So THAT'S what those DTV coupons look like

I've written quite a bit about the coming digital-TV switch, the digital-converter boxes needed for older TVs, and the federal coupons needed to buy those boxes at a deep discount. (Here's a PDF of my recent columns on the topic.)

But while others have received their coupons, mine still haven't arrived (dang it). So when fellow Twitter-er @jpavleck tweeted that his coupons had arrived, I asked for photos. He obliged.

On a related note, I've been impressed with the DTV detail on the personal site of a local guy, John Weeks. He recently chimed in with detailed follow-up to my coverage, touching on several key topics:

Really old TVs. I read your columns, and I found them to be well done. I think some in the industry are trying to scare people with misinformation and conspiracy stories to get people to spend money that they don't have to. The message that most people need to do nothing, and most of the rest can get a converter box, is a good way to look at it.

On older TVs the only option is to feed an analog channel 3 signal into the TV. Some of the converter boxes have an RF output jack that puts the converted DTV signal onto a coax cable as channel 3 in analog.

The only trick is getting that connected to the TV. The easy way to do it is to attach a short length of coax to the converter, then attach a 75 ohm to 300 ohm matching transformer (available at stores for a buck or two).The matching transformer has an output that is in the style of the old flat TV wire. All you need to do is attach one wire of this lead to one of the rabbit ears, and the other wire to the other rabbit ear.

 

You can do this quick and dirty by putting the wire in contact with the rabbit ear and wrapping it with tape. I have seen clothes-pin like clips that you can use to clip these wires right to the rabbit ears. Some TVs have a place on the back where the rabbit ears connect to a pair of screw terminals. In that case, you can hook the flat wire coming out of the matching transformer right to the screw terminals.  The channel 3 signal coming out of the converter box will be pretty strong, so even a quick & dirty connection should work OK.

HD converters. If you are looking for something else in this area to write about, one thing to consider looking into is that all of these DTV converters and tuners are not equal. The $40 to $70 class that just came out only have analog and 480i outputs.

There is another class of DTV tuners that are $120 and up range that also have RGB and 1080i outputs for HDTV. Many older HDTV sets that were sold were monitors only (i.e., no tuner), or if they had a tuner, they were analog only.

So, some folks mistakenly think that if they hook one of these new cheap digital converter boxes to their older HDTV monitor, they have HDTV. Actually, they don't. They just have a nice analog picture on an HD set, and they don't have the digital audio.

One of the high end converter boxes with 1080i output and digital audio outputs will give them true HDTV. HDTV is not HD unless the signal is HD all the way through the system.

Just the basics. On the other end of the spectrum, a good old fashioned analog set with a nice DTV tuner can look very nice. It is a great way to give an old TV a new lease on life.  There is not need for people to panic and throw away tons and tons of very nice older TV sets.  I have a very nice 1983 vintage Sony Trinitron that looks fantastic using a converter box.  There are few times where any over-the-air HD looks any better. So don't dump those old TVs just because they have gone out of style.

UHF vs. VHF. In your blog on the DTV conversion, there was this quote from a reader:

"A note you could mention in a future DTV column is that all DTV signals are transmitted on the UHF channels. When people are shopping for a TV antenna they don't need to buy the monster VHF/UHF variety. A UHF only antenna is all they need for DTV."

That is what I thought, too, until the FCC released their final DTV conversion documents a few weeks ago. It seems that a lot of TV stations applied to change their TV station numbers. On the day of the cut-over (or thereabout), nearly 1/2 of the DTV stations will change numbers.

So, it is true that all the DTV stations are currently on UHF today. But as of the cut-over, both 9 and 11 are going back to VHF, and most of the remaining stations will change their station number once again.

As a result, you will need both a VHF and UHF antenna to get a signal over the air. A second result is that everyone who has a DTV box will need to do a "channel scan" a few times the day of the cut-over and probably the day after as all of these TV channels move around.

The upside of this swap-a-roo is that some of the DTV channels are running at lower power because they are on temporary antennas. When the big switch happens, there stations will move to there permanent antenna on their new channel number, and go full power. That should make pulling in

some of the more difficult DTV stations that much easier. I also hear folks saying that all analog TV is going away. It turns out that only full power analog is required to go dark. Low power, class A, and translator TV stations can continue to broadcast on analog channels. Minneapolis has a number of low power TV stations. Some rural cities have translator stations that repeat the signals from the big metro stations. Those translators are not required to be shut down, so they may continue to run into the future.