Greetings from the Land of Digital TV

I'm guessing you've heard that over-the-air TV is digital now. They made the switch back in February until they decided to really make the switch in June. Based on their fancy models, surveys and hopeful predictions, coverage for local stations would increase not decrease. Except when it doesn't.

Take Wichita, for example. For reasons I don't understand, our CBS affiliate has its transmitter over 40 miles from Wichita. When the switch to digital happened, we lost that station (along with a number of others) and got spotty reception on the rest. And it isn't just us. Almost everybody I know (who doesn't have cable or satellite TV) was adversely affected by the switch to digital TV. And I'm not talking about the whole converter box thing, either. That was a whole other mess.

The solution to this problem is fairly simple: buy and install a better antenna. Though back in the old analog days indoor rabbit ears worked just fine, they no longer suffice. In fact, almost all of the antennas sold in stores won't work either. For Wichita, an old-fashioned, eight-foot long, ugly collection of thin metal rods known as a roof-top antenna is needed.

You see, though the switch to digital was also supposed to push all the stations up into the UHF band where small roof-top antennas would work, that didn't exactly happen.

In Wichita, for example, both CBS and PBS are still on VHF which require much larger antennas, those with elements measured in feet. Oh, and these larger antennas cost $50-$100 new not including the hardware to mount them.

So for the past few months we've been without TV, only really being able to receive three channels, only one of which was a major network station. Then I had the bright idea to check Craigslist and was able to find an antenna for $10. We bought a mast at the local hardware store and had it up in just a few hours. After we first bought our house I spent a lot of time up in the attic doing things like installing bathroom vents, a ceiling fan, vents, all in preparation for having some insulation blown into the attic. Thinking ahead, I also used this time to run some coax from a connecting plate I installed in the living room near our TV up through the attic and under the eaves of our roof where I coiled most of the cable. It sat there for nearly two years until now when it was finally connected to our antenna.

And it worked. We now get all the major stations clearly.

Boy, I sure do love Craigslist.