Sick fo digital crap

[cmore]

Unable to afford the outrageous price of cable, we put up a digital antenna. The two "strong" stations, we do not get, the two "moderate" stations we sometimes get, forget about the rest.

Back in the days of analog, 3 of those above 4 stations didn't exist, the signal had to come from stations twice as far away. Guess what? We still had 5 stations within range of a plain old, non-rotating, box antenna.

So much for the "improved" digital system. Pay more, get less.

Spent 35 minutes this morning attempting to do on Windows 8.1 what I used to do on Windows XP in 5 minutes. This is IMPROVED????

I long for analog tv that worked, and Windows 3.1 at most for digitization.

That about sums it up!

 

[rekees4300]

Go cold turkey on "tv", get rid of it and the giant idiocracy anchor that comes with it.

Your statement has merit, paying $125/mo for DirecTV to watch endless commercials and inane programming does seem to be a rather dubious activity. Truly a "great wasteland".

 

[grsthegreat]

by the time i cut the dish off of the house, we had been paying about $120/month for 10 years. Thats $14,400 to watch television. Thats NUTS.

And the programming just got worse and worse. The real downfall was reality TV....witch is SO unreal its pathetic.

Some stupid advertisement for a show called Bridalplasty...or some sort of name...pushed me over the edge.The show followed women competing for the wedding of their dreams and their dream plastic surgery procedure. The woman wanted a dream plastic surgery, and the winner of each show win one plastic surgery procedure. This was the last straw. I cancelled satellite that night


never looked back, and never missed it.

Now if they would ever offer a package where you could PICK your channels and only pay for those channels, id sign back up. id get discovery, history, and a few others....but leave the rest.

 

[MotorSeven]

Yep, it was reality shows that pushed me over the cliff too. I can honestly say that I was dangling by one arm after that looser Howard Stern got a TV show....sheeesh.

 

[Soundguy]

them reality shows. yeck...

 

[ultrarunner]

Never lived in a home with cable or sat TV.

I still use rabbit ears and get all the channels I want... over 40... only half are in English.

Mom has the 1980 Zenith console that I hooked up rabbit ears and she is pleased... gets all the networks.

The boss at the Hospital was looking for ways to save... I put up a $20 radio shack antenna about 10 years ago... then bought several digital convertor boxes and get more channels.

I don't know a single person around here without cable or sat.

It's kind of strange because I manage low income property and normal rentals and every home has cable, sat and some have both... with some paying close to $200 per month.

I'm probably the only person with a smart phone too.

 

[grsthegreat]

Never lived in a home with cable or sat TV.

I still use rabbit ears and get all the channels I want... over 40... only half are in English.

Mom has the 1980 Zenith console that I hooked up rabbit ears and she is pleased... gets all the networks.

The boss at the Hospital was looking for ways to save... I put up a $20 radio shack antenna about 10 years ago... then bought several digital convertor boxes and get more channels.

I don't know a single person around here without cable or sat.

It's kind of strange because I manage low income property and normal rentals and every home has cable, sat and some have both... with some paying close to $200 per month.

I'm probably the only person with a smart phone too.

tell me about it. i get service calls to houses that are govt subsidized.....some up to 80% as ive been told, yet they all seem to have cable or sat tv.

go figure. im sure cable companies take food stamps haha

 

[Soundguy]

have you not seen the 9.99$ packages on sat tv and cable for low incomes. same with phones...

 

[ultrarunner]

I'm an analog guy in a digital world...

That said, I have managed and still manage a handful of Section 8 rentals in the SF Bay Area.

The residents are very much digital.

Smart Phones, Flat Screens, Cable, Sat TV, Play Stations, Caller ID... etc.

It is true that families with Housing Vouchers automatically are eligible for many free or reduced services and free cell phones would be one of them.

My home has two traditional telephones and one is rotary... same telephone number for decades... Western Electric made quality equimpment and had a lot of friends that worked for them.

Many of the rentals have 4 or more lines for a single apartment... running out of lines was a huge problem back in the 80's.... then it was cable and sat to every room that was the issue and now it's getting the updated lines because the drops from 10 years ago are obsolete for higher speed.

I find it interesting as to what's essential depends on where you live and who is paying for it.

My brother has a collection of computers and cell phones... both a requirement of his employment... doing the simple math he averaged a new phone and new computer every 2 years... I'm sure it was a boon to the economy.

The biggest theft item in San Francisco comprising over 50% of thefts is cell phones... thankfully, I don't have to worry about it.

Laptops and tablets are also high on the list...

Whenever I have tenants move... they always leave behind lots of obsolete or broken electronics... the biggest was a Section 8 family that had a huge Projection TV if anyone can remember how big those were... she said it cost $2500.

All I know is the dump charged me $25 extra handling just to dump it.

Two years ago, it seems like I was disposing of CRTs every month... monitors and TV's.

A few year before it was cordless phones... enough to fill a garbage can and somewhere in between I had cartons of VHS tapes and players.

All I can say is I'm glad I didn't go all in for the digital band wagon and my digital footprint continues to remain small and my pocket book still has some green in it.

PS... My 8 Track still works great in my mustang!

 

[Ken]

That's the problem with digital signals over the air - they either come in or don't. There is no inbetween. With analog signals as long as something was getting to the tuner you got something to see even if it was fuzzy.
I really hope you didn't pay extra for that "digital" tv antenna because there is no such thing actually. Antennas are just pieces of metal engineered and cut to resonate at specific frequencies. They don't know if a signal is digital or analog. If there is an amplifier involved it will make a difference, but not the antenna itself.
If you still have the old antenna up that worked so well try changing back to it. Its still up there resonating.

As for the computer I'd say get Windows 7 or wait for the next product. Microsoft usually gets it right every other release.

Dave remember when color tv started to become popular and Sears sold a gold Antenna to pick up the color tv signal.

used to be able to purchase a single channel amplifiers for weak stations and if signal was 100 miles away could get a clear signal
Even sit up at night and watch skip from some station several states away. now if cloudy no tv.
But a least old days when talking to some one they didn't hold the phone to there ear to hear some one else talking
watch a pack of teen agers all holding phones and flicking the key board Ask them a question get for answer Duh.
ken

 

[Daver1963]

Dave remember when color tv started to become popular and Sears sold a gold Antenna to pick up the color tv signal.

used to be able to purchase a single channel amplifiers for weak stations and if signal was 100 miles away could get a clear signal
Even sit up at night and watch skip from some station several states away. now if cloudy no tv.
But a least old days when talking to some one they didn't hold the phone to there ear to hear some one else talking
watch a pack of teen agers all holding phones and flicking the key board Ask them a question get for answer Duh.
ken

I remember early 70s we still had a giant black & white console TV. My aunt and her husband had a color TV. "The Sound of Music" was coming on CBS I think it was and that was a Memphis station 100 miles away. Well, not only did my aunt have a color TV she also lives on the tallest hill just outside of town so she got a pretty constant signal. Mother was determined she was going to see "The Sound of Music" in color so all the kids were bathed, dressed in PJs, and off we went to watch the movie.

 

[k0ua]

I remember early 70s we still had a giant black & white console TV. My aunt and her husband had a color TV. "The Sound of Music" was coming on CBS I think it was and that was a Memphis station 100 miles away. Well, not only did my aunt have a color TV she also lives on the tallest hill just outside of town so she got a pretty constant signal. Mother was determined she was going to see "The Sound of Music" in color so all the kids were bathed, dressed in PJs, and off we went to watch the movie.

When I was a child,(late teens) one of the jobs I had was working for a couple of appliance stores. I put up hundreds of Television Antennas, many on very high masts and with rotators. It was common to regularly receive signals from nearly 100 miles. One of my friends I worked with put up a huge RCA 4bg69 antenna that was a double stacked Log Periodic with a large corner reflector on the front of it for UHF. He had this antenna on his Ham tower at nearly 90 feet. Of course it pulled in signals from Tulsa, and Kansas city as well as the Joplin and Springfield stations. Naturally one of our ice-storms took it down. It is hard to keep that much aluminum in the air.

 

[Daver1963]

He had this antenna on his Ham tower at nearly 90 feet. Of course it pulled in signals from Tulsa, and Kansas city as well as the Joplin and Springfield stations. Naturally one of our ice-storms took it down. It is hard to keep that much aluminum in the air.

One thing we guys on the ground could never get our flyboys to understand when it came to talking on UHF from ground-to-air was just as when you are at 40k ft you can talk a lot of distance the antenna on the ground needs height also. They just couldn't understand why they couldn't talk to the scheduling desk on approach 60 miles out at 1200ft when scheduling was using an 8w system with an antenna at 30ft with a 90ft hanger in the way.

 

[Wakey]

Most of the antennas that I have installed were in the attic, suspended from the rafters with light low voltage wire. Thinking about getting started or improving your setup? Go here http://www.avsforum.com/f/25/hdtv-technical

 

[deepNdirt]

Remember when there was no TV after midnight, all the stations signed off,

 

[farmgirl19]

You have pics of this contraption, I would like to dump cable tv in the spring

I didn't think that you had a TV, Murph! :stirthepot:

 

[/pine]

Remember when there was no TV after midnight, all the stations signed off,

I used to get up early on Saturday mornings and watch the test pattern until they played the Star Spangled Banner and then programming I was waiting for....Red Ryder, Tarzan...when my older sisters would get up they would switch to cartoons...ugh...

 

[Gunny]

Remember when there was no TV after midnight, all the stations signed off,

I'd actually forgotten all about that, thanks for reminding me! Yes Sir, get to stay up late a night and after the late news, down she goes! I guess that's also why I have such a passion for fishing in the early morning hours, my brother and I would wake up early, we couldn't watch TV, so we went fishing.

 

[MikeInEburg]

Remember when there was no TV after midnight, all the stations signed off,

I remember as a kid in the late 60s, one if the local stations would begin their broadcast day with the poem High Flight, written by a US aviator killed in England during the Second World War. The poem was set with a video taken from the cockpit of a jet fighter. It must have been significant to my world, because I can still remember the last line "Put out my hand, and touched the face of God".

 

[dmccarty]

3rdDoc,

You are going in the wrong direction. Go cold turkey on "tv", get rid of it and the giant idiocracy anchor that comes with it. We ditched TV over a year ago, and I am happy to report that our lives are much better. We retained the internet, and Netflix so we can watch the movies or series that we choose, without commercials.

What is really nice is when friends/neighbors ask if we saw the latest tragedy, or latest Hollywood arrest, or........"Nope, really...that's just terrible"gringrin. The reality of no TV is that you can be much more creative with your life and accomplish more every single day....try it.

We got rid of Directv in 12/2012 and we kick ourselves for not doing it earlier. We talked about getting rid of Directv for years but it took years for us to actually cut the cord. We have really bad Internet service both from a speed perspective, 1.5MB down, and for reliability but we can watch Amazon Prime and Netflix without much problem. Biggest issue is trying to watch a streaming video on the TV while the kids are doing the same on a PC, iPod, Kindle, or cell phone at the same time. We just don't have the bandwidth for that much streaming.

We also buy DVDs/DB's for shows we will watch more than once.

I asked on TBN about antennas and put one in the attic. The review were decent on Amazon but some reviews said the amplifier failed after a few months. Our amplifier failed as well. We got a dozen or so channels but then a bunch of them were no longer viewable. If I unplug the amplifier the number of signals drops further so the amp is only sorta broke. Not a real loss since we do not watch any major network 99.9999% of the time. We might watch a channel for news and one of the kid made me watch the super bowl and few basket ball games. I could care less about either and just read some books and Internet forums while the noise was in the back ground. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan