[SBE] DTV converter

[Adrienne Abbott]

Cowboy--
This sounds like an easy solution to one of the problems that's come up in
the discussions over analog boxes and I will make sure your suggestion gets
distributed to our TV engineers. But the basic problem still
exists--non-technical viewers, especially senior citizens, aren't going to
be able to figure this out for themselves and they probably aren't going to
be able to follow these directions, as simple as they are. I think there's a
potential for a great deal of frustration for our non-technical, rural
viewers that will result in a lot of complaints and probably more than one
dissatisfied viewer with the ability to pay will end up unnecessarily
subscribing to a satellite service or buying a new TV because that's the
only way they can get the TV service. But many rural residents live on fixed
incomes and can't afford a satellite service or a new TV and then there are
those who have purchased converter boxers that won't pass the analog signals
and they don't know what that means except that they can't get some of the
stations they used to receive. There are about 400 translators in Nevada and
only a small percentage of those are licensed to originating stations. About
half of those are making the conversion to digital. The rest of the
translators are licensed to either a local, tax-supported "TV District" or
privately owned and most are not upgrading to digital signals. Nothing is
ever simple...
Adrienne




-----Original Message-----
From: sbe-bounces at sbe.org [mailto:sbe-bounces at sbe.org] On Behalf Of Cowboy
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 1:41 PM
To: sbe member discussion mail list
Subject: Re: [SBE] DTV converter

On Thursday 05 June 2008 12:40 pm, Richard Hardy wrote:

>  I purchased the Magnavox TB100MG9 at Sears (the last one on the shelf)

>  and it works great. 



>  Does anyone know of any of the pass 

>  through boxes that will pass through the analog signal as another channel

>  along with the digital lineup? 


 This borders on a no-brainer, guys !

 Acquire two, two set splitters, and three one foot jumpers.

 Connect one splitter output normally to the input of the box,
 antenna to splitter input. Connect the free output to the
 OUTPUT of the other splitter. Connect the remaining splitter
 output to the OUTPUT of the box, hence a combiner.
 The only now free port, the normally-an-input port of the second
 splitter now on the output of the box, is the combined output
 to your TV system.
 On this output port, you have all of the existing analog plus the
 converted DTV channel, with about a 6 db loss from the antenna.
 The port isolation of the outputs on these puppies is about 20 db
 each, so you have about 40 db isolation between the input and
 output of the converter.

 Now, you have analog pass-around, with NO switching, NO menu,
 NO action by the user whatever. Just switch to the DTV converter
 analog output channel, and you have converted DTV. All of the
 other analog channels work normally, unless you are unfortunate
 enough ( as am I ) to have a first adjacent local station.
 My converter output on channel 4 interferes with off the air
 channel 3 pretty badly.

 Additionally, the pass-around passes around the digital signals, so
 a second converter down stream also works just fine.

 And, I'm the RADIO guy !
 Sheesh......
 :-)

-- 
Cowboy

http://cowboys.homeip.net

"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain."
		-- G. Fitch

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