was only about a year ago that a woman DID get a humongous Iphone bill.
Steve Jobs did nothing. But the attention of the local TV station did eventually make AT&T feel guilty, so they let the young lady off the hook.